# Proposal: Add Gender Sorting on the WCA Rankings



## SirWaffle (Oct 25, 2013)

[post hi-jack: this thread is no longer about this post]

Hi everyone, I have a proposal to make. I propose that WCA rankings be separated officially by gender. i.e. Female NR, Female WR, etc. I know what most of you are thinking " You just want it separated because you're a fast girl cuber! " . I can't deny the fact that that is true but I have two main reasons why I feel it should be separated. I feel it should be separated because so many other sports are separated by gender. Now many of you may think that cubing is such a fair sport and it does not matter whether you are male or female. Then I have one question, why is Cup Stacking separated by gender? Cup stacking is just as fair as cubing in terms of gender yet it is separated. So I see no reason why cubing should not be separated. My other reason is I feel it would make more girls interested in cubing knowing they have official records to work for rather than achieving a female but it is simply not be recognized officially. I don't think that it is fair to be honest. So thank you all very much for reading this. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.


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## Sa967St (Oct 25, 2013)

[2nd post hi-jack on March 10, 2014]

Notable posts by females since the thread revival on March 6, 2014:

rowan (Rowan Holop) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958255&viewfull=1#post958255
rowan (Rowan Holop) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958451&viewfull=1#post958451
rowan (Rowan Holop) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958821&viewfull=1#post958821

larf (Laura Ohrndorf) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958372&viewfull=1#post9583721
larf (Laura Ohrndorf) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958456&viewfull=1#post958456

Thaynara (Thaynara Santana de Oliveira) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958463&viewfull=1#post958463
Thaynara (Thaynara Santana de Oliveira) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958473&viewfull=1#post958473

Zoe (Zoé de Moffarts) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=958726&viewfull=1#post958726

Yuxuibbs (Yuxuan Chen) - http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=959703&viewfull=1#post959703

Sessinator (Sesi Cadmus) -http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?44568&p=959947&viewfull=1#post959947


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## Rubiks560 (Oct 25, 2013)

Do you mean just as a list? Or like make it so that they have OFFICIAL WRs for gender? 
Because I can guarantee official WRs based on gender won't happen.

Edit: I guess I should read more.
Yeah, I don't think it's likely at all that this will happen. Like Noah said, females are just as capable of getting a WR as a male. This just sounds like a slightly easier way for females to get one.


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## Noahaha (Oct 25, 2013)

Wait a second! Cupstacking has been using cups instead of cubes all of these years! We've been doing it all wrong!!!!!!!!!

But seriously... cubing treats everyone equally, and as far as we can tell, there's no reason not to. Female cubers are just as capable of being fast as male cubers. There just aren't as many of them. You'd have a better case arguing that there should be age divisions, since at the very least there is a difference in dexterity between older people and younger people.

Do you as a female feel like you would want to be treated differently because of your gender?


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## JasonK (Oct 25, 2013)

Sports are separated by sex because of physical inequality between males and females. Cubing, as far as we can tell, is not affected by this.

Concerning cup stacking, we really shouldn't let ourselves be affected by the bad rules of an unrelated hobby.


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## noobium (Oct 25, 2013)

could we have a separated ranking for 197040 hours old males living on my street? not because I'm the only one, more because im different than everybody else... i swear!


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## Carson (Oct 25, 2013)

Then someone would get a sex change and screw things up. FAZ: With a little nip/tuck, you could hold both world records...


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## Tim Major (Oct 25, 2013)

If you look at split sports, generally the male leagues get more attention. By having men and women competing for the same records, they receive the same recognition and praise as men do. There is no physical difference, as far as we know, making females worse at cubing.

However, the WCA does list whether each person is male or female, so if you head over to the WCA stats thread, just ask and someone might be able to make a list of female world records.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 25, 2013)

Probably only girls would be more interested in this and since there are so few of this, we don't have much of a voice. I'm for having the stats made available (age as well), but just the stats. iwca has some stats on gender and things and I have a certain sense of pride of being pretty good among females for a couple events. I would like to know how I rank on the age spectrum too. However, I don't think things like WR/NR should have gender or age divisions.


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## Noahaha (Oct 25, 2013)

Nothing wrong with an unofficial list, but I think that anything official would be against the spirit of the WCA.


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## uniacto (Oct 25, 2013)

oh hey you're back! It's already been a month? 

Personally, I think that it's a bad idea to have a separate list for a different sex. Like others have said, there's no physical limitation between female and male cubers, like in other sports.


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## Patrick M (Oct 25, 2013)

Sorry waffle, exactly what noah said is what I was going to say. Reason for seperation of gender/age in competitions is usually do to advantages and other things.


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## TMOY (Oct 25, 2013)

Tim Major said:


> However, the WCA does list whether each person is male or female, so if you head over to the WCA stats thread, just ask and someone might be able to make a list of female world records.


Just FYI, an unofficial site giving world rankings by gender already exists.


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## Tim Major (Oct 25, 2013)

TMOY said:


> Just FYI, an unofficial site giving world rankings by gender already exists.



Yeah that was just posted by sneaklyfox. Nice site. It's actually faster than the official website than me for some reason, so I prefer it. The official website seem reaaaaally slow at times.


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## stoic (Oct 25, 2013)

I think what Noah said pretty well sums it up for me.
There's no reason to patronise female cubers by treating them differently in any way


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## ~Adam~ (Oct 25, 2013)

*Proposal: Separate WCA Rankings Officially by Gender.*

It's a sexist proposal IMO.
It implies that one sex has a physical or mental advantage over the other.
The only advantage males have that I'm aware of is sheer numbers.

Edit - and now that I have read the thread my post is clearly redundant.


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)

Just thought I would share the numbers here:





More stats to follow.


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## PeelingStickers (Oct 25, 2013)

cubizh said:


> Just thought I would share the numbers here:
> 
> 
> Spoiler: image
> ...



what are those 472? :O


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## conn9 (Oct 25, 2013)

PeelingStickers said:


> what are those 472? :O



I think most of those just haven't specified what gender they are.


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)

PeelingStickers said:


> what are those 472? :O


I assume a gender was not provided in the information submitted to the WCA.


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## RCTACameron (Oct 25, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> Probably only girls would be more interested in this and since there are so few of this, we don't have much of a voice. I'm for having the stats made available (age as well), but just the stats. iwca has some stats on gender and things and I have a certain sense of pride of being pretty good among females for a couple events. I would like to know how I rank on the age spectrum too. However, I don't think things like WR/NR should have gender or age divisions.



I just looked at that website and realised:

Yu Da-Hyun has a 48.80 Megaminx average, 3rd in the world, which is amazing considering her age.
Alexandra Daryl Ariawan (regular at Australian comps) has the female square-1 average and single WRs


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)




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## windhero (Oct 25, 2013)

Way to improve gender equality. In short, nope. I'd even argue that women are stereotypically better at things that require dexterity compared to men (e.g. handiwork).

Cup stacking being separated into gender divisions is just stupid and infact I think that cup stacking regulations should be changed rather than cubing regulations. Sports are divided by gender because the anatomy of a man is different to that of a woman and building up muscle is easier for both performance and resistance. Cubing requires fast reflexes, good lookahead, dexterity and to a certain extent speed, none of which are affected by gender.


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## RicardoRix (Oct 25, 2013)

Chess has separate men and women competitions, although they do allow women to compete in the men's like Judit Polgár who is recognised to be much better than the current women world champion. 

Personally I can't see much of a reason or difference to separate, and like windhero says I think there are probably more reason for an average female to be better than an average male.


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)

Spoiler: Number of Female WCA Competitors by Country (70 total)




* Country	** #	* China	 599	 USA	 469	 India	 146	 Brazil	 121	 France	 115	 Germany	 110	 Japan	 88	 Poland	 70	 Spain	 70	 Canada	 65	 Indonesia	 65	 Philippines	 60	 Ukraine	 48	 Netherlands	 42	 Taiwan	 41	 Sweden	 38	 Hungary	 35	 Thailand	 33	 United Kingdom	 32	 Russia	 30	 Iran	 30	 Korea	 28	 Norway	 27	 Italy	 25	 Mexico	 21	 Chile	 21	 Australia	 19	 Denmark	 18	 Peru	 15	 Malaysia	 15	 Belgium	 14	 New Zealand	 14	 Colombia	 14	 Romania	 12	 Hong Kong	 11	 Vietnam	 10	 Singapore	 9	 Israel	 8	 Belarus	 8	 Argentina	 7	 Finland	 6	 Turkey	 6	 Austria	 5	 Croatia	 5	 Slovenia	 4	 Portugal	 3	 Slovakia	 3	 Greece	 3	 Macau	 3	 United Arab Emirates	 3	 Mongolia	 3	 Czech Republic	 2	 El Salvador	 2	 Iceland	 2	 Venezuela	 2	 Cyprus	 2	 Serbia	 1	 Bulgaria	 1	 Aruba	 1	 Switzerland	 1	 South Africa	 1	 Ireland	 1	 Lithuania	 1	 Sri Lanka	 1	 Morocco	 1	 Estonia	 1	 Kazakhstan	 1	 Luxembourg	 1	 Latvia	 1


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## tx789 (Oct 25, 2013)

cubizh said:


> Spoiler: Number of Female WCA Competitors by Country (70 total)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What a list order by the most balanced gender ratio. 

Still having the option to filter gender when searching on the wca website is fine but the male and female records *[NO*


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## Kirjava (Oct 25, 2013)

I guess they don't treat gender like countries.


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## antoineccantin (Oct 25, 2013)

No, since both genders have a perfectly equal potential to get fast times. Proof: Emily Wang, Yu Da-Hyn, etc.


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)

tx789 said:


> What a list order by the most balanced gender ratio.


See here


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## Stefan (Oct 25, 2013)

SirWaffle said:


> I propose that WCA rankings be separated officially by gender. i.e. Female NR, Female WR, etc.



We recently discussed this on the WCA delegate group and I'd say the result was that we don't want that. There was some support and no objection for adding a "100 Female" option here like we already have some "odd" filters like "1000 Results". Would that make you happy enough?

Personally, I initially was against any distinction but changed my mind towards a non-prominent female ranking because of three things:

 Females are very much underrepresented (half the general population but only 10% in cubing).
 Major cultural precedent for gender distinction.
 Some people want it.



SirWaffle said:


> why is Cup Stacking separated by gender?



I don't know. Ask the cup stackers. Then tell us. I'd actually be interested in their reasoning.

What I do know is that Emily Fox was stacking's super star for a while and that Jackie Huang currently holds the cycle WR among females with 6.440 seconds, which some time back would've beaten all males. It's not clear that females can't be as good stackers as males... maybe they're just currently trailing behind and will eventually catch up again. And which group is in front is influenced by their sizes - larger groups have larger potential for more extreme cases.



Tim Major said:


> It's actually faster than the official website than me for some reason, so I prefer it. The official website seem reaaaaally slow at times.



How slow and at what times? How about right now? I know we occasionally have a problem with our current host, where all requests get a weird 30 seconds delay.


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## GuRoux (Oct 25, 2013)

RicardoRix said:


> Chess has separate men and women competitions, although they do allow women to compete in the men's like Judit Polgár who is recognised to be much better than the current women world champion.
> 
> Personally I can't see much of a reason or difference to separate, and like windhero says I think there are probably more reason for an average female to be better than an average male.



in chess, most tournaments allow both men and women, only special tournaments like women's world championships, etc. will have it separate. Judith Polgar is the only women ranked in the top 100. i think the most major difference is popularity.


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## SirWaffle (Oct 25, 2013)

Rubiks560 said:


> . This just sounds like a slightly easier way for females to get one.


Using that logic shouldn't there be ONLY WRs because NRs and CRs are slightly easier to achieve, are they not? Of course it depends on where you live but just the same they are easier to achieve. 


Noahaha said:


> Do you as a female feel like you would want to be treated differently because of your gender?


No, I know this is hard to believe but I did not make this proposal in hopes of only benefiting myself. Lets look at it this way. If it werern't the fact you had an NR to works torwards would you be anywhere near as movtivated to get good at blind? Now i as a female see that pretty much only men are world class and have acheive records with a few exceptions i.e emily wang, yu day or whatever her name is. And with that being said it is seemingly impossible for females to get records or at least have the motivation to. But it the ranking were indeed split then female would have more records to work toward or what seem more possible for them to achieve.



JasonK said:


> Sports are separated by sex because of physical inequality between males and females. Cubing, as far as we can tell, is not affected by this.
> 
> Concerning cup stacking, we really shouldn't let ourselves be affected by the bad rules of an unrelated hobby.



I am simply using cup stacking as an argument since it is a sport not affected by your gender but the rankings are separated.




Stefan said:


> We recently discussed this on the WCA delegate group and I'd say the result was that we don't want that. There was some support and no objection for adding a "100 Female" option here like we already have some "odd" filters like "1000 Results". Would that make you happy enough?
> 
> .



No, that actually would not make me happy enough because I can already see the female rankings using iwca.jp and if you did add that option it still would not change the fact the records are not seen as "real".


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## Noahaha (Oct 25, 2013)

SirWaffle said:


> No, I know this is hard to believe but I did not make this proposal in hopes of only benefiting myself. Lets look at it this way. If it werern't the fact you had an NR to works torwards would you be anywhere near as movtivated to get good at blind? Now i as a female see that pretty much only men are world class and have acheive records with a few exceptions i.e emily wang, yu day or whatever her name is. And with that being said it is seemingly impossible for females to get records or at least have the motivation to. But it the ranking were indeed split then female would have more records to work toward or what seem more possible for them to achieve.



You talk about my NR as if you don't have the same thing. You totally do. Why can't you go for NRs like everyone else?

You still haven't presented any reason to make a distinction for females other than the fact that there aren't very many of them.


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## Rubiks560 (Oct 25, 2013)

What I'm getting from this is: 

Women need a handy cap to get a WR. Like many have said, women are fully capable of getting it (Emily Wang, little Megaminx girl) so why do we need it to be divided? There is no physical limitation.

Also, your point towards Noah doesn't really work. You do have an NR to strive for but you're saying it's too hard to get.

Edit: Also, it seems like you're the only girl who actually wants this. Don't see Emily complaining about it. She had to work hard to get where she is. It shouldn't be easier for others who don't wanna work.


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## Sa967St (Oct 25, 2013)

SirWaffle said:


> Stefan said:
> 
> 
> > We recently discussed this on the WCA delegate group and I'd say the result was that we don't want that. There was some support and no objection for adding a "100 Female" option here like we already have some "odd" filters like "1000 Results". Would that make you happy enough?
> ...


Does it really matter whether it's seen as "real" or not? I think it'd be neat to have "100 Female" added as a filter for the sake of making female statistics easily accessible for those who are interested in seeing them, but it seems like it's against the spirit of the WCA to actually divide the rankings to make female rankings "official".


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## waffle=ijm (Oct 25, 2013)

As a female cuber, I believe that having gender specific "records" is just a way to get ahead, rather using one's gender to make it easier to get a record. To be honest, I wouldn't like that that, because there would be no point. To me, it seems demeaning. It's almost saying that females are not capable of reaching what males can do, and like stefan said, I would like the reasoning for cupstacking's decision for separating ranking in the first place. Females are more than capable of reaching NR, CR, WR status, there aren't a lot competing. As more and more females compete over time, the idea of gender specific records will seem silly.


EDIT - I have been informed that I am not female


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## Deleted member 19792 (Oct 25, 2013)

1. There will always be a fastest girl cuber. There is a huge chance Yu Da Hyun will be first female WR holder. 

2. The interest of solving the rubiks cube is everywhere. I started a club at SMBA and about 25 people showed up to hear about plans and such. 12 girls showed up. Some knew how to solve one. The problem is getting them interested in speedsolving and competing. 

3. Someone claimed Cup Stacking is the practice of learning how to put dishes away, which gets me in trouble because I keep dropping cups on the floor when I do community service in the cafeteria. Cup Stacking is fun!

EDIT - Waffo! SIRWAFFO


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## Stefan (Oct 25, 2013)

SirWaffle said:


> I am simply using cup stacking as an argument since it is a sport *not affected by your gender* but the rankings are separated.



You just shot yourself in the foot. A lot.


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## SirWaffle (Oct 25, 2013)

Clearly I have no decent argument and have lost. It was at least worth a shot though. I wish I had more to say but I don't so whatever.


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## cubizh (Oct 25, 2013)

waffle=ijm said:


> EDIT - I have been informed that I am not female


I would doublecheck your sources if I were you 


Rubiks560 said:


> women are fully capable of getting it (Emily Wang, little Megaminx girl)


I would like to take a moment to also mention Laura Ohrndorf.
She is the competitor (male or female) with *most wins* in the Rubik's Clock event.
She is also 12th in the world for single and 10th for average.


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## KingTim96 (Oct 25, 2013)

I understand what you are saying but I don't know if making it official would be a good idea. Seperating by gender would have the same effects (in my opinion) as separating by race would have. Just cause I'm African American, does that mean I don't have the same chances as Caucasian people do to get a WR? No not at all. The only thing that really separates the two groups, male and female cubers, is how many of us there are. Everybody has the potential to get a WR in my opinion. Some people just want it more than others so they practice harder and more often until they get it. I hope that made sense.


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## BaMiao (Oct 25, 2013)

I agree with the conclusion here that official gender-based records are not a solution. However, I do find it troubling to see that female cubers are such a small minority within the community. It might be worthwhile to look into the reasons for this disparity and try to find other courses of action.

Perhaps the cause is somewhere along the lines with what is said about the relatively small number of women in STEM fields. Cubing in general is just thought of as a "boy's" activity, which discourages girls from finding an interest, maybe? Is there something we can do to change this?


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## Stefan (Oct 25, 2013)

BaMiao said:


> It might be worthwhile to look into the reasons for this disparity



Girls/women probably got better things to do than turning a toy all day long. They're actually the smart ones.


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## ThomasJE (Oct 25, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Girls/women probably got better things to do than turning a toy all day long. They're actually the smart ones.



I do think that females have a higher IQ than males. By that reasoning, females should be the ones with all the world records.

I think it's all down to interest levels and that it is mainly males that have the interest.


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## BaMiao (Oct 25, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Girls/women probably got better things to do than turning a toy all day long. They're actually the smart ones.





ThomasJE said:


> I do think that females have a higher IQ than males.



Why wife would agree with both of these sentiments.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 25, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Girls/women probably got better things to do than turning a toy all day long. They're actually the smart ones.



Lol... meaning girl cubers are the dumber specimens of their gender?

I actually thought of Waffle's point before I saw her post about having a ranking for different countries. It doesn't mean the citizens of one country is faster than another, but it would encourage more participation in countries where cubing is less popular. If people there feel it's not as difficult earning a NR, it is a motivator. Leaving the gender thing aside, we could even have ranking for province or state or city, for example. It just seems silly to go down that far, but nobody would think I felt I needed a handicap if I lived in the most popular cubing country, would they? People just get too touchy about gender, like they would if things were ranked according to race as well, because you can label people clearly. But it's harder to label every Canadian "patriotic" and every American "obnoxious" for example because there are all walks of people in those countries (and others).



Noahaha said:


> You talk about my NR as if you don't have the same thing. You totally do. Why can't you go for NRs like everyone else?
> 
> You still haven't presented any reason to make a distinction for females other than the fact that there aren't very many of them.



I think her point was that you need a rankings by country in order to get a NR. If there was none and WR was the only thing that counted then you would not have a "NR" title at all. What was the reason WCA separated rankings by countries and continents besides convention?

But I understand why we can't have things like FWR or FNR... WCA would be seen as sexist, for one... and other reasons.

On the official WCA site though, I'd like to see the gender filter. I'd be happy enough with that.

Edit: Sorry for double posting.


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## Noahaha (Oct 25, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> I think her point was that you need a rankings by country in order to get a NR. If there was none and WR was the only thing that counted then you would not have a "NR" title at all. What was the reason WCA separated rankings by countries and continents besides convention?
> 
> But I understand why we can't have things like FWR or FNR... WCA would be seen as sexist, for one... and other reasons.
> 
> ...



Ah I see. I agree with you that there's no reason not to have a gender filter on the rankings page.


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## qqwref (Oct 25, 2013)

I disagree. Cubing is simply not a sport where your gender could be a significant handicap. Speedcubing, in practice, requires mostly finger dexterity and various mental abilities. The mental abilities required to be a top-tier speedcuber are not nearly complex enough to get to the point where there may be intrinsic gender differences, and as we can see from music and typing, both men and women can reach world-class levels of finger dexterity. I do not want to send the signal that women simply cannot compete with the men - they can, and have, achieved amazing times. Honestly, the biggest thing holding back women's times is just that there are fewer of them.



SirWaffle said:


> Now many of you may think that cubing is such a fair sport and it does not matter whether you are male or female. Then I have one question, why is Cup Stacking separated by gender?


I have another question, why is cup stacking separated by age? They have a full dozen age brackets, most of which are very small, and it's a sport that, like cubing, is mainly based around finger dexterity and how much time you've put into it. It's really not the kind of sport where you can't expect a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old to fairly compete. I honestly think that cup stacking only has as many divisions as it does to make itself more popular. They divide the same event up many ways (2*12 = 24 per event!) so that many people can get attention or coverage for their "world records" and make the few actual events they have more exciting.



SirWaffle said:


> My other reason is I feel it would make more girls interested in cubing knowing they have official records to work for


This is a legitimate point; having female records would probably bring more girls into cubing. But in the end I think we would be better off creating an unofficial sub-ranking for women only. If we really separate the records, it'd only be fair to separate other things too, like competitions. And then we have to organize and give prizes for a separate female round of everything, a round which may only have a few people at a small local competition...


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## elrog (Oct 25, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> I do think that females have a higher IQ than males. By that reasoning, females should be the ones with all the world records.
> 
> I think it's all down to interest levels and that it is mainly males that have the interest.



IQ tests don't really prove much of anything. I do not think that women or men are smarter regardless of the area of intelligence you are referring to, just that women who can put more effort into their studies (I say this because some countries do not educate women) do put more effort into it on average than males do which makes it appear that women are smarter because they have higher IQs.


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## kcl (Oct 25, 2013)

elrog said:


> IQ tests don't really prove much of anything. I do not think that women or men are smarter regardless of the area of intelligence you are referring to, just that women who can put more effort into their studies (I say this because some countries do not educate women) do put more effort into it on average than males do which makes it appear that women are smarter because they have higher IQs.



Well, I think you're right. I highly doubt that Faz or Mats or many fast people have "Genius" IQ. Honestly IQ has very little to do with it like you said. What really matters is the dedication and natural skill of the cuber.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 26, 2013)

IQ tests only show a narrow view of things. People don't like making what could be called "sexist" comments, but it's easy to accept in athletics that men are generally stronger and faster than women (distinction made in many Olympic sports.) Even though I'm a woman, I believe it is generally men who are better at mathematics, science, engineering, etc. This is not to say there aren't exceptions, of course, and we should never label individuals just because of stereotype. This also isn't to say that men are "smarter" unless your definition of "smart" has to do with one of the topics I mentioned. Take multitasking, for example... most women are better at multitasking than men. And then there's things like... asking for directions. It's much faster to just ask someone and find out right away how to get somewhere than drive around in circles, staring at a map and adamantly declaring that one is not lost for a few hours before swallowing the ego and admitting any fault. And the girlfriend/wife sitting in the passenger seat is surely thinking this is "dumb". I'm just stating a stereotypical example here. Men and women just have different strengths and natural abilities. It's stupid not to admit that this is true, but we don't always know what all those are, especially when it comes to something as esoteric as cubing.


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> I do think that females have a higher IQ than males. *By that reasoning, females should be the ones with all the world records.*



Apparently you understood the complete opposite of what I meant. Which was that not wasting so much time with a toy is a sign of being smart. So by that logic they shouldn't have all records, they should have *none*.



sneaklyfox said:


> Lol... meaning girl cubers are the dumber specimens of their gender?



Um... well... oops, I guess I didn't fully think this through


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## Tim Major (Oct 26, 2013)

Stefan said:


> How slow and at what times? How about right now? I know we occasionally have a problem with our current host, where all requests get a weird 30 seconds delay.



Slow as in: will not load results within 15 seconds so I retry, takes multiple retrys. Australian net isn't fast, but mine is extremely consistent, so unless other people haven't had this problem I THINK it isn't on my end. Hasn't happened within the last month, but used to happen every time I tried almost.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 26, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Apparently you understood the complete opposite of what I meant. Which was that not wasting so much time with a toy is a sign of being smart. So by that logic they shouldn't have all records, they should have *none*.


I think higher IQ is only one factor when it comes to speedcubing, but there are others. Meaning I don't think someone with low IQ has a good chance of doing well in speedcubing, but also that someone with high IQ may not do well in speedcubing either. Also, you can still be a fool but have high IQ. Like, don't most men find women impossible to understand? The truth is, you're too *dumb* to understand us. 



Stefan said:


> Um... well... oops, I guess I didn't fully think this through


Heehee...


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## Lucas Garron (Oct 26, 2013)

There are at least two ideas here:

- Add an option to the WCA results for viewing female rankings.
- Recognize female records like continental records.

I think the first one is reasonable, it just requires reasonable interest and someone to code it.
The second one requires some thought. In particular, we should first figure out what we *want* (Single out female cubers as special/significant? <ake them feel more welcome? Increase their visibility to encourage girls to become interested?), and base the choice on that.



On a slightly related note, I've always been bothered that the Regulations use male pronouns. We have a disclaimer, but I would like the Regulations to be gender-neutral, or at least not male-biased. It's hard to do this while keeping it easy to read for an international audience (i.e. no singular "they"/special pronouns/awkward "(s)he" or he/she constructs). The best I've managed to do is switch the default gender to female. If anyone has any good ideas, I'd love to hear them.
(If you're going to defend the continued use of "he" as the default, please read Hofstadter's "Person Paper on Purity in Language" before you post.)


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## ryanj92 (Oct 26, 2013)

But that doesn't change anything :/ 
Is the singular form of 'they' really that difficult to use/understand? Especially when 'the competitor', which is a neutral term, is what is dominantly used in the regulations anyway? It seems silly to me that we use a neutral term and then a gender-specific term to describe the competitors. That way, ALL genders are covered. Maybe this warrants a separate thread at this point, I dunno 

On topic: I'd love to see rankings by gender. In this case, I would like to also see 'other' become a more valid choice.


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## stoic (Oct 26, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> Take multitasking, for example... most women are better at multitasking than men. And then there's things like... asking for directions. It's much faster to just ask someone and find out right away how to get somewhere than drive around in circles, staring at a map and adamantly declaring that one is not lost for a few hours before swallowing the ego and admitting any fault. And the girlfriend/wife sitting in the passenger seat is surely thinking this is "dumb". I'm just stating a stereotypical example here. Men and women just have different strengths and natural abilities. It's stupid not to admit that this is true, but we don't always know what all those are, especially when it comes to something as esoteric as cubing.


The driving/directions thing is hilariously true. (Although if you women could learn to read a map without turning it upside-down maybe you wouldn't get us men lost in the first place )
In our house we have the problem "why can't the men see what's in front of them" (especially when looking for something in the fridge). 
I always liked the explanation that men are hunter-gatherers, used to tracking things at high speed from a distance (partly explains why we like sports so much) whereas women are evolved to protect their children from danger which may be close by which gives them greater spatial awareness.


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## Hypocrism (Oct 26, 2013)

I would support this. In fact the universal tendency of men to be better on average at spatial reasoning than women, a trait immediately applicable to cubing, would make it immediately comparable to separating sport by gender, due to the same universal tendency of men to be stronger on average.


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## ~Adam~ (Oct 26, 2013)

*Proposal: Separate WCA Rankings Officially by Gender.*



sneaklyfox said:


> Take multitasking, for example... most women are better at multitasking than men.



Large studies have shown that the better you think you are at multitasking the more likely it is that you are bad at it.
Just something interesting I wanted to share, I'm not implying that men are better at it because women think they are =P
It's probably related to complacency.



sneaklyfox said:


> Also, you can still be a fool but have high IQ.



Greetings!


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## TimMc (Oct 26, 2013)

Is there any need to separate men and women in WCA events?

A filter that displays rankings based on gender is simple enough to implement. However, if we actually want to split NR's, CR's and WR's by gender fairly then men would have to compete in one 3x3 event while women compete in another 3x3 event.

If they're mixed up in the same round then how would you determine who goes through to the second round or final? Top 8 Men and Top 8 Women from the previous round?

If they're not mixed up then which event should be held first at a competition: Men's 3x3 or Women's 3x3?

If there are only a couple of women at the competition then would they only get to compete in one round? Would someone always come first because she's the only female competitor? Would prizes be distributed fairly between Men's 3x3 and Women's 3x3?

Would having a Women's 3x3 event result in more participation by women?

It'd be great if this split could somehow act as a catalyst to increase participation by women. On the other hand, could this completely crush women out of the sport due to the current lack of participation (i.e. not enough competitors to have more rounds; not as many people to compete against; feeling a bit more isolated if there are three women and fifty men at a competition)?

Tim.


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## ryanj92 (Oct 26, 2013)

TimMc said:


> However, if we actually want to split NR's, CR's and WR's by gender fairly then men would have to compete in one 3x3 event while women compete in another 3x3 event.



What, why? When we have people of different nationalities at a competition, we don't do a round of 3x3x3 for each country, so that really doesn't make any sense. :/


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 26, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> On a slightly related note, I've always been bothered that the Regulations use male pronouns. We have a disclaimer, but I would like the Regulations to be gender-neutral, or at least not male-biased. It's hard to do this while keeping it easy to read for an international audience (i.e. no singular "they"/special pronouns/awkward "(s)he" or he/she constructs). The best I've managed to do is switch the default gender to female. If anyone has any good ideas, I'd love to hear them.
> (If you're going to defend the continued use of "he" as the default, please read Hofstadter's "Person Paper on Purity in Language" before you post.)


Weird, but the use of the male pronoun does not bother me. English does not have a gender neutral pronoun equivalent to "he/she" except "it" which is used for objects, not people so why not use "he"? "She" is used to specify us *special* females haha. "She/he" and "(s)he" constructs are silly in my opinion if you have to use them all over the place. People are always so uptight about being politically correct. *Sigh*.




ellwd said:


> The driving/directions thing is hilariously true. (Although if you women could learn to read a map without turning it upside-down maybe you wouldn't get us men lost in the first place )
> In our house we have the problem "why can't the men see what's in front of them" (especially when looking for something in the fridge).
> I always liked the explanation that men are hunter-gatherers, used to tracking things at high speed from a distance (partly explains why we like sports so much) whereas women are evolved to protect their children from danger which may be close by which gives them greater spatial awareness.


There are many other common examples of the differences between men and women, I'm sure. Actually, I have some of that problem of not seeing something right in front of me. But I'm not quite typical... in many ways... I won't bother giving examples of that now.



cube-o-holic said:


> Large studies have shown that the better you think you are at multitasking the more likely it is that you are bad at it.
> Just something interesting I wanted to share, I'm not implying that men are better at it because women think they are =P
> It's probably related to complacency.


Likely, that's because of the ego difference. Men tend to think they are good at everything and women tend to have lower self-esteem. (Sorry for blanket statement.) It's funny but I am stating all these gender stereotypes when I don't fit most of them.


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## ryanj92 (Oct 26, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> English does not have a gender neutral pronoun equivalent to "he/she" except "it" which is used for objects...


Yes it does, 'they' can be used in a singular form  (http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/they.html)


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 26, 2013)

ryanj92 said:


> Yes it does, 'they' can be used in a singular form  (http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/they.html)



Oops, you're right. It just sounds kind of silly in some places, imo.


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> The best I've managed to do is switch the default gender to female.



Only about 10.7% of WCA members are females.
Only about 5.4% of attempts were by females, so when for example talking about the competitor's solving procedure, "she" is correct about 5.4% of the time.

"He" isn't always correct, but it's at least correct most of the time. "She" is rarely correct, so I'd say it's much worse than "he".


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## Flatland (Oct 26, 2013)

I believe this discussion should focus more on equal representation of women and men, girls and boys in the speedsolving community. If the WCA believes that a 50/50 gender split is beneficial for the longterm health of the sport, then a more prominent position should be given to fast female cubers, which may include but is not exclusive to female-only events at prominent competitions such as Nationals and Worlds and female-only records.

Although there is no overt and explicit gender discrimination in the structure of WCA competitions and in speedsolving, the current 90/10 gender split is a huge deterrent for girls thinking about getting into cubing. This amounts to a de facto sexism that is often easily overlooked. The 90/10 split is not unlike the current situation in many science and engineering fields. Participation by girls and women in these fields is seen as vital for longterm economic prosperity as well as gender equality so there are currently many organized efforts to get girls interested in math and computer science. The point is: if you're a 14 year old girl who just learned how to solve a cube, would you want to get better and attend competitions? Do you have anyone to look up to? We have all watched numerous official solves. How many women do we see in the backgrounds at these competitions? Would a girl feel comfortable in that environment if she were the only girl there?

The creation of female-only events and records is not sexist. Sexism is not only discrimination based on gender but the attitudes and cultural elements that promote this discrimination along with the institutional power to enact that discrimination. Currently, all five members of the WCA board are men, and there will be a slant (however subconscious) in the board's decision making toward male attitudes. More interest among girls and women in cubing will more likely lead to a future where decisions regarding organized speedsolving can be made with the equal representation of men and women.

As a disclosure, I am a man. I am a teacher at an all-girls school. One question I often get is: why is all-girls education still relevant today when it seems like girls and boys should be taught that both genders are equal? My answer lies in the results. I run an all-girls math team. I teach a very popular computer science course. There are two or three girls at every grade level who are interested in solving a Rubik's cube. There was an informal speedsolving competition that was held at a school assembly last year. This is simply not the case at most co-ed schools.

As a life-long participant in male dominated activities (math team, Magic: the Gathering, computer science), I recognize that it is not enough to stand behind the argument that gender neutrality is the same as gender equality. Action is required. If you believe that the 90/10 gender split is bad for speedsolving, then something should be done. Female-only events and records are two good proposals along these lines and should be considered.


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

Flatland said:


> Although there is no overt and explicit gender discrimination in the structure of WCA competitions and in speedsolving, the current 90/10 gender split is a huge deterrent for girls thinking about getting into cubing.



Or it's an incentive, as it makes it easier for them to feel special (by being the best or among the best of their gender, or even just by being different and getting above-average attention).



Flatland said:


> Participation by girls and women in these fields is seen as vital for longterm economic prosperity



Why?



Flatland said:


> Currently, all five members of the WCA board are men, and there will be a slant (however subconscious) in the board's decision making toward male attitudes.



And I guess an example of this darn male attitude is Lucas' suggestion to use "she" and not "he" in the regulations? And another would be your own post?



Flatland said:


> This is simply not the case at most co-ed schools.



I'd guess it's not the case at most schools, co-ed or not. Please don't generalize an exception, thank you.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 26, 2013)

Flatland said:


> I believe this discussion should focus more on equal representation of women and men, girls and boys in the speedsolving community. If the WCA believes that a 50/50 gender split is beneficial for the longterm health of the sport, then a more prominent position should be given to fast female cubers, which may include but is not exclusive to female-only events at prominent competitions such as Nationals and Worlds and female-only records.
> 
> Although there is no overt and explicit gender discrimination in the structure of WCA competitions and in speedsolving, the current 90/10 gender split is a huge deterrent for girls thinking about getting into cubing. This amounts to a de facto sexism that is often easily overlooked. The 90/10 split is not unlike the current situation in many science and engineering fields. Participation by girls and women in these fields is seen as vital for longterm economic prosperity as well as gender equality so there are currently many organized efforts to get girls interested in math and computer science. The point is: if you're a 14 year old girl who just learned how to solve a cube, would you want to get better and attend competitions? Do you have anyone to look up to? We have all watched numerous official solves. How many women do we see in the backgrounds at these competitions? Would a girl feel comfortable in that environment if she were the only girl there?
> 
> ...



Well said. (And welcome to the forums. You appear to be new here.) I have to think more about this, but I can answer the question about being the only girl at a competition. A bit of background first... I studied mechanical engineering at university so most of my classmates were men. In my robotics class, I was the only female in the room with about 30 other men. I'm accustomed to being in the midst of gathering where the vast majority of the people are male, but would have welcomed a female companion. At the one competition I went to, I was not the only girl there. But I wondered if the other girls in the room actually cared about cubing as much as the men there. If there was an equal dedication among female cubers that would be great, but given the choice, I'd feel more comfortable sitting at a table of all-male cubing enthusiasts than a table of all females who just know how to solve a cube and don't really care all that much. Encouraging more female participation by having "official" female records will probably work to some degree, but getting a 50/50 split is probably never going to happen.



Stefan said:


> Or it's an incentive, as it makes it easier for them to feel special (by being the best or among the best of their gender, or even just by being different and getting above-average attention).



Because I think a 90/10 split is intimidating to most girls who wouldn't want to do it in part because they view cubing as a boys activity. If this view is put out of their minds then perhaps it would be more attractive to girls to participate. Right now, probably more women can solve it than we know officially because they're too shy to go to competitions and I think this would change if there was a female/male split.


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## qqwref (Oct 26, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> The best I've managed to do is switch the default gender to female. If anyone has any good ideas, I'd love to hear them.


I still think "they" is a far better gender-neutral pronoun. Although it is arguably not grammatically correct, it feels natural in speech and in writing, and is very clearly not gendered. To be honest, when I read "she" it makes me wonder why they are specifically talking about women. The following regulations with "she" seem to work fine with a "they" replacement or with a slight rewrite:


Spoiler



2a) Any person may compete in a WCA competition if they:
2j1) If a competitor is disqualified from an event for any reason, they are not eligible for any more attempts in the event.
2j2) If a competitor is disqualified during the course of an event, their earlier results remain valid. Exception: cheating or defrauding (see Regulation 2k2a).
4g) After scrambling a puzzle, the scrambler must verify that they have scrambled the puzzle correctly. If the puzzle state is wrong, they must correct it (e.g. by solving the puzzle and applying the scramble sequence again).
5b1) If a competitor chooses to repair the puzzle, they must repair only the defective pieces. Tools and/or pieces of other puzzles must not be used to repair the original puzzle. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
5b3b) If, after repairing the puzzle but before the end of the attempt, the competitor finds that the puzzle is unsolvable, they may disassemble and reassemble a maximum of 4 pieces to make the puzzle solvable.
5c) A puzzle defect does not give a competitor the right to an extra attempt.
7h1) The organisation team may require a competitor to remain within the Competitors Area, from the time they are called to compete until the end of their last attempt for the round.
9f9) For "Average of 5" rounds, one DNF or DNS is permitted to count as the competitor's worst result of the round. If a competitor has more than one DNF and/or DNS result in the round, their average score for the round is DNF.
9f11) For "Mean of 3" rounds, if the competitor has at least one DNF or DNS result, their average score for the round is DNF.
9p3) If a qualifying competitor withdraws from a round, they may be replaced by the best-ranked competitor below the cutoff from the preceding round.
11d) If the WCA Regulations are not fully clear or if the incident is not covered by the WCA Regulations, then the WCA Delegate must make a decision based on fair sportsmanship.
A2a) When called for a round, the competitor submits her puzzle, in its solved state, to the scrambler and waits in the Competitors Area until they are called to compete.
A3b1) When the judge believes the competitor is ready, the judge asks "READY?". The competitor must be ready to start the attempt within one minute of this. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF), at the discretion of the judge.
A3b2) When the competitor confirms they are ready, the judge uncovers the puzzle. If the attempt requires a stopwatch, the judge starts it at the same time.
A3c3) The competitor may reset the timer before they start the solve.
A4b) The competitor places their hands on the elevated sensor unit of the timer, with their fingers touching the sensors and their palms down. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds). 
A4d) The competitor starts the solve by confirming that the timer light is green and then removing their hands from the timer, thus starting the timer. 
A6a1) If a stopwatch is in use as the timing device, the competitor ends the solve by releasing the puzzle and notifying the judge that they have stopped the solve.
A6a2) When using a stopwatch without a Stackmat, the competitor's default notification signal consists of releasing all puzzles from their hands and placing their hands on the surface with palms down. The competitor and the judge may agree on another appropriate notification before the beginning of the solve.
A6b1) If the timer stops before the end of the solve and the timer shows a time strictly below 0.06 seconds, then the attempt is replaced by an extra attempt. A competitor forfeits the right to the additional attempt if the WCA Delegate determines that the timer was stopped deliberately.
A6b2) If the timer stops before the end of the solve and displays a time of 0.06 seconds or higher, then the attempt is disqualified (DNF). Exception: if the competitor can demonstrate that the timer malfunctioned, they may receive an extra attempt, at the WCA Delegate's discretion.
A6g) The judge determines whether the puzzle is solved. They must not make moves or align faces when examining the puzzle. Exception: The judge is permitted to make moves when examining a Clock.
A7a1) If the judge finds that the puzzle is solved, the judge calls "OKAY".
B1b) The competitor must supply their own blindfold.
B2b) The competitor places their hands on the elevated sensor unit of the Stackmat, with their fingers touching the sensors and their palms down. Penalty: time penalty (+2 seconds).
B2d) The competitor starts the attempt by removing their hands from the timer, thus starting the timer. 
B4b) The competitor must not apply moves to the puzzle before they have fully donned the blindfold.
B4c1) In all cases, the competitor must wear the blindfold such that their view of the puzzle would be clearly blocked even if the opaque object were not in the way.
B4e) The competitor may remove the blindfold to return to the memorisation phase, as long as they have not applied any moves to the puzzle.
B5b) When using a stopwatch, the competitor ends the attempt by placing the puzzle back onto the surface and notifying the judge that they are stopping the attempt. At that moment, the judge stops the timer.
B5c) As long as the competitor is not touching the puzzle, they may remove the blindfold before they stop the timer. However, if this is done, the competitor must not touch the puzzle until the end of the attempt. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
C1b2) If a puzzle defect occurs, and the competitor chooses to repair it, they must repair it using only the solving hand. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
C1c) During the solve, once a competitor touches the puzzle with one hand, they must not touch the puzzle with the other hand. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
D1b) During the attempt, the competitor must only use their feet and the surface. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
D3a) The competitor places their feet onto the timer sensors.
D3b) The competitor removes their feet from the timer sensors to start the solve.
D4a) The competitor stops the timer by placing their feet onto the timer sensors.
E2e1) The WCA Delegate may ask a competitor to explain the purpose of each move in their solution, without referencing the scrambling algorithm. If the competitor cannot give a valid explanation, the attempt is disqualified.
F3) At the end of the inspection period, the competitor places the puzzle onto the mat in a standing position. They must not change the positions of any pins from their scrambled positions before the beginning of the solve. Penalty: disqualification (DNF).
H1a) Before an attempt, the competitor must notify the judge of the number of puzzles they wish to attempt blindfolded. The number of puzzles must be at least 2.
H1b) If the competitor is attempting fewer than 6 puzzles, they are allotted a time limit of 10 minutes times the number of puzzles in the attempt; otherwise, the time limit is 60 minutes.





Flatland said:


> I believe this discussion should focus more on equal representation of women and men, girls and boys in the speedsolving community. If the WCA believes that a 50/50 gender split is beneficial for the longterm health of the sport, then a more prominent position should be given to fast female cubers, which may include but is not exclusive to female-only events at prominent competitions such as Nationals and Worlds and female-only records.


Why should there be a 50/50 gender split? Why does gender even matter? Why can't we just let whoever wants to cube cube, and have the gender breakdown be what it may? Is it not possible that, if we completely ignore gender and give exactly the same opportunity to cube to everyone, there will still be more boys who are interested?

I would point out that there was a time, before any kind of speedcubing community, when people would only become extremely interested in the cube for their own internal reasons. There was no big cuber culture that could potentially be biased against women, just a toy that became a huge fad across every age and gender. But, when we look back at that era, we notice that almost all competitors in cubing competitions, and almost all people who wrote books about how to solve the cube, were male. Again, isn't it possible that boys are simply much more likely to become obsessed with solving this puzzle? And if we really don't care about gender, how can we conclude this is a problem?


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## BaMiao (Oct 26, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Or it's an incentive, as it makes it easier for them to feel special (by being the best or among the best of their gender, or even just by being different and getting above-average attention).



That's the whole point of the proposal to recognize top female cubers officially. We're trying to heighten this incentive.



Stefan said:


> Why?



Demand for people in technical fields is increasing drastically. We've largely been drawing talent from only half the population.



Stefan said:


> And I guess an example of this darn male attitude is Lucas' suggestion to use "she" and not "he" in the regulations? And another would be your own post?



It's more about a potential for skewed decisions or the perception of one. Let's say you have a daughter in a school athletic program, and you feel the girls' programs aren't getting enough attention relative to the boys'. How would you feel if everyone on the board of athletics was male?



Stefan said:


> I'd guess it's not the case at most schools, co-ed or not. Please don't generalize an exception, thank you.



Maybe I'm reading what he wrote differently, but I think he's talking about the problem of math/science activities being overrun with boys. I fail to see how this is possible at an all girls school.



qqwref said:


> I still think "they" is a far better gender-neutral pronoun. Although it is arguably not grammatically correct, it feels natural in speech and in writing, and is very clearly not gendered. To be honest, when I read "she" it makes me wonder why they are specifically talking about women.



I was told at school that "they" is exclusively plural, so it has always bothered me to see it used as a singular. Things seem to have changed, however, and it seems that it is increasingly recognized as a proper gender neutral singular pronoun. I would be ok with a change in the regulations to use it. I'm still getting used to it, though.


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## cubizh (Oct 26, 2013)

I agree that something should probably be done that uses the gender information in a more visible way. Otherwise, it's somewhat strange why gender status was not removed from the database along with the age of the competitor. It's not being used for anything right now (is it?)
I think separating to a female ranking makes the same sense as having age categories really (like sub-10 year olds records, senior records, ...). It may improve visibility and motivation but I don't think it's absolutely necessary.


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

BaMiao said:


> Demand for people in technical fields is increasing drastically. We've largely been drawing talent from only half the population.



If you want more *people* (your own word), why don't you try to get more *people*? Why do you want to *restrict* yourself to only getting more women? Makes no sense at all.



BaMiao said:


> It's more about a potential for skewed decisions or the perception of one. Let's say you have a daughter in a school athletic program, and you feel the girls' programs aren't getting enough attention relative to the boys'. *How would you feel if everyone on the board of athletics was male?*



No idea. I'm not in that situation and I don't know the circumstances. With the information you provided, all I can tell is that I'd feel the girls' programs aren't getting enough attention relative to the boys' (and I don't even know whose attention we're talking about).


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

cubizh said:


> I agree that something should probably be done that uses the gender information in a more visible way. Otherwise, it's somewhat strange why gender status was not removed from the database along with the age of the competitor. It's not being used for anything right now (is it?)



Please show me the WCA page of Yifan Li (李一凡).


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## qqwref (Oct 26, 2013)

Why aren't those numbered? Shouldn't the name itself be unique, so people can tell what person is being referred to? Most pages on the WCA site don't even list the gender.


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## Stefan (Oct 26, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Why aren't those numbered?



Don't know.



qqwref said:


> Shouldn't the name itself be unique, so people can tell what person is being referred to?



Well there simply happen to be people with the same names.

If you meant we should make them unique (for example by adding numbers): Yeah that would be nice and I'm considering doing that. But it still won't help you if you only know your friend's actual name and don't already know the number as well.


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## qqwref (Oct 26, 2013)

Well yeah, I just mean that when you see the name on the leaderboard or something you should be able to theoretically know exactly which person it is. Having two people with the same name and different genders ruins this uniqueness if the gender isn't displayed anywhere but their profile.


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## cubizh (Oct 26, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Please show me the WCA page of Yifan Li (李一凡).


Absolutely, it helps, but it's nevertheless redundant (in database terms).


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## Stefan (Oct 27, 2013)

cubizh said:


> it's nevertheless redundant (in database terms)



What do you mean?


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## cubizh (Oct 27, 2013)

Stefan said:


> What do you mean?


I just meant the gender information is not currently used for anything other than information.
I assumed you pointed Yifan Li (李一凡) as an example of same name competitors with different gender. 
It makes it a lot easier to distinguish but not essential, since personId should be key(?)


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## Stefan (Oct 27, 2013)

cubizh said:


> I just meant the gender information is not currently used for anything other than information.



So it's not redundant (in database terms).
Also, what information *do* we use for anything other than information?



cubizh said:


> I assumed you pointed Yifan Li (李一凡) as an example of same name competitors with different gender.



Correct. And you can't tell the which one I meant. But you *can* if I tell you the gender.



cubizh said:


> It makes it a lot easier to distinguish but not essential, since personId should be key(?)



Really? You know people by personId, not just by name? How did you find out the personIds initially?


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## cubizh (Oct 27, 2013)

Stefan said:


> So it's not redundant (in database terms).
> Also, what information do we use for anything other than information?


Redundant probably was not the right word to use.
I meant redundant in the context of uniquely identifying an entry in the Persons table, since it is not a field used as key.
Concerning information being used / not used as information, I was referring to it only being used for display in the competitors page and not processed in the statistics or misc stats page.


Stefan said:


> And you can't tell the which one I meant. But you can if I tell you the gender.


In this specific case yes, but in the other 93% of the cases with the same name, you can't really.


Stefan said:


> Really? You know people by personId, not just by name? How did you find out the personIds initially?


In the database, you _identify_ people by personId. The name is used to construct the individual key, but you don't use gender and name to locate and identify them in the Persons table, as they are not unique.
Even to distinguish people, gender is probably not the most relevant thing to check.
Can you imagine if the three male Chen Chen (陈晨) went to the same competition and no one knew them? What a nightmare that would be.
Thanks for letting me clarify what I meant.

My apologies to the OP to digressing somewhat.


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## Lucas Garron (Oct 27, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> Weird, but the use of the male pronoun does not bother me. English does not have a gender neutral pronoun equivalent to "he/she" except "it" which is used for objects, not people so why not use "he"? "She" is used to specify us *special* females haha. "She/he" and "(s)he" constructs are silly in my opinion if you have to use them all over the place. People are always so uptight about being politically correct. *Sigh*.



Did you even read my post?



sneaklyfox said:


> Currently, all five members of the WCA board are men, and there will be a slant (however subconscious) in the board's decision making toward male attitudes.



40% of the WRC is female. ;-)



qqwref said:


> I still think "they" is a far better gender-neutral pronoun. Although it is arguably not grammatically correct, it feels natural in speech and in writing, and is very clearly not gendered. To be honest, when I read "she" it makes me wonder why they are specifically talking about women.



I feel the same. I'm a fan of "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun myself, but I'm against using it in the Regulations because they need to be as clear as possible to non-native English readers. Hence, the dilemma.
(Feel free to make a rewrite/pull request with a "they" version, though.)


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## cubizh (Oct 27, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> I'm a fan of "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun myself, but I'm against using it in the Regulations because they need to be as clear as possible to non-native English readers. Hence, the dilemma.


Good point.
For example in portuguese, the direct translation of "they" has two choices: "eles" if you are referring to men (most commonly used, like the "he" dillema in english), and "elas", referring to women. It's the same he/she issue. There's also not a third "it" for objects.


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## sneaklyfox (Oct 27, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> Did you even read my post?


Yes, I did. If you're referring to the link you provided, I only skimmed that. "They" is technically plural.

I think you misquoted me... well, I didn't say the second thing you quoted, somebody else said that about the WCA board.


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## Stefan (Oct 27, 2013)

cubizh said:


> I meant redundant in the context of uniquely identifying an entry in the Persons table, since it is not a field used as key.



In that sense, *everything* besides the id is redundant. Name, country, ... all redundant.



cubizh said:


> Concerning information being used / not used as information, I was referring to it only being used for display in the competitors page and not processed in the statistics or misc stats page.



It's also used in the admin backend, in the export, and some of your own statistics.



cubizh said:


> but in the other 93% of the cases with the same name, you can't really.



I know. But so what? It's still useful in this case. And I pointed this example out as a reply to your _"It's not being used for anything right now (is it?)"_, to show that there *is* a use case involving it.



cubizh said:


> In the database, you _identify_ people by personId. The name is used to construct the individual key, but you don't use gender and name to locate and identify them in the Persons table, as they are not unique.



Looks like you're just looking at this from the point of the database. I'm looking at it from the point of the user, like a friend of the competitor who knows the competitor's name and gender. Not the id.


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## cubizh (Oct 27, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Looks like you're just looking at this from the point of the database. I'm looking at it from the point of the user, like a friend of the competitor who knows the competitor's name and gender. Not the id.


Yes, this sums it up. I was thinking about how these values were used within it for extra calculations and/or in the WCA official stats.
Gender is then mostly used as a complementary information to give more details about the user, if available/possible, in the sense you mentioned.
I would like to reiterate the most simple suggestion, of adding the top female results in the "Show:" dropdown (when there is time to implement it)


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Okay. So this is my first non-introduction post on the forums, but I stumbled across this post which had a lot of generalizations with very little information to back them up, and I thought I would contribute a few things. I actually recently did a lot of research on gender disparities amongst hobbies generally considered "intellectual" by the public, mostly Chess and Rubik's Cubing. (Not to say that I think there is correlation between cubing and chess abilities and intelligence because research does not suggest this in the slightest.)

I personally do not think Official World Records should be split, but I do think having quick access on the WCA website to the top 100 female cubers would be extremely beneficial to female cubers. A debate like this has also been had amongst the Chess community, not surprisingly, and I apologize that a lot of my references are about Chess, there isn't much data on Rubik's Cubing in sociological or psychological fields, but the two sports do have quite a bit in common in terms of how they are typed as intellectual and their need for spatial intelligence and reasoning skills. I can't say why the speed stacking is split amongst genders, but Chess is split amongst genders to encourage female participation. The lack of female participation in "intellectual" sports is in part due to old ideas about female intelligence and how women and men are encouraged differently to pursue their interests. This lack of participation creates a smaller sample size of female cubers which in turn leads to fewer outliers (the kind of people who might hold world records) and thus women don't get world records. 

The IQ point was pretty moot considering that women and men have pretty comparable IQs and also that the IQ test has been shown to largely mean nothing in terms of intelligence and intelligence isn't required to solve Rubik's cubes anyway. The only difference amongst genders I can think of might be spatial reasoning skills which men have been shown to generally perform better in. However, there was a great study done about preschoolers solving puzzles that showed girls were more likely to be shown where to place pieces and boys were more encouraged to "figure out" where to place the pieces thereby fostering development of spatial reasoning skills in boys more than girls. So maybe if someone's parents and teachers were consciously or subconsciously underestimating their intelligence because they were female they might not have developed equal spatial intelligence. (That was sort of off topic, but this stuff is really interesting to me so I blabbed a little bit.)

There's also data to show that when women compete with men they perform substantially worse than when they compete with other women or the same men they are lead to believe are women, so I think that alone is reason enough to have UWRs for women because it will encourage better performance. (The article is by Christian Jarrett if you want to look it up, my school's databases won't give me access to the full text any longer.)

It didn't seem like anything came from the thread, the WCA still doesn't list top 100 female cubers and I sort of wanted to bump this to see if those steps could be taken and also because there might be people who are interested in some of the data I shared! (If you care about this stuff I could PM you some good reads.)


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> ~snip~



I wholeheartedly agree with you. A separate list of female cubers would be great, but there is no need to separate rankings purely by gender. There also aren't enough female cubers to really make it worthwile.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

TMOY said:


> Just FYI, an unofficial site giving world rankings by gender already exists.



If you read the thread, you would have found this.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> If you read the thread, you would have found this.



I did read the thread! I think having easy access to these statistics is an important part of encouraging female cubers to compete. Having these statistics readily available on the official WCA's website definitely gives better accessibility to them. I wouldn't have known that this site existed unless I had read through this thread. I appreciate the website, but I still think that it's important for the WCA's website to do what others have suggested, provide a top 100 list of female cubers.


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## mDiPalma (Mar 6, 2014)

Can we also permanently separate the results by birth month? Like I don't even want to be able to see the actual rankings anymore.

I just want definitive proof that my birthstone (opal) is superior.

</sarcasm>

But seriously, it's none of the WCA's business to sort the results in any special way at all. You should be glad that they've applied some national/continental divisions (which only truly exist as a result of the 1980s cubing "system").


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

mDiPalma said:


> Can we also permanently separate the results by birth month? Like I don't even want to be able to see the actual rankings anymore.
> 
> I just want definitive proof that my birthstone (opal) is superior.
> 
> ...



So basically you're saying they already do some special sorting, but that's the only kind that should exist? (Correct me if that's not what you meant.) Maybe if there was huge disparities in the numbers of competitors based on birth month and there was also systematic marginalization of certain birth months, that sorting would be important. I think comparing gender to birth months is hugely trivializing of the issue, honestly.


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## Methuselah96 (Mar 6, 2014)

It wouldn't be that hard to have a gender drop-down box on the WCA website and I don't know why it hasn't already been done. I'm not sure if this is exactly what rowan's proposing but I think this would be an easy first step that doesn't hurt anyone (I guess sexism could be an issue) and is beneficial as rowan pointed out.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

That's entirely what I'm suggesting. It's a pretty simple addition and there doesn't really seem to be any good arguments against doing so.

The WCA already collects gender data.


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## Methuselah96 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> That's entirely what I'm suggesting. It's a pretty simple addition and there doesn't really seem to be any good arguments against doing so.
> 
> The WCA already collects gender data.



If I were you, I would e-mail the WCA board ([email protected]) clearly outlining your proposal and reasoning and see what they have to say. You can link to this thread as well to show where general opinion is on this matter.


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## Jaysammey777 (Mar 6, 2014)

I agree with Rowan and Methuselah96, but where is the point of ridiculousness? Should birth mouths be included? What else? And is it really beneficial if the information already exist externally?


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Jaysammey777 said:


> I agree with Rowan and Methuselah96, but where is the point of ridiculousness? Should birth mouths be included? What else? And is it really beneficial if the information already exist externally?



If someone could provide evidence that a certain birth month was underrepresented and that having access to that information increased performance in competitions, it would be beneficial, but I don't really see any arguments for that. The one posted here was sarcasm. However, studies have shown that in non-physical sports, when women compete against other women they perform to the best of their ability. It also just lets starting female cubers know that other female cubers exist, because you honestly couldn't tell from the majority of rankings. I guess I just don't think people should have to go searching for the information, it should be easy to find.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

What do you propose on doing with people with no gender listed? By my count there is ~400 people with no gender in the database.

For example: Kelly Sosik


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

The gender menu would simply say: All, Male, Female, or Not Specified.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> However, studies have shown that in non-physical sports, when women compete against other women they perform to the best of their ability.



This has nothing to do with anything regarding gender rankings.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> This has nothing to do with anything regarding gender rankings.



I disagree. Creating a list of female gender rankings makes a separate list of rankings for female cubers to compare themselves to if they so choose. They can choose to focus on competing against female ranks instead of generalized ranks which according to sociological research, would improve their performance. The study I'm referring to I mentioned in my initial post, you can look it up if you'd like. It's a very interesting study.

It might be difficult to locate if you don't have access to databases that catalog peer-reviewed journals though, sorry about that.


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## UB (Mar 6, 2014)

IN the sport of speedcubing, we are using our hands and brains.
Going by scientific logic, Female has a better chance of getting WRs and their brain develops faster than boys, thus attaining puberty faster. But in the real world that is opposite. Feliks, Mats and all WRs are Male. So scientific reasoning applies differently.
For Example, If a child starts solving the 3x3 cube at the age of 6, by the age of 18, he will break WRs if he cubes regularly.
Logical reasoning: Our brain tends to develop the most at the age of 13- 15. SO intelligent people will have more IQ and then they can do complex thinking and solve cubes fast.
In the end, it all depends on your Brain and Hands. Because all fast people have excellent hand eye coordination, so I dont think the gender splitting should be done.
Sorry, SirWaffle..


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## UB (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> I disagree. Creating a list of female gender rankings makes a separate list of rankings for female cubers to compare themselves to if they so choose. They can choose to focus on competing against female ranks instead of generalized ranks which according to sociological research, would improve their performance. The study I'm referring to I mentioned in my initial post, you can look it up if you'd like. It's a very interesting study.
> 
> It might be difficult to locate if you don't have access to databases that catalog peer-reviewed journals though, sorry about that.



Nah! If you have the dedication, you get get the WR. It isnt like. Another women is there so I can unleash myself and when another men is there, I sit quietly. You just need to have dedication


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

UB said:


> Nah! If you have the dedication, you get get the WR. It isnt like. Another women is there so I can unleash myself and when another men is there, I sit quietly. You just need to have dedication



Do you have anything to back that up?

I'm referring to the phenomena called Stereotype Threat, which has been demonstrated to exist in more "intellectual" sports like Rubik's cubing.

A selection from an article that appeared in the European Journal of Social Psychology: "Most importantly, gender stereotypes can have a greatly debilitating effect on female players leading to a 50% performance decline when playing against males."


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## UB (Mar 6, 2014)

Well from personal sights, I do. I started cubing because there is a female cuber in my class who has sub15 avg. And she can beat me anytime and she does. And she takes up each and every challengs, even from guys. Because she has the dedication to get to sub 10. Thats why I said that. all these studies differ from person to person.There was a study about coffe that people drinking coffe remember things longer, bt it is exactly opposite in my case. So I dont believe in these research


rowan said:


> Do you have anything to back that up?
> 
> I'm referring to the phenomena called Stereotype Threat, which has been demonstrated to exist in more "intellectual" sports like Rubik's cubing.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

UB said:


> Well from personal sights, I do. I started cubing because there is a female cuber in my class who has sub15 avg. And she can beat me anytime and she does. And she takes up each and every challengs, even from guys. Because she has the dedication to get to sub 10. Thats why I said that. all these studies differ from person to person.There was a study about coffe that people drinking coffe remember things longer, bt it is exactly opposite in my case. So I dont believe in these research



I'm sorry, you don't believe in research? And you think your sample size of one person is enough to make for an argument? I mean, I guess I don't know what to say in that case. Other than that I think that's a poor basis for a position on this matter.

I didn't mean to blow up this thread or anything, the topic is just something I have a personal interest in and have spent many hours researching. I've made all my arguments though, so I guess now it's just up to people making their own call on the matter.


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## TheOneOnTheLeft (Mar 6, 2014)

UB said:


> Well from personal sights, I do. I started cubing because there is a female cuber in my class who has sub15 avg. And she can beat me anytime and she does. And she takes up each and every challengs, even from guys. Because she has the dedication to get to sub 10. Thats why I said that. all these studies differ from person to person.There was a study about coffe that people drinking coffe remember things longer, bt it is exactly opposite in my case. So I dont believe in these research



Your arguments are all based on single, anecdotal instances. Rowan is making a far better supported point which is based on research into other, arguably comparable, sports, and suggesting that a female ranking list would help remove any gender bias, if it exists. Your anecdotes make no argument against this, and give you no real reason to not "believe in" research. I'm sure the study you mention wasn't trying to say that *everyone* remembers things better when they've had coffee, but rather that in a large sample size there was, on average, a significant improvement in memory when people drank coffee.


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## uberCuber (Mar 6, 2014)

UB said:


> There was a study about coffe that people drinking coffe remember things longer, bt it is exactly opposite in my case. So I dont believe in these research



The amount of ignorance here is hurting my eyes


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## UB (Mar 6, 2014)

LOL, Ignorance 
I dont have ego, egoistic people have ignorance 
Well talk on the topic. I am outta here


uberCuber said:


> The amount of ignorance here is hurting my eyes


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## kcl (Mar 6, 2014)

UB said:


> LOL, Ignorance
> I dont have ego, egoistic people have ignorance
> Well talk on the topic. I am outta here



I'd like to mention that you thinking research about the female brain developing faster is wrong, simply because of Feliks and Mats, is just pathetic. Honestly, you want to know why men have the WR's? Because there's a lot more of them. I would bet it's at least a 100:1 ratio of men to women in the database. That's a much greater chance for a male WR.


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## UB (Mar 6, 2014)

My Bad then
Sorry!


kclejeune said:


> I'd like to mention that you thinking research about the female brain developing faster is wrong, simply because of Feliks and Mats, is just pathetic. Honestly, you want to know why men have the WR's? Because there's a lot more of them. I would bet it's at least a 100:1 ratio of men to women in the database. That's a much greater chance for a male WR.


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## Erik (Mar 6, 2014)

Let's do this. There is no real argument against it and it would definitely be nice for the girls/women to have their own battles and/or inspire other girls/women to start cubing as well.

p.s. If gender is unkown I wouldn't call it 'not specified' btw, maybe it's just me but it sounds like it would list all competitors who actually don't have a gender.


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## kinch2002 (Mar 6, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> I would bet it's at least a 100:1 ratio of men to women in the database


Not quite 

Approximately 82% male, 10% female, 8% unspecified
That equates to ~25k, 3k, 2.5k in absolute numbers


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## Carrot (Mar 6, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> Not quite
> 
> Approximately 82% male, 10% female, 8% unspecified
> That equates to ~25k, 3k, 2.5k in absolute numbers



what? When I started we had less than 10k in the databse.


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## ryanj92 (Mar 6, 2014)

Erik said:


> p.s. If gender is unkown I wouldn't call it 'not specified' btw, maybe it's just me but it sounds like it would list all competitors who actually don't have a gender.



This. I feel like two separate options indicating 'other' and 'unspecified' should really be included, for the inclusion and support of those whose gender is non-binary


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## pipkiksass (Mar 6, 2014)

ryanj92 said:


> This. I feel like two separate options indicating 'other' and 'unspecified' should really be included, for the inclusion and support of those whose gender is non-binary



This is an entirely different debate!

No other sport or event (to my knowledge) provides rankings for non-binary genders.

That's not to say that the WCA shouldn't be the first; however given the stats on the number of cubers who haven't specified a gender when competing, I don't think this is the situation in most cases. Unless cubing attracts a hugely disproportionate number of individuals who don't classify themselves according to traditional genders. Which is also possible!


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## ryanj92 (Mar 6, 2014)

pipkiksass said:


> This is an entirely different debate!
> 
> No other sport or event (to my knowledge) provides rankings for non-binary genders.
> 
> That's not to say that the WCA shouldn't be the first; however given the stats on the number of cubers who haven't specified a gender when competing, I don't think this is the situation in most cases. Unless cubing attracts a hugely disproportionate number of individuals who don't classify themselves according to traditional genders. Which is also possible!


Yeah I realise I'm veering away from the topic but I thought it was a related topic worth mentioning 
I disagree that numbers should dictate adding a fairly trivial (in terms of implementation difficulty) but important option, whether rankings are considered or not ^^; maybe this would better directed at the wca directly than on here, though... Maybe I will drop them an email


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## Dene (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> If someone could provide evidence that a certain birth month was underrepresented and that having access to that information increased performance in competitions, it would be beneficial, but I don't really see any arguments for that. The one posted here was sarcasm. However, studies have shown that in non-physical sports, when women compete against other women they perform to the best of their ability. It also just lets starting female cubers know that other female cubers exist, because you honestly couldn't tell from the majority of rankings. I guess I just don't think people should have to go searching for the information, it should be easy to find.



A big question is: Do females actually perform worse in cubing competitions?

Remember cubing is an individual sport. The vast majority of people in cubing competitions are trying to achieve personal targets ("I want a sub20 average and sub 17 single"). There might be some friendly rivalry between some people, but I have seen very little of this in my time (other than WCs, of course). Also, for the most part female cubers are scattered around the world, so they wouldn't often be exposed to other females that are capable of similar times to create a competitiveness within them. Additionally, the vast majority of practise is done at home (or wherever) by oneself.

Altogether, this creates a completely uncomparable environment to chess and other such sports where one plays against another directly. It would be horrendously unscientific to make any deductions based off studies that do not involve analogous situation. Therefore I don't think it is reasonable to come to the conclusions you have.


Also regarding your comment that the WCA already collects gender data: I have argued on multiple occasions that we shouldn't. Regardless of whether we do or not, this is not a good reason to use the data. 



PS I advise ignoring the anti-scientific moron, his arguments aren't worth your time 



rowan said:


> I'm referring to the phenomena called Stereotype Threat, which has been demonstrated to exist in more "intellectual" sports like Rubik's cubing.
> 
> A selection from an article that appeared in the European Journal of Social Psychology: "Most importantly, gender stereotypes can have a greatly debilitating effect on female players leading to a 50% performance decline when playing against males."



I can't find any real evidence, but I assume Stereotype Threat also applies to race. Should we have a list for black people and asians too?


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## Laura O (Mar 6, 2014)

Erik said:


> Let's do this. There is no real argument against it and it would definitely be nice for the girls/women to have their own battles and/or inspire other girls/women to start cubing as well.



Exactly this.
I don't have the time to read the thread again, but as far as I remember there weren't any arguments against it and there wasn't any female cuber who called this "sexist" or something like this.

I personally really hate those annoying and prejudiced comments you sometimes hear at competitions as a female cuber (my absolute fave one is the assumption that my boyfriend introduced me to cubing...). But we have ratings for different categories on the website (region, year or also number of solves in a year), why shouldn't sex be another one?

And, to be a bit cynical: why do we have regional and continental rankings if anyone in the cubing world is considered as equal?


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Whoa, non-binary genders being mentioned outside of an LGBT+ activism space? I'm in shock, honestly. This is a cool conversation considering I actually identify as non-binary. I think, personally, I would be comfortable with Not Specified because that doesn't mean I don't have a different ID, I'm just not offering it. But, if the WCA would be willing to add an "other" category, I would be in support, obviously. (Please don't direct weird questions at me about this, you can google what this means if you want.)

Dene, you brought up some pretty good points. Maybe they shouldn't have collected gender data, but at this point I sincerely believe the WCA is already involved in gender statistics so I think that having a separate list is important. Even if it is argued that it doesn't help create competition amongst female cubers, it still provides visibility for other female cubers that most of the top 100 lists do not, which I still find valuable. I see what you're saying about how chess is directly against another opponent, but I don't think there's any more evidence to say people compete against themselves than to say people compete against others. Even if you say this is what you've observed in your interactions, it doesn't mean that people don't care about competing against others. WRs and NRs are important to a lot of people, these records involve competing against others. Competitions in themselves really imply this sort of behavior. Regardless of those points, my entire argument doesn't rest on increasing competitiveness amongst women. Like I said, I think visibility is still an important reason to provide this data. In terms of the research I'm using for some of my points, if I had any data that was entirely on Rubik's cubes, I would utilize it, but it's a very under-studied sport. I still think there's a strong comparison between how the public views chess and cubing, so I think these studies are relevant in commenting on how women, especially new female cubers, perceive and choose to interact with the community.

Stereotype threat does apply to race, however I don't have any data on the different performances by race and the WCA hasn't collected this information, so I can't comment on whether or not this sort of listing should be included.

Even if your view is that the data shouldn't have been collected and its collection doesn't mean it should be used and that Rubik's cubing is not a sport where people compete against each other, what is the actual reason for *not* making this data accessible on the WCA's website? Is it detrimental in any way? Or do you simply not find it beneficial enough? Are marginal benefits important, considering how much of a minority female cubers are? I would argue that if something might encourage more women to compete without compromising the integrity of the event, it should be done.


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## Benyó (Mar 6, 2014)

girls, if you want to have female rankings and even female competitions in a sport where none of the genders have any gender-specific advantege, do it, i don't care. but then don't expect do be threaten equal to men in any of the fields of life, because you are just going to throw 150 years of feminist movement away with that move.

encouraging women with easy wrs to start cubing is stupid. whoever wants to be a world/continental/national record holder has to practice and give his/her best instead of bringing down the limit of records. by this logic, you can just make a separated rankings for non-brown-eyed cubers, cubers who are extremely nervous on comps, cubers over 50 etc.
the iq-thing: there is a small chance of the two genders' iq is a bit different (i don't no if it is true or not), but that is probably only a few iq point difference, then who cares? then separated rankings are needed for people with low iq level, normal and high at least but more like different rankings should be set in every 3-4 iq point section. if someone is born to be very stupid, s/he probably won't get good results in cubing, and smart people have bigger chance for it. this point of argument can be only valid if we assume that the most retarded male is still smarter than the smartest female... seems a bit sexist to me

so women have the same cubes, same time to practice (or even more because they live longer, but that's probably not decisive), can be same talented to men, why would separated rankings be done?
men are probably more successful in cubing because there are a lot more male cubers than female. it is not our mission to equal the numbers, everyone is free to compete and everyone has the same chance of start cubing, which happens most of the time accidentally. personally i just think boys have more interest in doing 'nerd' things while girls wants to deal with 'more important' sections of life. (based on the people i know, for example in my high school class most of the guys were able to solve the cube, including one of the dumbest, but most of the girls had never took the time to deal with cubing)


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Not sure if you've read the most recent posts, but no one is arguing for separate competitions or world records, simply that the WCA gives people an option to sort rankings by gender if they so choose. I also don't think anyone is qualified to say one action "throws away 150 years of feminist movement." Equality is a simplistic view of feminism. Once again, comparing gender to other things like eye color is trivializing and I think people should stop making comparisons that really don't add anything to the conversation. There is a large difference between gender and eye-color especially if you consider marginalization and systemic oppression. Your point about IQ is such a terrible point for so many reasons I don't want to delve into. The foremost being that IQ has a huge standard deviation so separating by it is pretty pointless.


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## ryanj92 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Whoa, non-binary genders being mentioned outside of an LGBT+ activism space? I'm in shock, honestly. This is a cool conversation considering I actually identify as non-binary. I think, personally, I would be comfortable with Not Specified because that doesn't mean I don't have a different ID, I'm just not offering it. But, if the WCA would be willing to add an "other" category, I would be in support, obviously. (Please don't direct weird questions at me about this, you can google what this means if you want.)



I spend -way- too much time on Tumblr and in the Quidditch community to be ignorant about gender identity 
Thanks for your input - obviously it is super important to have the opinion of people who would be affected by these options ^^ having the option to specify as non-binary adds an extra dimension to the topic in hand (eg should we have a rankings category for something as broad as 'other'?), but as pipkiksass said earlier, this is a whole discussion on its own 



rowan said:


> I would argue that if something might encourage more women to compete without compromising the integrity of the event, it should be done.



+1


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You only just started cubing and you are not even slightly involved with the WCA. Why do you want to change the way an organisation presents its rankings when you are not involved with said organisation? Essentially you are wasting your time; the WCA has already decided they don't want this to happen. I love how you accused someone of "trivializing the issue"; the only reason this is an "issue", is because you bump this thread after 4 months of inactivity. If no one cared in the past 4 months, then it's a fact this isn't an issue.



kclejeune said:


> I would bet it's at least a 100:1 ratio of men to women in the database.


You lost your bet, reading the thread would help.



rowan said:


> I guess I just don't think people should have to go searching for the information, it should be easy to find.





rowan said:


> The study I'm referring to I mentioned in my initial post, you can look it up if you'd like. It's a very interesting study. It might be difficult to locate if you don't have access to databases that catalog peer-reviewed journals though, sorry about that.


Double standards!


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> You only just started cubing and you are not even slightly involved with the WCA. Why do you want to change the way an organisation presents its rankings when you are not involved with said organisation? Essentially you are wasting your time; the WCA has already decided they don't want this to happen.



The WCA already has information sorted by country. If Rowan wants to pursue her goal with the WCA, let her do it.

You were a noob once too! Just be nice and let her do her thing.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> The WCA already has information sorted by country. If Rowan wants to pursue her goal with the WCA, let her do it.
> 
> You were a noob once too! Just be nice and let her do her thing.


The WCA sorts by country because that's the way it was in 1982. If there was no ranking by country back then, then it wouldn't exist today.
When I was a noob here, I was trolling the forums, not proposing severe WCA changes.


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## Benyó (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Not sure if you've read the most recent posts, but no one is arguing for separate competitions or world records, simply that the WCA gives people an option to sort rankings by gender if they so choose. I also don't think anyone is qualified to say one action "throws away 150 years of feminist movement." Equality is a simplistic view of feminism. Once again, comparing gender to other things like eye color is trivializing and I think people should stop making comparisons that really don't add anything to the conversation. There is a large difference between gender and eye-color especially if you consider marginalization and systemic oppression. Your point about IQ is such a terrible point for so many reasons I don't want to delve into. The foremost being that IQ has a huge standard deviation so separating by it is pretty pointless.



my previous postwas my point of view about the whole topic, not only a response for the latest posts, and if you can choose a list of genders, there would be a 'female-wr' like we have national, continental and world rankings too.
if you read my post, it was not my point that separate iq-groups should be set up. i said how stupid would that be like the iq-gender argument (sorry if my english was a bit confusing)
and my main point is if women want (and should) to be equal, then forget the separation of genders at all. it might be understandable in phisical sports, but not in sports like cubing or chess.


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## Sajwo (Mar 6, 2014)

I see no point there. :confused:


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> The WCA sorts by country because that's the way it was in 1982. If there was no ranking by country back then, then it wouldn't exist today.
> When I was a noob here, I was trolling the forums, not proposing severe WCA changes.



How is it a severe change? It is just a way for women to see how they rank against other women, nothing more. 

At least Rowan isn't trolling the forums.


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## RageCuber (Mar 6, 2014)

I think some people have tricked themselves into believing that girls aren't as fast cubers as guys.
this is not true, there are just so many more male cubers than female cubers, so there are more chances 
of having a talented cuber that's guy. Note how I didn't say "there is a HIGHER chance" but that "there are
more chances" because if each male cuber has an x% chance of being talented, and a female cuber also
has an x% chance, then there is not a higher chance, but simply more male cubers to possibly be talented.


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## Laura O (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> When I was a noob here, I was trolling the forums, not proposing severe WCA changes.



Where is the severe change? It's just the question to add another type of stats to the WCA page.
I don't understand why this leads to those discussions again and again.

EDIT: ninja'd, sorry


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> How is it a severe change? It is just a way for women to see how they rank against other women, nothing more.
> 
> At least Rowan isn't trolling the forums.





larf said:


> Where is the severe change? It's just the question to add another type of stats to the WCA page.
> I don't understand why this leads to those discussions again and again.
> 
> EDIT: ninja'd, sorry


The WCA exists since 2003. It's 2014 now, and this type of ranking doesn't exist. 11 years is a long time and you aren't the first to think about it in 11 years. Perhaps there is a reason they've never implemented it? Maybe they just don't want it?

Trolling the forums is about as pointless as proposing changes in an organisation you have no affiliation with.


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## Ollie (Mar 6, 2014)

Pointing out stupidity and playing devil's advocate, because why not.



Endgame said:


> You only just started cubing and you are not even slightly involved with the WCA.



So? If her points are valid then what does that matter?



Endgame said:


> Why do you want to change the way an organisation presents its rankings when you are not involved with said organisation?



Because she believes it to be wrong. I don't have to be Russian or Ukrainian to have an opinion on how they conduct their politics. 



Endgame said:


> Essentially you are wasting your time; the WCA has already decided they don't want this to happen. I love how you accused someone of "trivializing the issue"; the only reason this is an "issue", is because you bump this thread after 4 months of inactivity.



You don't know that, there are no announcements on the WCA forum page about it, nor have you supplied any of your own sources. Plus, now it's been resurfaced maybe it could be something they want to reconsider?



Endgame said:


> If no one cared in the past 4 months, then it's a fact this isn't an issue.



Nor is this an argument/probably true. Apply that to women's rights: "If no-one cared in the past 5000 years then it's a fact this isn't an issue."

---

Cubers such as Emily Wang, Sarah Strong and SirWaffle have certainly shown that they are capable of getting fast times and competing with the top boys in their respective events. Will update this post later with evidence from my Neuroscience sources if people insist, but the main idea is that men and women differ in certain cognitive tasks (boys tend to be faster with reaction times and spatial awareness tasks whilst girls tend to do better with verbal reasoning stuff, but there are no real differences in dexterity) however the difference isn't enough to justify differentiating by gender. This isn't the case for sports like chess, and there are obviously exceptions for physical sports which don't apply for cubing.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

Ollie said:


> So? If her points are valid then what does that matter?


Analogy: I as a Dutchman will send an email to the mayor of London proposing that everyone must walk using _klompen_, and I include a research paper about how it's healthier to walk with _klompen_ instead of shoes. Obviously the idea will be killed instantly, because I don't live in London.



Ollie said:


> Because she believes it to be wrong. I don't have to be Russian or Ukrainian to have an opinion on how they conduct their politics.


Having an opinion is not the same proposing changes.



Ollie said:


> You don't know that, there are no announcements on the WCA forum page about it, nor have you supplied any of your own sources. Plus, now it's been resurfaced maybe it could be something they want to reconsider?


The same can be said about the "research" Rowan refers to.



Ollie said:


> Nor is this an argument/probably true. Apply that to women's rights: "If no-one cared in the past 5000 years then it's a fact this isn't an issue."


But people did care, that's why it's an issue.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> But people did care, that's why it's an issue.



I understand your skepticism since I'm a new member, but as this thread pointed out, people do care, so that's why it's an issue. There are many people on this thread who have advocated for adding a gender sorting option.* I'm not advocating for new rankings.* All I am saying is that the WCA should give greater access to the information it already collects and documents. And by doing so, I believe it would positively impact female cubers; I still fail to see how this negatively impacts anyone. Maybe since your argument rests on the fact that I'm new, I'll wait five years and bring it up since you might take my argument into consideration then.

Sorry I'm not trolling and I actually want to discuss matters that I find (and others as this thread pointed out?) of importance. I didn't start the thread and I'm not the only one in support of this. It's not about making any changes to WCA regulations, policy, or the way the WCA conduct themselves/competitions.

Don't fix it if it ain't broke is hardly an argument.


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## Sajwo (Mar 6, 2014)

There is already a site with gender rankings. So again, what's the point?


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> There is already a site with gender rankings. So again, what's the point?



I've said this more than twice. The data should be on the official website so that people have greater access to them. People shouldn't have to join speedsolving.com and read through forum threads to locate this data. Accessibility and visibility is important.


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## kcl (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You only just started cubing and you are not even slightly involved with the WCA. Why do you want to change the way an organisation presents its rankings when you are not involved with said organisation? Essentially you are wasting your time; the WCA has already decided they don't want this to happen. I love how you accused someone of "trivializing the issue"; the only reason this is an "issue", is because you bump this thread after 4 months of inactivity. If no one cared in the past 4 months, then it's a fact this isn't an issue.
> 
> 
> You lost your bet, reading the thread would help.
> ...



Fair enough, I lost the bet, but my point is still solid. The probability of a male having the WR is significantly higher, you cannot deny that.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> Double standards!



Yes, because I have access to JSTOR and can make peer-reviewed articles available for all. If I would, I could. There's actually a campaign that exists about promoting free access to peer-reviewed journals!


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## Sajwo (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> I've said this more than twice. The data should be on the official website so that people have greater access to them. People shouldn't have to join speedsolving.com and read through forum threads to locate this data. Accessibility and visibility is important.



But.. nobody really need that? It's funny how some people engage so much in such a silly thing


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> But.. nobody really need that? It's funny how some people engage so much in such a silly thing



According to you. Do you have any stats on what women cubers need or want? Because you're also not a female cuber, so I'm not sure if you have a strong grasp on what those people need? Also no one needs any WCA statistics, wanting is completely different. If I think people need it, we're at a 1 one 1.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Do you have any stats on what women cubers need or want?



Do you?


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> Do you?



No, and I never asserted that they needed these rankings. I'm just saying that I think it would have positive benefits. I would still like to see anyone make an argument as to why it would be negative?


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## DuffyEdge (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> I would still like to see anyone make an argument as to why it would be negative?


+1
The WCA should just add rankings by gender..
Why not?


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

In my opinion you haven't stated a positive benefit.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Maybe since your argument rests on the fact that I'm new, I'll wait five years and bring it up since you might take my argument into consideration then.


My arguments actually rest on the fact that you are not a member of the WCA. I will still dismiss your arguments in 10 years time if you are not a WCA member by then.



rowan said:


> Yes, because I have access to JSTOR and can make peer-reviewed articles available for all. If I would, I could. There's actually a campaign that exists about promoting free access to peer-reviewed journals!


Fair enough, forget what I said about this.



rowan said:


> According to you. Do you have any stats on what women cubers need or want? Because you're also not a female cuber, so I'm not sure if you have a strong grasp on what those people need? Also no one needs any WCA statistics, wanting is completely different. If I think people need it, we're at a 1 one 1.


This is the real problem I have with this discussion, even though the decision "affects" both men and women, the way the arguments are presented make it appear as if this whole change is catered to women only.


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## Ollie (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> Analogy: I as a Dutchman will send an email to the mayor of London proposing that everyone must walk using _klompen_, and I include a research paper about how it's healthier to walk with _klompen_ instead of shoes. Obviously the idea will be killed instantly, because I don't live in London.



Ok, but if you were to propose something better than the types of shoes we have now then people will listen. Where you live doesn't make an idea any less stupid.



Endgame said:


> Having an opinion is not the same proposing changes.



You missed the point again. Any knowledgeable person can contribute anything to any field or organisation regardless of their 'qualifications.' There are cases in psychological research, for example, where really important papers and research has been done by outsiders without psychology qualifications, which have contributed more than a lot of fully fledged PhD doctors (look up Judith Harris.)



Endgame said:


> The same can be said about the "research" Rowan refers to.



It still doesn't make you said right.



Endgame said:


> But people did care, that's why it's an issue.



Men didn't care back then. It was only when women started to fight for equal rights by suggesting changes to the WCA Rankings by Gender did they start to care.

FULL CIRCLE.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> In my opinion you haven't stated a positive benefit.



- It provides greater accessibility and visibility for the minority of female cubers. Greater visibility definitely helps people recognize that they *can* do things. Think about how many people who are in minority groups have been inspired by others. Whoopi Goldberg talks about how Star Trek's black female actress inspired her. Stories like this happen time and time again, sometimes it's hard for groups in the minority setting to see themselves accomplishing something when they don't have a similar role model.
- Women have been shown to compete better against other women due to a phenomena called stereotype threat, having stats on how female cubers are doing could potentially impact their performance and motivate them. Dene brought up some good points against this, but I still think the point stands since any points against it were merely anecdotal.
- Since female cubers are such a minority, it is unlikely, statistically speaking, that they will start showing up in any significant amount on the top 100 pages. Allowing to sort by gender can let people view how other women are doing. Without listing these rankings on the official website it honestly appears that no female cubers even exist.

I don't know why I'm being asked to repeat myself, though. If you don't think visibility and representation is important, that's a whole other argument. If these answers don't suffice and you still don't think it's positive, than why shouldn't a neutral action be taken if some people want it? Why would people not want it if it's neutral?

I honestly do not understand why there is such a backlash against such a simple addition. The WCA has sorting options for the other demographics they document like country and continent, but this one sorting option is being treated like it's going to destroy the very fabric of the WCA. If anyone was actually upset about having gender rankings at all they would be upset with the unofficial website and the documenting of gender altogether, the only person who seems to care about this is Dene. This data is already out there, there is no reason to make it more difficult to locate. This won't create a female world record. Women's profiles aren't going to have a FNR written on them or anything, it would just make these statistics simpler to locate.

I'm being asked to rehash the statements I've already made. If you think I don't matter because I'm not a part of the WCA (which I plan on going to a competition, so maybe I'll bump after that) or because I'm new, then clearly this argument has nowhere left to go.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

Ollie said:


> Ok, but if you were to propose something better than the types of shoes we have now then people will listen. Where you live doesn't make an idea any less stupid.


So? If my points are valid then what does it matter?



Ollie said:


> You missed the point again. Any knowledgeable person can contribute anything to any field or organisation regardless of their 'qualifications.' There are cases in psychological research, for example, that has been done by outsiders without psychology qualifications that have contributed more than a lot of fully fledged PhD doctors (look up Judith Harris.)


Contribute has a positive connotation. Proposing changes doesn't share that connotation. Stop trying to rephrase my arguments negatively, you are completely oblivious to the point I'm trying to make.



Ollie said:


> It still doesn't make you said right.


I doubt the WCA would change its opinion in 4 months time.



Ollie said:


> Men didn't care back then. It was only when women started to fight for equal rights by suggesting changes to the WCA Rankings by Gender did they start to care.


I think I understand why you're oblivious to my arguments.


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## Laura O (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> The WCA exists since 2003. It's 2014 now, and this type of ranking doesn't exist. 11 years is a long time and you aren't the first to think about it in 11 years. Perhaps there is a reason they've never implemented it? Maybe they just don't want it?



Well, "did not exist in the past, hasn't been implemented since, so we don't need it" is actually one of the worst arguments in this thread.
I've followed the female ranking discussions for many years now, not only in the forums, but also at competitions in several countries and I was asked several times about my opinion on this by fellow cubers. Nevertheless I have never heard any serious argument besides "equality, equality!". And I still don't get why equality is important in this ranking and not in others.

And I'm not saying this because I would probably hold some female WRs, CRs and NRs, but I like those rankings and I know from my part, that they can be quite motivating. We also didn't have the "sum of ranks" on the WCA page back in 2003, but when they were added, people started to compare themselves in this category and set their personal goals based on this. So why not finally add the female rankings with this in mind?


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> - It provides greater accessibility and visibility for the minority of female cubers. Greater visibility definitely helps people recognize that they *can* do things. Think about how many people who are in minority groups have been inspired by others. Whoopi Goldberg talks about how Star Trek's black female actress inspired her. Stories like this happen time and time again, sometimes it's hard for groups in the minority setting to see themselves accomplishing something when they don't have a similar role model.


I don't see how this is beneficial. Your example isn't comparable in my opinion, I don't think a female seeing list of female cubers will inspire them or make them realize their potential. Nor do I think a female would be deterred from pursuing a hobby simply because the top ranked cubers are for the most part male.



rowan said:


> - Women have been shown to compete better against other women due to a phenomena called stereotype threat, having stats on how female cubers are doing could potentially impact their performance and motivate them. Dene brought up some good points against this, but I still think the point stands since any points against it were merely anecdotal.


Dene dismissed this argument, in cubing you are not in direct competition with almost all of the database, and even at competitions most people are only competing against themselves. Having stats on male cubers does not impact my motivation or performance, why is it different for females? (I'm serious)



rowan said:


> - Since female cubers are such a minority, it is unlikely, statistically speaking, that they will start showing up in any significant amount on the top 100 pages. Allowing to sort by gender can let people view how other women are doing. Without listing these rankings on the official website it honestly appears that no female cubers even exist.


I don't see this as an issue. This may motivate a female more than your previous point would. A female may think "There's no females in the top 100, I'm going to change that".



rowan said:


> If you don't think visibility and representation is important, that's a whole other argument.


I don't.



rowan said:


> I honestly do not understand why there is such a backlash against such a simple addition. The WCA has sorting options for the other demographics they document like country and continent, but this one sorting option is being treated like it's going to destroy the very fabric of the WCA.


It wouldn't bother me if the stat was added, but I don't personally see the point.

Perhaps a compromise could be to add gender to the rankings page, without adding a new list / sorting option. Then if someone wants to find female cubers they could just ctrl+f.


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## Ollie (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> I think I understand why you're oblivious to my arguments.



You haven't made any arguments. Just conjecture and arguments based on assumptions or nothing at all.

All that statement says is "no you're stupid for not agreeing with me"


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> I don't see how this is beneficial. Your example isn't comparable in my opinion, I don't think a female seeing list of female cubers will inspire them or make them realize their potential. Nor do I think a female would be deterred from pursuing a hobby simply because the top ranked cubers are for the most part male.



Why is that not comparable? There is a reason that male-dominated things have a hard time reaching equality, it's discouraging. Why don't you talk to an actual woman about their experiences and then decide. For instance, chess has one of the highest drop out rates amongst young girls. Male-dominated fields are intimidating and discouraging. STEM fields are a good example of this.



vcuber13 said:


> Dene dismissed this argument, in cubing you are not in direct competition with almost all of the database, and even at competitions most people are only competing against themselves. Having stats on male cubers does not impact my motivation or performance, why is it different for females? (I'm serious)



Because men and women face different social structures, shocking.



vcuber13 said:


> I don't see this as an issue. This may motivate a female more than your previous point would. A female may think "There's no females in the top 100, I'm going to change that".



That ranking still exists, so those people would still be motivated to achieve records and make it into the top 100 of all cubers. As larf pointed out, the other rankings can still be encouraging. Why not have both?



vcuber13 said:


> I don't.



That's sad.



vcuber13 said:


> It wouldn't bother me if the stat was added, but I don't personally see the point.



Then stop arguing against it if you don't care.


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## Thaynara (Mar 6, 2014)

Let's just stop with this really. Boys and girls are capable of achieving whatever they want. If wca decides to separate ranks or anything else by gender i will be the first girl to stop cubing. All i would like to see is some statistics on the website showing the top100 just so other girls can look at the list and get some inspiration, because I personally lost interest in cubing last year and i can guarantee that having such list can make us, girls more focused to get faster and compete more. That's all.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Thaynara said:


> Let's just stop with this really. Boys and girls are capable of achieving whatever they want. If wca decides to separate ranks or anything else by gender i will be the first girl to stop cubing. All i would like to see is some statistics on the website showing the top100 just so other girls can look at the list and get some inspiration, because I personally lost intereste in cubing last year and i can guarantee that having such list can make us, girls more focused to get faster and compete more. That's all.



Thank you! I completely agree. Rankings do not need to be separate, the statistics should just be accessible on the website through sorting. So far two female cubers have said this would help them.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

larf said:


> And I'm not saying this because I would probably hold some female WRs, CRs and NRs, but I like those rankings and I know from my part, that they can be quite motivating.


Only women will profit from this.



Ollie said:


> You haven't made any arguments. Just conjecture and arguments based on assumptions or nothing at all.
> 
> All that statement says is "no you're stupid for not agreeing with me"


Well I do think you're stupid actually.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> Only women will profit from this.



There is not true. Men can see how other men are doing if they want to. I was never advocating for separate records at any level. Both men and women will have equal opportunity to sort the statistics and check their gender's lists.


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## Laura O (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> I don't see how this is beneficial. Your example isn't comparable in my opinion, I don't think a female seeing list of female cubers will inspire them or make them realize their potential. Nor do I think a female would be deterred from pursuing a hobby simply because the top ranked cubers are for the most part male.



Then you think wrong.
It's definitely stupid and groundless that females think so, but more than a few are deterred by a majority of men. That's what it is like outside the cubing world and I don't know a reason why it should be different. At a competition last year I was literally asked by someone if I could give his daughter some motivation since she was afraid to compete with all the boys...



Thaynara said:


> All i would like to see is some statistics on the website showing the top100 just so other girls can look at the list and get some inspiration, because I personally lost intereste in cubing last year and i can guarantee that having such list can make us, girls more focused to get faster and compete more. That's all.



That's what everyone is asking for.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> There is not true. Men can see how other men are doing if they want to. I was never advocating for separate records at any level. Both men and women will have equal opportunity to sort the statistics and check their gender's lists.


Is there any research that can back this up? I'm asking because you have access to more literature about the subject than I do. Personally, I never feel the need to compete with other men.


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## Thaynara (Mar 6, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> But.. nobody really need that? It's funny how some people engage so much in such a silly thing


Nobody need what? To know that we have girls who are able to cube? 
If you are totally new into cubing, you might just think that its a ''male sport'' because thats all we have on the website provided by the wca. I've been cubing for 4 long years now and I never saw the website that you just pointed out and I will assume that many others haven't also. Creating some statistics (on wca website) isn't silly, it's just a way to show everyone that yes we have girls into this sport but more than that, to motivate girls! 
Sorry but you're not a girl and we do need motivation. If it wasn't for my boyfriend who is also a cuber, i would have dropped cubing last year.


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## ryanj92 (Mar 6, 2014)

I feel like the title of this thread should be changed/discussion moved to a new thread...
The growing consensus seems to be that having a 'sort' filter on the WCA rankings page would be useful, but the rankings are not to be used officially (ie rank 1 for a gender does not imply NR/CR/WR for that gender, but as before the fastest time/average from anybody in that region has that title), which is not what the thread title states


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

Endgame said:


> Is there any research that can back this up? I'm asking because you have access to more literature about the subject than I do. Personally, I never feel the need to compete with other men.



Research to back what up? That both men and women would have access to the gender sorting? That seems pretty obvious. The phenomena I was talking about called stereotype threat only exists in groups that are marginalized or a minority, so it wouldn't be observed in men, if that was what you were referencing.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

larf said:


> Then you think wrong.
> It's definitely stupid and groundless that females think so, but more than a few are deterred by a majority of men. That's what it is like outside the cubing world and I don't know a reason why it should be different. At a competition last year I was literally asked by someone if I could give his daughter some motivation since she was afraid to compete with all the boys...



What was she afraid of, and how did you motivate her? If this was at a competition, she obviously had the motivation and was not afraid to show up.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> What was she afraid of, and how did you motivate her? If this was at a competition, she obviously had the motivation and was not afraid to show up.



Why do you feel the need to question women's experiences? Clearly her father was there with her, so maybe he encouraged her. Or maybe it would have been better for her to stay home so she can "prove" that she's intimidated by being in a mostly male setting, is that the better alternative? Then she wouldn't be a WCA member and her opinion wouldn't matter, right?

If someone is scared to give a speech in class, and they show up, does that mean they are lying about being scared?

Also I agree that we should change the name of the thread, it's misleading for people who are just reading it.


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## Ollie (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Research to back what up? That both men and women would have access to the gender sorting? That seems pretty obvious. The phenomena I was talking about called stereotype threat only exists in groups that are marginalized or a minority, so it wouldn't be observed in men, if that was what you were referencing.



I'm starting to think he's trolling now, or is digging a hole. He can't back anything he says up, has resorted to name-calling (which strips away any credibility) and I for the live of me, can't find his WCA ID which suggests he's never been to a comp which makes his point about being a WCA member to have an opinion lollable

edit: found it, but still, see first 2 points


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## BaMiao (Mar 6, 2014)

Thank you rowan, for revitalizing this thread. You handle yourself in writing very well despite the awful arguments you are forced to address.

In my time in the community, the gender disparity I've seen has worried me quite a bit. There's disagreement surrounding the cause of it, but that is of minor importance. What is important is that we are sure that we are doing our best to create an environment that welcomes girls just as much as boys.

I can only imagine what it is like for a girl just making her way into this community. Most of the cubers she meets in real life and online will probably be boys. The top wca rankings are almost all boys. The thought would invariably turn to whether or not she would really be welcome.

I especially want to stress that cubing is thought of in society as an "intellectual" activity. They say, "you can solve that? Are you a genius or something?" We should be especially wary of any message (intentional or not) that suggests that girls should not participate. A gender ranking would run counter to any such message, and it is only effective if has a good level of exposure.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Why do you feel the need to question women's experiences?



Because that is what this thread is now about.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> Because that is what this thread is now about.



God forbid. Stop implying women are lying about how intimidating such a male-dominated sport is and start listening to them.

I don't think there's any point to me responding to your posts anymore. It's shameful to question people's experiences when it's probably already hard for them to talk about it because of how much of a minority they are.


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> God forbid. Stop implying women are lying about how intimidating such a male-dominated sport is and start listening to them.



You realize that by me asking a question to further understand the situation is me trying to listen to a women's experience, right? When did I imply a women was lying about the intimidation?


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> You realize that by me asking a question to further understand the situation is me trying to listen to a women's experience, right? When did I imply a women was lying about the intimidation?



You said if she was afraid she wouldn't have gone to the competition. That's implying that she's lying about being afraid or that larf is lying about the experience.


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## Daniel Wu (Mar 6, 2014)

Throwing my opinion in here since this thread is back. Having a filter to display results by gender would be fine. Having an official male WR/CR/NR and an official female WR/CR/NR is not fine. Females are just as capable as males and there is no reason to award records for slower times because of gender.


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## Endgame (Mar 6, 2014)

Ollie said:


> resorted to name-calling



I was just quoting you


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## vcuber13 (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> You said if she was afraid she wouldn't have gone to the competition. That's implying that she's lying about being afraid or that larf is lying about the experience.



You misunderstood me then, I meant she had the motivation to practice at home, and to go to the competition. But not enough to compete without other encouragement. If she was very afraid / intimidated, she likely would not have went to the competition.
For example, you are not likely afraid to go to an amusement park, but you may be afraid to go on the big roller coaster.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

vcuber13 said:


> You misunderstood me then, I meant she had the motivation to practice at home, and to go to the competition. But not enough to compete without other encouragement. If she was very afraid / intimidated, she likely would not have went to the competition.
> For example, you are not likely afraid to go to an amusement park, but you may be afraid to go on the big roller coaster.



You simply reworded your first comment. If your aim is to listen to female cubers, I think you are completely missing the mark. Women here are saying they would appreciate the stats and you continually argue against them. You don't know what it's like to be a female cuber so I would stop trying to theorize about what it feels like if I were you. You've already said you don't think representation for female cubers in a male-dominated sport is important, so I have no desire to continue engaging with you as you've missed the entire point I was making. Whether or not you can recognize that representation is important to women doesn't change the fact that it is, as quite a few handful of women here have expressed that and PM'ed me to say so.


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## jeff081692 (Mar 6, 2014)

Yea but if there are some girls that can make it to a competition and still get intimidated then there are likely girls that practice at home and truly don't go to competitions for this reason because every video of a competition is filled with men competing.


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## XTowncuber (Mar 6, 2014)

rickcube said:


> Throwing my opinion in here since this thread is back. Having a filter to display results by gender would be fine. Having an official male WR/CR/NR and an official female WR/CR/NR is not fine. Females are just as capable as males and there is no reason to award records for slower times because of gender.


This is perfectly stated.


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## AmazingCuber (Mar 6, 2014)

Thank you so much rowan for bringing this up. You have some very good points and I think that just adding stats separated by gender on the WCA page is not a big deal, but can be very beneficial for females. I don't get why so many people are arguing so hard against this, one really wonders in what age one is living in . . .


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## Ninja Storm (Mar 6, 2014)

XTowncuber said:


> This is perfectly stated.



Agreed. I think that seems to be what most people are looking for. Having something on the Statistics page would be interesting and wouldn't devalue the current records.


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## TMOY (Mar 6, 2014)

Ninja Storm said:


> Having something on the Statistics page would be interesting and wouldn't devalue the current records.


The list of male/female NR/CR/WRs would be a bit too long to fit on the Statistics page, IMHO a dedicated section on the Misc page would be more appropriate. Apart from that I agree too.


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## Lucas Garron (Mar 6, 2014)

This doesn't technically fall under the Regulations, but I've made a GitHub issue to track this topic.


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## ryanj92 (Mar 6, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> This doesn't technically fall under the Regulations, but I've made a GitHub issue to track this topic.



Thanks, Lucas! Very well put


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## stoic (Mar 6, 2014)

rickcube said:


> Throwing my opinion in here since this thread is back. Having a filter to display results by gender would be fine. Having an official male WR/CR/NR and an official female WR/CR/NR is not fine. Females are just as capable as males and there is no reason to award records for slower times because of gender.


I've just read through about eight pages of this and this is exactly what I wanted to add. 

BTW, rowan you argue *really* well. Almost too well. I'd hate to be debating with you, I'd definitely end up just agreeing with whatever you said without really knowing why.


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## rowan (Mar 6, 2014)

ellwd said:


> I've just read through about eight pages of this and this is exactly what I wanted to add.
> 
> BTW, rowan you argue *really* well. Almost too well. I'd hate to be debating with you, I'd definitely end up just agreeing with whatever you said without really knowing why.



Haha, sorry. I know this isn't really a constructive post, but I laughed. If you don't know why, then maybe I have some things to work on... it be preferable to have my viewpoint understood beyond a surface level. I appreciate the sentiment, though.


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## stoic (Mar 6, 2014)

rowan said:


> Haha, sorry. I know this isn't really a constructive post, but I laughed. If you don't know why, then maybe I have some things to work on... it be preferable to have my viewpoint understood beyond a surface level. I appreciate the sentiment, though.


Hehe, it's all good. I admire your passion.


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## Dene (Mar 7, 2014)

Srsly why is anyone responding to Endgame? That weirdo is clearly trolling the poopy out of this thread. I just spent 20 minutes reading all of that unproductive crap.



rowan said:


> but I don't think there's any more evidence to say people compete against themselves than to say people compete against others. Even if you say this is what you've observed in your interactions, it doesn't mean that people don't care about competing against others.



In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records. In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender. It might be hard for you to understand what I mean as you are new around here, but the "competition" aspect of competitions really isn't as strong as you might at first think. I suggest you take my word for this, as dismissing what I say as purely anecdotal is kind of the same as telling someone like Richard Dawkins that he doesn't know anything about evolutionary biology. Even if there is no hard data to back it up, real life experience counts for a lot. 



rowan said:


> Stereotype threat does apply to race, however I don't have any data on the different performances by race and the WCA hasn't collected this information, so I can't comment on whether or not this sort of listing should be included.



I just want to say this is a really horrible argument for many reasons, but I won't go into detail as that was mostly an off-the-cuff comment from me.



rowan said:


> what is the actual reason for *not* making this data accessible on the WCA's website? Is it detrimental in any way? Or do you simply not find it beneficial enough? Are marginal benefits important, considering how much of a minority female cubers are?



To be honest, I don't have any particular objections to it, and I'm not strongly against it. I guess a slight concern is that it could lead to a future push for acknowledgement of female records (which I think most people are against at the moment). Another concern could be that females might only be motivated to be the best female, preventing themselves from being serious competitors amongst the males. 

What I would really like to see is a good reason for implementing this. Without a good reason, I can only view it as unnecessary. Until this point, I haven't seen a convincing reason from you or anyone else to make this change. 



rowan said:


> I would argue that if something might encourage more women to compete without compromising the integrity of the event, it should be done.



I find this to be an interesting point, but I think the response by Bence is the best one. That is, most people fall into this sport by accident. They don't see superstars on tv and want to be like them (like what might happen with, say, soccer). It will be some other random circumstance, like seeing a video on youtube, or Feliks on a news segment, or something like that getting them to try out the cube. Following this, the person might find a tutorial and learn to solve the puzzle. It would probably be around this point in time that the person either falls into the addiction, or forgets about it and moves on. By this stage it's unlikely the person would have seen much of the community, therefore they wouldn't have had the chance to realise it's male dominated. Nor would they have bothered to have found the WCA site, figured out how to use it, and got around to sorting by gender to see how many female cubers there are around. So my point is this: I highly doubt having a female rankings list would encourage many people at all to get into cubing. The addiction or lack thereof comes along much too early in the process for the list to matter. 



rowan said:


> It provides greater accessibility and visibility for the minority of female cubers. Greater visibility definitely helps people recognize that they *can* do things. Think about how many people who are in minority groups have been inspired by others. Whoopi Goldberg talks about how Star Trek's black female actress inspired her. Stories like this happen time and time again, sometimes it's hard for groups in the minority setting to see themselves accomplishing something when they don't have a similar role model.



This is similar to the last point but I have a different objection, so:
I don't see how having a list would be useful for inspiring female cubers. Your example involves exposure to a high-profile figure in the spotlight (that is, an actress in a popular tv show). Along this line, it would be much more useful to have a female cuber in the spotlight, doing media appearances and things like that to be a role model for females that want to get into cubing.


Overall, I am still unconvinced that having such a list would be of any benefit.



I would also like to state, while I'm here (and because it's been mentioned a few times), that I am against having national and continental records. But that is more of a philosophical thing against the segregation of people on this one planet into numerous arbitrary groups. (This is epitomised by the retarded situation going on in the Ukraine at the moment).


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

I mean, I think the best evidence for the point "it won't help female cubers" is that female cubers on this thread have said that it would. I agree with your first point, I've shifted away from that particular argument. I appreciate the feedback though, also pretty terrible at telling who's a troll, opps.


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## Laura O (Mar 7, 2014)

Dene said:


> In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records. In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender.



Maybe I understand this wrong, but I actually don't get why you describe this as different approaches.
A lot of people I have met set their personal goals on base of records, e.g. be in the top 10 national records, get a better ranking in the sum of ranks and so on. So they compete against themselves with the actual ranking in mind.


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## Erik (Mar 7, 2014)

Maybe slightly off-topic but I couldn't keep myself from replying to this.



Dene said:


> In my vast experience competing alongside hundreds, or possibly over a thousand, different cubers in the past 5 years in multiple countries, I can categorically state (without any statistical proof) that the majority of people
> compete against themself most of the time, and not against others. Usually people want PBs, not records.



Of course ppl want records. This is like saying: "I will not go for WR" which is just not ture. You always "go for WR"/"would want to break the WR" even if you don't have a chance.



Dene said:


> In many countries you will find a select few competitors who dominate the NRs, while almost everyone else isn't a serious contender. It might be hard for you to understand what I mean as you are new around here, but the "competition" aspect of competitions really isn't as strong as you might at first think.



In my experience this is not true. There is always competition between people, not necessarily for NR's though.




Dene said:


> Another concern could be that females might only be motivated to be the best female, *preventing* themselves from being serious competitors amongst the males.



Again. This is is totally unlogical. Why would you only want to be the best girl and not want to be the best of everyone?



Dene said:


> What I would really like to see is a good reason for implementing this. Without a good reason, I can only view it as unnecessary. Until this point, I haven't seen a convincing reason from you or anyone else to make this change.



Several valid points were made about this, you have still failed to argument why it would not be a good idea to implement it.



Dene said:


> *stuff about how people get into speedcubing*. So my point is this: I highly doubt having a female rankings list would encourage many people at all to get into cubing. The addiction or lack thereof comes along much too early in the process for the list to matter.


The first part of this is actually quite interesting in the sense of that it might be useful to look further into this to maybe think about how to get more boys and girls into cubing, this would make an interesting thread on the forum. Your conclusion is not an argument against having these rankings though (not sure if you ment it to be that).



Dene said:


> I would also like to state, while I'm here (and because it's been mentioned a few times), that I am against having national and continental records. But that is more of a philosophical thing against the segregation of people on this one planet into numerous arbitrary groups. (This is epitomised by the retarded situation going on in the Ukraine at the moment).



Although I can see your point in being against having national and continental records (I would be glad to explain why I like them some other time), in my opinion this statement also weakens the rest of your 'doubts' against female rankings.


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## megaminxwin (Mar 7, 2014)

We already have gender in the WCA database, so we should be able to sort by gender. We definitely should not have separate male and female records, however.

Thank you rowan for actually being clever about this and making arguments much better than I am able to right now.


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## Dene (Mar 7, 2014)

rowan said:


> I think the best evidence for the point "it won't help female cubers" is that female cubers on this thread have said that it would.



To make life easier I'm going to use "FC" for "female cuber".

To clarify: Do you mean help new FCs, or current ones? I just argued extensively against the first option, so I guess you're referring to the second. 

Perhaps having this available would help motivate current FCs, by being able to see what other FCs are capable of. But I have my doubts... I can see what Feliks is capable of (only too many times have I witnessed this...) and it doesn't motivate me in the least  . The ultimate irony would be that by having a separate female list you would turn away new FCs because they don't think they would be able to achieve those times. The point I'm trying to make is that people get their motivation from different sources, and I don't see a female list helping (it might motivate some while turning away others). Of course we could never know if it would work because we can't ask people that don't get involved in the end.

In saying all that, perhaps this is just male ignorance on my part...


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

Dene said:


> To make life easier I'm going to use "FC" for "female cuber".
> 
> To clarify: Do you mean help new FCs, or current ones? I just argued extensively against the first option, so I guess you're referring to the second.
> 
> ...



I don't want to say it's male ignorance, but I do think it's hard to understand the perspective for women, here. If the irony is that having a separate female list makes them feel like they can't achieve that, they should already be put off from the regular WR list, because those times are higher. So if that's the turn away, those people should already be unmotivated? But in your view, these don't motivate people at all, so I'm not sure why you made this argument. 

I honestly have messages from a bunch of current female cubers that they would really like this list and that they find it especially motivating. It might just help in reassuring people that there are other women who are doing the same things they want to do? Even if they don't feel they can accomplish those times. Like I said, if you look at top rankings, it doesn't even seem like female cubers exist. I can't say if it's going to necessarily help new FCs, because none of them are really on here to express their opinion. But if it helps current FCs, why not? Every female cuber on this list has expressed that this sorting option would benefit them.

Obviously if you have difficulty understanding the perspective (as it would make sense to, I have difficulty understanding yours for perhaps similar reasons) then I can understand why you doubt the effectiveness of it. I would bring up a chess point again, but those seem moot, haha. If you don't have strong views against it and women here have expressed it would benefit them, I really have a hard time seeing why not. I know for a lot of the guys here on this thread this doesn't seem important, but I really think it matters to a few people who might already have a hard enough time having their views considered, not that this includes you, obviously you're considering what people have to say. Sorry if that was a bit wordy. *Enter excuse about it being early here* Alright, I feel terrible for continually bumping this thread, but it feels strange to leave points untouched.


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## Erik (Mar 7, 2014)

Dene said:


> But I have my doubts... I can see what Feliks is capable of (only too many times have I witnessed this...) and it doesn't motivate me in the least  . The ultimate irony would be that by having a separate female list you would turn away new FCs because they don't think they would be able to achieve those times.



Please don't understand me wrong (not trying to be mean or anything), but if that is not motivating you, then you don't have a good mindset to be a top-cuber anyway... Determination and believe in yourself is in my opinion even more important than talent or the amount of practice. The "it might scare them" argument is totally invalid I think. If someone would really be scared because of a list presenting 'the truth' then this is not the fault of the list


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## Dene (Mar 7, 2014)

Heh I knew I dug myself in deep by getting into this >.<



larf said:


> Maybe I understand this wrong, but I actually don't get why you describe this as different approaches.
> A lot of people I have met set their personal goals on base of records, e.g. be in the top 10 national records, get a better ranking in the sum of ranks and so on. So they compete against themselves with the actual ranking in mind.



This is a fair point, but mostly only applies to the "elite" group, which is usually a minority at competitions. The thing is, everyone knows what they are generally capable of so there mostly won't be any surprises with the times they get. The "slower" people usually make up the majority at competitions, and usually records are the furthest thing from their minds.



Erik said:


> Of course ppl want records. This is like saying: "I will not go for WR" which is just not ture. You always "go for WR"/"would want to break the WR" even if you don't have a chance.



Maybe this is your mentality at competitions, as someone with plenty of WR experience. But I am of the opinion that, if you genuinely believe what you said here, you are living in fairyland  . Someone that averages 20 seconds knows they are no hope of getting a WR and I doubt they would want to delude themselves into really trying for the WR at any particular instance when they know that thought is totally insane. Rather, people genuinely want to beat their PBs, and that is what I always hear from cubers at competitions.



Erik said:


> In my experience this is not true. There is always competition between people, not necessarily for NR's though.



There can be quite a lot of friendly competition, but only between people who realistically know that they are of similar times. But my main point is that in most instances, when people are practising at home, their primary objective is to get better, while any thought of beating others is secondary, and mostly only comes to mind when they see their friends again. 



Erik said:


> Again. This is is totally unlogical. Why would you only want to be the best girl and not want to be the best of everyone?



If you want to be the best of everyone then why do we need a female list?



Erik said:


> The first part of this is actually quite interesting in the sense of that it might be useful to look further into this to maybe think about how to get more boys and girls into cubing, this would make an interesting thread on the forum.



Actually that's a really good idea, and I think it's something we should discuss on the forums.


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## Dene (Mar 7, 2014)

Erik said:


> Please don't understand me wrong (not trying to be mean or anything), but if that is not motivating you, then you don't have a good mindset to be a top-cuber anyway... Determination and believe in yourself is in my opinion even more important than talent or the amount of practice. The "it might scare them" argument is totally invalid I think. If someone would really be scared because of a list presenting 'the truth' then this is not the fault of the list



dw we are totally on the same page here :tu

You're right, I don't want to be a top-cuber. I just cube for fun, and because I'm still addicted even after all this time. But the reality is 99% of people are in the same boat as me. In life, most people don't have what it takes (mentally) to be the best, that's why so few are highly successful in the world. If this is true, don't you agree it makes sense to focus on getting people involved for the fun side of it, rather than the competitive side of it, which applies only to the minority? That is, if we want cubing to grow and get more people involved.


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## Dene (Mar 7, 2014)

rowan said:


> But if it helps current FCs, why not? Every female cuber on this list has expressed that this sorting option would benefit them.



I dunno, I don't have a strong opinion against it. I know I'm probably giving off that impression (I'm doing my best not to) but what I really want to see is a solid, convincing argument for having the list. Otherwise I won't be persuaded from my current opinion that we shouldn't even bother collecting gender data. Just give me an excuse and I'm on your side 

Mostly, I just like a good argument, and I won't stand for poor reasoning so I thought I'd get involved here to really press the issue. At least this way we'll find out if there really are any good arguments for one side or the other.



rowan said:


> Alright, I feel terrible for continually bumping this thread, but it feels strange to leave points untouched.



Ya we are totally on the same page here as well


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## Zoé (Mar 7, 2014)

Just popping in this argument here but here is my opinion about it as a girl : there's just not enough female cubers and competition for this list to be really interesting to me. I wouldn't consider myself a very good cuber, but I would most likely appear in top 100 for most events which would make no sense to me! I don't want to offend fellow female cubers, but if I personally were looking at those lists all I would feel would be this : "oooh, we took a bunch of bad people, and of those bad people I'm ranked in top 10! AWESOME!".
I think such a list would only exist to flatter girls that can't be bothered practicing/dedicating themselves to cubing enough to be really good and get a decent rank on an "everyone" list. I think we have the same capabilities as guys so we should be ranked with them and that's it. 

But yeah, I can imagine that my opinion is not the most popular one, so if it pleases most of the girls it would be okay to add a search by gender... it's not like anyone would force me to ever look at it ^^


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## Jaycee (Mar 7, 2014)

Note: I'm speaking under the assumption that we're talking about simply adding a "sort by gender" option on the WCA site, and not WR/CR/NR for females.

I've read through everything that's been said since rowan revived the thread. To sum up the way I feel about it:

In response to anybody who might ask for a positive effect as a response to "Is there any negative effect?": 
So you can't think of a negative effect. However, some people can think of a positive effect. Doesn't it make sense to implement something that would have a positive effect on some and a negative effect on none, even if some people don't think that positive effect exists? If one person thinks it won't help anyone, but another has clearly stated that it *would * help them, why not help the one, as long as it's not at the expense of anyone else? 

An even shorter representation of how I feel: If it doesn't affect you in any way whatsoever, why take such a strong stance against it?

This is not directed at any person in particular.


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## kinch2002 (Mar 7, 2014)

Just so people know, the WCA Board/delegates etc are discussing this


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## Stefan (Mar 7, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> So you can't think of a negative effect.



It costs screen space.


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

Stefan said:


> It costs screen space.



Is there something that should be prioritized to go in that empty screen space? Or is the empty screen space simply better than this addition? Perhaps it's just my browser, there's quite a bit of it around the drop down menus.


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## kcl (Mar 7, 2014)

"I just spent 20 minutes reading all of that unproductive crap."

Same phenomenon as why people watch soap operas  

Anyway I'm with Rowan on this. If I were a female cuber, I would be interested in how I stack up against the rest of my gender. The fact that I happen to be male means I have never had this issue. I also see why other guys may not see the point, because we are the overwhelming gender in this sport. 

So yeah. It wouldn't be very hard to implement.. Just another button.


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## Jaycee (Mar 7, 2014)

Stefan said:


> It costs screen space.



Weigh the cost against the positive result. The things that rowan and others have outlined are surely worth a small bit of screen space, no?

Edit: I've realized that it's possible that you may just be trying to provide a possible response to what I said, not that you actually support the response as a valid reason.


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## Tim Major (Mar 7, 2014)

The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.

When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested. 

I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.


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## kcl (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.
> 
> When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested.
> 
> I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.



This is because there are very few female cubers ahead of your speed in the world. We aren't trying to say they should be ranked differently, just that they should have an option to show only results from a certain gender.


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.
> 
> When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested.
> 
> I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.



It is just an unofficial ranking. It is is NO WAY anything serious! This wouldn't give female cubers their own section for records, it would simply give them a way to see how the stack up to other female cubers. Male cubers essentially already have this since the majority of male cubers make up the rankings.

Edit: ninja'd but I still stand by my point


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## Tim Major (Mar 7, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> It is just an unofficial ranking. It is is NO WAY anything serious! This wouldn't give female cubers their own section for records, it would simply give them a way to see how the stack up to other female cubers. Male cubers essentially already have this since the majority of male cubers make up the rankings.
> 
> Edit: ninja'd but I still stand by my point



There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...

The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...
> 
> The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"



If you had read the thread, you would know that it has nothing to do with legitimacy, rather, it is about *ACCESS*.

Would there be a WR beside their name on their profile? No. Therefore, it is not official.


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...
> 
> The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"



I have never mentioned legitimacy in my arguments and I can't recall anyone who has.

The rankings are already recorded on the WCA via user profile so in that sense it is already "legitimate," it's just harder to access. Sum of ranks is listed on the website and it isn't an official title, either. The WCA provides rankings that aren't official records, but they still motivate people. This would simply be an additional one.


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## Tim Major (Mar 7, 2014)

Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
http://iwca.jp


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
> http://iwca.jp



I meant access to everyone, not just people on this thread. How many people who are first getting started cubing and who aren't on speedsolving.com or in other Rubik's cube groups or are unable to attend competitions are going to know about that site? Google Rubik's cubes rankings, it doesn't show up in the first five pages. I didn't go any further because who does?


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## Cool Frog (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
> http://iwca.jp



I've never heard of that website until this thread and I've been cubing for five years.


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## Tim Major (Mar 7, 2014)

I started cubing in 2009, I didn't view the miscellaneous page on the WCA until 2013/2014

In fact I saw this site before the misc page.

The only way to make it more accessable is to have it in the same place as the genderless rankings, and I think that's a sad divide for no reason.

At a comp, instead of you being competitive with other cubers, you want to say "sorry I'll just go for the ****easy female top 100 instead"?

This decreases competitiveness in my opinion.


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## rowan (Mar 7, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> I started cubing in 2009, I didn't view the miscellaneous page on the WCA until 2013/2014
> 
> In fact I saw this site before the misc page.
> 
> ...



No, that makes no sense. Do you think competitive girls only care about being competitive with girls? I'm just saying this is *added* motivation. Did you read through this thread? I've made that point three times now I think. I've also addressed why there IS a reason to create a gender sorting option and quite a few girls have said why this is important to them and helps motivate them. You're not a female cuber and they are. They say it makes them more competitive, what other evidence would people like to see? These arguments are repetitive. I spent a long time forming my argument. This is in the constructive cubing discussion section for a reason. If you're not making any new points and you won't dignify the thread by reading it, I don't know why you're posting. Also we have been saying it shouldn't been in the misc section.

I'm sorry, I've been trying to respond really politely since this thread has gone on, but I don't think the people arguing against gender sorting have even taken the time to really think about their posts and views and I don't find it productive for me to keep repeating myself. The WCA board is discussing this and told me they'd get back to me. I will let you know what they think. I encourage you to read this.


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## Stefan (Mar 7, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> Weigh the cost against the positive result.



Weigh it with the number of affected people, though. Costs everybody's screen space, but not everybody is interested. And yes, a single little filter won't be a space problem, but you can use the same argument to argue for further filters so it could become a problem eventually. And it's not just space, it's also attention/time (takes a small amount to ignore it and to move the mouse across it compared to it not being there).



Jaycee said:


> The things that rowan and others have outlined are surely worth a small bit of screen space, no?



Don't know, thread suddenly became much TL;DR, sorry.



Jaycee said:


> Edit: I've realized that it's possible that you may just be trying to provide a possible response to what I said, not that you actually support the response as a valid reason.



Yeah, not saying it's particularly important, just that it's *something*.


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## Jaycee (Mar 8, 2014)

Stefan said:


> And yes, a single little filter won't be a space problem, but you can use the same argument to argue for further filters so it could become a problem eventually.



I think the only other reasonable category that could be argued for is age groups. Any other category that I can currently think of is just arbitrary. I'm curious, is there any other category within reason that deserves a filter in your opinion? (Or anybody else's, if they'd like to share)



Stefan said:


> Costs everybody's screen space, but not everybody is interested. (.....) And it's not just space, it's also attention/time (takes a small amount to ignore it and to move the mouse over it compared to it not being there).



The same could be said of the regional filter or the year filter. Is adding one more beyond reason? At some point we have to draw the line between an effect that matters and an effect that exists but isn't actually a problem.


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## Skullush (Mar 8, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
> http://iwca.jp



That site is glitchy, it won't let me view the female records in certain continents/countires


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> I think the only other reasonable category that could be argued for is age groups. Any other category that I can currently think of is just arbitrary. I'm curious, is there any other category within reason that deserves a filter in your opinion? (Or anybody else's, if they'd like to share)



Birth date is the only other data the WCA collects and is allowed to publish publicly. 2c-2d in the regulations.

Edit: Stefan corrected me, this data is supposed to be confidential.


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## Kirjava (Mar 8, 2014)

are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?


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## Tim Major (Mar 8, 2014)

rowan said:


> Birth date is the only other data the WCA collects and is allowed to publish publicly.



It also collects participants initials, ima go for the top 10 of people who's name starts with T!

Seriously, I appreciate you remaining calm/collected through all these posts, but I have still seen 0 reason to rank it differently.

I'm sure you agree that ranking via initials is stupid, but give your arguments against ranking with initials, and you'll see most apply to ranking by gender.


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> It also collects participants initials, ima go for the top 10 of people who's name starts with T!
> 
> Seriously, I appreciate you remaining calm/collected through all these posts, but I have still seen 0 reason to rank it differently.
> 
> I'm sure you agree that ranking via initials is stupid, but give your arguments against ranking with initials, and you'll see most apply to ranking by gender.



Is there a disparity amongst people with certain initials? Do these same people face other marginalization? I also spoke about this in relation to birth month.



Kirjava said:


> are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?



Personally not opposed or in favor, I wouldn't argue either way.


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## Chree (Mar 8, 2014)

Kirjava said:


> are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?



*raises hand* I would actually love to see how I rank amongst other people old enough to rent a car.


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## Stefan (Mar 8, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> is there any other category within reason that deserves a filter in your opinion?



Don't know. But gender and age are currently the only ones we *can* add (with the data we have).

Maybe eventually skin color if it turns out that that matters? I don't know why there's no 100 meters ranking for whites, for example, given that we suck so badly that I didn't find any in the top 35 (didn't look further):
http://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/sprints/100-metres/outdoor/men/senior (click "Best by Athlete")
Surely a white runner ranking would encourage and motivate just like a female cuber ranking would?


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## Jaycee (Mar 8, 2014)

Kirjava said:


> are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?



Not that I know of, but I see now that Lucas brought it up on the Github post.



Tim Major said:


> It also collects participants initials, ima go for the top 10 of people who's name starts with T!
> ...
> give your arguments against ranking with initials, and you'll see most apply to ranking by gender.



I know you're joking, but it gets to point where we can't just say "what applies to this also applies to that so they should be treated the same"


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Don't know. But gender and age are currently the only ones we *can* add (with the data we have).
> 
> Maybe eventually skin color if it turns out that that matters? I don't know why there's no 100 meters ranking for whites, for example, given that we suck so badly that I didn't find any in the top 35 (didn't look further):
> http://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/sprints/100-metres/outdoor/men/senior (click "Best by Athlete")
> Surely a white runner ranking would encourage and motivate just like a female cuber ranking would?



The WCA doesn't collect race data, it would require categorizing everyone, including those who may not be cubing any longer.


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## Kirjava (Mar 8, 2014)

are female cubers marginalised? if so, how?


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Kirjava said:


> are female cubers marginalised? if so, how?



In that particular case I was referring to the general marginalization women face. I do think female cubers are underrepresented which I would attribute to a variety of sociopsychological factors, including their marginalization.


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## jeff081692 (Mar 8, 2014)

I would actually like to see by age. I was reminded that for chess you can sort by age in the US http://www.uschess.org/component/option,com_top_players/Itemid,371/

They also have a section for women and I guess it's there for a reason.

Sorting by age also allows us to see who to look out for in the future. And it would motivate kids regardless of gender to also compete against others in their age group which is something I liked to do when I played chess since the top players were way out of my league.


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## Jaycee (Mar 8, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Surely a white runner ranking would encourage and motivate just like a female cuber ranking would?



I see your point. However, I think the difference might be that top tier white runners don't care how they are relative to other white runners (I obviously can't claim to know this for sure), they care about how they are relative to everybody else in the world. Some female cubers, on the other hand, care about their placement relative to *both* other females and everybody else in the world.

This is getting to the point of speculation, which probably isn't good for this discussion, lol.


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## Stefan (Mar 8, 2014)

rowan said:


> Birth date is the only other data the WCA collects and is allowed to publish publicly. 2c-2d in the regulations.



Read them again. Birth date is confidential, not public.


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 8, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> I see your point. However, I think the difference might be that top tier white runners don't care how the are relative to other white runners (I obviously can't claim to know this for sure), they care about how they are relative to everybody else in the world. Some female cubers, on the other hand, care about their placement relative to *both* other females and everybody else in the world.
> 
> This is getting to the point of speculation, which probably isn't good for this discussion, lol.



That's the point everyone is missing. The rankings against other females would obviously not replace the current ranking system, it would simply give women a way to see how they stack up against other women as well as against the entire cubing population.

Simple.


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Read them again. Birth date is confidential, not public.



Opps, sorry, you're right. I misread.

Then that's the best argument against it, cubers who disclosed their birth dates were told it would be kept confidential. If cubers wanted to change that, perhaps a separate thread polling people on this would be appropriate? And those who don't want their birth date shared could have the ability to opt out? Just to ensure that the collection and intention of the collection the data are consistent.


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## IRNjuggle28 (Mar 8, 2014)

This entire thing is silly. Someone can make a female record page on speedsolving wiki if they want, but getting the WCA to waste time on this is pointless. Unlike with sports that are strength based, where females have a distinct disadvantage, there is no reason to think that gender affects cubing ability.


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## cubingawsumness (Mar 8, 2014)

I just spent a good portion of my afternoon reading through this thread... My thoughts would just be repeating what has already been said, probably not very coherently, so I would just like to state that as a female cuber, I support the implementation of this "unofficial" ranking on the WCA website.


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## Jaycee (Mar 8, 2014)

Did you even read the thread? @IRNjuggle

Yeah, I didn't think so.


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## Tim Major (Mar 8, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> Did you even read the thread? @IRNjuggle
> 
> Yeah, I didn't think so.



Obviously he didn't, but it just shows how the majority of people find it stupid. 
I doubt this will be added to the WCA due to the backlash so I think I can comfortably ignore this thread.

All the girls in this thread who care, use the iwca site. I spoke to a female cuber a few months ago about this and she was part of the reason I disagree with this change.

She personally thought it was pointless to divide genders based on nothing suggesting one gender is superior.


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Obviously he didn't, but it just shows how the majority of people find it stupid.
> I doubt this will be added to the WCA due to the backlash so I think I can comfortably ignore this thread.



One person posting definitely constitutes a majority. Also what backlash? A good majority of the people who even argued that it wasn't important even said they don't mind it being added and were just saying they don't get why. I think you and IRNjuggle are the only ones to actually say you actually have an opinion against this.



Tim Major said:


> All the girls in this thread who care, use the iwca site. I spoke to a female cuber a few months ago about this and she was part of the reason I disagree with this change.



No. 
That's also one female cuber's opinion. All of the ones on this thread either don't care about its addition either way or want it. 



Tim Major said:


> She personally thought it was pointless to divide genders based on nothing suggesting one gender is superior.



No one has suggested that any gender is superior. Not a single person. Separating genders does not suggest one is superior, either. It just expresses that they are different, which they are at least in terms of participation.


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## cubingawsumness (Mar 8, 2014)

cubingawsumness said:


> I just spent a good portion of my afternoon reading through this thread... My thoughts would just be repeating what has already been said, probably not very coherently, so I would just like to state that as a female cuber, I support the implementation of this "unofficial" ranking on the WCA website.



Change in my opinion: maybe the iWCA site is enough.
When I first started cubing, I didn't use the official WCA site, so adding this onto the official site wouldn't really encourage my participation in the first place. I think that this only really affects existing female cubers, and if any of them really want to see this list, they would be able to find the iWCA site (asking about it on here, searching). Like someone stated before, people seem to simultaneously want more and less attention for this kind of list - the reason they want it on the WCA website is to gain attention/access, but then it should also be "unofficial" and "just another statistic".


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## mDiPalma (Mar 8, 2014)

Any request for an addition to the WCA website allowing the option to separate results by ANYTHING other than nation/continent is completely ludicrous and unfounded. 

These current *national* segregations exist in parallel with the WCA Mission that requires *national* organizations to host competitions *domestically*.

Any other segregations (gender, birth month, initials) are *not* required by the WCA Mission/Goal/Spirit and should *not* be pursued at the expense of the "dues" of any World Cube Association members.


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## Dene (Mar 8, 2014)

It's interesting because, I would say black people are considerably less represented in cubing than females (based on my experience). I know we don't have the data, but if we did I bet no one would argue for having it there.


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## BaMiao (Mar 8, 2014)

I think everyone here is underestimating the benefit this ranking would provide to new female cubers. In fact, the benefit it would give to existing, already fast female cubers is secondary in my mind.

It is important for new, young cubers to have role models to use for inspiration. It is especially important when it comes to sustaining continued interest. For young girls, it is natural to look to other girls for inspiration, and at the moment they are few and far between. The ranking would show girls just getting into cubing that there _are_ other girls out there with the same interest.

I think most people here know what it is like to walk in a room and instantly feel that they don't belong. Showing up to a competition and seeing 90% boys adds to the intimidation already inherent in the competition environment. I wouldn't be surprised if we could show that girls drop out of cubing faster than boys do (which seems to happen in chess). I think giving exposure to the fastest female cubers would help somewhat.

As for comparisons to things like race- there's no reason not to do something that can benefit people just because we don't also do something else that is superficially similar. There are many differences, besides, between gender and race that I don't feel like going into.


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## PeelingStickers (Mar 8, 2014)

At the end of the day, if a female cuber really does want to be the best in the world, they are not gonna be aiming for #1 on the female cubers list - they want to be the top cuber on the planet. This person would practice the cube for many many hours, learn new algorithms and ways to improve to become world class. This is why I feel the argument "They (The FC's) will become demotivated by seeing themselves ranked highly on the FC list and think that that is enough". is flawed.


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## Dene (Mar 8, 2014)

BaMiao said:


> I think everyone here is underestimating the benefit this ranking would provide to new female cubers. In fact, the benefit it would give to existing, already fast female cubers is secondary in my mind.
> 
> It is important for new, young cubers to have role models to use for inspiration. It is especially important when it comes to sustaining continued interest. For young girls, it is natural to look to other girls for inspiration, and at the moment they are few and far between. The ranking would show girls just getting into cubing that there _are_ other girls out there with the same interest.
> 
> ...



Two things:
1) This is why having prominent female figures (e.g. Sarah Strong or Emily Wang) is important, but not necessarily why having the list would be useful.
2) Every argument put forward for having the list also applies to race (except the "we already have the data" argument). Of course there are differences, but are there any relevant differences that apply to the arguments presented so far?


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## rowan (Mar 8, 2014)

Dene said:


> Two things:
> 1) This is why having prominent female figures (e.g. Sarah Strong or Emily Wang) is important, but not necessarily why having the list would be useful.
> 2) Every argument put forward for having the list also applies to race (except the "we already have the data" argument). Of course there are differences, but are there any relevant differences that apply to the arguments presented so far?



I mean, logistically it would be much more difficult to implement a race list. Not that this is necessarily an argument for it not to be there, but it would require recollecting information from every cuber, some of whom are probably no longer active, and a change in the WCA regulations. I don't want to argue for this because I don't know how true it is or whether or not black cubers would appreciate something like this; I can't comment on those experiences because I'm not black. Main difference being there isn't a call for it. If black cubers made a thread saying, "I want this" and explained how it would help them, I would probably agree it's important. Who am I to say what is or isn't good for a group I don't know the experiences of?

I don't think simply because someone personally hasn't looked at the WCA doesn't mean that other new cubers don't. If you google Rubik's cube rankings, it's the first list to show up. I think it's reasonable that a new cuber might have interest in how fast a Rubik's cube is being solved right now. Maybe even out of curiosity. I agree, prominent female figures in the cubing community are important, but how would people know about them unless they involved themselves with the community? Should we just have a little thing that's like, "Hey, there are some female cubers here." Because that just doesn't seem as fair as a regular drop-down sorting list. Unless we would determine who is a prominent female cuber based on their speeds, in which case the list still makes sense.

The unofficial website does not show up in the google search for rankings like I've said before. If you want to encourage new FCs by showing them others, that website is a poor place to do it. People would have to make a conscious effort to talk about this frequently. It is not well known enough outside of the already existing community of cubers. Even if you said oh, it's the iWCA, that still isn't in the first couple of pages in the google search for iWCA. Also someone mentioned the website is glitchy. New cubers would have to see someone post the link. I haven't seen the link in popular cubing youtube descriptions, cubing groups on FB, or in other threads up until this one. Is there a better idea for exposure other than a sorting for top female cubers? I do not think this website provides good exposure at all.

Also, once again, the board is talking about this and taking it into consideration, so maybe it is in the "spirit" of the WCA. They haven't made any official comments on that point, so I'm not sure where you got that idea. The goal is to have more people compete, if this helps more women compete, it's in line with their goal. I've made the argument for why I think it would encourage women 5+ times and so have others.


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## bran (Mar 8, 2014)

How would having a different list for females help more females compete? There's a different list on the WCA website for Pakistani cubers and even with a population of 180 million there's still only 3 registered cubers (and 2 more that I know of). So I can't see how it promotes cubing among women and it would be great if you could explain that with sound reasoning.
Ps English isn't my first language so I might have explained my argument a bit poorly


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## Hays (Mar 9, 2014)

Well now that this thread has died down a bit I guess I'll ad my two cents.

Generally, I don't really see the necessity for female rankings to be easily available on the WCA website and would be opposed to it simply so we don't have clutter do to too many arbitrary stats.

But, since so many people are pushing for it and saying that a gender ranking system would benefit the community, I would say that it's perfectly fine to a ranking system to the WCA sit. If one is to be implemented however, it belongs in either the "statistics" or "misc" sections, and should definitely not grand the title of "WR/CR/NR" for being at the top of the rankings.

It doesn't belong on the main rankings page and shouldn't grant real records as this would devalue the current records that have been set regardless of gender. People work incredibly hard to be at the top of the world rankings, and seeing someone else with a "world record" who has obviously not been up against the same competition would reduce the value and satisfaction of achieving a world record.

It's fine to have the rankings available, but since there is no known discrepancy between male and female cubers, it should be seen only as a fun statistic and no more.


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## Cool Frog (Mar 9, 2014)

Hays said:


> blahblahblah



Since this thread was revived, where did anyone argue for the addition of female WR/NR? It certainly belongs on the main rankings page as the purpose of putting it there is accessibility. The fact of the matter is, there is already a ranking among female cubers, there is just a problem of easy access to this information. The addition of this sorting option make WR no less valid than they are now. 

As a small aside, If you didn't read this thread or the arguments presented, please don't post as your "contribution" or "opinion" has probably already been addressed.


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## Hays (Mar 9, 2014)

Cool Frog said:


> Since this thread was revived, where did anyone argue for the addition of female WR/NR? It certainly belongs on the main rankings page as the purpose of putting it there is accessibility. The fact of the matter is, there is already a ranking among female cubers, there is just a problem of easy access to this information. The addition of this sorting option make WR no less valid than they are now.
> 
> As a small aside, If you didn't read this thread or the arguments presented, please don't post as your "contribution" or "opinion" has probably already been addressed.



Thank you for reminding me why I hardly ever post in this forum.

anyway, the point of my post was to simply give my opinion about the entire issue of adding a gender based ranking system, and the topic of gender based "WR/NR/CR" has come up so I don't think my comments are out of place. Unlike so many people on this forum, I don't post for the sole purpose of arguing.

As you said, the main issue is accessibility of the rankings, not their existence. While they may not see nearly as much traffic as the main rankings page, the "Statistics" or "Misc" page is just as easy to access, and is the proper spot for gender rankings. The rankings page should be reserved for "serious" rankings - ones that are representative of World, Continental, or National records. 

Obviously even with a new sorting option, world records are still 100% "valid." But as someone that has firsthand experience of the countless hours of practice it takes to make it to the top of the rankings page, I'm saying that having gender based rankings on the main rankings page does make the "serious" rankings less special. Being on the top of the main rankings page should be reserved for those with legitimate World, Continental, or National records.

Additionally I did read this entire thread and the arguments in it, and I did not see too much clear discussion about my concerns. I also did not see any comments from any other "world class" cubers about what they would think of gender rankings alongside the main ones and thought that my ideas were valid since they were from a different perspective.


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## uberCuber (Mar 10, 2014)

I'm with Hays on this. I do not agree with this being added to the main rankings page. This whole time I have assumed the intention was for it to be put on the misc page, which is where I think it should be. The main rankings page is for lists that actually grant real records.


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## rowan (Mar 10, 2014)

Hays said:


> Thank you for reminding me why I hardly ever post in this forum.
> 
> anyway, the point of my post was to simply give my opinion about the entire issue of adding a gender based ranking system, and the topic of gender based "WR/NR/CR" has come up so I don't think my comments are out of place. Unlike so many people on this forum, I don't post for the sole purpose of arguing.
> 
> ...



I'm inclined to agree with this. The misc or stats page is probably the best place to put gender sorting since separate WR/CR/NRs are not going to exist. I guess we'll see what the WCA board and delegates think is the most appropriate place for this sort of listing. I would be happy to see it on the WCA's site at all, honestly. It would be unusual for something that isn't an official record to be placed on the main page as that's not what it's used for. Thank you for taking the time to read through all of this!


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## Yuxuibbs (Mar 10, 2014)

Purposely avoided posting in this thread but it seems like we need more females to chime in.

I think female rankings should just be unofficial and incorporated into the WCA website so people don't have to go to people's WCA profiles to figure out whether someone is male or female. I know iWCA exists but it's not easily accessible if you don't know that it exists. It doesn't have to be incorporated into the WCA profile as a ranking (no official records for gender). I don't really care where it is on the WCA website as long as it's easily accessible.
It wouldn't really be fair for the males to have female WR/CR/NR and there really aren't enough female cubers to have it be meaningful (I'm literally top 100 and most of the time top 20 in the world for everything I competed in for female rankings according to iWCA and I'm not that fast). It might provide females that are just starting out a way to feel better about themselves for being top 100 in something though. 
People compete against themselves when they know they won't beat WR/CR/NR. If a NR is really easy to beat, no one cares (like Skewb NR/CR 2 months ago). Ultimately, people care about what others think of them and what people tell themselves about themselves. People will not stop trying to beat the official WR/CR/NR because there are (presumably unofficial) female rankings.


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## sneaklyfox (Mar 10, 2014)

What... I don't read carefully for 3 days and this topic has added another dozen or so pages?? I think I spent the better part of the last hour reading when I could have been happily cubing...

I just checked all the other female cubers' WCA profiles (ones who posted in this thread) to see if they were faster or slower than me. Point in fact. I don't think I have much to add that hasn't already been said a billion times except to ask whether we have a poll for female cubers to say whether a sorting on the WCA site would help them or motivate them or not at all or have the opposite effect. I just want to be able to see more easily what female cubers think about this topic rather than reading through pages of posts.


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## Sa967St (Mar 10, 2014)

sneaklyfox said:


> I just want to be able to see more easily what female cubers think about this topic rather than reading through pages of posts.


See the second post in this thread.


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## Rubiks560 (Mar 10, 2014)

I'm so confused...all these girls want this ranking list, when it already exists on iWCA. at this point it just sounds like people are being lazy. Bookmark the page.

That's what I got out of the notable female posts.

To me, it just sounds like females want a way for everyone to go "Oooh. This is the fastest female." But as far as I'm aware, no one cares. And if they do, use iWCA. 

Just my 2 cents

Edit: with that being said, I wouldn't care If it was added.
I just dont think we need to when it already exists.


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 10, 2014)

Rubiks560 said:


> I'm so confused...all these girls want this ranking list, when it already exists on iWCA. at this point it just sounds like people are being lazy. Bookmark the page.



You obviously didn't read the thread. People want it on WCA for greater *accessibility*, not because they are lazy. Most people haven't heard of iWCA.


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## Rubiks560 (Mar 10, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> You obviously didn't read the thread. People want it on WCA for greater *accessibility*, not because they are lazy. Most people haven't heard of iWCA.



I apologize for having a life and not reading dozens of pages.

I still think this is stupid. Make it more known that iWCA exists than.


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## rowan (Mar 10, 2014)

Rubiks560 said:


> I apologize for having a life and not reading dozens of pages.
> 
> I still think this is stupid. Make it more known that iWCA exists than.



How?


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## Rubiks560 (Mar 10, 2014)

rowan said:


> How?



Have all the females go spread it by word of mouth and have them bookmark it.


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## rowan (Mar 10, 2014)

Rubiks560 said:


> Have all the females go spread it by word of mouth and have them bookmark it.



There are only 2,670 registered female cubers... 599 of them in China, 469 in the US, 146 in India, 121 in Brazil, and in the UK there are only 32. How often do you think female cubers are going to meet each other to "spread it by word of mouth?" It would be significantly more annoying if female cubers were constantly posting about this stuff on cubing websites than it would be to add gender sorting on the statistics or miscellaneous page of the WCA...


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## Rubiks560 (Mar 10, 2014)

rowan said:


> There are only 2,670 registered female cubers... 599 of them in China, 469 in the US, 146 in India, 121 in Brazil, and in the UK there are only 32. How often do you think female cubers are going to meet each other to "spread it by word of mouth?" It would be significantly more annoying if female cubers were constantly posting about this stuff on cubing websites than it would be to add gender sorting on the statistics or miscellaneous page of the WCA...



And how often do you think people actually check the miscellaneous page? Probably not that often.
Not going to continue posting about this topic. IMO it's stupid when people can figure out a way to make iWCA more known. Peace.


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## rowan (Mar 10, 2014)

Rubiks560 said:


> And how often do you think people actually check the miscellaneous page? Probably not that often.
> Not going to continue posting about this topic. IMO it's stupid when people can figure out a way to make iWCA more known. Peace.



"Probably" and you have really vague ideas about how to make it more known. I am sure you're not going to continue posting because you haven't proposed any good way to get the stats out there.


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## Stefan (Mar 10, 2014)

An idea I've thrown into the delegates thread:

We could add an "Unofficial external sites" section on the "Misc" page (might rename it "More") and link to iwca.jp on it with text like "Mobile-friendly results. Also offers gender rankings". Another site we could link to is fantasy.cubing.net.

Would that be good? Definitely easiest to implement right now . And I've been thinking about referring to external sites at least since stats.cubing.net.


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## AmazingCuber (Mar 10, 2014)

Stefan said:


> An idea I've thrown into the delegates thread:
> 
> We could add an "Unofficial external sites" section on the "Misc" page (might rename it "More") and link to iwca.jp on it with text like "Mobile-friendly results. Also offers gender rankings". Another site we could link to is fantasy.cubing.net.
> 
> Would that be good? Definitely easiest to implement right now . And I've been thinking about referring to external sites at least since stats.cubing.net.



this is a great idea! This would also allow beginners who may find the WCA online as it is the official organization but don't find e.g. the forum to find great cubing pages!


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## CriticalCubing (Mar 10, 2014)

I like this Idea a lot 


Stefan said:


> An idea I've thrown into the delegates thread:
> 
> We could add an "Unofficial external sites" section on the "Misc" page (might rename it "More") and link to iwca.jp on it with text like "Mobile-friendly results. Also offers gender rankings". Another site we could link to is fantasy.cubing.net.
> 
> Would that be good? Definitely easiest to implement right now . And I've been thinking about referring to external sites at least since stats.cubing.net.


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## Jaysammey777 (Mar 10, 2014)

Stefan said:


> An idea I've thrown into the delegates thread:
> 
> We could add an "Unofficial external sites" section on the "Misc" page (might rename it "More") and link to iwca.jp on it with text like "Mobile-friendly results. Also offers gender rankings". Another site we could link to is fantasy.cubing.net.
> 
> Would that be good? Definitely easiest to implement right now . And I've been thinking about referring to external sites at least since stats.cubing.net.



Great idea IMO for wca to link to other sites such as those


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## Sessinator (Mar 11, 2014)

I don't really post my opinion much on here, but for the sake of adding more to the discussion from a female perspective, I'll give it a go. :tu

I don't think the WCA should divide records into "female" world records and "male" world records. I've skimmed through this thread a bit and I don't think that anyone has really been pushing hard for that change to be made. The question here is whether female rankings should be displayed or easily accessible on the WCA website. 

Besides one's name, the three basic components of information for a WCA profile are one's country, age, and gender. With country information, we can determine national and continental records. For a while on the WCA site's statistics section, you could find age related statistics pertaining to the oldest competitors, youngest competitors, youngest to solve the cube blindfolded, etc. Noticeably nothing has ever been done with the third statistic, gender. 

Consider these statements: "Sebastian Weyer is officially the fastest 4x4 solver in the world." "Rami Sbahi is officially the youngest world record holder." "Emily Wang is the fastest female cuber." Of course all of these are true, and all are based off of WCA results, however only the middle (edit: make that the first, my bad) statistic is easily accessible on the WCA site. The WCA focuses on reporting results akin to the first; results based off of one's speed and citizenship alone without regard to age or gender. That isn't to say that people cannot find results like the other two meaningful or interesting, and that people should not have any interest in or report results like those. 

If I recall correctly (not certain on the accuracy of this), I remember reading that age statistics are no longer accessible because there was the possibility that younger cubers could be pushed into cubing perhaps rather unwilling so they could be that statistic. If this is so, I think the implications of displaying or having access to female results are much less worrisome.

I think the main concern people have is what sort of suggestions one might think the WCA would be making if they in any way decided to recognize any statistic other than one's country and official times. However, people still have interest in finding information about statistics other than just one's country and official times. I don't think we would have to worry about much harm being done if female results were accessible through the statistics or miscellaneous portions of the WCA website, rather than through a distinguishable filter on the main rankings page. 

It seems the basic criteria to become a category on the miscellaneous or statics sections are somewhat as followed: 
1. People will find it meaningful or interesting. 
2. There is enough information about the statistic. 

I think at the minimum statistics about female results seem to meet the criteria (1 arguably more than 2), and if they were to be implemented or accessible on the WCA site, the miscellaneous or statistics page seem to be the most appropriate places for the results to be.


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## Stefan (Mar 11, 2014)

Sessinator said:


> Consider these statements: "Sebastian Weyer is officially the fastest 4x4 solver in the world." "Rami Sbahi is officially the youngest world record holder." "Emily Wang is the fastest female cuber." Of course all of these are true, and all are based off of WCA results, however only the middle statistic is easily accessible on the WCA site.



The middle one is *not* true (he might be the youngest official world record holder, though). And how is the first one not easily accessible?


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## Sessinator (Mar 11, 2014)

Stefan said:


> The middle one is *not* true (he might be the youngest official world record holder, though). And how is the first one not easily accessible?



I could have been a bit more specific with the middle example. I meant to write that only the first is easily accessible. Perhaps I should have proofread a bit more... Either way I still think you can get the gist of the point I am putting across.


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## Lucas Garron (Mar 11, 2014)

Sessinator said:


> If I recall correctly (not certain on the accuracy of this), I remember reading that age statistics are no longer accessible because there was the possibility that younger cubers could be pushed into cubing perhaps rather unwilling so they could be that statistic.



The other main concern is that this is PII (personally identifiable information).
It can be a significant legal/security/privacy liability to reveal birthdates in bulk. (For example, consider how often a website has used your birthdate as part of authenticating you.)

By contrast, gender is mostly identifiable from the name, so it does not really reveal information for the vast majority of competitors (i.e. the entropy is way under H(10%) bits given the name), and the PII argument doesn't really apply.


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## Tim Major (Mar 11, 2014)

Justin Thomas is a female? :O


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## uberCuber (Mar 11, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Justin Thomas is a female? :O



Just checking to see if anyone is actually paying attention to such things. Also, that poll option seemed lonely.


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## Sa967St (Mar 11, 2014)

Rubiks560 said:


> Have all the females go spread it by word of mouth and have them bookmark it.





Rubiks560 said:


> And how often do you think people actually check the miscellaneous page? Probably not that often.
> Not going to continue posting about this topic. IMO it's stupid when people can figure out a way to make iWCA more known. Peace.



I believe that there's a significant difference between sharing iWCA.jp and actually having the gender filter implemented somewhere on the WCA site. It's not only greater accessibility that's wanted, but also reliability and legitimacy.

If we just wanted to know what the female rankings were, we would simply share iWCA.jp, but this is about more than just knowing what the female rankings are. 

Rowan brought up some really interesting points about exactly how this would encourage more females to pursue cubing, and I really don't think it wouldn't be the same if there were an external link to iWCA.jp on the WCA site instead of actually having the filter implemented there. It'd be much more encouraging to see the rankings directly on the WCA site, specifically on the misc. page.


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## rowan (Mar 11, 2014)

Sa967St said:


> I believe that there's a significant difference between sharing iWCA.jp and actually having the gender filter implemented somewhere on the WCA site. It's not only greater accessibility that's wanted, but also reliability and legitimacy.
> 
> If we just wanted to know what the female rankings were, we would simply share iWCA.jp, but this is about more than just knowing what the female rankings are.
> 
> Rowan brought up some really interesting points about exactly how this would encourage more females to pursue cubing, and I really don't think it wouldn't be the same if there were an external link to iWCA.jp on the WCA site instead of actually having the filter implemented there.



I agree with these points. 

Also, who runs iWCA? Do we know? The website could expire within this week/month/year for all we know. It also took like two minutes for me to get a search on there to show up. I think this could potentially be a good temporary fix, but there's no guarantee this website will remain functioning for long or even be updated. My concern is that this site will be linked and go inactive and then we're at the same place we are now.


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## Sa967St (Mar 11, 2014)

rowan said:


> I agree with these points. Also, who runs iWCA? Do we know? The website could expire within this week/month/year for all we know. It also took like two minutes for me to get a search on there to show up. I think this could potentially be a good temporary fix, but there's no guarantee this website will remain functioning for long or even be updated.


Sinpei Araki runs it.


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## Tim Major (Mar 11, 2014)

Sa967St said:


> I believe that there's a significant difference between sharing iWCA.jp and actually having the gender filter implemented somewhere on the WCA site. It's not only greater accessibility that's wanted, but also reliability and legitimacy.
> 
> If we just wanted to know what the female rankings were, we would simply share iWCA.jp, but this is about more than just knowing what the female rankings are.
> 
> Rowan brought up some really interesting points about exactly how this would encourage more females to pursue cubing, and I really don't think it wouldn't be the same if there were an external link to iWCA.jp on the WCA site instead of actually having the filter implemented there. It'd be much more encouraging to see the rankings directly on the WCA site, specifically on the misc. page.



http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...s-(Poll-added)&p=958806&viewfull=1#post958806

So people want the rankings added for legitimacy after all?


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## rowan (Mar 11, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...s-(Poll-added)&p=958806&viewfull=1#post958806
> 
> So people want the rankings added for legitimacy after all?



I think Sarah meant that it would insure the data is accurate and actual WCA data. (Correct me if I'm wrong, that's what I gathered.)

Also to Sarah, cool, do we know if he's planning on maintaing it?


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## uberCuber (Mar 11, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...s-(Poll-added)&p=958806&viewfull=1#post958806
> 
> So people want the rankings added for legitimacy after all?



I interpreted "legitimacy" as "not having to worry whether the results are always accurate and up to date"

EDIT: ninja'd


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## Sa967St (Mar 11, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...s-(Poll-added)&p=958806&viewfull=1#post958806
> 
> So people want the rankings added for legitimacy after all?



Accessibility is the biggest point for sure. I meant legitimacy as in knowing that the data is correct and is on the site for a reason (to encourage more female cubers), rather than to make a huge deal about who the fastest female cubers are.


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## Tim Major (Mar 11, 2014)

Sorry for misinterpreting then.


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## sneaklyfox (Mar 11, 2014)

The "For" and "Against" sides are relatively even. Shouldn't we put more effort into tackling that age statistic instead? (77% For, 6% Against)


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## ChickenWrap (Mar 11, 2014)

sneaklyfox said:


> The "For" and "Against" sides are relatively even. Shouldn't we put more effort into tackling that age statistic instead? (77% For, 6% Against)



77+6=83 

I don't remember for sure, but does the WCA require your age when you sign up? If they don't, I think it would be difficult to determine every current member's age, as well as establish that each member consents to providing/allowing that information to be used...


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## Tim Major (Mar 11, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> 77+6=83
> 
> I don't remember for sure, but does the WCA require your age when you sign up? If they don't, I think it would be difficult to determine every current member's age, as well as establish that each member consents to providing/allowing that information to be used...



The remaining 17% don't care.


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## Dene (Mar 11, 2014)

Sa967St said:


> Rowan brought up some really interesting points about exactly how this would encourage more females to pursue cubing, and I really don't think it wouldn't be the same if there were an external link to iWCA.jp on the WCA site instead of actually having the filter implemented there. It'd be much more encouraging to see the rankings directly on the WCA site, specifically on the misc. page.



Of course it could always be implemented as a sort of experiment... But I still don't think the issue is female maintenance (vs. attrition) so much as female acquisition, in which case the list wouldn't help.


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## bran (Mar 11, 2014)

I'm pretty sure Feliks has gotten more girls into cubing than any female out there. So, it's not necessary that having a filter for female rankings and making them more publicly known would encourage females to get into cubing. Just my two cents on the topic, don't hate me


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## JKNK (Mar 11, 2014)

i personally dont care about gender ranking, but i think it may be good idea. I mean it may inspire females to get faster and contribute to the community. Without people like feliks or mats, i wouldn't be able to be as fast i am today. They inspired me to get faster. I think more females would join and get faster with rankings sorted by gender.


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## rowan (Aug 17, 2017)

The Github issue regarding this has been bumped which reminds me,

http://iwca.jp is defunct (called it, just saying) does anyone know of a place where you can look at WCA rankings by gender? Thanks in advance.


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## cuberkid10 (Aug 18, 2017)

rowan said:


> The Github issue regarding this has been bumped which reminds me,
> 
> http://iwca.jp is defunct (called it, just saying) does anyone know of a place where you can look at WCA rankings by gender? Thanks in advance.


http://wcadb.net currently lets you sort by gender!


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## MiaSponseller (Aug 30, 2017)

I'd think it would be cool just to see the ranking of all female cubers.


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## Hazel (Aug 31, 2017)

Carson said:


> Then someone would get a sex change and screw things up. FAZ: With a little nip/tuck, you could hold both world records...


The post says gender sorting, not sex sorting
I think we should be able to see the rankings of female cubers, but there shouldn't be multiple WR's based on gender since male cubers aren't inherently faster than female ones, it's just that there are MORE male cubers.


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## T1_M0 (Aug 31, 2017)

Go to wcadb.net

Dang, there u have it


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## cuberkid10 (Aug 31, 2017)

Aerma said:


> I think we should be able to see the rankings of female cubers, but there shouldn't be multiple WR's based on gender since male cubers aren't inherently faster than female ones, it's just that there are MORE male cubers.


I mean, why do we recognize NR's? Where one lives has no bearing on their speed. Your nationality doesn't make you inherently better or worse than others, yet we still see them as valid records?


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## Malkom (Aug 31, 2017)

cuberkid10 said:


> I mean, why do we recognize NR's? Where one lives has no bearing on their speed. Your nationality doesn't make you inherently better or worse than others, yet we still see them as valid records?


The reason i see for NRs (and to some extent CRs) is that is shows who is most likely to win comps in that region. Another way of seeing it is that it also shows who is fastest in your local area, the cubers you meet IRL on a pretty regular basis.
This doesn't really work for huge countries like the US but works perfectly fine in smaller countries like most European countries.


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