# The DNF master



## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

What the ... ?
http://worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2009WANG13


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## 4Chan (Dec 1, 2009)

o_o

A former WR holder as well, odd.


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## Edmund (Dec 1, 2009)

He's good at magic and not good at other stuff.


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## Forte (Dec 1, 2009)

Those darn M slices


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## JTW2007 (Dec 1, 2009)

StefanPochmann said:


> What the ... ?



Yeah, that pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Possibilities:

- WCA error
- overly optimistic competitor
- ???
- joke
- ???

Anyone else got anything?



Forte said:


> Those darn M slices



 Take it back!


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## Ethan Rosen (Dec 1, 2009)

http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808

That could certainly explain it


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## Tim Major (Dec 1, 2009)

Only 88 DNFs. Someone had 123. I remember. Though they'd been to way more comps.

Edit: ^^^ definitely. He was the only person at the Beijing Comp who DNFed all those events.


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## JTW2007 (Dec 1, 2009)

Ethan Rosen said:


> http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808
> 
> That could certainly explain it



Ah. I see.


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## Forte (Dec 1, 2009)

JTW2007 said:


> Forte said:
> 
> 
> > Those darn M slices
> ...



Those ROCKIN M slices


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## JTW2007 (Dec 1, 2009)

Forte said:


> JTW2007 said:
> 
> 
> > Forte said:
> ...



That's better!


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## mrbiggs (Dec 1, 2009)

Ethan Rosen said:


> http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808
> 
> That could certainly explain it



That's rough. 


What's up with world record cubers and cheating?


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## RainbowBoy (Dec 1, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> Ethan Rosen said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808
> ...


Yea I know
Whats wrong with them?
I wish I could get times like them but now they are just setting a bad example for 
cubers


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## shelley (Dec 1, 2009)

http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2007BUCK01
Nothing but DNFs


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## 4Chan (Dec 1, 2009)

mrbiggs said:


> Ethan Rosen said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808
> ...



Ambition.

I can completely relate.
I would do anything for world record times, and the fame which accompanies it.

EDIT: This sort of implies I would cheat, but i would never cheat. d:
I don't want to compromise my credibility. (Unless it already was.)


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## AvGalen (Dec 1, 2009)

ZB_FTW!!! said:


> Only 88 DNFs. Someone had 123. I remember. Though they'd been to way more comps.
> 
> Edit: ^^^ definitely. He was the only person at the Beijing Comp who DNFed all those events.


Just 123? I have had more than that 

Rubik's Cube: Multi blind old style: 7
Rubik's Cube: Multiple Blindfolded: 6
Master Magic: 8
Rubik's Magic: 11
Rubik's Clock: 19 (I think 3 or 4 of these should have been DNS)
Square-1: 1
Pyraminx: 7 (I think 5 of these should have been DNS)
Megaminx: 1
Rubik's Cube: Fewest moves: 17
Rubik's Cube: Blindfolded: 66
5x5 Cube: 1
4x4 Cube: 2
Rubik's Cube: 3

Total = 149


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## shelley (Dec 1, 2009)

Wow Arnaud, you win. However, I do have more 3x3BLD DNFs than you do (72 DNFs out of 133 attempts). I have a nice DNF streak going for 4x4BLD as well.


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## qqwref (Dec 1, 2009)

Questions to discuss after the reading:

1. Does having more DNFs really equate to 'winning' in any way? Explain.
2. Why is BLD so hard? Give examples of things in your life that were similarly difficult, and explain how you overcame them.
3. Should someone who gets all DNFs in 3x3 speedsolve keep going to competitions? Why or why not?

P.S. I have 28 DNFs in speed events and only 21 in BLD. I'd have more in BLD if I kept doing it but I don't like wasting competition time.


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## Erik (Dec 1, 2009)

AvGalen said:


> ZB_FTW!!! said:
> 
> 
> > Only 88 DNFs. Someone had 123. I remember. Though they'd been to way more comps.
> ...



So I'll just count how many I did now  

Rubik's Cube: Multi blind old style: 4 
Rubik's Cube: Multiple Blindfolded: 4
4x4 Blindfolded: 15
Master Magic: 8
Rubik's Magic: 37
6x6: 0
7x7: 0
Rubik's Clock: 17
Square-1: 1
Pyraminx: 2
Megaminx: 0
Rubik's cube with feet: 1
Rubik's Cube: Fewest moves: 3 (out of 26 so I'm good at writing it down correct )
Rubik's Cube: One-Handed: 7
Rubik's Cube: Blindfolded: 57
2x2 Cube: 3
5x5 Cube: 7
4x4 Cube: 10
Rubik's Cube: 14

Total = 190 so Arnaud just got piti pwned!


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## Olivér Perge (Dec 1, 2009)

Overall i have 168 DNFs in 25 competitions. 

Here you can see that i'm the second in DNF/attempt and the only guy who beats me the one who cheated and got all the results deleted.

I'm good.


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## LNZ (Dec 1, 2009)

Goes to show why people should not enter competitions unless they are totally prepared. But he's very good at the Rubik's magic and the master magic though. 

It costs real money to go to competitions and to justify the cost, you need completed solves to your name, not lots of DNF's.


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## TMOY (Dec 1, 2009)

I suck at DNFing  If I counted correctly, only 88 DNFs in 3& competitions for me.
3^3 BLD is by far the greatest DNF provider for me (I'm getting faster at BLD but my accuracy still sucks).


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## Rama (Dec 1, 2009)

Rubik's Cube: 6
Professor Cube: 2
Rubik's Cube OH: 4
Fewest Moves: 2
Pyraminx: 1
Magic: 1

Just 16 DNF's. \o/


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## aronpm (Dec 1, 2009)

My DNF/attempt ratio is undefined.


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## Jude (Dec 1, 2009)

Do I win the "Highest proportion of DNFs from anyone who's been actually trying and has attempted 15 or more BLD solves" award? 4/5ths, beat that! What's more, is the vast majority have been just either flipped edges or twisted corners, or parity off (including 4x4x4 bld!)

EDIT: Never mind, Francois kicks my ass at that event


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## masterofthebass (Dec 1, 2009)

Jude said:


> Do I win the "Highest proportion of DNFs from anyone who's been actually trying and has attempted 15 or more BLD solves" award? 4/5ths, beat that! What's more, is the vast majority have been just either flipped edges or twisted corners, or parity off (including 4x4x4 bld!)



Before Thankscubing, my success to DNF ratio was 1:11.


My DNFs:

3x3 - 8
4x4 - 6
5x5 - 2
BLD - 54
OH - 2
FMC - 2
Feet - 1
Sq-1 - 1
clock - 12
6x6 - 1
Magic - 22
Master magic - 3
4x4 BLD - 16
5x5 BLD - 3
multi - 3
multi-old - 3

Total: 139 

In 24 comps. I'm going to try and find my total number of solves, but if not, o well.


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## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

shelley said:


> Wow Arnaud, you win.


Not quite:

```
[b]192[/b]/2472  Erik Akkersdijk
[b]168[/b]/1420  Olivér Perge
[b]149[/b]/2496  Arnaud van Galen
[b]136[/b]/1394  Dan Cohen
[b]133[/b]/1086  Adam Zamora
[b]112[/b]/1392  Ton Dennenbroek
[b]107[/b]/1047  Rowe Hessler
[b]105[/b]/2089  Bob Burton
[b]102[/b]/2440  Clément Gallet
 [b]98[/b]/741   Shelley Chang
```
.



shelley said:


> I do have more 3x3BLD DNFs than you do (72 DNFs out of 133 attempts).


True, but you don't win that, either:

```
[b]94[/b]/119 Adam Zamora
[b]79[/b]/129 Bob Burton
[b]73[/b]/97  Dan Dzoan
[b]72[/b]/133 Shelley Chang
[b]66[/b]/97  Arnaud van Galen
[b]63[/b]/73  Ton Dennenbroek
[b]58[/b]/116 Tyson Mao
[b]57[/b]/92  Erik Akkersdijk
[b]53[/b]/58  Fran?ois Court?s
[b]53[/b]/60  Dan Cohen
```
.



shelley said:


> I have a nice DNF streak going for 4x4BLD as well.


Again, sorry:

```
[b]22[/b]/22  Lucas Garron
[b]16[/b]/16  Dan Cohen
[b]15[/b]/15  Erik Akkersdijk
[b]15[/b]/16  Shelley Chang
[b]15[/b]/18  Daniel Beyer
[b]15[/b]/21  Clément Gallet
[b]15[/b]/31  Chris Hardwick
[b]12[/b]/14  Tim Reynolds
[b]12[/b]/14  Jason Baum
[b]12[/b]/19  Mike Hughey
```

Edit: All these might be off a little because of multiblind, sorry. That one's a bit tricky to count, both technically (writing the database query) and in general (how *should* it be counted?). All numbers of attempts should be correct, though, and the DNF numbers should reflect how often you see "DNF" on your WCA personal page (not counting averages and duplicates, of course).


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## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

Jude said:


> Do I win the "Highest proportion of DNFs from anyone who's been actually trying and has attempted 15 or more BLD solves" award?


Nope. I see you count all BLD events, I'll only count 3x3/4x4/5x5 because multi is a bit tricky:

```
100.00%  27/27  Nobuaki Suga
100.00%  25/25  Benjamin Sintes
100.00%  21/21  Markus Pirzer
100.00%  15/15  Jakub Cabaj
 95.00%  19/20  Sarah Strong
 95.00%  19/20  Aurélien Souchet
 94.73%  18/19  David Woner
 94.44%  17/18  Kyle Barry
 94.11%  16/17  John-Michael Clay
 94.11%  16/17  Shusei Tabuchi
```


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## Jude (Dec 1, 2009)

StefanPochmann said:


> Jude said:
> 
> 
> > Do I win the "Highest proportion of DNFs from anyone who's been actually trying and has attempted 15 or more BLD solves" award?
> ...




Haha oh well, I guess that is a good thing!


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## Micael (Dec 1, 2009)

qqwref said:


> Questions to discuss after the reading:
> 
> 1. Does having more DNFs really equate to 'winning' in any way? Explain.
> 2. Why is BLD so hard? Give examples of things in your life that were similarly difficult, and explain how you overcame them.
> ...



1. I am in agreement with you. For me, each DNF is a pain. However, I believe it is cool to make fun of it (like in this thread), since it lighten the pain.
2. BLD is not so hard, but it is harder than sighted cubing. This is based on my own experience, though.
3. Absolutely, in order to overcome it.


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## cmhardw (Dec 1, 2009)

qqwref said:


> Questions to discuss after the reading:
> 
> 2. Why is BLD so hard? Give examples of things in your life that were similarly difficult, and explain how you overcame them.



I can explain that for myself at least. It's all about the balance between trying for success, and trying for a fast solve. If you try mostly for success, you inevitably end up going slower overall and the resultant time tends to be slower than your peak speed. If you try for speed, then your times are closer to your peak speed, but your accuracy takes a big hit because of that.

As for finding a similar activity, I compare BLD cubing to non-cubers in the following way:

Imagine you need to buy groceries for the family. You write up a list of everything everybody needs, but you stop outside the door. You have to remember what's on the list (not necessarily in order), and before entering into the store to shop you have to throw the list away. Now go shopping and try to find everything that was on your list.

It's not exactly the same as BLD (because order *does* matter in BLD), but I think it's a good comparison for non-cubers. I suppose this would be a similar activity in daily life. I don't know how to tell you how I overcame the difficulty of accurately finding all items, because I don't often try this 

Chris


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## cubedude7 (Dec 1, 2009)

AvGalen said:


> ZB_FTW!!! said:
> 
> 
> > Only 88 DNFs. Someone had 123. I remember. Though they'd been to way more comps.
> ...


Well Arnaud, it looks like you're still the invincible champion. You must be very proud of yourself, aren't you?


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## shelley (Dec 1, 2009)

Thanks for the stats Stefan, I was hoping somebody would post some interesting ones. I like how we've all become so proud of our failures in this thread.


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## peedu (Dec 1, 2009)

Looks like I got a good start for BLD DNFing.

1 competition, 3 attempts, 3 DNF-s. Failure rate: 100%

Why did I learn BLD at all? 

Peedu


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## shelley (Dec 1, 2009)

peedu said:


> Looks like I got a good start for BLD DNFing.
> 
> 1 competition, 3 attempts, 3 DNF-s. Failure rate: 100%
> 
> ...



Don't worry, Bruce finally got a success; you can too!


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## Ethan Rosen (Dec 1, 2009)

shelley said:


> Don't worry, Bruce finally got a success; you can too!



It was magical.
Also, Stefan seemed to have missed this guy's BLD DNFs somehow
http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2006KUTI01
<_<


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## jms_gears1 (Dec 1, 2009)

ok so my biggest question is how it this possible:

Beijing Summer Open 2009	
Semi Final	36	DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF
Combined First	148	DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF

how is this person in the semi finals...


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 1, 2009)

Ethan Rosen said:


> Also, Stefan seemed to have missed this guy's BLD DNFs somehow
> http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2006KUTI01
> <_<



No, it just looks like he doesn't rank high enough to get on any of the lists. Amazing what the explosion of competitions has done to the lists, isn't it?



jms_gears1 said:


> ok so my biggest question is how it this possible:
> 
> Beijing Summer Open 2009
> Semi Final	36	DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF
> ...


Simple: the solves were converted to DNFs after the semifinals were over.


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## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

Mike Hughey said:


> No, it just looks like he doesn't rank high enough to get on any of the lists.


He led the bld dnf percentage list I made for Jude, but I left him out because I only wanted real dnfs (well, at least as far as I know). In my opinion it'd make more sense to turn cheating to DNS rather than DNF anyway.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 1, 2009)

StefanPochmann said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > No, it just looks like he doesn't rank high enough to get on any of the lists.
> ...


Oh, sorry - I forgot about the percentage list. And I agree. (Or maybe we could make a third category - something like DNQ for "did not qualify [as a solve]".)


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## keemy (Dec 1, 2009)

hmm so is there a list for who is winning at DNFs (excluding BLD event). I ask because I feel like I could be a contender but that could just be a dumb asumption (though I do have a few DNF averages).
(oh and also one excluding clock and blindfold but w/e)


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## MichaelP. (Dec 1, 2009)

I win DNF averages in OH. 
100%, which is sort of crazy, because those are the only DNF's in OH I've ever gotten. I usually average about 1 minute. I guess the pressure got to me.


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## Erik (Dec 1, 2009)

StefanPochmann said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > No, it just looks like he doesn't rank high enough to get on any of the lists.
> ...



You forgot to get out this guy too then: http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2009WANG13
Or at least his results up to now, due to these 'overruled by the WCA DNF's' because of admitted cheating.


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## Olivér Perge (Dec 1, 2009)

Erik said:


> You forgot to get out this guy too then: http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2009WANG13
> Or at least his results up to now, due to these 'overruled by the WCA DNF's' because of admitted cheating.



Which means i'm the "best".  Yaay!


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## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

MichaelP. said:


> I win DNF averages in OH.


http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2005CHEN03#333oh
http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2008LINM02#333oh
http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2006MATI01#333oh


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## Stefan (Dec 1, 2009)

Erik said:


> You forgot to get out this guy too then: http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2009WANG13
> Or at least his results up to now, due to these 'overruled by the WCA DNF's' because of admitted cheating.


You mean on the WCA statistics page? Well, that's where I saw him, and he was the reason for me to start this thread because I was surprised and didn't know the explanation. Like I said, I'd prefer these results to be DNS anyway. In my opinion, DNF is for when the cuber tries but fails, and DNS is for not trying. And in case of cheating I'd include "for not trying legitimately". Plus, I really don't want to hardcode a special exception for a certain person in certain competitions in certain events. This should be handled in a data-driven way. The statistic I posted here was different, that was a partly manual one-time thing. Long story short, I didn't forget leaving him out, I decided against it.


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## Erik (Dec 1, 2009)

Ah I see what you mean there then. Yes I think DNS should be a better 'format' of changing a result like that. DNF is how I feel it indeed the thing that you did an attempt but failed to do it successful, DNS is just for everything else since you just didn't seriously start to solve the puzzle. WCA 2010 regulations?

@ Oliver: Let's just assume that we win


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## qqwref (Dec 1, 2009)

I agree with Stefan: DNS is for when you don't do a solve at all, and if you've disqualified the solve itself because of cheating then, from the perspective of the scoreboards, the competitor didn't do the solve to begin with. There is no solve anymore.


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## Muesli (Dec 2, 2009)

I bet I'll beat you all once I start trying BLD.


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## keemy (Dec 2, 2009)

I think that in BLD if caught cheating it should be a DNF but in the case of being caught cheating from during inspection i could understand a DNS because he didn't actually start the solve correctly. But in bld say I just took my blindfold off in the middle of a solve and did some moves then put it back on now if my judge noticed that would be a DNF but if my judge didn't notice and found out after the fact that would be cheating and you want a DNS for that which is confusing to me at least.


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## qqwref (Dec 2, 2009)

keemy said:


> I think that in BLD if caught cheating it should be a DNF but in the case of being caught cheating from during inspection i could understand a DNS because he didn't actually start the solve correctly. But in bld say I just took my blindfold off in the middle of a solve and did some moves then put it back on now if my judge noticed that would be a DNF but if my judge didn't notice and found out after the fact that would be cheating and you want a DNS for that which is confusing to me at least.



The problem is that when someone has all DNFs it looks like they just fail hard at cubing, when instead they have been disqualified. The way I see it DNF is for when they go up and do a solve and fail at it, whereas DNS is when they either never did the solve or the solve was retroactively annulled (i.e. it never existed). For your example it should be DNF because they realized (after the fact) that the solver failed hard at actually solving - the solve itself wouldn't be annulled, they just changed the result later on. (Doing moves after you take off the BLD results in a DNF of the solve, not a total disqualification.) Changing a solve to a DNS would only be done when you find out someone cheated and you want to remove their solves from the database.


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## hawkmp4 (Dec 2, 2009)

Why not just have a different designation for disqualified solves that function just like a DNS/DNF but distinguish between failing at cubing and cheating?


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## Dene (Dec 3, 2009)

Hmm... I only have 2 DNFs ever. I forgot about those >.<


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## Weston (Dec 3, 2009)

Dene said:


> Hmm... I only have 2 DNFs ever. I forgot about those >.<



And none of those are for BLD. XD


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## Kian (Dec 3, 2009)

qqwref said:


> keemy said:
> 
> 
> > I think that in BLD if caught cheating it should be a DNF but in the case of being caught cheating from during inspection i could understand a DNS because he didn't actually start the solve correctly. But in bld say I just took my blindfold off in the middle of a solve and did some moves then put it back on now if my judge noticed that would be a DNF but if my judge didn't notice and found out after the fact that would be cheating and you want a DNS for that which is confusing to me at least.
> ...



How about a "DQ" tag? Seems to solve the problems and is a more accurate way of labeling it.


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## Stefan (Dec 3, 2009)

Kian said:


> How about a "DQ" tag? Seems to solve the problems and is a more accurate way of labeling it.


I like that. Though I just searched the regulations for "DNF" and found:
_9f4) DNF (Did Not Finish) is the result if the solve was disqualified or unfinished._
So it explicitly says to call it DNF. On the other hand, it makes explicit that DNF covers exaxtly two cases. And if you know you want to cover exactly two cases and you can actually distinguish them (I think so here), then using two different codes rather than cramming the two cases into one code seems appropriate. Problem would be that we can't really change all previous results to it, not so much because of regulations but because except for a few cases, we just don't know what was disqualified.

For the matter in hand, if that DNF record annoys too much, I guess I could handle it internally. Have two different internal result values for DNF, distinguishing the two cases, but showing both as DNF. Oh well... other things more important I'd say. But... good point and good idea for future regulations, maybe.


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## qqwref (Dec 6, 2009)

How about this, Stefan: at the moment we only put the DQ tag for solves that were retroactively disqualified, i.e. after the competition the decision was made to invalidate them. It should be relatively easy to find the list of all instances of this since they usually happen on a large scale (i.e. all of the person's solves are DNF). Once this is done we can start using DQ for all future solves that are for some reason disqualified.


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## Bryan (Dec 6, 2009)

qqwref said:


> Once this is done we can start using DQ for all future solves that are for some reason disqualified.



The only thing I would say about this is that disqualification for non-cheating reasons, like accidentally touching with two hands in OH, going over 17 seconds of inspection, etc.. should be stated in the regulations as DNF.


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## powershotman (Dec 11, 2009)

Ethan Rosen said:


> http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=808
> 
> That could certainly explain it


oohh. i see..


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## hawkmp4 (Dec 11, 2009)

You bumped...for that? :/
Is this discussion something that someone should bring up on the WCA boards?


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## Deleted member 2864 (Dec 13, 2009)

At first I thought perhaps he didn't know how to solve the cube, entered, and just sat there turning hopelessly hoping he'd solve it.

But then I read the issue statement


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## dbax0999 (Dec 13, 2009)

Bryan said:


> qqwref said:
> 
> 
> > Once this is done we can start using DQ for all future solves that are for some reason disqualified.
> ...



I agree with you. Where would things such as accidentally stopping the timer with your wrists, etc. fall?


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