Tips and Advice for organizing and improving cubing competitions throughout the world.

[cubeshepherd]

Not sure if this thread will go far (although I hope it goes somewhere), but I was thinking that having a thread where people that have organized comps can give advice to people looking at organizing, as well as giving advice to running good comps, mentioning some things to keep in mind, good events to have together, schedule ideas etc. As well as others asking for advice on anything comp related, helping improve the WCA and cubing community as a whole.

I know that comps can always have issues come up, and that is why the WCA, WDC etc. is there to address those issues, but I think that if we (the cubing community) can help each other out with trying our best to create better comps, have less issues, and help expand cubing further then I think that will go a far ways for everyone.

Not sure what else to say for now, but I might think of somethings soon.

PLEASE READ: My intent for this thread is something akin to what @pjk made a few weeks ago with people sharing tips for first time competitors/new cubers. Here is the thread link if you have not yet seen it, or if you have seen it then you will know the format and style that I am hoping this thread to be like (but with people also asking questions). https://www.speedsolving.com/threads/share-a-tip-win-a-qiyi-mini-wuque-m-4x4.75421/

Edit: I just realized that where I posted this thread is a place not meant to ask questions, so Mods please feel free to move this thread if needed. Sorry for the inconvenience

 

[cubeshepherd]

Something that I notice at the comps I have been to is the difference in allowing people to or to not do certain tasks (the main one being scrambling). And what I mean by that is some comps let any person that says "I can scramble" do the scrambling, and some comps only let people that the organizer/delegate knows well to do the scrambling (which I am way more for then the former).

So with that being said, I think that if you are the organizer of a comp make sure the people that you know AND trust do the scrambling and not just random people. I do not think that everyone is bad at scrambling but there tends to be more mistakes in that (and for the most part due to people not taking it seriously) which is not right in anyway. And to go of of the scrambling, I do like the fact that the WCA is/will be having scramblers sign the score cards, and even though that is not a complete requirement yet, I think every organizer/delegate should get people to start doing that.

 

[theos]

What I often see happening for scrambling is that the best solvers are the early round scramblers, but since they make the finals, less experienced cubers get drafted into scrambling for the finals. Because of this, I'd like to always see separate scramble checkers for the finals round at least. Not sure what else can be done to mitigate the risk when you can't get those cubers you know and trust to scramble.

 

[AlphaCuber is awesome]

What I often see happening for scrambling is that the best solvers are the early round scramblers, but since they make the finals, less experienced cubers get drafted into scrambling for the finals. Because of this, I'd like to always see separate scramble checkers for the finals round at least. Not sure what else can be done to mitigate the risk when you can't get those cubers you know and trust to scramble.

in most events there are always a few peopie who choked in semi finals and can scramble if their around. I think a better thing is to make sure everyone judges as sometimes people don't.

 

[cubeshepherd]

What I often see happening for scrambling is that the best solvers are the early round scramblers, but since they make the finals, less experienced cubers get drafted into scrambling for the finals. Because of this, I'd like to always see separate scramble checkers for the finals round at least. Not sure what else can be done to mitigate the risk when you can't get those cubers you know and trust to scramble.

My apologies for the delay in responding to your post, but thank you for the post.

I do agree that sometimes it is hard to get a scrambler that you or someone (such as the delegate trust), but for the most part you can find at least one one person. However, something that I was just talking to a delegate about this past weekend at the competition that I was the organizer for, is respect to having a scrambler or two for the finals, is to lower the limit of how many people advance to the finals, and by so doing that there is a fairly high chance of there being 1-3 people that you trust to scramble (since all is takes is a bad average to not advance). And how many people advance to the finals depends on what you want, but 8-12 seems like wold work best, instead of 16 like most competitions have.

And to go off of how many people advance to the net round or finals, I am all the more now for having stricter cutoff times for competitions. Reason 1. You will not get some people that almost never practice the event signing up for it. Reason 2. You will start to get people that are serious about event x to practice more and eventually get under the cutoff time. If you have looser cutoff limits, you will get a lot more people signing up for that event (even if they know they are really slow) and from that those people if they know can make the cutoff (due to it being easy) will not practice that event much, but if you have a stricter cutoff then (and again) people will practice that event more to make cutoff.

in most events there are always a few people who choked in semi finals and can scramble if their around. I think a better thing is to make sure everyone judges as sometimes people don't.

Getting judges is fairly easy at competition, especially since you can get parents or friends of the competitors to judge (and judging is easy to teach in a couple of minutes).

However, I think something to keep in mind for everyone and for delegates/organizers to try to emphasis at competition, is that the WCA is all volunteer based and no competitions would be possible if there were no WCA staff/delegates and people willing to organize competitions, therefore I think the competitors should be happy to help judge a round or to here and there, and that also leads to faster and more efficient run competitions.