Proposal: obligation of judging and scrambling for events you are not competing in

[TimMc]

Ok, thanks for sharing that. Did people get disqualified for not helping? Wouldn't you have enough judges/scramblers/runners otherwise?

I've never had to disqualify someone from a competition for not helping. There was an awful competition a few years ago where people just didn't volunteer to help out. They'd help out when asked a few times but the time wasted while transitioning between groups and events made us fall behind schedule.

Thankfully, there have been a lot of willing helpers this year. It's great when they help out for a couple of events. But I don't really want the same people judging and scrambling all day unless they really want to. Some competitors have been really helpful... we should do volunteer awards again.

Tim.

 

[Dene]

As others have mentioned, this is definitely not an "unwritten rule" at any competition I've been to. When I was in California there was always an organisation team that would do almost all of the work all day.

I came back to NZ/Australia with this mentality, but as it turned out we never managed to build a core, close team of people to work all day. We have had a group of regulars who always volunteer a lot more than most others, but there was never any perception of these people being the "staff". For the first couple of years this was an issue from time-to-time, but for the most part we managed. The situation completely deteriorated at one point (as mentioned by TimMc above). Since then, we've made it a regular part of our announcements at the start of the competition, and before we call up every group, to ask for volunteers to help us. Once we started doing this things improved significantly. It got to the point where at our most recent competition, with more than 50% first-timers, we had people competing over who would get to help! I was repeatedly asked "can I judge?", and at one point some guys were doing paper-scissors-rock to see who would get to scramble!

The downside of this system is we get a lot of volunteers that aren't closely familiar with the regulations, and think judging is simply using a stopwatch and writing down a time. 95% of the time this is ok, but I suspect regulation violations occur occasionally without being noticed.

- the first event of the day is a non-popular event like 7x7 or feet. The 2nd event of the day is 3x3. Of course most cubers who don't compete in the first event will not arrive at the competition when the first event starts, but will show up in time for 3x3. In theory the delegate is now allowed to disqualify everyone who was not present during the first event, because they were not available for judging/scrambling.

People don't show up until their first scheduled event over there? I wish they'd do that here too! I can't seem to figure out how to encourage people to stay away until we start registration. Everyone seems to think they need to show up at least 30 minutes before registration starts here, and me and Tim are often still setting up >.<

 

[Goosly]

People don't show up until their first scheduled event over there? I wish they'd do that here too! I can't seem to figure out how to encourage people to stay away until we start registration. Everyone seems to think they need to show up at least 30 minutes before registration starts here, and me and Tim are often still setting up >.<

By "everyone", you mean people who don't like sleep? If "setting up" means moving chairs and tables, you can ask them to help. Asking them to help setting up timers and displays is probably not a good idea, if they are not familiar with that.

 

[Dene]

By "everyone", you mean people who don't like sleep? If "setting up" means moving chairs and tables, you can ask them to help. Asking them to help setting up timers and displays is probably not a good idea, if they are not familiar with that.

Yea mostly referring to timers and displays and cables and things.

And yes, everyone. I made registration go for an hour and a half (9-10:30) in our most recent competition, while we did FMC in a side room. The place seemed to fill up by the time we started FMC at 9:30 >.<

 

[Pedro]

(...)
I have heard competitors showing up unecessarily early because of this, yes. Solely newcomers though. Also, I remember some competitions where the delegate or organizer was annoyed because I wasn't there to judge multi-BLD (which was after lunch break) even though I wasn't competing. Could've been at Czech Open 2009.

I just don't think having only participants in that event helping would work every time...
We just can't hire people to judge all day, and sometimes, as I said, you'll have a small round which could take like 5 minutes, but if only the people on the event are required/supposed to help, it would take much longer.
Imagine you have a Multi Bld round, and nobody else helps. Then you'd need 2 hours for everybody to do one attempt, instead of one.

 

[TMOY]

People don't show up until their first scheduled event over there? I wish they'd do that here too! I can't seem to figure out how to encourage people to stay away until we start registration. Everyone seems to think they need to show up at least 30 minutes before registration starts here, and me and Tim are often still setting up >.<

It may very well depend on public transport. I've already been to competitions where I only had the choice between arriving 30 minutes (or more) early and missing some events.

And I've never seen that as a problem. People who arrive early may help setting up the venue whenever possible, and when it is not, they can simply sit at a table and cube. They don't have to come to the registration desk until registration actually opens.

 

[Erik]

I just don't think having only participants in that event helping would work every time...
We just can't hire people to judge all day, and sometimes, as I said, you'll have a small round which could take like 5 minutes, but if only the people on the event are required/supposed to help, it would take much longer.
Imagine you have a Multi Bld round, and nobody else helps. Then you'd need 2 hours for everybody to do one attempt, instead of one.

Ok, why do you think that?

A very typical situation:

2 groups of 15 people. There are 6 timers. So for one group you need: 2 scramblers + 6 judges + 1 runner = 9. So there are even 6 people of the current event that don't even have to help. I don't see why you need even more people here.

Big-BLD (4,5,multi) is an exception. In my original post I described how Euro 2014 dealt with this, which is a fine strategy imho. The only scenario this could be problematic is if you don't have any friends who would judge you and have 100% lazy people at a competition which never happens.
Exception 2: everyone competes in multi-BLD. In this case you'd be short on judges anyway because everyone is competing ;-)

 

[Dene]

It may very well depend on public transport. I've already been to competitions where I only had the choice between arriving 30 minutes (or more) early and missing some events.

And I've never seen that as a problem. People who arrive early may help setting up the venue whenever possible, and when it is not, they can simply sit at a table and cube. They don't have to come to the registration desk until registration actually opens.

I don't really consider it a problem, it just baffles me!

I don't think transport has much to do with it. Most competitors are kids that come with parents who drive. They all just want to come early ^_^

 

[Pedro]

Ok, why do you think that?

A very typical situation:

2 groups of 15 people. There are 6 timers. So for one group you need: 2 scramblers + 6 judges + 1 runner = 9. So there are even 6 people of the current event that don't even have to help. I don't see why you need even more people here.

Big-BLD (4,5,multi) is an exception. In my original post I described how Euro 2014 dealt with this, which is a fine strategy imho. The only scenario this could be problematic is if you don't have any friends who would judge you and have 100% lazy people at a competition which never happens.
Exception 2: everyone competes in multi-BLD. In this case you'd be short on judges anyway because everyone is competing ;-)

Well, of course each country/region is different. Maybe people here are just not paying enough attention to help when needed.

My main point is that sometimes it's just not practical or doesn't make sense at all to have 2 groups for an event. Example:
http://www.cuber.com.br/campeonato/inscritos.php?camp=uberlandia2014

3 people registered for Clock. I don't see how having those 3 split would be a good idea...

If sometimes we'd would "have to ask (before the comp) for some people to help at event X", then we can't have a guideline/regulation that says "you must only help in what you're competing"

 

[AvGalen]

It seems this is only a problem for Clock and big blind when there are very few competitors and no volunteers. That makes it such a small subgroup that I wouldn't want a regulation change over this. I would much rather remove those events from those competitions as there wouldn't really be any competition in it anyway. If it does happen too frequently we should consider removing those events or finding better ways to handle them (easier scrambles, 1 judge for multiple competitors, etc)