• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

WCA Regulations 2012

Lucas Garron

Administrator
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
Messages
3,718
Location
California
WCA
2006GARR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Hello everyone,

Tyson has tentatively put me in charge of the regulations for 2012. I would like to pass that duty off to someone else, but for now I'm going to get the discussions started.
The official discussions, of course, take place in the WCA Regulations forum. Most changes should be discussed there before being added to the regulations.

However, this forum is a more practical place for discussion, with many more active members, so I'm creating this thread. Since this can pile up pretty fast, I'm asking that you add any concerns to this new wiki page.

If you are discussing an old topic, please find any old posts that are related to it, and add them to the wiki page. The feel free to revive the thread(s) and post here with a few comments.

If you believe you have a new topic, please post here to ask if it's really new, and then, if you really want to, create a new thread for it (not in the WCA competitions subforum, though) and link to it here and in the wiki.

Feel free to use this thread to talk *about* all the regulation topics. Try to keep any specific details in threads about those topics, and not here.
Please be realistic and constructive while discussing the 2012 regulations. Jokes and uninformed posts are *not* welcome. While I value everyone's opinion, I reserve the right resort to heavy moderation if you are not acting constructive at all. But I know we can all be serious and dignified, right? :)

Let's get going!



Note: Discussions about new events is currently on hold as of late December 2011. See this post in this thread..
 
Last edited:

Lucas Garron

Administrator
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
Messages
3,718
Location
California
WCA
2006GARR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Is there a chance of Skewb actually happening or is that dead now?
There's definitely a chance. We would need the proper regulations (mostly just a scrambler), and some indication that this is a worthwhile to make an official worldwide event. It should be considered a serious concern that the WCA has tried to be careful about adding events. Adding one event singles it out as important compared to the other that were not added, and puts new pressure on organizers to host it.

I suspect that we will have a proposal for Square-1 (regulation changes and supporting reasons), and it will be up to the board to decide whether to accept the event. If you're strongly in favor of Skewb, feel free to create a thread that essentially puts together such a proposal.
 

Carrot

Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
1,910
WCA
2008ANDE02
YouTube
Visit Channel
MUST... MAKE... SKEWB... PROPOSAL!

I would love to see Skewb being an official event, we had it as an unofficial event at my last comp :3
 

kinch2002

Premium Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
2,504
Location
Guildford! UK!
WCA
2009SHEP01
YouTube
Visit Channel
It think there's quite a few things on the WCA forum that have been discussed, and even sometimes a general consensus reached, but nothing ever got changed within the regs. I don't have time to trawl through the forum right now, but off the top of my head I can think of a few such as: Pyraminx tips falling off, some sort of a statement about never filtering easy scrambles, new scramblers being implemented, new gen stackmat timer having 3d.p....etc you get the idea.

I shall also use this post to ask the question 'Who actually has the authority to change the regs?' I assume only the board, but for them to come to well-informed decisions they would have to read through a lot of material posted by people. WCA forum isn't always particularly active, and this forum only covers the views of the English-speaking community.
 

r_517

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2009
Messages
799
Location
Dublin, Ireland
WCA
2009WANG19
I shall also use this post to ask the question 'Who actually has the authority to change the regs?' I assume only the board, but for them to come to well-informed decisions they would have to read through a lot of material posted by people. WCA forum isn't always particularly active, and this forum only covers the views of the English-speaking community.
In my opinion anyone can give suggestions, but these suggestions should be both practical and accepted by majority in advance, before any actual changes are made in the finalised version.
 

r_517

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2009
Messages
799
Location
Dublin, Ireland
WCA
2009WANG19
I asked Ron about some ambiguous regulations in Multi-BLD. Let's say a competitor decides to take 3 cubes. He finishes the 3 cube in 29:59, with one cube finished with +2 penalty, one cube finished with no penalty and one DNF. Ron said this would be counted as 2/3, and time will be 30:00. It makes sense to me but I think there must be some people having different opinions here
 

MaeLSTRoM

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Messages
1,862
Location
UK
WCA
2011WALL02
YouTube
Visit Channel
I asked Ron about some ambiguous regulations in Multi-BLD. Let's say a competitor decides to take 3 cubes. He finishes the 3 cube in 29:59, with one cube finished with +2 penalty, one cube finished with no penalty and one DNF. Ron said this would be counted as 2/3, and time will be 30:00. It makes sense to me but I think there must be some people having different opinions here

Related to this^, what about +2 on more than one cube? How are those meant to be dealt with and also in the above scenario, would the time still be 30:00?
 

r_517

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2009
Messages
799
Location
Dublin, Ireland
WCA
2009WANG19
Related to this^, what about +2 on more than one cube? How are those meant to be dealt with and also in the above scenario, would the time still be 30:00?

Yes I also asked Ron about this. It will still be 30:00, because in the current regulations, solving 3 cubes can't exceed 30 minutes.
 

Lucas Garron

Administrator
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
Messages
3,718
Location
California
WCA
2006GARR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I shall also use this post to ask the question 'Who actually has the authority to change the regs?' I assume only the board, but for them to come to well-informed decisions they would have to read through a lot of material posted by people. WCA forum isn't always particularly active, and this forum only covers the views of the English-speaking community.
Only the WCA board can change the regulations. In the past, this has meant that Ron read through the WCA forums and tried to update the rules according to consensus.
The idea this year is to have a Regulations Committee of 2-3 people that operates like any standards committee. As many people could help with the regulations who wanted, but the Regulations Committee would put together a revised version of the regulations to the WCA board. The board is the one with the power to approve it, but the Regulations Committee would be responsible for ensuring that the proposal matched community consensus.

I don't know if I'll be one of those 2-3 people, but I'm starting it off here by asking the community to assemble their concerns. Yes, speedsolving.com is only English-speaking, but it is the largest and most international forum where such discussion can take place. Hopefully, most people with constructive comments can get their views represented here so that they are represented in the WCA forum discussion that leads to a final revision.
 
Last edited:

Erik

Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2006
Messages
2,661
Location
Enschede, Netherlands, Netherlands
WCA
2005AKKE01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Only the WCA board can change the regulations. In the past, this has meant that Ron read through the WCA forums and tried to update the rules according to consensus.
The idea this year is to have a Regulations Committee of 2-3 people that operates like any standards committee. As many people could help with the regulations who wanted, but the Regulations Committee would put together a revised version of the regulations to the WCA board. The board is the one with the power to approve it, but the Regulations Committee would be responsible for ensuring that the proposal matched community consensus.

I don't know if I'll be one of those 2-3 people, but I'm starting it off here by asking the community to assemble their concerns. Yes, speedsolving.com is only English-speaking, but it is the largest and most international forum where such discussion can take place. Hopefully, most people with constructive comments can get their views represented here so that they are represented in the WCA forum discussion that leads to a final revision.

It sounds like a good idea that some people would get involved with this more actively and structured than has been done by the board or Ron alone. Also from the perspective that the WCA is something that has power because of the community, not the WCA that has power over the community. Lots of questions arise immediatly though:

Will this Regulations Committee already be active this year? Who is part of this committee? How do you get selected as member of this committee? Is 2-3 people enough? How would the committee present the results of the yearly investigation? Etc.
 

Lucas Garron

Administrator
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
Messages
3,718
Location
California
WCA
2006GARR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Will this Regulations Committee already be active this year? Who is part of this committee? How do you get selected as member of this committee? Is 2-3 people enough? How would the committee present the results of the yearly investigation? Etc.
This is still to be figured out, since Tyson put it into motion only last night. As of right now, all the delegates have been informed that work is starting, and it's likely that any of them who are interested will be involved with the process.
The actual committee will probably be like the IAC: a small group of people (selected by the board) who communicate directly with the board and administer the discussions and assemble the proposal.

Will the committee be active in 2012? Hopefully. We'll see about getting out the 2012 regulations first.
Who is part of this committee? Probably anyone with enough responsibility who can commit time.
How do you get selected as member of this committee? Contact the WCA board if you're interested in being a significant part of this.
Is 2-3 people enough? For the actual WCA communications? I think yes.
How would the committee present the results of the yearly investigation? I have in mind that they would publicly propose a new version of the regulations, with a full list of changes and each change supported by citations about how consensus was reached.


In short, something like this:
- Everyone in the community may discuss.
- Any responsible people can get involved in discussing the details of making changes in the regulations.
- 2-3 people are responsible for making everything comes together for the WCA.
 

MaeLSTRoM

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Messages
1,862
Location
UK
WCA
2011WALL02
YouTube
Visit Channel
I had an idea for a change in regulations for multiBLD:

-The maximum time allowed for solving is 10*(number of cubes), not exceeding 60 minutes.
-Time penalties can be added to solves so that they exceed this time limit.

in this scenario, 3/3 in 29:58 with all +2'd is a final time of 30:04
 

Forte

Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,151
Location
Waterloo, Ontario
WCA
2009SHIN02
YouTube
Visit Channel
Random consideration: how about cutting +2 from BLD altogether? I just remember at Vancouver Open when I didn't undo a setup move in the middle of solving edges, but all the other edges weren't on that layer, so it was +2. I think things like that should warrant a DNF, but that might just be me.
 

kinch2002

Premium Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
2,504
Location
Guildford! UK!
WCA
2009SHEP01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Random consideration: how about cutting +2 from BLD altogether? I just remember at Vancouver Open when I didn't undo a setup move in the middle of solving edges, but all the other edges weren't on that layer, so it was +2. I think things like that should warrant a DNF, but that might just be me.

Then you'd not be allowing for people who stop the timer too fast and end up with a move out or something (or the dropping of the cube misaligned a layer) - in which case if you're not allowing that then you shouldn't allow any +2s in sighted solving either.
 

Mike Hughey

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
11,303
Location
Indianapolis
WCA
2007HUGH01
SS Competition Results
YouTube
Visit Channel
I had an idea for a change in regulations for multiBLD:

-The maximum time allowed for solving is 10*(number of cubes), not exceeding 60 minutes.
-Time penalties can be added to solves so that they exceed this time limit.

in this scenario, 3/3 in 29:58 with all +2'd is a final time of 30:04

I think I remember that this was suggested in the WCA Forum thread a long time ago, shortly after Ron gave his "ruling". I really like this approach - I think it makes the most sense.
 

TMOY

Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Messages
1,802
WCA
2008COUR01
I think I remember that this was suggested in the WCA Forum thread a long time ago, shortly after Ron gave his "ruling". I really like this approach - I think it makes the most sense.

I second that too. The purpose of time limits is to make competitions manageable, not to punish people, and following that logic the decision of DNFing someone or not for exceeding the time limit should be based on the actual length of the solve before penalties are added, not after.
 

Dene

Premium Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2007
Messages
6,900
WCA
2009BEAR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Just something I thought about when catching up on the WCA forums. In this post here it is brought up that there is one (and there are actually many more) regulations which serve as guidelines and not actual regulations. I think it would be worth removing these "regulations" from the WCA regulations, and creating a new "guidelines" section, to which these sorts of regulations can be moved to. Any thoughts?
 

Lucas Garron

Administrator
Joined
Jul 6, 2007
Messages
3,718
Location
California
WCA
2006GARR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Just something I thought about when catching up on the WCA forums. In this post here it is brought up that there is one (and there are actually many more) regulations which serve as guidelines and not actual regulations. I think it would be worth removing these "regulations" from the WCA regulations, and creating a new "guidelines" section, to which these sorts of regulations can be moved to. Any thoughts?
I've been advocating this for a long while. Unless someone objects with a good argument, or offers a good alternate structure, I will try to ensure that the regulations get split into the actual Regulations and a Guidelines document. There is already a proposal in progress that incorporates this, but I'm waiting to hear back from the WCA board before posting it on the forums for public feedback.
 
Top