New 2015 WCA Regulations (Effective July 1, 2015)

[AlexMaass]

Does this mean that Brandon Mikel cannot continue his consistent streak?

Kit has said he is fine with Brandon doing 69 move attempts at comps he delegates, as he says it barely wastes anytime.

 

[Myachii]

Hmm.. this seems to me like it will spark some debates.

Very happy about stickerless puzzle however

Questions-
"Competitors must not compete with the intent of intentionally poor results or a DNF." - Does that mean if I explode a 6x6 at the comp I can't just end the solve? Or is it just referencing those who go in with the intention of doing badly (Brandon Mikel for example)?
"Using video evidence to recover a time that a competitor reset is not allowed." - What is the reasoning behind this decision? If the evidence is presented immediately and the judge can see that it is actually presenting what they have just seen, then how could it be fabricated (which I presume is the reason why this regulations has come into place)

Also just a general question - If a similar case to Rami's 0.58 solve occurs before a FMC solve and a competitor has access to the scramble before it has been released to the competitors, how do delegates prevent solvers from sneaking a sheet of paper with the correct solution generated by a program beforehand?

Will be interesting to see how many people opt to use stickerless cubes instead. If I'm honest, I think the "Stickerless are superior" phase died with DaYan, but you never know

Is this a good time to say there should be a checkbox for "I have read the regulations" when registering for a competition?

It will just become the same as "I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions". Cubers are expected to read and familiarise themselves with the regulations before competing, it's common sense.

 

[TDM]

Questions-
"Competitors must not compete with the intent of intentionally poor results or a DNF." - Does that mean if I explode a 6x6 at the comp I can't just end the solve? Or is it just referencing those who go in with the intention of doing badly (Brandon Mikel for example)?

Pops/explosions aren't intentional, so that's fine. It's just for people who are wasting time.

Also just a general question - If a similar case to Rami's 0.58 solve occurs before a FMC solve and a competitor has access to the scramble before it has been released to the competitors, how do delegates prevent solvers from sneaking a sheet of paper with the correct solution generated by a program beforehand?

This isn't a similar case to the 0.58 case since the competitor is intentionally cheating. If that person is caught, they will almost certainly be disqualified.

It will just become the same as "I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions". Cubers are expected to read and familiarise themselves with the regulations before competing, it's common sense.

So many things nowadays have a terms and conditions list that it's almost encouraging people to not read them. I agree that this won't help. A clear large/red/bold warning to new competitors when registering that they should be familiar with the regulations could be more useful, but again, I don't think it would make much difference.

 

[Genius4Jesus]

Is this a good time to say there should be a checkbox for "I have read the regulations" when registering for a competition?

I think there should be a short, online, multiple-choice, open book quiz on the regulations. Passing the quiz would show new competitors have at least a basic understanding of the regulations before their first comp.

 

[DGCubes]

I think there should be a short, online, multiple-choice, open book quiz on the regulations. Passing the quiz would show new competitors have at least a basic understanding of the regulations before their first comp.

That's a pretty good idea. Some people may be put off by the prospect of a quiz, but hey, it's worth it to have less incidents at competitions.

Also, I'm pretty happy with these new regs in general. Honestly, the whole stickerless phase is kind of over, but I'm glad they're legal now. I might buy a couple new stickerless cubes just to see if they're worth it (HuaLong, maybe?). Also that Pyra 6-move thing makes me really happy.

 

[bubbagrub]

Looks like a really good set of changes to the regulations, overall. Hurrah!

 

[~Adam~]

Perhaps a short quiz could be made up to hand out at comps.

"You really should know the answer to these questions" deally.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ryanj92]

I'm sure a lot of these changes will go down well, and I appreciate the switch to they/their pronouns throughout

 

[Julian]

Are the rules for timer malfunction resets still the same? i.e. with video evidence that the reset button was not pressed, a timer reset is rewarded with an extra attempt?

 

[Sa967St]

"Using video evidence to recover a time that a competitor reset is not allowed." - What is the reasoning behind this decision? If the evidence is presented immediately and the judge can see that it is actually presenting what they have just seen, then how could it be fabricated (which I presume is the reason why this regulations has come into place)

It's not that the time could be fabricated, it's that it goes against the purpose of signing a score card.

See this: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/270

Questions-
"Competitors must not compete with the intent of intentionally poor results or a DNF." - Does that mean if I explode a 6x6 at the comp I can't just end the solve? Or is it just referencing those who go in with the intention of doing badly (Brandon Mikel for example)?

Pops/explosions aren't intentional, so that's fine. It's just for people who are wasting time.

You can see examples of "intent of intentionally poor results or a DNF result" here: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/225

Examples that can result in disqualification, at Delegate discretion:

Intentional +16 penalties (makes it hard to judge properly, even for the most experienced judges)
Intentionally poor FMC results (can waste solution checker time)
Intentional redundant moves in FMC (can make it harder to read for solution checkers)
Intentionally letting timer run to get poor results (unnecessarily wastes the judge's time and takes up a station)
Intentionally doing many redundant or non-productive turns to get poor results (same reason as above)
Solving a puzzle that the competitor does not know how to solve (same reason as above)
Solving a puzzle without knowing enough algorithms to solve it every time (e.g. not knowing a Square-1 parity algorithm and hoping for a parity skip every solve)
Solving a puzzle while imposing unnecessary restrictions (e.g. solving one-handed or blindfolded in the two-handed 3x3x3 event)

Non-examples that should not result in disqualification:

Competitors who aren't among the fastest at an event, but are trying to the best of their abilities
Competitors who aren't among the best FMC solvers, but still put good effort into their solution

 

[sk8erman41]

I have a stickerless NewIsland Phoenix that I do not like the shades on so I put half brights on it. Under the new regulations would this still be comp legal?

 

[joshsailscga]

It's just for people who are wasting time.

i.e., this sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwJk7akd6z8

 

[AustinReed]

This "Require competitors to take the event seriously" is extremely dumb. Who cares if Brandon Mikel does a 69 FMC? How much additional time does that REALLY waste? Who can really say he isn't doing his best? I mean, I guess I could see the good intention of the regulation, but really, why are we taking this so seriously? I personally am not a fan of my new stickerless cube overlords, but chill out. Comps are for fun. Who cares if someone takes a little longer to do their stuff?

 

[LeonardoBonanno]

request for color vision deficiency rules clarification

Especially in light of these new regulations allowing stickerless cubes I propose the following clarification of Article 3d1 applying to solvers with color vision deficiencies.

PROPOSED CHANGE

3d1) Exception: Competitors with a medically documented visual disability may use textured or patterned puzzles with different textures or patterns on different faces. Textures/patterns must be uniform per face. Patterns may be painted, drawn by marker, or applied with an overlay sticker. If the visual disability prevents the solver from seeing only a range of colors, textures/patterns do not need to be present on every side. Each face should have a distinct colour, to aid in scrambling and judging.

CURRENT WORDING
3d1) Exception: Competitors with a medically documented visual disability may use textured puzzles with different textures on different faces. Textures/patterns must be uniform per face.

I made a thread for this topic over here

 

[guysensei1]

This "Require competitors to take the event seriously" is extremely dumb. Who cares if Brandon Mikel does a 69 FMC? How much additional time does that REALLY waste? Who can really say he isn't doing his best? I mean, I guess I could see the good intention of the regulation, but really, why are we taking this so seriously? I personally am not a fan of my new stickerless cube overlords, but chill out. Comps are for fun. Who cares if someone takes a little longer to do their stuff?

At a previous comp I've been to, there was a person who did 2 normal 4x4 solves. (If we made the first 2 solves below cutoff, we will be allowed to have a full average as per comp rules)
Then he wanted to make the las 3 solves 9:59 each

That would take half an hour in total...
Quite a lot more time spent.

 

[AustinReed]

At a previous comp I've been to, there was a person who did 2 normal 4x4 solves. (If we made the first 2 solves below cutoff, we will be allowed to have a full average as per comp rules)
Then he wanted to make the las 3 solves 9:59 each

That would take half an hour in total...
Quite a lot more time spent.

In that case, probably because it's so extreme, I can see why the regulation would make sense. I've never come across anything like that before.

What action was taken?

 

[guysensei1]

In that case, probably because it's so extreme, I can see why the regulation would make sense. I've never come across anything like that before.

What action was taken?

Since he was a friend of mine I discouraged him from doing that. There still is one 9:58 there though. See the link
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2014YUWE01

 

[Isaac Lai]

Wait a second. The 'not knowing enough algs' part seems a bit ambiguous, because if I'm not wrong, the Bob Burton method for pyra is just making a layer, then hoping for an LL skip. Of course, whether anyone uses it is another question.

 

[AustinReed]

Wait a second. The 'not knowing enough algs' part seems a bit ambiguous, because if I'm not wrong, the Bob Burton method for pyra is just making a layer, then hoping for an LL skip. Of course, whether anyone uses it is another question.

I know people who use it. Plenty of people.

 

[TMOY]

Wait a second. The 'not knowing enough algs' part seems a bit ambiguous, because if I'm not wrong, the Bob Burton method for pyra is just making a layer, then hoping for an LL skip. Of course, whether anyone uses it is another question.

With the Bob Burton methon, you actually get your LL skip after (IIRC) at most 4 such layers, assuming you solve them in the most intuitive way. This is not the same thing as getting a DNF every second solve because you don't know some kind of parity fix.