# WRC Candidate: Kit Clement



## Lucas Garron (Apr 30, 2014)

You've probably seen Kit Clement quite a bit on this subforum.
The WRC would like to add him as an official member: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1188

If you'd like to discuss this before we go through with the appointment, feel free to comment.


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## Mikel (Apr 30, 2014)

Kit Clement is a very motivated and intelligent member of the WCA. He has been active with regulation changes and would be fully capable of fulfilling the duties of a WRC member.


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## AmazingCuber (Apr 30, 2014)

Go for it!


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## Erik (Apr 30, 2014)

Nothing against Kit at all. I am sure he is well motivated and he has indeed provided some good input.

But this doesn't make much sense to me. There were 2 well qualified applications from cubers from Europe a while ago which you quickly discarded with the motivation that they "don't need to be on the WRC team to be able to make a significant contribution". Now you add *another* North-American member with the motivation that "Joining the WRC is not necessary for this task, but it allows us to be confident that Kit has the authority to follow through with a concrete revision by the end of the year" The WRC almost exclusively exists of North-American cubers who barely have any significant experience in competitions outside of North-America (Tim doesn't seem to be very active in cubing nor the WRC). This seems quite inconsistent.


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## AvGalen (Apr 30, 2014)

So am I also being considered?

Hi Arnaud,

I will forward your application to the WRC. At the moment we do not
want to extend WRC, but once there is a position, they will consider
your application.


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## Lucas Garron (Apr 30, 2014)

Erik said:


> Nothing against Kit at all. I am sure he is well motivated and he has indeed provided some good input.
> 
> But this doesn't make much sense to me. There were 2 well qualified applications from cubers from Europe a while ago which you quickly discarded with the motivation that they "don't need to be on the WRC team to be able to make a significant contribution". Now you add *another* North-American member with the motivation that "Joining the WRC is not necessary for this task, but it allows us to be confident that Kit has the authority to follow through with a concrete revision by the end of the year" The WRC almost exclusively exists of North-American cubers who barely have any significant experience in competitions outside of North-America (Tim doesn't seem to be very active in cubing nor the WRC). This seems quite inconsistent.



Indeed, being on the WRC is not necessary to make contributions.
However, Kit is the only one who *has* made substantial contributions without being on the WRC. He belongs on it, puzzle issues or not.

Adding him to the WRC is essentially adding him to the WRC email list, so that he can stay in the loop about *all* Regulations-related things.
What he's doing wouldn't change much, except that he'd have more responsibilities. One of these would be making sure we *do* address the puzzle issue, and there is no one else I believe is better for this task.

(I should add I do not believe that Kit is not specifically motivated to be on the WRC for the puzzle regulations, although I did sound him out about the WRC and ask him to take on the puzzle stuff as part of the same effort to get some stuff done.)


The other applicants have are significantly familiar with competitions and Regulations, but:

their desire to be on the WRC is partially motivated by an agenda/specific topics, and
they don't have a strong track record in moving Regulation changes forward.

Good ideas and well-argued viewpoints may be useful, but we need actionable work like Kit's.
For puzzle changes, I haven't really seen anything concrete from anyone except Sébastien (and a little from Kit).


I'm acutely aware of the continental issue. This got worse after Clément and Sébastien each left the WRC.
Unfortunately, the makeup of the WRC has not been a top priority for me. Part of the motivation for bringing on Kit is so that we have more active members, and can think about things like this (including Delegate votes, which could be how we approve future WRC members). I would certainly like to work on this in the future.


(In any case, I did note that with Shelley leaving, the North American balance is not getting *any worse*. That's not really an excuse for the imbalance, but it's my main reason for not inviting Kit sooner. Kit is also from another part of the country, which helps our diversity a little bit.)


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## Erik (Apr 30, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> However, Kit is the only one who *has* made substantial contributions without being on the WRC. He belongs on it, puzzle issues or not.



I feel like "Substantial contributions" only count for *you *if someone presents proposals which can be implemented right away into the regulations one-on-one (so the only thing the WRC has to do is "click on OK"), and that well justified criticism or making numerous smaller contributions simply go unnoticed and unrewarded. In my opinion these proposal which are one-on-one transferrable are solely the responsibility of the WRC to make. It sounds like you choose him because he just lives up to your specific expectations. I am more than 100% sure that both of the other candidates do posses the skill to be excellent WRC members and I would be surprised if anyone here disagrees with that.



> The other applicants have are significantly familiar with competitions and Regulations, but:
> 
> 
> their desire to be on the WRC is partially motivated by an agenda/specific topics, and


Of course someone gets motivated partially by specific topics who appeal to him/her, how is that a bad thing? It doesn't mean they don't care about anything else, but just got triggered by specific topics. To me this sounds like you were looking for arguments after making a decision.




> I'm acutely aware of the continental issue. This got worse after Clément and Sébastien each left the WRC.




That's good to hear. You also have the opportunity to take a large step into solving this, see Arnaud's post and application.


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## Lucas Garron (Apr 30, 2014)

Erik said:


> I feel like "Substantial contributions" only count for *you *if someone presents proposals which can be implemented right away into the regulations one-on-one (so the only thing the WRC has to do is "click on OK"), and that well justified criticism or making numerous smaller contributions simply go unnoticed and unrewarded. In my opinion these proposal which are one-on-one transferrable are solely the responsibility of the WRC to make. It sounds like you choose him because he just lives up to your specific expectations.
> 
> Of course someone gets motivated partially by specific topics who appeal to him/her, how is that a bad thing? It doesn't mean they don't care about anything else, but just got triggered by specific topics. To me this sounds like you were looking for arguments after making a decision.



That is one clear way to make a substantial contribution -- it is usually the easiest way to see that you are helping "get stuff done" (I usually call it a "concrete" contribution).
Another main way is to take a controversial discussion and help make sense of it. Kit has also started threads and made quite a few posts like this.

I do place an emphasis on concrete changes, because the specific details do matter (speaking from experience).
For something as big as puzzle changes, a high-level viewpoint will still take considerable work to turn into Regulations -- subtle phrasing choices can have unintended consequences.

For something small, we do expect a suggestion that is well-articulated enough to be "one-on-one transferrable". I have adopted quite a variety of smaller proposals/suggestions into exact changes, and things go better when the person discussing a change had something exact in mind. The WRC can work a lot better if we don't have to spend time trying to interpret other people's intended changes.

At least two people (including Arnaud) have offered to work on a more detailed proposal, but never got back to me with anything.
I understand people are busy, and it can be discouraging to work on something if you don't know whether it will be adopted -- but the fact is that very little came out of anything, except Sébastien's original proposal.


We/I did choose Kit because he lives up to our expectations, and I don't consider that a bad thing. He does the kind of things that someone on the WRC should do. Smaller contributions are fine (and you certainly don't have to be on the WRC for it), but the WRC needs someone who moves things along.


Kit also spends effort looking at the sides of an issue, and previous comments, before stating his views.
In my experience, he focuses on the details and considerations that really matter (on either side of an issue), which is better to respond to than someone who is bent on advancing their viewpoint.
Everyone argues specific sides sometimes, but if someone is dedicated to one side, a spectator's view of whether that person is making a positive contribution boils down to "is (s)he arguing for the side I agree with?"

Having a motivating viewpoint is fine, but it's helpful insofar as it helps you find objectively good reasons for going with that side.
It's possible to do this while trying to stay neutral, or keep different goals in mind, which Kit does.

(I have personally spent a lot of time on this subforum defending the current Regulations, but a lot of that is from the perspective of the current policy. I've stated my concerns about other policies, and that I think a form of "anything goes" could work -- it mainly takes some work that no one is stepping up to the plate for.)


In short: Kit's contributions are good by any what I believe *should* be part of my "expectations" -- and I believe my expectations are appropriate.
Others have made contributions, but those are not as strong examples of what a WRC member needs to be doing.

(Arnaud's posts have generally been constructive, but I believe Kit is more qualified with regard to the points above.)



Erik said:


> That's good to hear. You also have the opportunity to take a large step into solving this, see Arnaud's post and application.



Yeah. I have way too many things to do right now, but I'm looking into Arnaud's application. (I accidentally overlooked it in January, and never really got back to it -- no one else dealt with it.)
Could you let me know who the other person is, to see if it's who I think it is? (Else, I'm probably not aware of them.)


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 30, 2014)

I think Kit will be a wonderful addition to the WRC and am very happy to hear that he is to be added. I can think of few people more qualified than Kit to be part of the WRC.

That being said, I do think the WRC should be a reasonably representative cross-section of world competitors. Different parts of the world have different cultural perspectives that can truly affect rules decisions, and I fear there might be a tendency to leave out alternate perspectives if the committee is primarily from one concentrated location. I hope Arnaud's application will be very seriously considered.


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## Crazycubemom (Apr 30, 2014)

Why not put Arnaud and Kit together @ WRC. And Lucas Garron is also Good @ WRC.


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## Lucas Garron (May 4, 2014)

All the feedback about Kit in particular has been positive/neutral, so we've added him to the WRC.

The main feedback from announcing his candidacy was that we should be considering Arnaud because 1) he is well-qualified, and 2) gives the WRC a better international outlook.
I'm going make sure we consider his application until either:

 We announce his candidacy.
 We decline his application, with an explicit explanation of the qualifications we expect for a WRC member, and when/how we add new members.

In addition, we'd love to see more people involved in the Regulations process like Kit has been.
It's certainly simpler to admit a candidate if (s)he is already helping out, and if we have more people working on the Regulations we can address more topics and more opinions.


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