# Is the "Yau Method" Actually the "Jameson Method"? (Debate)



## Christopher Mowla (Jun 16, 2021)

For those who saw my post in the Community Feedback thread a little while back and wondered why I stated that, this is why. FYI for those who didn't do their research!

So is it because Patrick said to pair 4 dedges instead of 3, that merits him *0 credit* for what we call the "Yau Method"? Why has no one ever brought this up? Or how about k4 which essentially starts out the exact same way (and predated "Yau" by 3+ years)? (Okay, k4 doesn't start out *exactly* the same way, but just about. Someone who was lazy to insert a corner in between the first three dedges that are paired would have "magically" come up with Yau.)

P.S.

When @PatrickJameson was active, he and I didn't get along when our paths crossed in the past. (So this post is strictly objective.)


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## qwr (Jun 16, 2021)

Maybe, but things in math and elsewhere are often named after the person who popularized them. I assume Yau showed it to be viable for speedsolving by adopting it early on. So no one can rename it now because the name has stuck.


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## Athefre (Jun 16, 2021)

I've always thought the same thing. There was Patrick Jameson and blah in the same year with pretty much the same method. There is also the Meyer method which came even before those. And as it usually goes, if "Yau" was presented before Meyer and had the same popularity that it has now, we would be calling Meyer a Roux variant of "Yau". But because it took so long for Meyer to gain any popularity (and it's only used now likely because they are pretty much the same method), we don't call "Yau" a CFOP option for Meyer. Everything is a popularity contest.

But as was said, changing a name is difficult.


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## ender9994 (Jun 16, 2021)

Many things are often named after those that popularized them, not those who strictly invented or found it. I also feel like this is kind of a pointless debate unless Patrick himself is arguing for the change. I am guessing he doesn't care.


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## Athefre (Jun 16, 2021)

ender9994 said:


> Many things are often named after those that popularized them, not those who strictly invented or found it. I also feel like this is kind of a pointless debate unless Patrick himself is arguing for the change. I am guessing he doesn't care.


Both Patrick Jameson and blah brought it up in the Yau thread that they had already created their own threads for the idea. So they obviously cared in some way that someone was reinventing the method that they had already created.

It's possible that they don't care now. But who knows. I'm an advocate for the original person to create, promote, and believe in an idea to be the one to receive the credit. Not the one that has some popularity in the community being able to use their popularity to have that thing named after them.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 16, 2021)

Yeah, I think it's straight up theft of intellectual property. Not cool. (And for those who keep mentioning the word "popularizing", didn't you see my post? I was kind of _aware of that_! And hearing from one person was plenty enough if I wasn't obvious to me.)

Not sure how this happened, but it's not acceptable in my book. *But it's never too late to rename it . . . especially when someone famous becomes infamous when exposed*. There is no excuse for why it happened, and there is clear evidence that it is as bad as we're making it out to be.

Maybe they didn't put up a fight because they thought the "method" was so obvious that perhaps someone else discovered it before they did. But if they only would have known how popular it would become and how much recognition Robert Yau has gotten for their invention, they would have put up a fight!

All in all, popularizing it is no excuse for him accepting the credit for it.


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## Athefre (Jun 16, 2021)

Something I want to say is that I have a lot of respect for Robert Yau. We used to hang out in IRC and talk to each other. And something important to note is that Robert did list several names in a post in an attempt to make a name for the method that wasn't just Yau. To incorporate others. But there was a group of us in IRC, including the fastest 4x4 solver at the time. He moved over to using this method so having a group dynamic like that helped push the name "Yau". It felt like no one wanted to pay attention to the fact that the method had already been presented by others.


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## PetraPine (Jun 16, 2021)

this reminds me alot of what's happened to @Athefre actually, the ideas created by someone being reused somewhere else and thinking the concept is new, without realization of giving credit being important.
kinda funny that of all people athefre is the one to respond in this thread,
its sad that things like this happen so often in the cubing community )=


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## Filipe Teixeira (Jun 16, 2021)

qwr said:


> So no one can rename it now because the name has stuck.





Athefre said:


> But as was said, changing a name is difficult.



welp we stopped calling CFOP the "Fridrich method"


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## ender9994 (Jun 16, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> Yeah, I think it's straight up theft of intellectual property. Not cool. (And for those who keep mentioning the word "popularizing", didn't you see my post? I was kind of _aware of that_! And hearing from one person was plenty enough if I wasn't obvious to me.)
> 
> Not sure how this happened, but it's not acceptable in my book. *But it's never too late to rename it . . . especially when someone famous becomes infamous when exposed*. There is no excuse for why it happened, and there is clear evidence that it is as bad as we're making it out to be.
> 
> ...



Intellectual property theft is a pretty serious accusation. If you are accusing Robert Yau of this I would suggest you go through the proper legal channels instead of posting about it here. 

As for multiple people talking about the popularization argument: You labeled this thread as a debate, multiple people are allowed to all give their own input, even if someone else has already stated the same. 

Frankly I could care less about the method name, but I do take issue with your last post. Your tone and wording make this seem less like a debate and more of you being judge, jury, and executioner.


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## qwr (Jun 16, 2021)

I don't think Robert Yau has committed any kind of crime here by ending up as the namesake


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 16, 2021)

ender9994 said:


> Intellectual property theft is a pretty serious accusation.


Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. *My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. *(And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, _because the method name is misleading_.)



ender9994 said:


> If you are accusing Robert Yau of this I would suggest you go through the proper legal channels instead of posting about it here.


No accusing is needed to bring to light what is. It's right there for all to see.



ender9994 said:


> As for multiple people talking about the popularization argument: You labeled this thread as a debate, multiple people are allowed to all give their own input, even if someone else has already stated the same.


Oh, sorry. I thought they were talking to me.



ender9994 said:


> I do take issue with your last post. Your tone and wording make this seem less like a debate and more of you being judge, jury, and executioner.


Yeah, sorry about that. I will try to keep it more objective from now on.



ender9994 said:


> Frankly I could care less about the method name,


Saying you don't care is not an acceptable response for a debate argument.


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## cometcubes (Jun 16, 2021)

What does the name of it matter? I haven’t went through or found Roberts original post/text but I he probably didn’t say “this method will be called yau” it just became the name. Method names don’t have to be named after their inventor. K4 wasn’t invented by James K4.


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## BenChristman1 (Jun 16, 2021)

Do I agree that the method probably shouldn’t be named Yau? Yeah. Do I think that it should be changed? Nope. Changing something after it’s been around for a long time (obviously not a long time in this case, but it is a pretty long time relative to how long cubing has been around) is very difficult, because there will still be many people who don’t accept the change.

For example, the NFL team, the Washington Redskins recently made a name change because many people thought that the name was offensive. They are now indefinitely called the Washington Football Team. I do not refer to them as “the Football Team,” because they have been the Redskins for almost a century (since 1932, to be precise), and they haven’t made a permanent decision on what their name will be, so I still refer to them as the Redskins.



Christopher Mowla said:


> Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. *My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. *(And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, _because the method name is misleading_.)


So, if you were to start calling the Rubik’s Cube (all cubes that the brand Rubik’s has manufactured from 1974-2021) the “Mowla Cube,” do you think that you are safe from any legal trouble, just because it is “just about a toy?” I don’t mean to be snarky, but I think that everybody would agree that that would be wrong, and that it would be a crime.


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## qwr (Jun 16, 2021)

I think Yau should get some kind of credit for popularizing and showing the method is competitive. In math, it sometimes happens that someone discovers something earlier but doesn't realize its potential and just leaves it until another person actually shows its usefulness.


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## PapaSmurf (Jun 16, 2021)

Ortega should be called Varasano, ZZ should be called "Heise 2" and Briggs should be called Noah's CP Block method. While we can talk about these "shoulds", it's about the "whats". In the end, naming is arbitrary, but it's much better to know the history of the idea than get caught up in what you think it should be called. For example, L'Hopital's rule should really be called Bernoulli's rule, yet everyone calls it by the former because that's the name of the rule. It is well documented though that Bernoulli came up with it, so that's great. 

I had a brief conversation with Rob about his awareness of Meyer at the time of creation, and he said that he didn't know about it. I'm willing to take him on his word, so there has never been any intellectual proprety theft (and there has also been 0 profiting off of the idea). 

Basically, the Yau method should be called the Yau method but it was first thought of by Patrick Jameson. Call it the Jameson method if you want to, but you'll have a tought time communicating with those who don't know. You're not really gonna be solving any great injustices by changing it, but just adding a sentence or two to the Wiki would solve any that are out there.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 16, 2021)

qwr said:


> I think Yau should get some kind of credit for popularizing and showing the method is competitive. In math, it sometimes happens that someone discovers something earlier but doesn't realize its potential and just leaves it until another person actually shows its usefulness.


I agree.
Also I’m not super informed but did Yau “steal” the method or independently invent it?
If the OG inventors didn’t name it and Yau invented it independently I don’t think it’s an issue for it to be named Yau since the dude used it so well that it was very obviously the superior method.
anyway changing names is hard. If anything the closest you could hope for at this point is probably something like Yau/Jameson kinda like Ortega/Verasano (idk why those have two names but the idea is similar)


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## ender9994 (Jun 16, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. *My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. *(And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, _because the method name is misleading_.)



I suspect that Rubik's, sevenTowns, and v-cubes would have something to say to you about it being just a toy, but I understand your point. Just to be clear, it is your opinion that the Yau method should now be named the Jameson method? Would your opinion of this change if Patrick either said he did not care about the name, or if he even did not want it named after him? Just for my own curiosity, what would you name this method if it was not named after a person, since I am having a tough time thinking of something as short/descriptive as CFOP.



Christopher Mowla said:


> No accusing is needed to bring to light what is. It's right there for all to see.


It certainly seems like Robert Yau is being accused of stealing the name and wrongly accepting credit for it. 




Christopher Mowla said:


> Yeah, sorry about that. I will try to keep it more objective from now on.





Christopher Mowla said:


> Saying you don't care is not an acceptable response for a debate argument.




My wording here was terrible and should have been more clear. I am not biased towards any name for this method and will follow whatever the COMMUNITY decides. However, it is my opinion that the name does not need to change and that it is not as big an issue as you are presenting it as.
Is this a debate in your mind? Most of your statements seem to be presented as definitive facts


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## xyzzy (Jun 17, 2021)

BenChristman1 said:


> So, if you were to start calling the Rubik’s Cube (all cubes that the brand Rubik’s has manufactured from 1974-2021) the “Mowla Cube,” do you think that you are safe from any legal trouble, just because it is “just about a toy?” I don’t mean to be snarky, but I think that everybody would agree that that would be wrong, and that it would be a crime.


(not a lawyer; absolutely not your lawyer; not studied on US law; not studied on _any_ country's law; this is entirely a commonsense interpretation of what things should be, and not necessarily how they are in reality)

I don't know whether this runs afoul of _some_ law, but it certainly seems like it shouldn't be violating any of the "big three" of intellectual property laws: copyright, trademarks, patents.

Can a name be copyrighted? Usually, no, especially for names of any reasonable length, because this is double-dipping with trademark protection. Even if the original name somehow does happen to be copyrighted, using a different name means that you're not affected by protection on the name itself.

Besides the name, if the underlying product is copyrighted, there may be distribution restrictions (granted by copyright, that you have to obey) requiring specific names to be used (or not used) with the product. (This is very common with free content licences, e.g. CC BY.) This is not applicable here, either for your example of the Rubik's Cube product or for the Yau/Jameson solving method, as neither of those is copyrightable.

Can a name be trademarked? Yes, this is exactly what trademarks are for. The trademark protection of a name covers usage of that specific name. So if you choose to _not_ use that name, you're safe!

Again, to avoid double-dipping, the underlying product usually cannot be trademarked; you may remember some cases of Rubik's Brand trying to claim a trademark on the concept of a cubic twisty puzzle and suing cube stores over that, and that they ended up not winning their suit against TheCubicle. (To be clear, they didn't lose either; Rubik's and Cubicle settled.)

Can a name be patented? No. Just straight up no.

Can the underlying product be patented? In the case of the Rubik's Cube, yes (and in fact it _was_ patented, and the patent has since expired); in the case of the Yau/Jameson method, it's a huge "it depends", but it would seem like the sort of thing that can be patented (especially in places that recognise patents of algorithms, e.g. the US). But even if the method could be patented, it _isn't_, so this is irrelevant.


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## Cubing Forever (Jun 17, 2021)

You could change the name to Yau-Jameson or Jameson-Yau which would give credit to Jameson(for creating the method) and Yau(for popularizing it).
Tbh, I don't really care much about naming and classification lol.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 17, 2021)

For the time being (I've got to go to work), this is the announcement thread regarding what we currently call the Yau Method.

I will potentially be commenting about it later (as well as other threads).

But for those who say that "they don't care", I have two things to say to you:

This thread wasn't asking if you care or not. It was asking what the method's actual name should be. (And maybe we shouldn't name it after anyone. We can describe it with an acronym which is short for a specific variation of Reduction.)
What kind of person are you that you can see in most other areas of life that if something is named after someone, it's a *big deal *(at least in the regard for earned respect and recognition. Since we are not considering financial gains here), but somehow this is okay? Can you *honestly* say that Robert didn't get _any_ special recognition from the fact that this variation of reduction is named after him? *Come on*.
EDIT:
And Robert's understanding of the definition of "variation" was rather limited back then.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 17, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> For the time being (I've got to go to work), this is the announcement thread regarding what we currently call the Yau Method.
> 
> I will potentially be commenting about it later (as well as other threads).
> 
> ...



Robert got special attention because he’s just good at every event. Not because of the method getting called Yau. He used the method and was fast, which garnered attention.


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## Cubing Forever (Jun 17, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> But for those who say that "they don't care", I have two things to say to you:
> 
> This thread wasn't asking if you care or not. It was asking what the method's actual name should be. (And maybe we shouldn't name it after anyone. We can describe it with an acronym which is short for a specific variation of Reduction.)
> What kind of person are you that you can see in most other areas of life that if something is named after someone, it's a *big deal *(at least in the regard for earned respect and recognition. Since we are not considering financial gains here). Can you *honestly* say that Robert didn't get _any_ special recognition from the fact that this variation of reduction is named after him? *Come on*.


oh you were indirectly speaking to me lol
Also, why wouldn't renaming it Yau-Jameson or Jameson-Yau work?
Also, tbh all 3x3 stage-based methods(be it the method in question, Hoya or 4Z4) are just reduction with a few jumbled steps so calling them methods of their own is kinda weird imo but let's talk about that another day.


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## kubesolver (Jun 17, 2021)

Robert-Y wrote in the original thread that 


> *I don't really feel like this should be called a method because it's composed of other people's ideas but I did think of combining all of the ideas together...



So it seems that he started a thread, proposed some compilation of ideas, very similar to what other people have also worked out and other people started calling it Yau.

Now I'm speculating that they did it because he was had the most recognition / prominence at the time. And somehow from this you attack him, take out huge words about stealing intellectual property etc..

If your goal was really to gain some community sympathy to have the name changed then it feels like you have taken the absolutely worst path to get there.

IMO Robert-Y did nothing wrong by accepting the fact that people have started calling the method after his name. He seems to have been fully transparent about what he did and what he did not invent.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 18, 2021)

kubesolver said:


> Robert-Y wrote in the original thread that
> 
> 
> > *I don't really feel like this should be called a method because it's composed of other people's ideas but I did think of combining all of the ideas together...
> ...


Nice argument, but it's based on only one post in a thread which took several turns. (I was hoping whoever decided to respond to that would consider the *entire thread*, not just read that portion of that one post and tell me that they told me so.)

In this post he listed names of people _he_ thought contributed to the idea of the method. Richard Meyer, Blah and Patrick Jameson were conveniently left out of that list even when they brought it directly to Robert's attention that they deserved a piece of the pie. (Richard was in the military at the time, so he couldn't vouch for himself.)

The two did this passively, not aggressively. I'm not sure about Blah, but Patrick didn't really see that much potential in the method that he created. That's my guess as to why he wasn't more aggressive. But just because he didn't fight for it at the time, now that the method has proved to be very good, you don't think for just one second that he regrets not being more aggressive? Will we not give him a second (*well-deserved*) chance because he "blew it"?

(Back to the part where their names were not in the list.) So why were their names not in Robert's list? IMO (from context clues in the thread), it appears that Robert only listed people who *he* learned things from -- the people who invented the method independently (and before) him were *invisible* to him.

Also, why did Robert completely ignore (that is, not reply to) Patrick Jameson's post? Patrick was a hot shot at the time too (possibly even more than Robert was).

If you compare the overview on the wiki,


> *Overview*
> 
> Solve 2 opposite centers .
> Solve 3 of the cross dedges.
> ...


to


PatrickJameson said:


> So here is the basic layout of the method.
> 
> 1. Solve two opposite centers
> 2. Pair 4 edges(with the two solved centers on the R and L) and put them in the DR DL BR and BL positions
> ...


They are pretty much identical. Patrick just forgot to cross a T and dot an I. But Patrick's name wasn't in that list *even after Patrick pointed it out to Robert*? Maybe the wiki is wrong? None of the other people in that list had it exactly right . . . look at the sequence of events/posts in that thread! Read the thread in full!

Maybe Robert suspected that Patrick himself was not being honest about where HE got HIS idea from. Maybe something else. Maybe nothing. But _that's just a little bothersome to me (him excluding all three of them out of that list)_.

And what was Robert expecting people to say to his proposal to combine the surnames of all of those individuals? If anything, that would give anyone a headache . . . but Yau is just *one syllable*. Short and *simple*.

And I don't think the emojis he used in the following statement


Robert-Y said:


> I don't mind just sticking to "Yau" though


was appropriate. Sticking your tongue out if you can have a shared discovery solely named after you?



kubesolver said:


> Now I'm speculating that they did it because he was had the most recognition / prominence at the time. And somehow from this you attack him, take out huge words about stealing intellectual property etc..


So your speculation is all of a sudden a _fact_ that you feel it appropriate to void my speculation with yours?

(Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking. I stated things earlier as if they were facts. But lo and behold, he just did the same thing and his post got likes. Can there be consistency?)

And if you didn't notice, I apologized about that earlier. *Somehow it seems that you are rather thorough to read everything I write, but you neglected to read everything Robert wrote (and didn't write when he ought to have).* Remember, this thread is NOT about me or anything I HAVE contributed to cubing. This is about OTHER PEOPLE.



kubesolver said:


> If your goal was really to gain some community sympathy to have the name changed then it feels like you have taken the absolutely worst path to get there.


Sorry, but I shouldn't have to gain your or anyone else's "sympathies". Even if I came on with this too strong at first (or even now), that does not matter. What matters is that credit is given where credit is due.

And I have another question for you. How would questioning a wrongly chosen name that has lasted nearly 12 years ever sound "glamorous" enough to gain people's sympathies? Please, provide an example that you had in mind! This is not a fun topic. This is aggravating.
____________________________________________________________
But at the end of the day, the masses say "Yau Method" without knowing the history behind the method to make the *unobvious* discernment that Yau was one of many co-founders to the method. This brings me to:



PapaSmurf said:


> Call it the Jameson method if you want to, *but you'll have a tought time communicating with those who don't know*. You're not really gonna be solving any great injustices by changing it, but just adding a sentence or two to the Wiki would solve any that are out there.


What's in bold is the "big deal" here. No one likes change, but no one cares about Patrick enough to go through that trouble even when being shown the facts?



PapaSmurf said:


> For example, L'Hopital's rule should really be called Bernoulli's rule, yet everyone calls it by the former because that's the name of the rule. It is well documented though that Bernoulli came up with it, so that's great.


I am aware of that unfortunate situation, but thanks for bringing that up for those who were not aware. It was a good comparison. But we the community can change things. It's not set in stone. It's only been 12 years. As @Filipe Teixeira pointed out, there's a decent chance this name change can happen. It may not happen overnight, but it's more than possible. It's completely doable.



PapaSmurf said:


> I had a brief conversation with Rob about his awareness of Meyer at the time of creation, and he said that he didn't know about it. I'm willing to take him on his word, so there has never been any intellectual proprety theft (and there has also been 0 profiting off of the idea).


Assuming this is true, if I was him, I wouldn't have taken advantage of the opportunity to have something named after me if no one objected or that I happened to find it independently. The issue isn't his ignorance at the time or his intelligence, popularity, etc. It is the result of all of that. The name the masses know and repeat today.

From reading that thread, the excuse as to why the method/variant of Reduction got named after Robert is simply because *people didn't care to go through the trouble to object*. I'm not sure if Richard Meyer cared or didn't, but he couldn't have possibly objected at the time because he was in the military. I really don't know why Patrick Jameson didn't fight for the name. But I have to add that some of the members who posted in that thread were simply *bullies* on these forums back in the day. So that could also be a factor as to why people kept silent. I could be wrong, but that's also something that some of these newer members naturally wouldn't consider, given how these forums have become more friendly over the years.



kubesolver said:


> IMO Robert-Y did nothing wrong by accepting the fact that people have started calling the method after his name.


*Taking advantage of people's ignorance (and a 4x4x4 WR holder promoting you) is okay. Got it!*



Cubing Forever said:


> oh you were indirectly speaking to me lol


Well, yes, but also everyone else who also said that _they don't care_.



Cubing Forever said:


> Also, why wouldn't renaming it Yau-Jameson or Jameson-Yau work?


Well that's certainly better than simply "Yau".

Now I know what some of you are thinking. "But that's "too long" to say. Yau is _just one syllable_. It's easy for us to say and it's been the name, like, *for ever*. Our convenience matters more than the work of Patrick Jameson, Blah, and Richard Meyer. Thanks for bringing this to our attention though. It's nice to know the history behind it." (Is there something wrong with that vibe? If so, we can change it!)



Cubing Forever said:


> Also, tbh all 3x3 stage-based methods(be it the method in question, Hoya or 4Z4) are just reduction with a few jumbled steps so calling them methods of their own is kinda weird imo but let's talk about that another day.


I absolutely agree . . . hence why I said earlier:


Christopher Mowla said:


> (And maybe we shouldn't name it after anyone. We can describe it with an acronym which is short for a specific variation of Reduction.)



So that way we can rename it something short and simple. It's better to give *no one* credit in a name than to give impartial credit in a name. And there could have been many others who found this independently. This isn't rocket science. Just experimentation. Regardless of how much truth there is to that, the big deal was who published the idea on the internet *first*. Robert wasn't the first (and he probably wasn't the last). He claims to have thought of it independently of Patrick and the others. *I believe him*. (And I actually had a little fun with him regarding parity algs in the past. I can't say I had any fun with Patrick Jameson or Blah. That's the irony in this!) But again, *that's an entirely different thing than allowing to be given all the credit in the name of the method.*


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 18, 2021)

Just pointing out that the wiki overview of Yau and the overview Jameson laid out are different. The amount of edges built, the locations they are placed, and the specification of cross edges are enough differences that depending on who’s court you are in, could be ruled either way as being it’s own method. Without a doubt what Jameson laid out is incredibly similar though. I do not agree with calling it the same thing per se


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## kubesolver (Jun 18, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> So your speculation is all of a sudden a _fact_ that you feel it appropriate to void my speculation with yours?


My speculation was only about why other people have chosen to use the method. It's them (or us) who use and promote the name. 
I claim that the people you should target is the community and not RY.


Christopher Mowla said:


> Sorry, but I shouldn't have to gain your or anyone else's "sympathies".


Method name is not a trademark or anything of legal nature but an element of cubing culture. The name is whatever people use. It's a popular vote and sympathy toward change is exactly what is needed to make this change. 
I guess that's why you started a forum thread instead of legal action. 


Christopher Mowla said:


> How would questioning a wrongly chosen name that has lasted nearly 12 years ever sound "glamorous" enough to gain people's sympathies?


I guess it's a rhetorical question but I'll try to answer anyway. 
For example you could focus more on the positive aspect of change. Focus more on the hero of your story instead of attacking the character of RY.
What doesn't help is using strong emotional language, making sarcastic remarks when you don't like a post, *using bold statements, *WRITING IN CAPS and general aggressive attitude. 


Christopher Mowla said:


> Please, provide an example that you had in mind



One example I see is the slow tendency to call geographic locations using local native names instead of western conquerors as a very civilized process (Uluru comes to my mind)


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 18, 2021)

What the community decides as a whole will have to do. I said my peace, and I don't believe that just because no one has made a case about this in the past doesn't mean that they didn't feel the same way. So that's why I started this thread. I didn't mean for it to go this far, but when I am asked questions and given challenging replies, I can't help but give a thorough response.


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## PapaSmurf (Jun 19, 2021)

I've just realised how stupid this thread is. It's a name and that's that. Call it whatever you want, you're allowed to. 

The responses read more like moral high groung was percieved to be somewhere. When it got raised to me that ZZ had been proposed a few years earlier by Heise, I was like "oh, that's cool." The name we have now is ZZ, but it was proposed by Heise (and probably others) beforehand. That's interesting, let's move on.


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## Athefre (Jun 19, 2021)

PapaSmurf said:


> I've just realised how stupid this thread is. It's a name and that's that. Call it whatever you want, you're allowed to.
> 
> The responses read more like moral high groung was percieved to be somewhere. When it got raised to me that ZZ had been proposed a few years earlier by Heise, I was like "oh, that's cool." The name we have now is ZZ, but it was proposed by Heise (and probably others) beforehand. That's interesting, let's move on.



Yeah, I've kind of backed away too. Because who knows how Richard Meyer, Patrick Jameson, and blah feel now. And there's evidence that Robert Yau was at least kind of willing to look at those past methods that were pretty much the same.

Though I still believe in having morals in the community. It depends on the situation and how far someone developed and promoted something. There's a difference between Ryan Heise making a simple idea post and not following it up with development and a method being developed and promoted. If someone had the idea first and also put in the work to get the method out there, then they absolutely deserve the credit. Sometimes the community isn't ready for an idea because it is advanced for the time. As has happened to me several times. Or maybe the original proposer and developer wasn't good at advertising or explaining or they lacked any kind of star power within the community that would help them push their development. So then a few years later when the community is ready for an idea and or someone with some popularity re-develops, they can easily have that thing named after themselves.

It is morally wrong for someone to ignore the facts being presented that what they have just proposed already exists. And even worse to be resistant and insistent on that thing being named after themselves. If something was already developed and promoted, then it doesn't matter at all how grand of a re-proposal and advertisement someone does. It doesn't matter that they say they weren't aware. It doesn't matter that they are popular within the community, are really good at promotion, or are part of some kind of buddy system able to help them promote. They don't get to have their name associated with this thing that already exists.


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## kubesolver (Jun 19, 2021)

Athefre said:


> If something was already developed and promoted, then it doesn't matter at all how grand of a re-proposal and advertisement someone does. (...)They don't get to have their name associated with this thing that already exists.



I kinda disagree. I think it's something that really has to be considered case by case.
Often the most credit and recognition should go to the person who did the most to develop / utilize / promote not necessarily to the one who was first to come up with it.

Othwerwise I could enumerate and publish all possible solving methods of a 3x3. and whenever someone pops out with a method I will chime in and say "No, it's not your method. I have published it as kubesolver method #1939886."

For example there is some historical evidence of using mould to treat bacterial infections from ages ago, but the credit for antibiotics discovery rightly goes to early 20th century scientists who have understood the process, isolated and developed methods to mass produce penicillin.


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## Athefre (Jun 19, 2021)

kubesolver said:


> I kinda disagree. I think it's something that really has to be considered case by case.
> Often the most credit and recognition should go to the person who did the most to develop / utilize / promote not necessarily to the one who was first to come up with it.
> 
> Othwerwise I could enumerate and publish all possible solving methods of a 3x3. and whenever someone pops out with a method I will chime in and say "No, it's not your method. I have published it as kubesolver method #1939886."
> ...



Notice that the first seven words of my post you quoted say "If something was already developed and promoted". So we are saying the same thing. That the credit goes to the one who put in the work. The one that developed, saw that it was good, believed in it, and promoted.

And the rest of my post before that quote goes into detail about why something can be promoted but still go unnoticed or forgotten by the community. Someone can develop and promote really hard but sometimes, at no fault of the developer + promoter, that thing can be ignored.

As I said, I can list several times where this happened to me. I recently started posting again after a break from the community for mental health reasons. I then discovered that almost everything that I had developed and promoted had been forgotten, re-developed by others, and associated with their name. This at no fault of my own. I remember the feeling years ago. I developed so many things, would promote, and I always felt like I was being ignored. Or would receive comments like "I haven't yet looked into your crazy ideas." which shows the ideas were too advanced for the time. But now, these things are being used by the community and associated with someone else's name. Some of these things are even used pretty widely now. So it's a terrible feeling to know that I was the first to have the ideas, the first to develop, and the first to promote; yet the names of others were attached to them.


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## AlgoCuber (Jun 19, 2021)

Summarization: Robert Yau popularizes the method as well as gives credit, but the method is attributed to him even though he didn't ask for it.
I don't see how he is doing anything wrong here. He probably just rediscovered the method that he didn't know about yet.



Christopher Mowla said:


> In this post he listed names of people _he_ thought contributed to the idea of the method. Richard Meyer, Blah and Patrick Jameson were conveniently left out of that list even when they brought it directly to Robert's attention that they deserved a piece of the pie. (Richard was in the military at the time, so he couldn't vouch for himself.)


He probably just contacted people and got their ideas and changes on the method or didn't see Meyer, Blah, and Jameson's posts. He didn't even ask for the method to be named "Yau". He hasn't done anything wrong and you're just wrongly accusing someone that just happened to be in the middle of an unfortunate event. Don't always hold your index finger out and find someone to blame.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 19, 2021)

AlgoCuber said:


> Summarization: Robert Yau popularizes the method as well as gives credit,


At the beginning of the thread he only acknowledged those whom he got ideas from. This makes perfect sense (and it cannot be any other way . . . what he didn't know, he didn't know). But one of the points in my second to last post (which you seemed to have read in part, at least), he did not even consider to have the method named after the other independent founders even after it was brought to his attention. Since the post with the list comes more recent in time than the other posts of Robert's efforts to find (or not find) a name, it actually carries more weight than they do because it shows that people considered it to be a method and wanted that method to be named.



AlgoCuber said:


> but the method is attributed to him even though he didn't ask for it.


But he went along with it, even though it was brought to his attention that he wasn't the only one who thought of the method. And you can't tell me that he didn't want to have it named after him from the start if it had to be named. It's fine that he did . . . it was *his* method! But it was also *other people's* method just the same.

And from this post a little backward in time, the only conclusion I can draw is that if the method was going to be named at all, he first wanted to name the method after himself and Dan Cohen. Why? Because Dan set a WR with Robert's method. Dan had no hand in the making of the method, but *just because* Dan got a WR with it, the method should be named after him . . . but the method shouldn't have been named after Patrick who actually made the method? This is equivalent to a singer being credited for writing a song simply because they sang it well . . . let's forget the songwriter altogether, why don't we!



AlgoCuber said:


> I don't see how he is doing anything wrong here. He probably just rediscovered the method that he didn't know about yet.


It wasn't probably. That was positively the claim. (That is, I am assuming that you are taking Robert's word for it. I am.) But when it was brought to his attention that he wasn't the first to think of the idea (and it was brought to his attention by several people), he still *allowed* the method to be named solely after him. That's the keyword. Allowed.

If someone allows something unjust to happen when it's in his/her power, that's not cool . . . especially when he/she won't get harmed from objecting. I don't believe you agree that doing such a thing is good either, but this is the same thing that clearly happened in this situation. He had a moment of (understood) ignorance, but when it was brought to light, it was as though it wasn't brought up.

And clearly Robert had nothing to loose by saying "no, I don't want this method named solely after me" because, *after all,* *you* and someone else pointed out earlier that Robert gained *nothing* from this method being named after him when they gave my post (which suggested that this was the case on some level) an eyes roll.



AlgoCuber said:


> Christopher Mowla said:
> 
> 
> > In this post he listed names of people _he_ thought contributed to the idea of the method. Richard Meyer, Blah and Patrick Jameson were conveniently left out of that list even when they brought it directly to Robert's attention that they deserved a piece of the pie. (Richard was in the military at the time, so he couldn't vouch for himself.)
> ...


First of all, I am assuming that you have read the post of Roberts that I quoted in that quote. So I am also assuming that you are aware that Robert created this "list" _*6 months after*_ Blah and Patrick Jameson posted in Robert's thread.

In that very post you quoted of Robert's, *he was quoting Blah*. Why do you think that he was quoting Blah in the top of that post? Sure he saw the posts! He had over 6 months to see them. Did you mean their "threads"? If so, same difference because their posts in his thread contained links to their threads. (And in this post, there is no doubt that, if he missed Blah's post from before, he saw it before he complied that list . . . because the list was in the same post.)



AlgoCuber said:


> He didn't even ask for the method to be named "Yau"..


If Robert didn't want the method to be named "Yau", then what are people fighting me for? Robert clearly doesn't care if the name is change if he didn't WANT it to be named after him to begin with.

But for the record, yes, he didn't want to name it at all first (he didn't think it was a "method", much less a method worth naming), but when someone wanted it to be named, he wanted his name some where in there . . . and rightfully so . . . did you read that entire thread before making such a declarative statement? (If I'm wrong about my interpretation, please point it out. I'm all ears.)



AlgoCuber said:


> He hasn't done anything wrong


Even if this is so, that doesn't take away from the fact that the method should be renamed. Because again, he didn't gain anything from this method being named after him. So why are you arguing with me about this (since *you* were one of those who gave me the eye roll in that post)?



AlgoCuber said:


> and you're just wrongly accusing someone that just happened to be in the middle of an *unfortunate event*.


I'll humor you, but of course I don't think this is the case but . . .

So why didn't he act? Not to hurt their feelings? Maybe so, but if that's the case (and it was out of Robert's control in the naming of the method), that's over and done now. No sweat, Robert. But now that that _traumatic_ experience is over, let's rename the method to something better for the long-term.



AlgoCuber said:


> Don't always hold your index finger out and find someone to blame.


Accusing me of making up false accusations when you *clearly* don't read the very things that you are trying to use as evidence to support that accusation tells me that maybe you should reconsider your judgement.

As far as I can tell, you just came in here, read what you wanted to read, and disliked the posts that you wanted to dislike (even though I clearly have pointed out that the post of mine that you gave an eyess roll for *contradicts* one of your other statements). In your posts you sound unsure about several of the things you mentioned but still somehow are positive that I'm wrong?

And *always*? I guess you're new here, but anyone who actually knows of my work ethic knows that I have better things to do than to play the blame game. Tell me, what do you think is my motivation for starting this thread? I have no reason to dislike Robert. I have no plot against him. If it is as you claim . . . that you believe that other people named the method after him, renaming the method is not going to dishonor him _at all_. If anything, he should be happy that others will receive credit for the method.



Athefre said:


> So it's a terrible feeling to know that I was the first to have the ideas, the first to develop, and the first to promote; yet the names of others were attached to them.


I bet that's very motivating to come up with more original ideas, isn't it?



PapaSmurf said:


> When it got raised to me that ZZ had been proposed a few years earlier by Heise, I was like "oh, that's cool." The name we have now is ZZ, but it was proposed by Heise (and probably others) beforehand. That's interesting, let's move on.


I guess you didn't think for a second how Ryan Heise must have felt when that happened. Have you ever invented anything new, shared it with the community, and yet don't get recognition for it? It's not pleasant. Just because Ryan didn't do anything about it doesn't mean he *approved* (much less actively allowed it to happen because it was a pleasure).

And just because this has happened before in our community doesn't mean it's okay or should be endorsed as acceptable.

If you have not invented something new, that naturally explains a lot. If you *have* invented something new *and* this did happen to you *and* you *still* were okay with it (unlikely, but let's just suppose), then that doesn't mean that just because you are okay with your recognition being stolen from you (have no self respect), that doesn't mean other people have to stomach that fate for _their deserved_ recognition.



kubesolver said:


> For example you could focus more on the positive aspect of change. Focus more on the hero of your story instead of attacking the character of RY.


So what do you suggest I say about Patrick? He's a cool guy, and because he's cool, he deserves the right thing be done unto him?



kubesolver said:


> What doesn't help is using strong emotional language, making sarcastic remarks when you don't like a post, *using bold statements, *WRITING IN CAPS and general aggressive attitude.


I guess you've noticed, but my posts can be quite long. I can understand if my entire post was written in ALL CAPS or the entire thing was in *bold*, but only a small percentage of them are. That's for *emphasis*. And yes, it does help to express what I'm saying in the way that I actually feel about what I'm saying. And if it is because I choose to add emphasis to my writing is even a _small factor_ that will dictate if the community will or will not decide to change the name of this method, then that's a shame.


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## mookiemu (Jun 21, 2021)

Yau is easier to say. Lol.


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## DuckubingCuber347 (Jun 21, 2021)

mookiemu said:


> Yau is easier to say. Lol.


I personally think the Jameson or, Jameson/Yau has a better ring to it.

edit: That also isn't really a great reason.


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## huytton (Jun 21, 2021)

Christopher Mowla said:


> For those who saw my post in the Community Feedback thread a little while back and wondered why I stated that, this is why. FYI for those who didn't do their research!
> 
> So is it because Patrick said to pair 4 dedges instead of 3, that merits him *0 credit* for what we call the "Yau Method"? Why has no one ever brought this up? Or how about k4 which essentially starts out the exact same way (and predated "Yau" by 3+ years)? (Okay, k4 doesn't start out *exactly* the same way, but just about. Someone who was lazy to insert a corner in between the first three dedges that are paired would have "magically" come up with Yau.)
> 
> ...





Christopher Mowla said:


> For those who saw my post in the Community Feedback thread a little while back and wondered why I stated that, this is why. FYI for those who didn't do their research!
> 
> So is it because Patrick said to pair 4 dedges instead of 3, that merits him *0 credit* for what we call the "Yau Method"? Why has no one ever brought this up? Or how about k4 which essentially starts out the exact same way (and predated "Yau" by 3+ years)? (Okay, k4 doesn't start out *exactly* the same way, but just about. Someone who was lazy to insert a corner in between the first three dedges that are paired would have "magically" come up with Yau.)
> 
> ...



This is an interesting discussion (the "Yau method"). One can also ask "Who invented the Rubik's Cube"? In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 puzzle and 9 April 1970, Frank Fox invented a 'amusement device' with "at least two 3x3 arrays". These two inventors predated Rubik's invention by 2 years! At the end of the day popularity won and now Rubik's cube is the name.


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## xyzzy (Jun 21, 2021)

(I'm not being as thorough with the "literature review" as I should be, mostly because reading up on a thousand old forum posts is hella boring. If you notice glaring timeline mistakes (or other mistakes), feel free to shout at me. Also, when I wrote my earlier post in this thread (on page 1, addressing intellectual property rights), I hadn't read up on the various methods or what exactly Patrick Jameson had proposed.)

The "standard" Yau method, as of time of writing, goes:
Proposed date: 2009???
1. F2C
2. three cross dedges
3. L4C
4. finish cross
5. 3-2-3 edge pairing
6. the rest (as in a CFOP solve)
(It's not possible to put a fixed date on this because it's essentially cobbled together from other, earlier methods. Robert Yau's thread announcing the method is dated 2009-09-02, which is an upper bound of sorts.)

For comparison:


Spoiler: K4, Meyer, Jameson, blah, Hoya



K4:
Proposed date: 2005 (according to wiki)
1. F2C
2. three cross dedges and two corners
3. L4C
4. finish F3L essentially piece by piece
5. CLL
6. multi-step ELL

Meyer:
Proposed date: ~2007 (according to wiki)
1. F2C
2. three cross dedges and two corners
3. L4C
4. edge pairing (details unspecified?)
5. the rest (as in a Roux solve)

Jameson's method (unnamed):
Proposed date: 2008-06-01
1. F2C
2. four dedges in bdL/bdR
3. L4C
4. edge pairing (details unspecified)
5. the rest (method unspecified)

blah's method (unnamed):
Proposed date: 2008-10-13/14
1. F2C
2. three cross dedges, but one of them in the wrong spot
3. L4C
4. finish cross (this includes fixing the bad cross edge)
5. 2-2-2-2 edge pairing
6. the rest (as in a CFOP solve)

Hoya:
Proposed date: 2012 (according to wiki)
1. F2C (on left and right)
2. S2C (on back and bottom)
3. cross (on bottom)
4. L2C
5. edge pairing (3-2-3?)
6. the rest (as in a CFOP solve)



opinions below this line
-------

I feel like when I was new here (circa 2015), Yau-with-wrong-cross was still a thing. _That_ method really should have been credited to blah / Chester Lian, not Robert Yau.

Jameson's method has different L4C ergonomics to all the other methods listed above. K4-like L4C basically has you hold the partial cross (or Roux block) fixed with your left hand while turning Rw (wide) / 3R (slice). It seems that Jameson's method would instead make use of 2R / 3R slices for S2C, then triggers (r U r', r' F r, etc.) for L2C. The choice of locations to put the four dedges is thus the distinguishing feature of Jameson's method; I don't think it's fair to give Jameson any credit for a method that _doesn't_ have that distinguishing feature.

I'd rather stay agnostic on who should or shouldn't be included in the method's name (i.e. I'll follow community consensus, if one is reached), but I think including blah or Meyer (or both) is reasonable. (Practically speaking, a name like Meyer-blah-Yau is just too much of a mouthful, and that's not going to gain any traction. Unlike "CFOP", there isn't a neat acronym to use either.)

Method boundaries are fuzzy. Changing one small step in a method and calling it all your own is absurd, but if you pool together a lot of little optimisations here and there… Idk. (I call my own 4×4×4 method a "Yau variant" but given the above, maybe that's not so appropriate. Should I name the whole method after myself instead? Probably also inappropriate.)


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## Zarxrax (Jun 23, 2021)

So its the Yau-Jamison, AKA the YJ method.

Seriously though, I just want to say that things don't necessarily have to be named after people who invented them or came up with the ideas. A lot of ideas are not entirely original, and everyone is building on the ideas of others. It's quite common for things to be named after the person who popularized it, or to be named after some other person entirely.

See Stigler's law of eponymy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy


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## mookiemu (Jun 24, 2021)

Zarxrax said:


> So its the Yau-Jamison, AKA the YJ method.
> 
> Seriously though, I just want to say that things don't necessarily have to be named after people who invented them or came up with the ideas. A lot of ideas are not entirely original, and everyone is building on the ideas of others. It's quite common for things to be named after the person who popularized it, or to be named after some other person entirely.
> 
> See Stigler's law of eponymy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy


Skateboarding is a perfect example. The move that change everything and brought skateboarding into the modern era is called the "ollie", named after Alan Gelfand who was the first to popularize and perfect it. However, there were already people at that time doing them.


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