WCA Regulations - Out of Hand?

[Stefan]

I feel like you're trying to create some kind of bizarre bureaucratic argument to defend an opinion you already stated, and which you've now realized makes no sense.

No, I feel the opinion makes perfect sense and the added "bureaucratic argument" was just to demonstrate that by accepting the regulations, you and others have already agreed.

Every person I've talked to about scoresheets, and everyone I've worked with at competitions, has implicitly and automatically assumed that a blank scoresheet does not have results on it.

I agree with that as well. But you're deflecting. This isn't about a blank scoresheet but about one with signatures on it.

surely "1:00 DNS DNS" and "1:00" are different results?

Yes.

And if blank means DNS, how could you possibly write the second one?

Is that a trick question?

[table="class:grid,align:left"]
[tr][td]1:00[/td][td]Fred[/td][td]Barney[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td][/td][td].[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td][/td][td].[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td][/td][td].[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td][/td][td].[/td][/tr]
[/table]

(did you read the thread?)

Yes.

signing before the result indicates that whatever it is, you will acknowledge it.

In contrast to whatever it will be. Interesting that you do use the proper tense but don't realize what it means.

The order does not matter, any more than it matters whether you sign a form before or after you fill it out.

That's a crucially different scenario, and the order does matter a lot if you lose control of the form after signing it and before filling it out, like you usually do in our competitions. If you don't see how it matters, please sign the following form and then give it to me before filling it out:

[ ] Michael owes Stefan $1000.
[ ] Stefan owes Michael $1000.
Only valid if exactly one option is marked.
Michael's Signature: ______________
Stefan's Signature: ______________

Then, oh, I dunno, don't hand out DNSes for this. As I've said before, we can all just agree that a competitor who signs the scoresheet loses the right to officially dispute the written result.

I believe a major purpose for the whole signing thing is to fix mistakes right away when they can still be easily fixed (because the timer still shows the result) so that people won't even want to dispute anything (because it's all correct). And even if you check after pre-signing like Andrew or even if you would never dispute anything later on it would still be bad, as you're violating the regulations (at least in spirit) and setting a bad example. New cubers might see it and adopt it, not realizing the implications and then getting into trouble. It should be made clear right away that it's not good.

I get the feeling you're dismissing people out of hand because you have a personal interest in the new regulations

I don't know what kind of personal interest in the new regulations that would be. I wasn't involved, except maybe a few very small comments in the few threads I happened to peek into. I'm also not a good enough cuber anymore that any of them matter to me, with the exception of outlawing my Meffert megaminx, which I dislike (and I eagerly chose that in Lucas' poll. I'd say the reason I speak up is that I dislike bad arguments (no matter what they're for or against) and dislike disrespect for people who I know put lots of effort into making things better.

Nobody's answering the problems people have brought up

I don't think that's true, plus those working on stuff seem to be very busy working. Tons of WCA discussions/stuff in the last ten days or so, my email inbox is constantly being flooded with it.

Instead I just see people like you and Lucas act condescending, make nonsensical semantic arguments, pretend there are no disagreements

Yeah that must be the reason Lucas asked for feedback and said "[post=938247]a proposal to update the 2014 Regulations could have backing[/post]".

especially if you're going to control the regulations for the entire sport.

Again: I'm not really involved, let alone any kind of controlling it.

 

[PatrickJameson]

Remember, one could easily forge initials/draw an arrow down after the first solve on another competitor's score sheet. Then the sabotaged competitor would be violating A7c2 and would be forced to take DNSes. This does nothing to help prevent tapering of scoresheets.

Another option? Volunteer to input times. Boom, you now have control over everything and can easily "misplace" a competitor's scorecard.

My point, Stefan, is that signing is pointless. I much prefer my previous suggestion:

I don't think competitor signing is needed at all. Judges should sign in case there's a case of bad handwriting or something.

I think that as soon as the competitor leaves the immediate area around the table, the competitor is considered to have agreed with the final time.

 

[KongShou]

Can I suggest that something as big as a regulation change should take place over at least 6 months. There should be a community voting(Much earlier than the one we saw for this controversial rule change), then there should be revision and much drafting before it is to be made solid. The board should present valid and clear reason for each rule change, with plenty of justification that one cannot easily dispute. I'm not just sitting here telling the board what to do, I am simply trying to make this much more professional. Think about how an organisation like FIFA or IOC would handle rule changes. The point of rules is that they are solid and not easily changed, I think one of the reasons why so many people are upset is because of how easy it was to change the regulations. It was done in less than a month as far as I am concerned and there seem to be minimal community input. The whole foundation of cubing has just been changed over a closed vote inside the WCA. I know that there is still time for it to be revised, but since it is already official the harm has already been done if there was any. I simply hope that the board would behave and operate more professionally in the future.

 

[Erik]

I agree with you on the fact that there was not enough feedback requested or taken into advantage. An association-wide poll on every change however, is close to madness. Most cubers are underage and/or do not have the experience and/or lack the skill too oversee the consequences of changes. Let alone the question if all cubers are even considering the friendly, sportsmanship spirit of the WCA.

The way it was done right know is not good either. There has to be a bigger team to get high-quality feedback from than just the WRC or the delegates (remember: delegates are not often very experienced or good at overthinking regulation-changes (this does not imply they are bad delegates though)). As I understand from a post Lars V made, he did not really have any influence on the changes the WRC was planning, nor did the WRC ask him any feedback (please correct me if I am wrong, I am sure there are some nuances here).
And that is just Lars...

 

[Dene]

I agree with you on the fact that there was not enough feedback requested or taken into advantage. An association-wide poll on every change however, is close to madness. Most cubers are underage and/or do not have the experience and/or lack the skill too oversee the consequences of changes. Let alone the question if all cubers are even considering the friendly, sportsmanship spirit of the WCA.

The way it was done right know is not good either. There has to be a bigger team to get high-quality feedback from than just the WRC or the delegates (remember: delegates are not often very experienced or good at overthinking regulation-changes (this does not imply they are bad delegates though)). As I understand from a post Lars V made, he did not really have any influence on the changes the WRC was planning, nor did the WRC ask him any feedback (please correct me if I am wrong, I am sure there are some nuances here).
And that is just Lars...

I also agree with you, and previously brought up my concerns about this with the delegates and WRC. As a consequence of the discussion Lucas started an issue on github, to which I provided my own semi-lengthy response.

However the ultimate problem remains that people doing this are all volunteers dedicating their personal time to the task rather than other endeavours. While it would be nice in theory to have proper protocols and processes in place for dealing with regulation changes, it's difficult to implement in practise without a dedicated team who do it as an actual job, rather than in their spare time.

This thread is as good as any other place for progressing this discussion, so let's all put our heads together and see where things go.

 

[qqwref]

However the ultimate problem remains that people doing this are all volunteers dedicating their personal time to the task rather than other endeavours.

I completely agree that this is a problem. However, given that we have a relatively small number of people who are donating their free time, I would like the effect of that to be that we change our regulations slower than some people would like. The current effect seems to be that we make important changes and don't have time to make sure the community agrees with them. Basically, we're prioritizing the wrong part of the process.

 

[Kian]

The only thing I am willing to say publicly on the matter is that I feel that, in an effort to be more transparent and open about the process, the rules-making procedures have become too democratic. I would like to see fewer people who are well versed in cubing discuss and write the regulations, with more limited input from the delegate list (which is largely counterproductive because of its wide scope, I believe). I believe the WCA Board is uniquely equipped to handle this. Too many people writing regulations can make for a complicated, inefficient mess. I feel it would behoove us to be able to slow down our general process, but be capable of acting quickly when it is absolutely necessary. A small group of informed persons (the board, in this case) grants us that flexibility.

Just my two cents. There is no perfect plan, of course. I realize my opinion that the process is too open is informed by my participation as a delegate, and might not seem the same to someone in a different position. I am basically arguing that someone in my capacity should have less influence in most instances.

 

[Erik]

The only thing I am willing to say publicly on the matter is that I feel that, in an effort to be more transparent and open about the process, the rules-making procedures have become too democratic.

Really? Too democratic? Please tell me about how the WRC was "chosen" by the community.
Also please tell me about how all delegates were involved in this.

Being transparent is the least the WRC and WCA can do for the community as they still only exist because the community acknowledges them. Imho the process is still not transparent and structured enough.

 

[Sin-H]

Instead of coming up with carefully balanced standards that apply regardless of event, the vote went to be strict for BLD (don't allow anything distinguishable by touch) while allowing looser standards for sighted events.

And then, in order to make it "consistent", be strict in all events next year, like we did with the 6-color cubes?

 

[AvGalen]

I also feel like the WCA has turned into a book of law where the lawmakers have made some VERY questionable decisions this time. I have felt like the regulations have gotten more and more bloated over the years but this year....wow. I am really happy to hear so many people complain about it. But instead of making a giant list of things that I think should be discussed (and changed) I would like to ask a very serious question:

Would it be appreciated if I would go through the entire regulations and would try to greatly simplify them?

I am basically planning on looking through all the regulations with the glasses of a newb that would like to have fun, not the lawmakers fineprint that is written

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

I agree with everything in Lars's post, but I feel most strongly about:

I don't like how the poll system was used in some instances. [...] I think this is a wrong representation of the facts.

 

[Dene]

I am basically planning on looking through all the regulations with the glasses of a newb that would like to have fun, not the lawmakers fineprint that is written

All good and well until Kuti II comes along.

 

[Lucas Garron]

Pre-signing: I don't know why this is such a major point.
Pre-signing was never meant to be allowed. There was just an explicit penalty added so that a competitor is disincentivized to try to bypass signing each attempt individually (and hopefully checking the time). I don't expect to see a single DNS out of this, but it provides a clear answer to "can I be lazy and sign the entire round ahead of time?"

Can I suggest that something as big as a regulation change should take place over at least 6 months. There should be a community voting(Much earlier than the one we saw for this controversial rule change), then there should be revision and much drafting before it is to be made solid. The board should present valid and clear reason for each rule change, with plenty of justification that one cannot easily dispute. I'm not just sitting here telling the board what to do, I am simply trying to make this much more professional.

The Board does not make the rules, but they approve the changes. That is the role of the WRC. I'm all for doing this stuff earlier in the year and announcing planned changes early, but we need people to help draft those changes.

I also agree with you, and previously brought up my concerns about this with the delegates and WRC. As a consequence of the discussion Lucas started an issue on github, to which I provided my own semi-lengthy response.

That's a good start, and thanks for making it. It's not completely practical without some changes; see below for some of the reasons.

Being transparent is the least the WRC and WCA can do for the community as they still only exist because the community acknowledges them. Imho the process is still not transparent and structured enough.

In the past Ron simply made the changes he thought were appropriate enough. I worked the last year to make sure that *everything* is documented on GitHub: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues?state=open.

The process is transparent, but it's missing the important step of being proactively communicative, which is what I think you really want.

Too many people writing regulations can make for a complicated, inefficient mess. I feel it would behoove us to be able to slow down our general process, but be capable of acting quickly when it is absolutely necessary. A small group of informed persons (the board, in this case) grants us that flexibility..

Indeed, I've made many small fixes that no one ever notices because they simply *fix things* that don't need discussion. The tricky part is figuring out what needs discussion.

It might sound cynical, but I've learned that most competitors *don't actually care* about changes in the Regulations except for a few specific details. Further, almost no one knows how to write a decent proposal. Most people who care enough to help bring about a change are too lost in the cause to lead a balanced discussion of it (I try very hard to avoid this myself, but sometimes even I can't tell apart my WRC-official stance from my personal views), and I can't recall a single proposed change that I haven't had to edit (e.g. simplify phrasing, use consistent words, fix formatting).

In practice, that means that I'm:

• Tracking the forum, emails to the WRC, and Delegate emails for all possible topics (every issue gets filed on GitHub).
• Trying to keep discussions productive when they occur naturally.
• Handling proposed changes, arguments for/against, specific wording details.
• Figuring out how much discussion/voting a change needs.
• Updating the Regulations and publishing them on the site.
• Supporting translations.
• Announcing changes and responding to feedback.
• Overseeing TNoodle (the scramble program), and sometimes even working on it.

The 2014 changes came so late because 1) I have a life, and 2) I was busy with the first half of those things before I 3) spent all of my spare time in December on the Regulations.
That included starting discussions on the forum and Delegate list based on things that had been brought up this year. Because we're very good at bike shedding, it's important to bring up the right topics. Typo fixes should happen without discussion, while controversial changes need discussion at first but then at some point simply need a decision (i.e. Board vote) based on existing arguments. And while speedsolving.com is the best place we have for community discussions, it's biased towards English speakers, and can easily let a few loud members influence the appearance of community views.

There logo puzzle changes are a good example of something that wasn't supposed to affect competitors too much (part of cleaning up legacy Regulations by removing outdated allowances that aren't really used), but accidentally caught everyone because it turns out mf8 tiles are over 1mm thick. Apart from that, I think the changes turned out reasonable.
I think some people are still upset because the first 2014 speedsolving.com post about logos featured a proposal with very strict changes, and the whole "strict" thing hasn't gotten out of their minds. This was originally meant as a starting point for discussing how far the logo Regulations can be cleaned up. From my first mail to the Delegates list about that topic:

Questions about logos have come up multiple times this year, including Aug. 13, 2013, and Apr. 29, and Oct. 20, 2012. I think the only fair thing we can do is be very strict about what weird logo variations we allow, as long as we still allow the most common use cases. Below, I've copied a possible change.
...
Have any of you guys seen logos that you think are very reasonable, but would become forbidden by this change?
Are there any weird things that this change doesn't address?
...
[possible change]

(The tiles change came from puzzle changes that were eventually rolled into the logo discussion -- because "or the generally available thickness" was an outdated phrase in the Regulations.)



Back to that list of things I do: Things are getting better.

• Sarah is starting to help on quite a few things, and very familiar with the community.
• Tim joined to help maintain the web part of the Regulations
• Jeremy works hard on TNoodle, with a lot of awesome help from Chen Shuang.
• Noah proposed the Mean of 3 BLD ranking by following a good process.
• Kit Clement helped figure out a few changes, including starting the logo thread and helping clean up some Regulations abotu stopwatches. He's also great at distilling things to a point where level-headed discussion is reasonable.
• Philippe Virouleau just started helping work on the Regulations (site + translations) build process.

Very few people realize that there is nothing special to the WRC. We have the following "exclusive" privileges:

• Being on the Delegate list for discussions.
• Being on a WRC mailing list to be available for questions, and very occasionally for internal discussion/decisions.
• Two of us have access to the WCA website for uploading the Regulations.

The Delegate list is a a tricky thing (I'd like it to be open, but discussions sometimes stem from incidents in Delegate reports), but basically any community member can do what any WRC member can do. Even/especially on GitHub, where the changes literally happen.
Apart from Kit, I haven't seen anyone doing that. While everyone is welcome to argue their viewpoint, it would be *very* valuable if some community members tried to focus on the part of the work that causes actually changes to land in the Regulations (i.e. not just arguing your point of view).

It's fair to critisize the current process, but only if you care about making it better.

 

[DrKorbin]

...

So what is the reason for forbidding printed/painted colors? I can't see any reason for that, and also I can't see a discussion on a github concerning that (#13 and #33 say nothing about painted and printed colors).

 

[Evan Wright]

That was one i do not get at all. how will you have an advantage by using painted cubes?

btw hey bob i learned pll from your website

 

[Radu]

Would it be appreciated if I would go through the entire regulations and would try to greatly simplify them?

I am basically planning on looking through all the regulations with the glasses of a newb that would like to have fun, not the lawmakers fineprint that is written

Personally, I am happy to read this post. I'm not going to go into details why, but I would appreciate it!

You have enough experience to do this and all what it takes. I really appreciate and understand all the efforts and time spent by Lucas and the others, but maybe such a 2nd view would be useful.
And to be honest, even for me, as a delegate, it's quite difficult to go into all the details of the current regulations. I consider they've become quite hard to read and difficult to know all of them. For someone new I'm sure it would be even harder.

 

[Lucas Garron]

Would it be appreciated if I would go through the entire regulations and would try to greatly simplify them?

I am basically planning on looking through all the regulations with the glasses of a newb that would like to have fun, not the lawmakers fineprint that is written

Personally, I am happy to read this post. I'm not going to go into details why, but I would appreciate it!

You have enough experience to do this and all what it takes. I really appreciate and understand all the efforts and time spent by Lucas and the others, but maybe such a 2nd view would be useful.
And to be honest, even for me, as a delegate, it's quite difficult to go into all the details of the current regulations. I consider they've become quite hard to read and difficult to know all of them. For someone new I'm sure it would be even harder.

2013 was a first pass to simplify things without changing the main structure. The Regulations could be simplified a more, but we'd need a clear place to put the "extra" stuff. The Guidelines are one place, but we don't have a clear place on the WCA site, say, to put the requirements for organizers. At least everything is *somewhere* in the Regulations or Guidelines right now, so the last thing I want is to split up information so that no one knows where it is (much less what it is). We can fix that (e.g. new WCA navigation, central pages with links), but that takes time and help.

I'd like to note that moving things around a lot will invalidate old discussions (and links) because of renumbering. That may be worth it if the results is clearly good enough, but it is something to be aware of.

Also, are you aware of Sarah's effort to create a "lite" version of the Regulations?

 

[AvGalen]

2013 was a first pass to simplify things without changing the main structure. The Regulations could be simplified a more, but we'd need a clear place to put the "extra" stuff. The Guidelines are one place, but we don't have a clear place on the WCA site, say, to put the requirements for organizers. At least everything is *somewhere* in the Regulations or Guidelines right now, so the last thing I want is to split up information so that no one knows where it is (much less what it is). We can fix that (e.g. new WCA navigation, central pages with links), but that takes time and help.

I'd like to note that moving things around a lot will invalidate old discussions (and links) because of renumbering. That may be worth it if the results is clearly good enough, but it is something to be aware of.

Also, are you aware of Sarah's effort to create a "lite" version of the Regulations?

Yes I am http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...itor-Must-Know&p=939556&viewfull=1#post939556

As a fellow coder I think that having github for this is great. But I also know that if you shake things up too much these version tracking systems can be limiting. Don't worry, I understand what you are asking of me.

 

[Natanrig]

I have come to post here as it has been here where so many thoughtless and thankless opinions have been expressed.

I have seen delegates, WRC members and Board members put in 1000+ hours into the 2014 regulation changes, but I have yet to see a post thanking them for the work and time they have selflessly devoted to this with no intent other than to serve the community and to make our passion more fun and fair. I mostly see senseless, half-baked ideas and arguments being thrown around. So, here is my personal take on some of these issues. I hope this serves to enlighten people as to our motives and reasoning.

1. Logoes and BLD events
What great ill have we done the community here? Not because other things cannot be regulated/enforced does it mean that we should not do this for things that can easily be. And let us be honest in our arguments. Who has a cube with different tensioning on one face so that it may be used to orient it blindfolded? Or is anyone really planning on changing their tensioning for this? How hard can it be to recognize your cube if you put a little paper marker under one of the caps? Seriously, if someone is really complaining about this, get some perspective.

2. Thick tiles
This is a point where I will take most of the responsibility. My limited experience with the Latin community is what prompted me to suggest that we should make this consistent with the rest of the regulations in the sense that back colors should not be visible. The Latin community being “young”, I had seen very few people using tiled puzzles and I assumed this was similar elsewhere. I admit that I was wrong and that this change affected many more people than I expected. However, the need for consistency remains and this change has to be effected sooner or later (as much as pillowed 7x7s have to go). There are talks now of a phase-out period, so we shall wait and see what comes of them.

3. FMC mean of three
How is this decision to the detriment of fun or fairness? Should we please blindfolded solvers and skewb fans and anybody else as long as they are not Board members? Resenting official recognition to others is pathetic. Will records cease to be records if they are not officially acknowledged? Perspective again, or has anybody been terribly wronged by this?

4. Painted/printed colors
Sure, if people have nothing better to do than gripe and be a pain, they will complain about this change. People will gripe if we are too specific and people will gripe if we try to simplify. How low does the percentage of people hypothetically affected has to be for us to be allowed to introduce a simplification?

I am sure the frustration and discontent can be felt throughout this post, but please take a second to really put yourselves in our shoes. You wouldn’t be all smiles if you had put in so much work and effort into something so little appreciated either, or if you had to see people call the product of so much work "nonsense", "bulls--t" and other less than flattering adjectives. If anybody feels offended by my post, it is probably because the shoe fits, and their whining and nitpicking is as little appreciated as our efforts apparently are.

-Natán

 

[Robert-Y]

Who has a cube with different tensioning on one face so that it may be used to orient it blindfolded? Or is anyone really planning on changing their tensioning for this?

This is slightly off topic: Even without considering the new regulations on logos, what is preventing people from doing this tension "hack"? In fact, should we even be preventing this?