New WCA Events?

[Hazel]

bring it back because the reasons to remove it weren't good. also in general feet heavily prioritizes move efficiency and ergonomics so maybe move efficient Petrus could be viable.

Foot can be smelly if you sweat a lot but I think that is solved by washing and showering

Right. I think 3x3 with Feet lies in an otherwise untapped space between regular (or even one-handed) 3x3 solving and 3x3 FMC. You have to keep your solutions efficient due to the lower TPS, but not so efficient that you waste time. The event is not inherently unsanitary—especially when compared to unwashed hands—and anyone with rather gross feet can just wash them before solving. And if an organizer doesn't want to deal with it? Well, nobody's making them include the event anyway.

Some people such as Feliks claim that the event brings down the reputation of the WCA due to its perceived gross nature, but I don't think that's actually the case. Whenever I tell somebody that some people can solve cubes with their feet, the reaction isn't usually "Yuck, that's gross"—rather, it's "Woah, how do they do that?!".

In any case, I'm getting a bit off-topic from the original thread. Feet should come back in my opinion, alongside Kilominx, FTO, Master Pyraminx, and 2x2 MBLD.

(There's also the question of whether the WCA should be considering new events in the first place. I'd argue that more events are always better, providing that the events actually add something new and unique to the table, but that's a discussion for another time.)

 

[xyzzy]

"Events to add to the WCA" is a topic that comes up time and again, but I don't have any object-level input here.

I'm more interested in: how come it looks like the people who are actually involved in writing/maintaining the regulations almost never interact with the broader cubing community, especially wrt events to add or remove? We obviously haven't forgotten how flagrantly non-transparent the removal process of Feet was. What are the criteria for an event to be added, or at the very least, the criteria for an event to even be considered to be added?

We have heard noncommittal platitudes like "the event should be popular unofficially". Okay, fine, FTO has been a (somewhat) popular event unofficially for the past three(?) years, a substantially longer time period than the kilominx or Redi Cube fads. Is FTO going to be added to the WCA? No news at all!

There's a bit of a catch-22 here too. Puzzles that aren't going to be speedsolved are unlikely to have speedsolvable designs mass produced, but puzzles are unlikely to start building any sizable speedsolving community if all existing hardware is garbage. This isn't like 2015 when there were still plenty of people using terrible hardware (by 2022 standards) for big cubes or square-1 (or even 3×3×3); modern cubers have somewhat more of an expectation on hardware quality, and it honestly seems like a miracle that FTO managed to pick up any steam at all. (But perhaps less surprising if you look at the people actually in the FTO community – seems a bit skewed towards older cubers for some reason, isn't that funny?)

 

[qwr]

There's a bit of a catch-22 here too. Puzzles that aren't going to be speedsolved are unlikely to have speedsolvable designs mass produced, but puzzles are unlikely to start building any sizable speedsolving community if all existing hardware is garbage.

I was thinking along these lines too. Hardware companies need to step up and begin offering better non WCA puzzles. After all, their goal is to sell puzzles right? It's hard to get into the optimized 3x3 space but there's plenty of room in the kilominx / FTO / master pyraminx space. Since GAN just came out with their speed solving mirror blocks, I wouldn't be surprised if they venture into and create new niche markets.

 

[gsingh]

7BLD is fun event as well.

i bet it is, but ive reached the max amount for possible responses in the poll

GAN just came out with their speed solving mirror blocks

watch this cause mirror blocks to be added to the wca. its the same thing that happened with sq-1

Hardware companies need to step up and begin offering better non WCA puzzles

the diansheng 8x8 and 9x9 were announced a while ago but still havent been released. im waiting to get my hands on them

 

[Kit Clement]

Mirror blocks will never be a WCA event. On a subjective level, it's not unique enough to be considered (methods/states identical to 3x3x3), and on an objective level, it is far too difficult to regulate what a valid puzzle is without having actual piece width requirements and thus requiring every delegate to own a caliper. And even in that hypothetical, it's a logistical headache to try to determine what a valid puzzle is.

 

[Billabob]

Very disappointed to learn that Feet was removed as an event. In my eyes it was valuable because of the necessity to optimise your movecount within more reasonable time constraints, somewhere between OH and one-try FMC. You can't rely on TPS nearly as much as you can with the other 3x3 events and fingertricks (toetricks??) are almost non-existent so IMO there was a more interesting focus on efficient solving.

I agree that the folks deciding on these regulations need to engage with the greater community more - the last thing the WCA would want is to come across as out of touch... But it's hard to blame them when the exact same threads are posted here with the exact same bad-mid ideas multiple times a week

 

[PyrbatNeoxi]

i've seen these threads pop up all the time over the years on and off the fourms, and the suggested events tend to be very inconsistent and fleeting. even FTO shifts in and out of popularity

why would the WCA add a new event? it's going to upset other people who wanted their special unofficial event added, and they don't really have any guarantee that it's going to stay relevant or popular

"minor" events are a good example of this. clock/sq-1/skewb didn't even get good hardware until years later, and it's still very popular to complain about clock being an event when "we could have the quirky 3x3 shapemod instead!"

if we went by popularity alone, clock would be removed and there'd be a lot more shape mods and smaller/larger versions of existing cubes flooding the WCA list, both of these would be terrible decisions

i don't hate the idea of them adding a new event, i just genuinely don't see it ever happening, and i'm okay with that

 

[Thom S.]

One argument I have seen is that Worlds in it's current form(before feet removal) is already 4-5(?) Days long with 17 events.
If one event, even the smallest or the most unnessesary, is excluded, the backlash would be immense.

But, my biggest factor is maturity.
Slighty pre-2003, it had to be decided on what is an event without much community, many puzzles(relatively), or the thought of how big the whole cubing thing would be. This can be seen in the initial events being removed later.
In 2009, the community was way bigger, but still smaller than it will be, so the inclusion of 6 and 7 in my opinion was a rash decicion because they could.

You can find competitions with Skewb as far back as 2009 (maybe even earlier, somebody of the old-timers knows more?), so there are a couple of years untill discussion started in 2013. Which means that Redi Cube COULD theoretically be an event now, had it not lost popularity.

But my initial point is, the WCA, although not open enough about their thoughts and discussion, has an increasingly harder time doing the right thing aboud adding/removing events since the community has gotten so big(and it probably doesn't help that a big portion of this community is in an age where they can get emotional fast) and every decicion WILL come with backlash and outrage, as there now are so many different contenders.

I thing their best move is to not add any events.

 

[qwr]

Mirror blocks will never be a WCA event. On a subjective level, it's not unique enough to be considered (methods/states identical to 3x3x3), and on an objective level, it is far too difficult to regulate what a valid puzzle is without having actual piece width requirements and thus requiring every delegate to own a caliper. And even in that hypothetical, it's a logistical headache to try to determine what a valid puzzle is.

I addressed the objective problems in a different thread. Theoretically you only allow certain brands to simplify what is allowed (ex. we only allow GAN, Shengshou, Moyu). There are already regulations on what are valid puzzles for other existing puzzles. One approach is to say the proportions must be a certain percentage from the proportions of the original mirror blocks and have a premade list of allowed puzzle brands.

 

[Kit Clement]

I addressed the objective problems in a different thread. Theoretically you only allow certain brands to simplify what is allowed (ex. we only allow GAN, Shengshou, Moyu). There are already regulations on what are valid puzzles for other existing puzzles. One approach is to say the proportions must be a certain percentage from the proportions of the original mirror blocks and have a premade list of allowed puzzle brands.

The WCA regulations are written to be brand-neutral. This is a major tenet of the regulations after WC 2005 when Rubik's puzzles were the only ones allowed at the competition, and a certain Rubik's 2x2x2 was only available to cubers in Japan. It was very similar to the Eastsheen 2x2x2 that was used by many at the time, but Japanese solvers had a huge edge since their puzzle was allowed and others were not.

Unless WRC's perspectives have changed drastically since I was on it, I don't see them ever posting a list of approved puzzles for any event. Even though this doesn't parallel the Rubik's/Eastsheen situation, it is simply too much work to keep up a list of what is approved or not approved, and puzzles that might not be officially recognized yet may be unnecessarily excluding other competitors like it did at WC 2005. Additionally, identifying which puzzles are certain models/brands requires a great deal of knowledge that delegates often just don't have. I couldn't tell you what the newest 3x3x3s are, so I definitely couldn't identify them, let alone identify different mirror blocks puzzles.

Proportions would still require some form of measurement tool to enforce, which I don't see as feasible either.

 

[mookiemu]

That reason is usually used as an argument against a blind event being added. It is often brought up for 2x2 blind. If the top solvers can 1-look it during inspection, then there is zero difference from the non-blind event and would be redundant to add.

Except that one look 2x2 solvers have a 15 second inspection that is not part of the solve time, where as 2x2 bld has inspection as part of the solve time. That makes a lot of difference right there.

 

[Hazel]

Except that one look 2x2 solvers have a 15 second inspection that is not part of the solve time, where as 2x2 bld has inspection as part of the solve time. That makes a lot of difference right there.

It makes somewhat of a difference, sure, but not nearly enough for the meta of 2BLD to be very different from regular 2x2.

 

[mencarikebenaran]

i want 2x2 -7x7 relay as an official event

 

[oneshot]

1. M4BLD. I think with so many tools for people to learn BLD, going backwards to M2BLD is not as smart as pushing people to work harder. Plus, people are already doing 40-60 3x3’s, are people going to buy 100-150 new 2x2’s? I think it’s more likely they would buy (or already have) 5-10 4x4’s

2. I know there would be some technical challenges, but with smart cubes becoming so popular, I think maybe an Ao12, Ao50?

3. 3x3 without inspection time. I think you would have to choose between starting to turn as soon as you can, or to take some time to plan out the first few turns or pick a good orientation.

 

[bulkocuber]

i want 2x2 -7x7 relay as an official event

So basically you want Max Park to have more WRs

 

[OreKehStrah]

1. M4BLD. I think with so many tools for people to learn BLD, going backwards to M2BLD is not as smart as pushing people to work harder. Plus, people are already doing 40-60 3x3’s, are people going to buy 100-150 new 2x2’s? I think it’s more likely they would buy (or already have) 5-10 4x4’s

2. I know there would be some technical challenges, but with smart cubes becoming so popular, I think maybe an Ao12, Ao50?

3. 3x3 without inspection time. I think you would have to choose between starting to turn as soon as you can, or to take some time to plan out the first few turns or pick a good orientation.

The problem with something like multi 4bld is the disparity between people who do 4bld. Not that many people participate in that event and the difference in skill there is massive. 4multi just wouldn’t make sense.
Having larger averages would be pretty cool though, especially for the real small fast events since they are so luck dependent.

 

[oneshot]

The problem with something like multi 4bld is the disparity between people who do 4bld. Not that many people participate in that event and the difference in skill there is massive. 4multi just wouldn’t make sense.
Having larger averages would be pretty cool though, especially for the real small fast events since they are so luck dependent.

I think it would push people to get better. There has to be some really fast people to aspire to. It’s just how each event goes. Originally 30-40 seconds was fast for 3x3, then one guy brings it to 20 and the rest of the world says, hey I can get faster too. Then someone gets to 10 seconds and the rest of the world works to catch up. It would be the same for M4BLD. The people who are doing 60 3x3’s would do like 18 4x4’s. The people who can do one 4BLD would say, maybe I can do 2-3 and be near the top of the world (because so few people are attempting). Who knows.

 

[OreKehStrah]

I think it would push people to get better. There has to be some really fast people to aspire to. It’s just how each event goes. Originally 30-40 seconds was fast for 3x3, then one guy brings it to 20 and the rest of the world says, hey I can get faster too. Then someone gets to 10 seconds and the rest of the world works to catch up. It would be the same for M4BLD. The people who are doing 60 3x3’s would do like 18 4x4’s. The people who can do one 4BLD would say, maybe I can do 2-3 and be near the top of the world (because so few people are attempting). Who knows.

I guess but people are way more enthusiastic about 3x3 events. Why don’t you learn to do 4x4 MBLD and show us how enjoyable it is since you want it added? If you won’t, why would normal people want to learn it? That’s kinda harsh so sorry, but I think it gets the point across right?

 

[Thom S.]

I guess but people are way more enthusiastic about 3x3 events. Why don’t you learn to do 4x4 MBLD and show us how enjoyable it is since you want it added? If you won’t, why would normal people want to learn it? That’s kinda harsh so sorry, but I think it gets the point across right?

Normal people also don't do more than 4 3x3s at Multi and love the small stuff.
Not saying 4Multi is a good idea, also not saying it's bad.
It's a question if you actually want every cuber to be able to do every event, this is too hard. But, do we really need that. Of course, there are WCA Members and Medals, do they matter?
It's a question about heart and choice, either, we eventually make different paths people can go for what they liked or we can just keep adding easy fast events that are easy to oberwatch logistically.
I, for example don't do any 2x2, 3x3, Pyra or Skewb, but I will have a crack at 2 4x4, would that mean we need to remove easy, trivial events? (Yes) No, we shouldn't.
It's a matter of perspective.

 

[Panagiotis Christopoulos]

The problem with something like multi 4bld is the disparity between people who do 4bld. Not that many people participate in that event and the difference in skill there is massive. 4multi just wouldn’t make sense.
Having larger averages would be pretty cool though, especially for the real small fast events since they are so luck dependent.

I totally agree. I will also add this, vast majority of the community doesnt do 4BLD. 4MBLD? Like who is gonna compete in this?