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Should events be dropped for the 2021 Weekly Competition?

ichcubegerne

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What useless events? All of them aren’t useless by any means. The closest to useless any of these are is 3x3 match, and I find that one to be quite fun
Relays are ****ing useless. Its just who is the best at the biggest puzzle. And we have these puzzles anyway^^

You can't run out of room for an online competition. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. It's not like it's filling up a schedule or anything.
Then why dont we just introduce every single event, no matter how stupid it is? Its about keeping the people that participate in an event at a high level and not add useless stuff thats useless.
 

Sub1Hour

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Relays are ****ing useless. Its just who is the best at the biggest puzzle. And we have these puzzles anyway^^
Language, Big Guy
Then why dont we just introduce every single event, no matter how stupid it is? Its about keeping the people that participate in an event at a high level and not add useless stuff thats useless.
I wasn't talking about adding anything, I was talking about not removing anything.

Also, what do you mean keep people that participate at a high level? This weekly comp is for fun, its not like its going on your WCA profile. If you want to be on a high level of whatever event you want, just practice that event.
 

Kit Clement

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I would rather only add events that will generate meaningful participation. Adding too many more events will spread people's time too thin to participate in events they like, which already seems to be happening for many events in the weekly competition. There are many events I have in mind that deserve consideration to be added (like FTO), but I think it would be reasonable to consider taking out events that are not generating meaningful participation and competition.
 

ProStar

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I would rather only add events that will generate meaningful participation. Adding too many more events will spread people's time too thin to participate in events they like, which already seems to be happening for many events in the weekly competition. There are many events I have in mind that deserve consideration to be added (like FTO), but I think it would be reasonable to consider taking out events that are not generating meaningful participation and competition.

I agree. Perhaps add a participation count that a event has to meet in order for it to stay?
 

Mike Hughey

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I think that all of this discussion is worthwhile. I do intend to add a couple of discussion threads (one for adding events, one for removing events) sometime over the next few days to begin this discussion.

I do feel that it was a mistake last year to add 4 events. That was too many; a maximum of 2 per year is plenty, and I will not go over that again in the future. The main reason I did it last year was because I got personally invested in the two that were losing. :) I won't make that mistake again. I suppose it can be argued that the third and fourth events being added were actually of some value. Curvy copter allowed an actual jumbling event to be held. If the hardware were not so bad, I suspect there would be a lot more participation there. And speed fewest moves was useful to run in that it showed the event wasn't quite as good an idea as it initially seemed. But I do find it somewhat aesthetically unpleasing to remove events - it gives a sense of imbalance to the database somehow. Still, I have mechanisms for doing it, so it can be done.

My goal will be to have discussions over the next couple of weeks, and then polls to determine the actual changes that finish about a week before the end of the year, so that I have time to implement the changes. I will definitely increase the amount of support required to add new events this year - I think I have been too lenient in the past. I'm still not sure how to handle removing events, but I will at least start the discussion this year, and we can see where that goes.
 

2018AMSB02

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I think that all of this discussion is worthwhile. I do intend to add a couple of discussion threads (one for adding events, one for removing events) sometime over the next few days to begin this discussion.

I do feel that it was a mistake last year to add 4 events. That was too many; a maximum of 2 per year is plenty, and I will not go over that again in the future. The main reason I did it last year was because I got personally invested in the two that were losing. :) I won't make that mistake again. I suppose it can be argued that the third and fourth events being added were actually of some value. Curvy copter allowed an actual jumbling event to be held. If the hardware were not so bad, I suspect there would be a lot more participation there. And speed fewest moves was useful to run in that it showed the event wasn't quite as good an idea as it initially seemed. But I do find it somewhat aesthetically unpleasing to remove events - it gives a sense of imbalance to the database somehow. Still, I have mechanisms for doing it, so it can be done.

My goal will be to have discussions over the next couple of weeks, and then polls to determine the actual changes that finish about a week before the end of the year, so that I have time to implement the changes. I will definitely increase the amount of support required to add new events this year - I think I have been too lenient in the past. I'm still not sure how to handle removing events, but I will at least start the discussion this year, and we can see where that goes.

That’s awesome! I completely understand what you’re saying.


I support removing a few events, especially those with extremely low participation, and adding a few. It does seem that shorter events get higher participation, because doing an average in speed fmc is going to be more of a chore than fun, or at least in my opinion
 

qwr

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I agree removing cube match and just keeping one relay (2-7) since they overall have low participation.
 

Mike Hughey

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This discussion already started on its own in the Changes to the Weekly Competition website thread, and I realized there was no point in putting off the discussion. This thread should be used for discussion about the possibility of dropping events for the Weekly Competition next year.

I posted the following last year; it is still relevant, so I thought I would repeat it here:
One reason I am hesitant to make changes to the relays is that we have already had churn on this in the past, and I prefer continuity in the weekly competitions if possible. From 2010 through 2016, 2-6 and 2-7 relays were discontinued, and by popular demand, they were brought back in 2017. I wish we had simply left them in place during those years; I certainly don't want this sort of thing to happen again if possible. I feel it's better to move slowly on such changes, especially since the weekly competition doesn't really hurt anyone by being too many events. I prefer to be somewhat slow to add new events, and extremely slow to remove them.

I don't think that participation count is a particularly good way to choose events to drop. As I have said on numerous occasions before, I will not consider dropping 6x6x6 BLD or 7x7x7 BLD, as I consider the existence of those events to be payment for my running the competitions. :) As for the other events, there are cases where some important official WCA events (such as FMC) have significantly lower participation than events that probably ought to be considered highest priority for removal (such as the relays). Removing events should probably be more about the events not really contributing to the experience in any significant way. If people are doing events for no other reason than to mark them complete, and no one is really enjoying them, that would be the main reason for dropping an event.

I will go ahead and move posts in the other thread here, to try to keep the discussion collected in one place. I will let this thread run for a week or so, and then, if arguments seem persuasive, possibly come up with a poll to determine votes we might drop. If I decide to consider dropping events this way, I will outline a set of rules by which the decision will be made, and will abide by those rules. Until then, I am interested in hearing any feedback people have for how to best do this.

Please discuss any opinions or ideas on this topic in this thread.
 

Mike Hughey

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I don't feel as strongly about this as I do some other events, but I admit I would personally vote against dropping match the scramble. To me, it is a significantly different event, and it has a very long history with the Speedsolving.com Weekly Competition, having been run since 2008! It gives our site a claim to longevity with the event that goes well beyond that of the Red Bull competitions, which had an event very similar but with different inspection rules, and I like anything about our weekly competition that gives it a unique history. If demand is overwhelming to drop match the scramble, I suppose I will consider it, but losing it would make me sad.

Also, I almost feel some obligation to keep running match the scramble because it was one of the favorite events of Arnaud van Galen, who was our illustrious member who first started the Weekly Competitions here at Speedsolving.com. In deference to him, I would prefer to keep it.
 

qwr

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there isn't a strong argument for dropping any events since at most they take up screen real estate and make the site slightly harder to navigate.
however maybe it's boring for the people who try to do every event. does that give more points? idk.
I don't see the point of relays but they have enough participation to be kept around.

I guess curvy copter with and without jumbling will be popular. maybe we should do a poll.
 
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