Proposal: Add Gender Sorting on the WCA Rankings

[ryanj92]

This doesn't technically fall under the Regulations, but I've made a GitHub issue to track this topic.

Thanks, Lucas! Very well put

 

[stoic]

Throwing my opinion in here since this thread is back. Having a filter to display results by gender would be fine. Having an official male WR/CR/NR and an official female WR/CR/NR is not fine. Females are just as capable as males and there is no reason to award records for slower times because of gender.

I've just read through about eight pages of this and this is exactly what I wanted to add.

BTW, rowan you argue *really* well. Almost too well. I'd hate to be debating with you, I'd definitely end up just agreeing with whatever you said without really knowing why.

 

[rowan]

I've just read through about eight pages of this and this is exactly what I wanted to add.

BTW, rowan you argue *really* well. Almost too well. I'd hate to be debating with you, I'd definitely end up just agreeing with whatever you said without really knowing why.

Haha, sorry. I know this isn't really a constructive post, but I laughed. If you don't know why, then maybe I have some things to work on... it be preferable to have my viewpoint understood beyond a surface level. I appreciate the sentiment, though.

 

[stoic]

Haha, sorry. I know this isn't really a constructive post, but I laughed. If you don't know why, then maybe I have some things to work on... it be preferable to have my viewpoint understood beyond a surface level. I appreciate the sentiment, though.

Hehe, it's all good. I admire your passion.

 

[Dene]

Srsly why is anyone responding to Endgame? That weirdo is clearly trolling the poopy out of this thread. I just spent 20 minutes reading all of that unproductive crap.

but I don't think there's any more evidence to say people compete against themselves than to say people compete against others. Even if you say this is what you've observed in your interactions, it doesn't mean that people don't care about competing against others.

In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records. In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender. It might be hard for you to understand what I mean as you are new around here, but the "competition" aspect of competitions really isn't as strong as you might at first think. I suggest you take my word for this, as dismissing what I say as purely anecdotal is kind of the same as telling someone like Richard Dawkins that he doesn't know anything about evolutionary biology. Even if there is no hard data to back it up, real life experience counts for a lot.

Stereotype threat does apply to race, however I don't have any data on the different performances by race and the WCA hasn't collected this information, so I can't comment on whether or not this sort of listing should be included.

I just want to say this is a really horrible argument for many reasons, but I won't go into detail as that was mostly an off-the-cuff comment from me.

what is the actual reason for *not* making this data accessible on the WCA's website? Is it detrimental in any way? Or do you simply not find it beneficial enough? Are marginal benefits important, considering how much of a minority female cubers are?

To be honest, I don't have any particular objections to it, and I'm not strongly against it. I guess a slight concern is that it could lead to a future push for acknowledgement of female records (which I think most people are against at the moment). Another concern could be that females might only be motivated to be the best female, preventing themselves from being serious competitors amongst the males.

What I would really like to see is a good reason for implementing this. Without a good reason, I can only view it as unnecessary. Until this point, I haven't seen a convincing reason from you or anyone else to make this change.

I would argue that if something might encourage more women to compete without compromising the integrity of the event, it should be done.

I find this to be an interesting point, but I think the response by Bence is the best one. That is, most people fall into this sport by accident. They don't see superstars on tv and want to be like them (like what might happen with, say, soccer). It will be some other random circumstance, like seeing a video on youtube, or Feliks on a news segment, or something like that getting them to try out the cube. Following this, the person might find a tutorial and learn to solve the puzzle. It would probably be around this point in time that the person either falls into the addiction, or forgets about it and moves on. By this stage it's unlikely the person would have seen much of the community, therefore they wouldn't have had the chance to realise it's male dominated. Nor would they have bothered to have found the WCA site, figured out how to use it, and got around to sorting by gender to see how many female cubers there are around. So my point is this: I highly doubt having a female rankings list would encourage many people at all to get into cubing. The addiction or lack thereof comes along much too early in the process for the list to matter.

It provides greater accessibility and visibility for the minority of female cubers. Greater visibility definitely helps people recognize that they *can* do things. Think about how many people who are in minority groups have been inspired by others. Whoopi Goldberg talks about how Star Trek's black female actress inspired her. Stories like this happen time and time again, sometimes it's hard for groups in the minority setting to see themselves accomplishing something when they don't have a similar role model.

This is similar to the last point but I have a different objection, so:
I don't see how having a list would be useful for inspiring female cubers. Your example involves exposure to a high-profile figure in the spotlight (that is, an actress in a popular tv show). Along this line, it would be much more useful to have a female cuber in the spotlight, doing media appearances and things like that to be a role model for females that want to get into cubing.


Overall, I am still unconvinced that having such a list would be of any benefit.



I would also like to state, while I'm here (and because it's been mentioned a few times), that I am against having national and continental records. But that is more of a philosophical thing against the segregation of people on this one planet into numerous arbitrary groups. (This is epitomised by the retarded situation going on in the Ukraine at the moment).

 

[rowan]

I mean, I think the best evidence for the point "it won't help female cubers" is that female cubers on this thread have said that it would. I agree with your first point, I've shifted away from that particular argument. I appreciate the feedback though, also pretty terrible at telling who's a troll, opps.

 

[Laura O]

In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records. In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender.

Maybe I understand this wrong, but I actually don't get why you describe this as different approaches.
A lot of people I have met set their personal goals on base of records, e.g. be in the top 10 national records, get a better ranking in the sum of ranks and so on. So they compete against themselves with the actual ranking in mind.

 

[Erik]

Maybe slightly off-topic but I couldn't keep myself from replying to this.

In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people
compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records.

Of course ppl want records. This is like saying: "I will not go for WR" which is just not ture. You always "go for WR"/"would want to break the WR" even if you don't have a chance.

In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender. It might be hard for you to understand what I mean as you are new around here, but the "competition" aspect of competitions really isn't as strong as you might at first think.

In my experience this is not true. There is always competition between people, not necessarily for NR's though.

Another concern could be that females might only be motivated to be the best female, preventing themselves from being serious competitors amongst the males.

Again. This is is totally unlogical. Why would you only want to be the best girl and not want to be the best of everyone?

What I would really like to see is a good reason for implementing this. Without a good reason, I can only view it as unnecessary. Until this point, I haven't seen a convincing reason from you or anyone else to make this change.

Several valid points were made about this, you have still failed to argument why it would not be a good idea to implement it.

*stuff about how people get into speedcubing*. So my point is this: I highly doubt having a female rankings list would encourage many people at all to get into cubing. The addiction or lack thereof comes along much too early in the process for the list to matter.

The first part of this is actually quite interesting in the sense of that it might be useful to look further into this to maybe think about how to get more boys and girls into cubing, this would make an interesting thread on the forum. Your conclusion is not an argument against having these rankings though (not sure if you ment it to be that).

I would also like to state, while I'm here (and because it's been mentioned a few times), that I am against having national and continental records. But that is more of a philosophical thing against the segregation of people on this one planet into numerous arbitrary groups. (This is epitomised by the retarded situation going on in the Ukraine at the moment).

Although I can see your point in being against having national and continental records (I would be glad to explain why I like them some other time), in my opinion this statement also weakens the rest of your 'doubts' against female rankings.

 

[megaminxwin]

We already have gender in the WCA database, so we should be able to sort by gender. We definitely should not have separate male and female records, however.

Thank you rowan for actually being clever about this and making arguments much better than I am able to right now.

 

[Dene]

I think the best evidence for the point "it won't help female cubers" is that female cubers on this thread have said that it would.

To make life easier I'm going to use "FC" for "female cuber".

To clarify: Do you mean help new FCs, or current ones? I just argued extensively against the first option, so I guess you're referring to the second.

Perhaps having this available would help motivate current FCs, by being able to see what other FCs are capable of. But I have my doubts... I can see what Feliks is capable of (only too many times have I witnessed this...) and it doesn't motivate me in the least . The ultimate irony would be that by having a separate female list you would turn away new FCs because they don't think they would be able to achieve those times. The point I'm trying to make is that people get their motivation from different sources, and I don't see a female list helping (it might motivate some while turning away others). Of course we could never know if it would work because we can't ask people that don't get involved in the end.

In saying all that, perhaps this is just male ignorance on my part...

 

[rowan]

To make life easier I'm going to use "FC" for "female cuber".

To clarify: Do you mean help new FCs, or current ones? I just argued extensively against the first option, so I guess you're referring to the second.

Perhaps having this available would help motivate current FCs, by being able to see what other FCs are capable of. But I have my doubts... I can see what Feliks is capable of (only too many times have I witnessed this...) and it doesn't motivate me in the least . The ultimate irony would be that by having a separate female list you would turn away new FCs because they don't think they would be able to achieve those times. The point I'm trying to make is that people get their motivation from different sources, and I don't see a female list helping (it might motivate some while turning away others). Of course we could never know if it would work because we can't ask people that don't get involved in the end.

In saying all that, perhaps this is just male ignorance on my part...

I don't want to say it's male ignorance, but I do think it's hard to understand the perspective for women, here. If the irony is that having a separate female list makes them feel like they can't achieve that, they should already be put off from the regular WR list, because those times are higher. So if that's the turn away, those people should already be unmotivated? But in your view, these don't motivate people at all, so I'm not sure why you made this argument.

I honestly have messages from a bunch of current female cubers that they would really like this list and that they find it especially motivating. It might just help in reassuring people that there are other women who are doing the same things they want to do? Even if they don't feel they can accomplish those times. Like I said, if you look at top rankings, it doesn't even seem like female cubers exist. I can't say if it's going to necessarily help new FCs, because none of them are really on here to express their opinion. But if it helps current FCs, why not? Every female cuber on this list has expressed that this sorting option would benefit them.

Obviously if you have difficulty understanding the perspective (as it would make sense to, I have difficulty understanding yours for perhaps similar reasons) then I can understand why you doubt the effectiveness of it. I would bring up a chess point again, but those seem moot, haha. If you don't have strong views against it and women here have expressed it would benefit them, I really have a hard time seeing why not. I know for a lot of the guys here on this thread this doesn't seem important, but I really think it matters to a few people who might already have a hard enough time having their views considered, not that this includes you, obviously you're considering what people have to say. Sorry if that was a bit wordy. *Enter excuse about it being early here* Alright, I feel terrible for continually bumping this thread, but it feels strange to leave points untouched.

 

[Erik]

But I have my doubts... I can see what Feliks is capable of (only too many times have I witnessed this...) and it doesn't motivate me in the least . The ultimate irony would be that by having a separate female list you would turn away new FCs because they don't think they would be able to achieve those times.

Please don't understand me wrong (not trying to be mean or anything), but if that is not motivating you, then you don't have a good mindset to be a top-cuber anyway... Determination and believe in yourself is in my opinion even more important than talent or the amount of practice. The "it might scare them" argument is totally invalid I think. If someone would really be scared because of a list presenting 'the truth' then this is not the fault of the list

 

[Dene]

Heh I knew I dug myself in deep by getting into this >.<

Maybe I understand this wrong, but I actually don't get why you describe this as different approaches.
A lot of people I have met set their personal goals on base of records, e.g. be in the top 10 national records, get a better ranking in the sum of ranks and so on. So they compete against themselves with the actual ranking in mind.

This is a fair point, but mostly only applies to the "elite" group, which is usually a minority at competitions. The thing is, everyone knows what they are generally capable of so there mostly won't be any surprises with the times they get. The "slower" people usually make up the majority at competitions, and usually records are the furthest thing from their minds.

Of course ppl want records. This is like saying: "I will not go for WR" which is just not ture. You always "go for WR"/"would want to break the WR" even if you don't have a chance.

Maybe this is your mentality at competitions, as someone with plenty of WR experience. But I am of the opinion that, if you genuinely believe what you said here, you are living in fairyland . Someone that averages 20 seconds knows they are no hope of getting a WR and I doubt they would want to delude themselves into really trying for the WR at any particular instance when they know that thought is totally insane. Rather, people genuinely want to beat their PBs, and that is what I always hear from cubers at competitions.

In my experience this is not true. There is always competition between people, not necessarily for NR's though.

There can be quite a lot of friendly competition, but only between people who realistically know that they are of similar times. But my main point is that in most instances, when people are practising at home, their primary objective is to get better, while any thought of beating others is secondary, and mostly only comes to mind when they see their friends again.

Again. This is is totally unlogical. Why would you only want to be the best girl and not want to be the best of everyone?

If you want to be the best of everyone then why do we need a female list?

The first part of this is actually quite interesting in the sense of that it might be useful to look further into this to maybe think about how to get more boys and girls into cubing, this would make an interesting thread on the forum.

Actually that's a really good idea, and I think it's something we should discuss on the forums.

 

[Dene]

Please don't understand me wrong (not trying to be mean or anything), but if that is not motivating you, then you don't have a good mindset to be a top-cuber anyway... Determination and believe in yourself is in my opinion even more important than talent or the amount of practice. The "it might scare them" argument is totally invalid I think. If someone would really be scared because of a list presenting 'the truth' then this is not the fault of the list

dw we are totally on the same page here :tu

You're right, I don't want to be a top-cuber. I just cube for fun, and because I'm still addicted even after all this time. But the reality is 99% of people are in the same boat as me. In life, most people don't have what it takes (mentally) to be the best, that's why so few are highly successful in the world. If this is true, don't you agree it makes sense to focus on getting people involved for the fun side of it, rather than the competitive side of it, which applies only to the minority? That is, if we want cubing to grow and get more people involved.

 

[Dene]

But if it helps current FCs, why not? Every female cuber on this list has expressed that this sorting option would benefit them.

I dunno, I don't have a strong opinion against it. I know I'm probably giving off that impression (I'm doing my best not to) but what I really want to see is a solid, convincing argument for having the list. Otherwise I won't be persuaded from my current opinion that we shouldn't even bother collecting gender data. Just give me an excuse and I'm on your side

Mostly, I just like a good argument, and I won't stand for poor reasoning so I thought I'd get involved here to really press the issue. At least this way we'll find out if there really are any good arguments for one side or the other.

Alright, I feel terrible for continually bumping this thread, but it feels strange to leave points untouched.

Ya we are totally on the same page here as well

 

[Zoé]

Just popping in this argument here but here is my opinion about it as a girl : there's just not enough female cubers and competition for this list to be really interesting to me. I wouldn't consider myself a very good cuber, but I would most likely appear in top 100 for most events which would make no sense to me! I don't want to offend fellow female cubers, but if I personally were looking at those lists all I would feel would be this : "oooh, we took a bunch of bad people, and of those bad people I'm ranked in top 10! AWESOME!".
I think such a list would only exist to flatter girls that can't be bothered practicing/dedicating themselves to cubing enough to be really good and get a decent rank on an "everyone" list. I think we have the same capabilities as guys so we should be ranked with them and that's it.

But yeah, I can imagine that my opinion is not the most popular one, so if it pleases most of the girls it would be okay to add a search by gender... it's not like anyone would force me to ever look at it ^^

 

[Jaycee]

Note: I'm speaking under the assumption that we're talking about simply adding a "sort by gender" option on the WCA site, and not WR/CR/NR for females.

I've read through everything that's been said since rowan revived the thread. To sum up the way I feel about it:

In response to anybody who might ask for a positive effect as a response to "Is there any negative effect?":
So you can't think of a negative effect. However, some people can think of a positive effect. Doesn't it make sense to implement something that would have a positive effect on some and a negative effect on none, even if some people don't think that positive effect exists? If one person thinks it won't help anyone, but another has clearly stated that it would help them, why not help the one, as long as it's not at the expense of anyone else?

An even shorter representation of how I feel: If it doesn't affect you in any way whatsoever, why take such a strong stance against it?

This is not directed at any person in particular.

 

[kinch2002]

Just so people know, the WCA Board/delegates etc are discussing this

 

[Stefan]

So you can't think of a negative effect.

It costs screen space.

 

[rowan]

It costs screen space.

Is there something that should be prioritized to go in that empty screen space? Or is the empty screen space simply better than this addition? Perhaps it's just my browser, there's quite a bit of it around the drop down menus.