Is this announcer possibly not a professional? Does one even need to really be there?

[lex]

Is this announcer possibly not a professional? Does one even need to really be there?

An announcer who seems appropriate at the World Championships 2013 but really serves blemish the competition. This big event for the cubing community expresses to a world audience how the face of this community looks like. The announcer, who is typically to be perceived of to be of some authority, reflects the cubing community as the spectators looks to him a representative of the cubing world.

Some History
World Championships 1982 (Ref: 1):

Not only that, but during a solve the announcer droned on about the solver's life story

World Championships 2009 (Ref: 2):

…the announcer kind of annoyed me throughout the competition…

Euro 2010 (Ref: 3):

Get (a) better announcer(s).… He needs to shut up more, and when he talks, he should not repeat himself six times over in ten minutes. He also uses phrases which just feel unprofessional ("we're gonna" instead of "we will") - but that may be nitpicking from my side.

US Nationals 2012 (Ref: 4):

- I thought I heard an announcer say into the mic "International competitors rape at American competitions?"?

Article

Source used: Feliks Zemdegs' World Championship Final's video from his own channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeD_wxcciQA

-Casual dress: His clothing attire, with his red hat and official shirt, might look sufficient at a few glimpses. However, he dresses in such a fashion that he looks like ready to flee and go shopping under the Vegas sun the minute champs are over. This guy doesn't look like he wants to be there. The audience shouldn't be burdened with such feelings that are expressed by man who doesn’t feel he wants to be there.

- The 'quiet please' @1:47: Even though well intended, there might exist people who find it impolite. When this action is done, especially by a person the cubing community no less the outer audience doesn't recognize, viewers can be offended. It's like an accusation is personally being made. People shouldn’t feel like they are being bad people for their excitement and support.

-Having a conversation @2:24: An unenthusiastic feeling is expressed here. The announcer is in a middle of conversation then goes back to talking. It seems that Zemdegs’ 7.36 solve might have interrupted his discussion. He probably doesn't recognize the severity of what Zemdegs just did. He gives his nonverbal opinion, although most likely not intended, that Zemdegs' solve was nothing of significance. An announcer should be solely objective and let the crowd decide what feeling should be attached to the conclusion of the event.

So does an announcer need to be at the next Worlds? No.

Alternative

Even in the 2012 Olympic 100m sprint finals, governing bodies don't use announcers. At grand events like these, the way to calm a crowd is by having an electronic 'sssssh' go across the arena. By using electronic voicing, patrons and cubers alike are not offended. This implementation occurs as it’s thought by roboticists (see uncanny valley, Ref:5) to happen as people don't get displeased by the subordinate nature of machines.

Members to tell the truth, I think removing an announcer or at least hiding one would make the next World Champs look like a more serious, professional event. A lot of effort is done by many people to make this event work (see Behind Team USA (+FOB): The Team that Brought You Worlds by Vincents, Ref:6). I don’t think it would be right to let one person who might not understand the community or the role of an announcer to act as a presenting host to something as special as the World Championships. Otherwise to do so, the WCA is taking away from the respects paid to the cubers and the great effort these speed solvers go through.

Note: The announcer’s name is withheld from the article as this piece intends to promote discussion on the necessity of an announcer rather than the traits of the person.

References
(1) http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?18078-World-Championship-1982-Videos
(2) http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?17014-Interview-with-Timothy-Sun
(3) http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?20563-Euro-2010/page28
(4) http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?25907-US-Nationals-2012-(Las-Vegas)/page59
(5) MacDorman, K. F. "Androids as an experimental apparatus: Why is there an uncanny valley and can we exploit it." CogSci-2005 workshop: toward social mechanisms of android science. 2005. Direct link: https://www.lri.fr/~sebag/Slides/uncanny.pdf, pg.3
(6) http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...t-Brought-You-Worlds-2013&p=883768#post883768

 

[Dino]

I see nothing wrong with the 'Quiet please'. In fact, it's the same method used to calm the crowd at the Wimbledon lawn tennis championships (where etiquette standards are exceptionally high) by the Umpire. That some people may take offence to this is their own problem.

Comparing the 2012 Olympics (and the budget that goes with it) to the World Championships is barking mad! Also, they did use announcers for the 100m Final.

 

[Divineskulls]

Is this announcer possibly not a professional? Does one even need to really be there?

No, I don't think he necessarily needs to be there, but I think it makes 3x3 finals more fun. And cubing is about fun, not looking as much like the Olympics as possible.

-Casual dress: His clothing attire, with his red hat and official shirt, might look sufficient at a few glimpses. However, he dresses in such a fashion that he looks like ready to flee and go shopping under the Vegas sun the minute champs are over. This guy doesn't look like he wants to be there. The audience shouldn't be burdened with such feelings that are expressed by man who doesn’t feel he wants to be there.

This is the part that gets me. Later in the 'article,' you say:

"Note: The announcer’s name is withheld from the article as this piece intends to promote discussion on the necessity of an announcer rather than the traits of the person."

But in this section, you are scrutinizing the way he dresses, which, in my opinion, is a part of who he is, and a 'trait.' After putting as much work as 'the announcer' put into Worlds, I would love to go out and enjoy Vegas night-life. He did not. He helped dismantle the stage for awards, then made sure everything was going as planned as people were exiting the venue.

- The 'quiet please' @1:47: Even though well intended, there might exist people who find it impolite. When this action is done, especially by a person the cubing community no less the outer audience doesn't recognize, viewers can be offended. It's like an accusation is personally being made. People shouldn’t feel like they are being bad people for their excitement and support.

I go back the the point that Cubing is about cubers having fun. While the way non-cubers see us determines the funds competitions such as this one gets, it shouldn't be the sole thing that cubing is about.

If you have ever been in a final in an event that you care about (which I highly doubt you have), you know that nerves can easily get the better of you. The slightest thing can throw you off; the whole staff was doing everything in their power to create a relaxed, yet semi-serious environment where people can do their best without being bothered by annoying audience members. I know the people near me were going so far as to run around behind the stage and talk to people who had flashes running on their cameras. That's how dedicated EVERYONE (including the announcer) on staff was to keep this final, and this competition, as fair as possible. I know this because I was privileged enough to be a part of that wonderful group of people.

-Having a conversation @2:24: An unenthusiastic feeling is expressed here. The announcer is in a middle of conversation then goes back to talking. It seems that Zemdegs’ 7.36 solve might have interrupted his discussion. He probably doesn't recognize the severity of what Zemdegs just did. He gives his nonverbal opinion, although most likely not intended, that Zemdegs' solve was nothing of significance. An announcer should be solely objective and let the crowd decide what feeling should be attached to the conclusion of the event.

The announcer, and nearly everyone in the room, had been in awe of what every sub-10 (or sub-9) 3x3er had been doing the whole competition. A lot of us have not yet experienced a sub-10 average, let alone a sub-8.2 one. I don't think there was a person that attended the competition and saw what Feliks did that day, that wasn't, and still isn't, amazed.
To be honest, I was also having a conversation behind the stage. I don't think there were more than a handful of staff members that weren't calculating rough or exact (I wouldn't be the least bit surprised) averages and conversing with others about the gravity of the situation. The point is that I don't care if he was having a conversation, I don't even care what he was having the conversation about. He wasn't being distracting to the competitors. That's all that really matters, a fair final.

So does an announcer need to be at the next Worlds? YES.

Fixed.

Alternative

Even in the 2012 Olympic 100m sprint finals, governing bodies don't use announcers. At grand events like these, the way to calm a crowd is by having an electronic 'sssssh' go across the arena. By using electronic voicing, patrons and cubers alike are not offended. This implementation occurs as it’s thought by roboticists (see uncanny valley, Ref:5) to happen as people don't get displeased by the subordinate nature of machines.

This is where I have doubts that YOU are human. I don't think a person that attended the competition once thought, "The announcer's voice offends me, I need a machine telling me what's going on." That, in my opinion, is something that is wrong with the advancement of technology; however, that is a whole other argument.

Members to tell the truth, I think removing an announcer or at least hiding one would make the next World Champs look like a more serious, professional event. A lot of effort is done by many people to make this event work (see Behind Team USA (+FOB): The Team that Brought You Worlds by Vincents, Ref:6). I don’t think it would be right to let one person who might not understand the community or the role of an announcer to act as a presenting host to something as special as the World Championships. Otherwise to do so, the WCA is taking away from the respects paid to the cubers and the great effort these speed solvers go through.

YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANNOUNCER AS A PERSON. You are making this less of an idea to put to the community and more of a criticism of character.

Note: The announcer’s name is withheld from the article as this piece intends to promote discussion on the necessity of an announcer rather than the traits of the person.

Please stop.

P.S. Sorry for such a long post, mods. I though it necessary.

 

[Kirjava]

AVG was a good announcer.

 

[Stefan]

:fp
What the f? I very much doubt you were even there. At least you really have no idea what you're talking about. Especially when you claim the community doesn't recognize Kian (wtf?) and that he doesn't understand cubing and the community (WTF??). I suspect the real reason you didn't mention his name was that *you* didn't know it, as you seem to not know or understand much at all.

 

[krnballerzzz]

It all depends on whether the WCA wants speedcubing to appear "professional" or "casual". I'm sure there's a middle ground somewhere but I do agree that there could have been some improvements in the announcing. But the again, there has never been a demand before for professional announcing since live streaming events over the Internet is only a recent idea. Even then, only cubers will tune in to those streams and cubers already have an expectation of how the announcing usually is in a competition.

Edit: For the record, I think Kian did a fine job announcing.

 

[StachuK1992]

Yeah, Kian definitely knows what he's doing, as he always has. He keeps it professional, and is definitely known through US speedcubers.

 

[cubizh]

I completely disagree with the goal of this post and what was said in it.
An announcer is of vital importance in a competition like this, specially to the audience that is either too far away to see what's going on, or distracted, or have no idea what's happening (non-cubers), and to people that are following it live through a stream through a fixed angle.
It helps a lot to know what's going on and make sure the competition flow is acknowledged appropriately. Dissing the announcer from videos and random quotes is totally stupid. Kian has been a member of the WCA for over 6 years and is a respected United States WCA delegate, so he is recognized and knows what he's doing. In fact, I think both Kian and Arnaud did a very good job in the two world championships that I followed, elevating the competition and making it pleasant to follow from a distance.
Of course nobody's perfect, there are obviously things that can be improved or done differently. To me if felt a little strange to see 7x7 final times being called while other finalists were still competing but I don't think that had much effect in the final outcome. On the other hand, if the call wasn't made in the 3x3 finals, I doubt people in the balconies would have known for sure Mats was +2 or Cornelius was not, for instance. Personally I don't think anything needs to be changed in announcing. Everyone has its own way of doing things but as long as people with the microphone know exactly what they're talking about, it's cool.
As for the attire remark, I think it's irrelevant, although I suspect there would be a lot of snickering if he would suddenly appear wearing a suit and tie.

 

[Noahaha]

The announcer is 100% necessary.

Your argument seems to revolve around specific occurrences. A lot of them, like "quiet please" are 100% necessary for a good competition. Others are more borderline, but until you've tried to run ANY competition, please don't argue about the necessity of an announcer.

Kian did an incredibly good job and is part of the reason worlds went as smoothly as it did. He deserves a round of applause.

 

[antoineccantin]

So does an announcer need to be at the next Worlds? No.

You need an announced to at least announce the current heats and who's up, who makes the finals when the previous rounds are not posted yet, etc.

 

[CubeRoots]

I'm just gonna go out and say it, even though I wasn't there and people will disagree. I found Kian annoying as an announcer (whilst I was watching the live stream). I think it's definitely a necessary job though.

 

[Rnewms]

How are spectators supposed to know what is going on if there is no announcer?
How are cubers supposed to know when the scramblers/judges are ready for their heat?
Do you propose that it would be more fun without an announcer, where gossip and loud spectator outbursts are the only ways of transferring information?

Your examples of distress from announcers are terrible, and dressing casually clearly means I want to drop what I'm doing and go shopping. :fp

Why do you want to make the competition more serious? The announcer ensures minimal disturbance of the competitors and the competition always runs smoothly. There is no need for more "seriousness" because this is supposed to be a fun event.

You did your research, but you also blew it completely out of proportion. You don't even understand why the announcer is there in the first place. What experience do you have in national/world competitions?

I'm just gonna go out and say it, even though I wasn't there and people will disagree. I found Kian annoying as an announcer (whilst I was watching the live stream). I think it's definitely a necessary job though.

That might be what is getting OP so worked up. You are giving full attention to what you can see/hear on a stream. When I was there Kian only made the competition seem more interesting, and nobody listened to him when he told spectators to back up the first time, never mind the 20th time. It may seem annoying since none of those requests applied to you and spectators weren't obstructing the view of the stream too much.

 

[Ross The Boss]

Some people are being jerks to you and you dont deserve that. I think that you have a very good, well thought up, and well organized opinion that you presented in a very non offensive way (which would be hard considering the nature of the topic).
What I'm taking from your post is that you would like cubing competitions to be seen as very serous, formal events. I disagree with this overall opinion. I think that cubing events should be taken seriously, but I don't think that they should be made so formal that competitors and spectators are not enjoying themselves. At the competitions I have gone to so far, this is already the case so I don't think that any changes need to be made in that respect.
Although I was not at the competition, I did watch much of it on live stream, and my opinion of the announcer was that he made the competition seem like an event to be respected, but also like a fun occasion which, like I said, is how I think competitions should be. I don't feel the need to address every point that you made, but you say that an announcer said:

International competitors rape at American competitions

I didn't spend the time to read through the entire page you referenced, but if he in fact did say that, it is completely unacceptable. Saying something like that to a friend is fine, but to say it over the speakers is just not alright. I'm going to assume that he didn't mean to say it to everyone.

 

[Noahaha]

Some people are being jerks to you and you dont deserve that. I think that you have a very good, well thought up, and well organized opinion that you presented in a very non offensive way (which would be hard considering the nature of the topic).
What I'm taking from your post is that you would like cubing competitions to be seen as very serous, formal events. I disagree with this overall opinion. I think that cubing events should be taken seriously, but I don't think that they should be made so formal that competitors and spectators are not enjoying themselves. At the competitions I have gone to so far, this is already the case so I don't think that any changes need to be made in that respect.
Although I was not at the competition, I did watch much of it on live stream, and my opinion of the announcer was that he made the competition seem like an event to be respected, but also like a fun occasion which, like I said, is how I think competitions should be. I don't feel the need to address every point that you made, but you say that an announcer said:

I didn't spend the time to read through the entire page you referenced, but if he in fact did say that, it is completely unacceptable. Saying something like that to a friend is fine, but to say it over the speakers is just not alright. I'm going to assume that he didn't mean to say it to everyone.

That was supposedly a quote from Nats 2012.

 

[Stefan]

I'm just gonna go out and say it, even though I wasn't there and people will disagree. I found Kian annoying as an announcer (whilst I was watching the live stream).

Might be helpful if you could describe *how* you found him annoying and how it could be improved.

you say that an announcer said:

International competitors rape at American competitions

No. He didn't say that an announcer said that. Why do you remove the whole context? He quoted Sarah, and the whole quote was:

- I thought I heard an announcer say into the mic "International competitors rape at American competitions?"?

So it wasn't him but Sarah, and Sarah didn't say the announcer said that but only that she had thought he had, and "I thought" btw is past tense and indicates that she didn't think that anymore when she wrote it, which she btw did as one item in her long DYK list, where people usually write funny stuff, so to me this sounds like she misheard and it was clarified.

You turned him from quoting someone else's likely corrected mishearing into an eye witness. Good job.

 

[CubeRoots]

Might be helpful if you could describe *how* you found him annoying and how it could be improved.

OK. Well, to me he came across as loud, bossy and stressful. I didn't like his general tone of voice at all. I felt that he was very 'pal-y' with some of the competitors even talking to them over the mic (i think to kevin hays) at some point. I also didn't really like the way he called out some of the results, and stating random facts about them while people are solving (example is feliks zemdegs 5.88 "the fourth fastest single in the world"). IMO announcements like these should be done at the end of rounds...

I'm sorry if this comes across as personal, I don't even know kian. But it's just my feelings about him as an announcer, and it's meant to be constructive.

 

[Sa967St]

OP: I found it very hard to take your argument seriously. An announcer being annoying is useless opinion if they're doing their job right.

Kian was an excellent announcer. Announcing things like "Please stay behind the line", "Please don't stand in front of the seating area", and "Please don't use flash photography", is necessary to keep the competition running in an orderly manner . It would have been a disaster if people crowded around the timers and used flash photography while people were doing official solves. I honestly didn't think it was annoying at all; it was actually very helpful.

you say that an announcer said:

International competitors rape at American competitions

No. He didn't say that an announcer said that. Why do you remove the whole context? He quoted Sarah, and the whole quote was:

- I thought I heard an announcer say into the mic "International competitors rape at American competitions?"?

So it wasn't him but Sarah, and Sarah didn't say the announcer said that but only that she had thought he had, and "I thought" btw is past tense and indicates that she didn't think that anymore when she wrote it, which she btw did as one item in her long DYK list, where people usually write funny stuff, so to me this sounds like she misheard and it was clarified.

What Stefan said. I don't remember what the announcer at US Nats '12 actually said, but it was definitely not that. I definitely misheard it, and I mentioned it in the "Did You Know's" because people found it funny.

 

[Kian]

The only offensive thing here is the suggestion that I should have been hatless.

 

[Stefan]

it's meant to be constructive.

I thought nothing else. Though yes, others (me included) might disagree with your points. Especially the 'pal-y' talking, as Kian has competed in 70 competitions and probably actually is friends with many people, pretty much the whole staff was actual long-time cubers who know each other, no hired non-cuber people, and it was a friendly athmosphere throughout the competition. So I see that as something good, not bad. If it were some non-cuber artificially acting like he's friends with people, I'd probably dislike it as well, but here it seems natural and contributing to the athomsphere (though I don't know what he said, I can only imagine from your "pal-y").

The only offensive thing here is the suggestion that I should have been hatless.

And if you had been, then people might really not have recognized you.

 

[Ross The Boss]

Might be helpful if you could describe *how* you found him annoying and how it could be improved.



No. He didn't say that an announcer said that. Why do you remove the whole context? He quoted Sarah, and the whole quote was:


So it wasn't him but Sarah, and Sarah didn't say the announcer said that but only that she had thought he had, and "I thought" btw is past tense and indicates that she didn't think that anymore when she wrote it, which she btw did as one item in her long DYK list, where people usually write funny stuff, so to me this sounds like she misheard and it was clarified.

You turned him from quoting someone else's likely corrected mishearing into an eye witness. Good job.

lol you obviously missed the point a bit. i took it so far out of context because it didnt mater who thought who said it or when this person supposedly said it. the point is that it would be inappropriate for an announcer to say that. i even said that i didn't care enough about it to read the link he gave. my post was more about how offical competitions should be seen and not about the announcers.