# Proposal: allow a move limit for FMC



## Dene (Aug 19, 2014)

*Proposal*
I would like to propose that an option be given to impose a move limit for FMC (e.g. 40 maximum), much in the same way we can impose a time limit for other events.

E2d would need to be modified to suit this proposal. My suggestion would be to create:
E2f: The organisation team may enforce move limits per attempt.
And then change E2d1 to E2f1.

*Reasoning*
While marking FMC sheets for Australian Nationals I went through a lot of solves that were plain CFOP. No obvious attempt to actually find a solution with the "fewest moves" was made. In fact, one solution was well over 60 moves (well over the average CFOP solve). Often these were scribed incorrectly, resulting in a DNF and a lot of wasted time for Tim and myself.

It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database. While that may be nice for them, I consider it a waste of my time. I want to hold FMC for the few people that actually take it somewhat seriously, but I can't avoid all these tag-alongs just wanting a solve in the database. If I could enforce a move limit, perhaps I would host FMC more often.


I would be interested to find out if people in other parts of the world have the same problem. Especially those that host FMC regularly.



*Sidenote*
While organising this post, I noticed 9s. This regulation obviously applies to FMC, as it is an event, but I can only assume 60 minutes isn't the referred to "time limit". This regulation needs to be cleaned up, and if my proposal is taken up perhaps it could refer to E2f.


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## Tim Major (Aug 19, 2014)

I agree, this should definitely be done, if you dedicate the hour to CFOP you can easily find a sub 40 solution anyway. As a side note, can you send me my FMC solution?


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## Tim Major (Aug 19, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> I think a 50 move limit would be acceptable. It's not hard to get sub 50 solutions but takes SOME effort.



There is already an 80 move limit. Dene is suggesting allowing the organizers to set any cutoff they want. For example we had a 1:45 cutoff for Megaminx at Ausnats. If you put the amount of time into FMC as it takes to get sub 1:45 you can easily be sub 40, so setting a sub 40 move cutoff would be equivalent


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## Dene (Aug 19, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> I misinterpreted, what he's trying to say is that there could be a 40 move limit equivalent to a hard cutoff? I actually don't have much of an issue with that.



"I would like to propose that an option be given to impose a move limit for FMC (e.g. 40 maximum), much in the same way we can impose a time limit for other events."

In all honesty, how could I be any more clear?


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## ottozing (Aug 19, 2014)

I really like this idea. I can definitely see how checking absurdly long solutions can be annoying for some delegates, so having the option to set a limit if you want to makes sense to me.


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## porkynator (Aug 19, 2014)

Does it really take *that* long to check a solution and count the moves?
Would the advantage for the judges be such to justify preventing low-level competitors from having an official result?


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## Divineskulls (Aug 19, 2014)

This came up at Nats this year during scorechecking, A couple other people and I liked the idea of an attempt by attempt move limit, but no one else seemed to take the idea seriously. Glad you brought it up, and I'm all for it.


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## ottozing (Aug 19, 2014)

porkynator said:


> Does it really take *that* long to check a solution and count the moves?
> Would the advantage for the judges be such to justify preventing low-level competitors from having an official result?



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that for fmc solutions, delegates have to check a solution more than once if it doesn't work or something like that, which could definitely waste time if someone decided to write down a 60+ move solution that didn't work.


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## Jimmy Liu (Aug 19, 2014)

Delegates are responsible for checking competitors' solutions, that's their duty.
But during continent competition, it really help the delegates while checking 40 ups solutions.
Ok, I'll go positive to this proposal. Let the organizers depend their cutoffs.


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## Laura O (Aug 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database.



I disagree.
I know competitors who are not capable to do sub40 or even sub50 CFOP solutions because they don't know full OLL/PLL and do F2L on a very low level. Nevertheless they enjoy competing in FMC and try to find their shortest possible solution seriously.

Scrambling a cube with a 20 moves scramble, solving it with a 60 moves solution (including cube rotations), counting the moves, writing them down and signing probably takes 3 minutes at most. At the Australian Nationals there were 5 sup40 solutions, so this might have taken 15 minutes to check them. Doing this with 3 judges (there are always people willing to do this here) shortens this to approximately 5 minutes. Furthermore you should keep in mind that you also have to check and sign solutions when there is a move limit.
Is this really a valid argument to exclude competitors from FMC?


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## porkynator (Aug 19, 2014)

ottozing said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that for fmc solutions, delegates have to check a solution more than once if it doesn't work or something like that, which could definitely waste time if someone decided to write down a 60+ move solution that didn't work.


If someone decided to write down a wrong solution, they can write a short one, causing the same problem (can they be disqualified for doing something like this? I hope so).
I don't know what the DNF rate for FMC is exactly, but I'm sure it's below 50%. And in many of those cases, no solution is submitted (it happens sometimes when someone can't find a "good" solution).
So if a solution doesn't work you can call the competitor himself to ask him to try his solution; if he isn't trying to cheat, this will make the control quicker.

anyway, my questions were serious: how long does it usually take to check many FMC solutions when some of them need to be re-checked? How much time do you think you can save by not checking the longer ones?


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## TimMc (Aug 19, 2014)

It'd be nice if competitors draw a line across the sheet, write DNF and sign if he/she writes a solution that exceeds 50 moves and/or they know what they've written won't work. This will save time for 1-2 people double checking a solution that doesn't work or isn't under the move limit. We do take time to check thoroughly...

Tim.


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## Erik (Aug 19, 2014)

I don't support this. Normal time limits make sure you can win general competition time. Your proposal only would win a bit (almost negligible) of delegate/judging time and create an unnecessary variety. How long do you need for checking 40 extra moves and how often do people actually have a solution of 40+ moves? (assuming a 40 move limit) It's the same extra time as having an extra competitor.

*If* anything I'd change the 80 move limit (which I don't think is necessary).


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## Stefan (Aug 19, 2014)

Does anybody check solutions by typing them into a computer? The computer could check whether they're correct, count the moves and submit the result. It could even try to automatically find and highlight the errors, which could then be checked whether they were made by the competitor or by the judge.

Quick, someone write an app that does all this and uses OCR so the judge just has to take a photo and confirm the result.


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## Stefan (Aug 19, 2014)

porkynator said:


> I don't know what the DNF rate for FMC is exactly, but I'm sure it's below 50%.





Spoiler: FMC statistics per year



Using data from WCA_export451_20140827 and Stefan's WCA forum statistics tool.


*year**attempts**DNFs**average**best**worst*200320.00%32.5029362004100.00%41.70314920052128.57%42.53285620063426.47%41.962860200713438.81%43.853176200843539.08%44.7127102200981240.15%44.33225352010146440.57%42.5722812011183341.63%42.2125732012226240.32%41.5420752013258642.73%41.9421802014328034.76%42.292180



Spoiler: SQL code



SELECT
year,
solves+DNFs attempts,
concat(round(100*DNFs/(solves+DNFs), 2), '%') DNFs,
round(moves/solves, 2) average,
best,
worst
FROM
(SELECT
year,
sum((value1>0)+(value2>0)+(value3>0)+(value4>0)+(value5>0)) solves,
sum((value1=-1)+(value2=-1)+(value3=-1)+(value4=-1)+(value5=-1)) DNFs,
sum(if(value1>0,value1,0)+if(value2>0,value2,0)+if(value3>0,value3,0)+if(value4>0,value4,0)+if(value5>0,value5,0)) moves,
min(least(if(value1>0,value1,999),if(value2>0,value2,999),if(value3>0,value3,999),if(value4>0,value4,999),if(value5>0,value5,999))) best,
max(greatest(value1,value2,value3,value4,value5)) worst
FROM Results JOIN Competitions ON Competitions.id = competitionId
WHERE eventId = '333fm'
GROUP BY year) tmp
ORDER BY year;





Interesting DNF percentage drop this year.
Note that "average" only considers correct attempts, so it's not the average of *submitted* moves.


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## Laura O (Aug 19, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Interesting percentage drop this year.



Most likely competitors just try to avoid DNFs when the format is Mean of 3.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 19, 2014)

I don't have any problem with the current state.

Sometimes we have a few people who get 50 moves or more, but I can check that in under 2 minutes. It's really not hard to get through everything with 2 people checking, unless you have maybe 40+ competitors doing the event.

Sure, it's not hard to get results of sub 50 or even sub 40, but the event takes an hour and effectively no judges no matter where there's a move limit, and that's the where the difference lies compared to other events. The bulk of the event time is completely fixed.

People who get 60-80 moves...maybe they aren't doing FM 'properly', and maybe they've never even tried the event at home, so they certainly shouldn't 'expect' to be allowed to compete. But I think the positives of allowing it outweighs the small negative of an extra solution to check.

I'm not fussed about this either way tbh. I won't be trying to use cutoffs at UK comps even if this is allowed.


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## TimMc (Aug 19, 2014)

Erik said:


> How long do you need for checking 40 extra moves and how often do people actually have a solution of 40+ moves?



Australian Nationals
2012 66% over 40 moves, 11% DNF
2013 80% over 40 moves, 27% DNF
2014 83% over 40 moves, 50% DNF

Good solutions were checked once by each delegate (Dene, Tim) and DNF attempts were checked twice by each delegate. Checking was performed at the end of the first day.

The ability to set an upper limit and some regulation or guideline to get competitors to DNF their own attempt if they know their solution won't work will make it a lot easier and faster to check solutions.

Competitors might average 30-40 moves in your area while a few are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions. In this scenario, the limit could be left at 80 because a couple of long/DNF attempts won't take much time.

On the other hand, if there are half a dozen competitors that average 30-35 moves and a lot are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions then time could be saved by setting the limit to 60.

Tim.


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## Erik (Aug 19, 2014)

TimMc said:


> Australian Nationals
> 2012 66% over 40 moves, 11% DNF
> 2013 80% over 40 moves, 27% DNF
> 2014 83% over 40 moves, 50% DNF
> ...



Ok that's more/worse than I expected. Still, lets do the math using conservative assumptions. I used the actual results from the competition.

*2012*: 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total: 35 extra moves to check once. 1 DNF which I will assume is 60 moves (conservative, I don't have the data) makes 2x20 extra moves (because it has to be checked twice). In total 75 extra moves to check for each delegate. I will assume you check about 3 moves per second (conservative) = *25 seconds extra
2013*: 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total 67 extra moves to check. 3 DNF's which I will assume are 60 moves each, make 67 + (60 * 2) = 187. Because you double check: At 3 tps that is *62 seconds extra
**2014:* 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total 62 extra moves to check. 9 DNF's of 60 moves, make 62 + (180*2)= 442 moves extra. At 3 tps that is *140 seconds extra*

These numbers don't exactly convince me that it's a significant amount of extra work for the delegates. Remember or even 4-times checking is not necessary per se and that delegates can delegate this task to trustworthy competitors as well. 
For example: we often have a lot of people check the solutions, but each solution has to be checked and signed by 2 people. This way the checking can be done within 5 minutes, even if you have like 30 competitors.


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## dlo (Aug 19, 2014)

Just to add some more statistics:

US Nationals 2014 had 109 competitors in fewest moves which is 327 solves. 30 attempts were not performed (DNS). 67 were recorded as DNF. 107 solves were over 40 moves. The total move count of these 107 solves was 5134 (29 minutes using the 3 tps checking estimate).

I support allowing organizers to set limits for FMC. It seems analogous to setting time limits for speed events. One effect which I haven't seen mentioned is that this could decrease the number of competitors in the event, which could make it easier to hold in smaller venues where accommodating all FMC competitors could be an issue.


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## Mikel (Aug 19, 2014)

I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions. Erik has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check. I believe this proposal would hinder the current state of FMC by not allowing competitors to compete because of their skill level. This is different from cutoffs in speedsolving events. Those cutoffs save significant time. This proposal would not save much at all.


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## spyr0th3dr4g0n (Aug 19, 2014)

Can I suggest that one of the reasons there are such high movecounts and just CFOP solves, is perhaps a lack of easily available information on FMC solving compared to other events.


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## TimMc (Aug 19, 2014)

Erik said:


> I will assume you check about 3 moves per second (conservative)



I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second. 

40-80 move solutions probably only take an extra 5-10 minutes overall.

The legibility of solutions increases the time it takes to check too. Someone wrote *L' L'* but it looked like *U L'*. It ended up being *L' L'*...



Mikel said:


> I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions.



Your WCA Profile might suggest that you participate in the "Fewest Moves" with the intention to come up with a 69 move solution every time rather than improve to get the fewest moves.

Tim.


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## porkynator (Aug 19, 2014)

spyr0th3dr4g0n said:


> Can I suggest that one of the reasons there are such high movecounts and just CFOP solves, is perhaps a lack of easily available information on FMC solving compared to other events.



[OT]
There is a lot of information available, it's just spread over dozens of different threads.
I'm currently working on a tutorial to gather almost everything one needs to know about FMC 
[/OT]


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## irontwig (Aug 19, 2014)

TimMc said:


> I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second.



Why is checking so much slower? Aren't you doing exactly the same thing; reading moves and executing them?
I for one see no problem in allowing organizers to set a move limit if they so wish, even though the time saved might not be considerable.


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## Erik (Aug 19, 2014)

TimMc said:


> I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second.
> 
> 40-80 move solutions probably only take an extra 5-10 minutes overall.
> 
> ...



I'm sorry but that's *really* slow. 1 tps is feet-speed (don't take that personal please). Why don't you let someone else check the solutions if you know you are not one of the faster people to do so? 3tps for checking a solution is really not world-class cubing.

The limiting factor in your competitions really seem to be the fact that you are the only one(s) checking the solutions, rather than the length of the solutions.


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## porkynator (Aug 19, 2014)

Erik said:


> I'm sorry but that's *really* slow. 1 tps is feet-speed (don't take that personal please). Why don't you let someone else check the solutions if you know you are not one of the faster people to do so? 3tps for checking a solution is really not world-class cubing.
> 
> The limiting factor in your competitions really seem to be the fact that you are the only one(s) checking the solutions, rather than the length of the solutions.



I agree about 1 tps, but 3 seems fine. Have you ever timed yourself scrambling?


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## Erik (Aug 19, 2014)

I take about 9 seconds to do a 40 move scramble. So I guess a 15 sec solver would take like 13?


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## Stefan (Aug 19, 2014)

Mikel said:


> Stefan has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check.



I think you confuse me with someone.


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## Dene (Aug 19, 2014)

I would like to clarify:

I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.

Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...

Ultimately I would say Tim and myself spent at least an hour checking through solutions on Saturday night. This isn't exactly the most enjoyable task in the world, and it's made a lot worse going through long solutions by people that obviously don't practise FMC.

My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.



Mikel said:


> I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions. Stefan has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check. I believe this proposal would hinder the current state of FMC by not allowing competitors to compete because of their skill level. This is different from cutoffs in speedsolving events. Those cutoffs save significant time. This proposal would not save much at all.



If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.


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## Erik (Aug 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> I would like to clarify:
> 
> I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.
> 
> ...



I am not trying to be mean here but it really sounds like the reason you use so much time checking FMC is not because of long solutions but because of a bad approach to the checking process!

If a solution solves, why check it again more than twice? A solution doesn't solve by coincidence. Twice is really the max if a solution is correct on first try. 



> then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off



Especially this part makes me think you don't really have the necessary knowledge of FMC or are aware of how people get to FMC solutions. You want to see what's happening and understand the solution? I can assure you that on the majority of my solutions you wouldn't understand a thing about what is going on by just executing the solution and watch pieces magically match together, because of techniques like NISS, using the inverse scramble and using insertions.

Again: why don't you get help from other competitors if you know the both of you aren't the fittest for checking solutions?



> If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.



This is a very inappropriate reaction! Threatening to not allow someone to compete for no reason and sheer rudeness is not appropriate behavior on the forums and especially not for a delegate. It wasn't too long ago I saw you name-calling here as well. Why do you do this? (yes I am aware of the issue going on)

@ dlo: interesting statistics. With more people it can easily be done within 10-15 minutes I'm sure.


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## Laura O (Aug 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...



Well, on the one hand you complain that people just do simple CFOP solutions, on the other hand you say that you have to check them several times to see what's happening?
Furthermore, if competitors use advanced techniques like inverse solutions, NISS and also insertions, you usually won't be able to reconstruct and understand the solution at all. So checking several times without any suspicion of cheating doesn't make sense.

Edit: ninja'd


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## antoineccantin (Aug 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> While marking FMC sheets for Australian Nationals I went through a lot of solves that were plain CFOP. No obvious attempt to actually find a solution with the "fewest moves" was made. In fact, one solution was well over 60 moves (well over the average CFOP solve). Often these were scribed incorrectly, resulting in a DNF and a lot of wasted time for Tim and myself.
> 
> It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database. While that may be nice for them, I consider it a waste of my time. I want to hold FMC for the few people that actually take it somewhat seriously, but I can't avoid all these tag-alongs just wanting a solve in the database. If I could enforce a move limit, perhaps I would host FMC more often.



Maybe I'm just absolutely terrible at FMC, but I use/know how to use tons of FMC methods/strategies (premoves, inverse scramble, switching, insertions, ect.) and I have a hard time getting solves below 40. Using them and not CFOP doesn't make me magically more efficient and sub-40.

Also, if I get a bad solve over 40 (ex. 41) I would hate for them to be automatically DNFed, and then it not possible for me to get a mean.


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## TimMc (Aug 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> I would like to clarify:
> 
> I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.
> 
> ...


Yup, I checked and put them into two piles. Then you and Kirt also checked the piles. 


irontwig said:


> Why is checking so much slower? Aren't you doing exactly the same thing; reading moves and executing them?
> I for one see no problem in allowing organizers to set a move limit if they so wish, even though the time saved might not be considerable.


Scrambles are printed. Solutions are written down in a rush in the last 5 minutes. 

Tim.


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## Stefan (Aug 19, 2014)

Erik said:


> Threatening to not allow someone to compete for no reason



No reason? Are you not aware of this? (I suspect that's Dene's reason)


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## goodatthis (Aug 19, 2014)

> My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.



It took me several months and 1000+ solves to finally make the cutoff for 4x4. And that was mainly because the cutoff was 20 seconds slower than most comps I've been to. I've spent tons of hours doing 6x6 and 7x7 solves and wasn't even close to the cutoff at Nats. I've put even more hours in since then, and I'm still not even close. But apparently, by your sickeningly elitist statement, I don't take the event seriously, and I haven't put in dedicated practice. 

Anyway, I don't agree with this at all. Cutoffs are put in place to make sure the competition doesn't drag on forever. FMC is one hour, every single time, so you don't save time at all. And how dare you say that someone who isn't sub 40 doesn't care about the event and is wasting your time? Sub 40 is actually pretty hard sometimes. Besides, if you look at FMC rankings, 61% of FMC competitors aren't sub 40 anyway. Does it really take that long to score a 60 move solution?


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## Swordsman Kirby (Aug 19, 2014)

Stefan said:


> No reason? Are you not aware of this? (I suspect that's Dene's reason)



lulz.

I am okay with setting move limits for FMC, but I don't think organizers will try to invoke that rule in any reasonbly sized competition.


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## Tim Major (Aug 20, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> Sure, it's not hard to get results of sub 50 or even sub 40, but the event takes an hour and effectively no judges no matter where there's a move limit, and that's the where the difference lies compared to other events.



This is the only valid argument I've read in this thread, so I feel like it somes up the arguments against this proposal. Arguments like Antoine's could apply to any event. I learnt all EP algs, CO algs and all non-3 corner CP algs and did a lot of Mega practice a while ago but failed to make the cutoff. So Antoine's argument could be applied to any event.

Anyway Daniel are you saying you compete in FMC and solution check? Because I offered to, as neither of our delegates are particularly fast, whereas I scramble 3x3 a lot and used to check my own FMC solutions under speed conditions, but Dene thought (and I agreed) that competitors in the event shouldn't check solutions (I could've altered solutions that beat me with a ' for example).

Do you feel it'd be fair to have competitors checking them? Me and Jay are probably at least twice as fast at checking for example.


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## antoineccantin (Aug 20, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> Arguments like Antoine's could apply to any event. I learnt all EP algs, CO algs and all non-3 corner CP algs and did a lot of Mega practice a while ago but failed to make the cutoff. So Antoine's argument could be applied to any event.



It wasn't an argument against the idea of the move limit. It was against Dene's argument that people don't get under 40 moves because they just use CFOP.


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## kunparekh18 (Aug 20, 2014)

This is a bit like saying 1:00 3x3 solvers shouldn't be allowed to solve (because obviously someone who takes a minute to solve a 3x3 isn't/hasn't taking/taken the event seriously). Sure, we have cutoffs for that, but cutoffs exist because there is a difference in the time taken to do a solve. But here, everyone takes the same time, 1 hour. 1:00 3x3 solves aren't DNFed because the competitor doesn't take the event seriously. It is because his solves take more time.


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## goodatthis (Aug 20, 2014)

Can we please add a poll to get a public opinion?


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## cubernya (Aug 20, 2014)

I would like to see the overall limit lowered from 80 to 60. Even an average solve would still fall under 60, but under 50 could take some skill not everybody has.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 20, 2014)

theZcuber said:


> I would like to see the overall limit lowered from 80 to 60. Even an average solve would still fall under 60, but under 50 could take some skill not everybody has.



But even that's assuming quite a bit of knowledge from a cuber. Seriously, I don't think people realize how much the average person on this forum knows about twisty puzzles. Getting sub 20 on 3x3 seems relatively easy given the people here, and oftentimes, people say it is easy. In reality, most people put months of learning and practice into achieving that goal. Same idea for FMC, only more dependent upon time and knowledge. An 80 move solution may be easy for most of us, but it isn't trivial.

I've run FMC several times, and I can't think of a time where solution checking in any way hampered my ability to delegate/organize. There were many more pressing problems I was facing besides checking long solutions. And really, cutting ~20 moves is such a small chunk of time, I can't see it making my job noticeably easier. If people want the ability to have move limits, that's fine, but I would never implement one.


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## Mikel (Aug 20, 2014)

I have an alternative proposal that would still save time but allow competitors who take 40+ moves in FMC to compete.

Instead of restricting arbitrarily long solutions, time limits should be set for competitors who achieve certain move counts. The counts are as follows:

71-80 move solution: Competitor will only be allowed 20 minutes to turn in his attempt.
61-70 moves: 30 minutes
51-60 moves: 40 minutes
41-50 moves: 50 minutes
<= 40 moves: 60 minutes

e.g) 1) At 15 minutes a competitor turns in a solution. The judge would put it into a "20 minute pile" If the solution was 80 moves or less, it would be a success.
2) At 21 minutes a competitor turns in a solution. The judge would put it into the "30 minute pile." If the solution was >71 moves, it would be a DNF, anything less, success.

The piles are just a way to keep track of who was at what move count limit.

This would work the best if a solution checker were available during the attempt. This way, if someone had an 80 move solution, an extra 40 minutes would be gained for checking the solution compared to the people taking the full hour. 

Even if a solution checker were not present, during the "extra time" within the attempt, the competitor would be under rule of an organizer/ the judge. This means that the competitor would have to assist with certain manual tasks e.g) cutting scorecards, judging the attempt, data entry, teaching others how to judge for later rounds, going on a coffee run for the delegate, etc. This would save a lot of time and would negate the fallacy that long FMC solutions waste time. 

I feel it would be better to hinder the time limit for a competitor instead of restricting move count. This seems like a more fair approach in my opinion. 



Spoiler



Note that I still think the current system is best, but that this would be better than the proposal in this thread.


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## Erik (Aug 20, 2014)

Stefan said:


> No reason? Are you not aware of this? (I suspect that's Dene's reason)



Yes I am. I don't think it's any justification in acting like this though. The competitor is not breaking any rules, nor is he holding up the competition. It's different from stretching a 3x3 solve to the time limit, since you'd actually be occupying the timer. Also: Mikel's post is totally on topic and has some valid points in it.

Even if he was breaking any rules (for example, you could say it's non-sportsman like) , you should either address the issue to the board and try to get some sort of ban, or give him an official warning at a competition after which this would be communicated back to the board via the delegate report. Threatening people in public with disqualification and sheer rudeness is not an acceptable way of getting what you want, especially if you are a delegate.

But enough of this.

Mikel: your last post contains a proposal which would seriously change the FMC event and has a serious amount of probably unwanted effects. It's even way more strict than Dene's original proposal. For those who are not very good and average maybe 55 moves, this means they now even get less time, considerably increasing the chances of DNF'ing.

Yesterday we brainstormed a bit on the IRC chat, to find quicker ways to check FMC. An OCR is not fool-proof enough and frankly, scanning the solution takes just as long as checking it 'by hand'. The optimal way would be if you could provide a solution digitally and let the computer check if the solution works, but that's of course not practical nor cheat-proof. Conclusion: the current way is probably the fastest already.


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## Laura O (Aug 20, 2014)

Mikel said:


> Instead of restricting arbitrarily long solutions, time limits should be set for competitors who achieve certain move counts. The counts are as follows:
> 
> 71-80 move solution: Competitor will only be allowed 20 minutes to turn in his attempt.
> 61-70 moves: 30 minutes
> ...



And next, we limit the inspection time? If you want to have 15 seconds inspection in 3x3 you have to do a sub10 solve?

Sorry, but your suggestion is just nonsense. FMC is not a strategy game where you need tactical considerations to get good results. It's just about using 60 minutes as effectively and efficiently as possible to find the shortest solution.


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## IRNjuggle28 (Aug 20, 2014)

How about a sort of "soft" cutoff? If an attempt is over 40 moves, they don't get another attempt; they don't get to try for a FMC mean. That's what's done for big cubes, and I don't see why it wouldn't work here. I'm not sure I agree with having a move limit at all, but this at least seems like it balances time efficiency with fairness to less skilled solvers better than DNFing anything over 40. It's not particularly easy to find solutions under 40 if you don't know a full LL method, which many solvers don't.

I think Kit had some very good points.


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## guysensei1 (Aug 20, 2014)

IRNjuggle28 said:


> How about a sort of "soft" cutoff? If an attempt is over 40 moves, they don't get another attempt; they don't get to try for a FMC mean. That's what's done for big cubes, and I don't see why it wouldn't work here. I'm not sure I agree with having a move limit at all, but this at least seems like it balances time efficiency with fairness to less skilled solvers better than DNFing anything over 40. It's not particularly easy to find solutions under 40 if you don't know a full LL method, which many solvers don't.
> 
> I think Kit had some very good points.



This. Many events have this soft cutoff thing too, so we should have this for FMC if there absolutely has to be a cutoff.


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## Renslay (Aug 20, 2014)

Relating to this thread, I have a proposal. I don't know if something like this already mentioned, so forgive me.

*Change the FMC sheet in a way that the competitor do not write down the rotations, rather he check little checkboxes indicating what moves does he or she want to apply in the solution.*

Here is an example sheet:

















In this example, the solution is the inverse of the scramble, because only had room for 18 moves. More moves require at least one more paper sheet.

*Then the judge or delegate can scan them, and the validation can be done automatically.*

*Advantages:*
- Checking is done automatically, once, fast, and the error in the validate process is minimal.
- Only one person is required (scanning)
- Validating doesn't require an expertise

*Disadvantages:*
- Scanning: can take a little time, requires a scanner device
- Requires to write the validation software (but only once, and I don't think it's a difficult task)
- More papers? (Writing / checkboxing the solution requires more space.)


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## kinch2002 (Aug 20, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> This is the only valid argument I've read in this thread, so I feel like it somes up the arguments against this proposal. Arguments like Antoine's could apply to any event. I learnt all EP algs, CO algs and all non-3 corner CP algs and did a lot of Mega practice a while ago but failed to make the cutoff. So Antoine's argument could be applied to any event.
> 
> Anyway Daniel are you saying you compete in FMC and solution check? Because I offered to, as neither of our delegates are particularly fast, whereas I scramble 3x3 a lot and used to check my own FMC solutions under speed conditions, but Dene thought (and I agreed) that competitors in the event shouldn't check solutions (I could've altered solutions that beat me with a ' for example).
> 
> Do you feel it'd be fair to have competitors checking them? Me and Jay are probably at least twice as fast at checking for example.


Yes I compete and check solutions (except my own). It's usually myself or James (who also competes) or both, but we also get help from other experienced competitors occasionally. I don't have a problem with myself competing and checking, because after all I'm in a position of trust and there are a hundred other things I could do instead. I also like to see other people get good results, so I don't even have any motive to alter solutions and DNF them. I also don't have a problem with using experienced competitors that I trust. There really isn't much motivation to try and alter someone's solution just so you come 5th instead of 6th at a FM in a UK competition.


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## Sebastien (Aug 20, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> Yes I compete and check solutions (except my own). It's usually myself or James (who also competes) or both, but we also get help from other experienced competitors occasionally. I don't have a problem with myself competing and checking, because after all I'm in a position of trust and there are a hundred other things I could do instead. I also like to see other people get good results, so I don't even have any motive to alter solutions and DNF them. I also don't have a problem with using experienced competitors that I trust. There really isn't much motivation to try and alter someone's solution just so you come 5th instead of 6th at a FM in a UK competition.



Same here in Germany. We alwaysw check the solutions right after FMC with 2-4 experienced people, most of the time including myself. Just as Daniel, I just never check my own solutions and I don't see any other problem. 



Renslay said:


> Relating to this thread, I have a proposal. I don't know if something like this already mentioned, so forgive me.



While I respect your thought behind this, this proposal is just.....NO! If I ever have to write down an FMC solution like this, please kill me!


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## Renslay (Aug 20, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> While I respect your thought behind this, this proposal is just.....NO! If I ever have to write down an FMC solution like this, please kill me!



Why?


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## Sebastien (Aug 20, 2014)

With this form, I would expect taking 5 minutes more for writing down (or "entering", as writing is not really necessary) the solution and especially for checking it within the attempt. Also, how would you correct mistakes in these forms or change your solution? And so on...using this kind of form would just be terrible, sorry.


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## Renslay (Aug 20, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> With this form, I would expect taking 5 minutes more for writing down (or "entering", as writing is not really necessary) the solution and especially for checking it within the attempt.



Adding 5 more minutes for "entering" the solution?



Sebastien said:


> Also, how would you correct mistakes in these forms or change your solution?



Uhm, the same way you correct mistakes in the current form?  "To delete moves, clearly erase / blacken them."

But I see your concern, it can be less comfortable. But I don't think it is so terrible - in the current form you have to be careful just as much.


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## Laura O (Aug 20, 2014)

One thing I don't understand: there were several postings which weakened or also disproved the initial reasoning of this proposal ("waste of time") and pointed out that the actual problem is probably a wrong approach (checking solutions several times).
So why put effort in all these optimization ideas when there isn't any problem for the vast majority?


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## Antonie faz fan (Aug 20, 2014)

Isn't the limit already80 moves?
I have seen it at all comps with FMC in the Netherlands and Belgium so I assume it would be the same in other countries.
Also if there is a problem with checking scrambles taking too long you can most likely find some voulantairs who can help.


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## Dene (Aug 20, 2014)

Way too many posts to respond to everything. I just want to clarify something, because it seems putting in the "40 moves" example was the biggest mistake I could have made. I want to put this out there loud and clear:

IT WAS AN EXAMPLE. I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING BY "40 MOVES". I DIDN'T STATE, NOR IMPLY THAT I THINK 40 MOVES IS THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE ELITE AND THE AMATEURS. STOP GOING ON ABOUT THE 40 MOVE THING PLEASE!!! Personally, if I were to utilise this rule I would probably use 50 moves as a limit.




Erik said:


> I am not trying to be mean here but it really sounds like the reason you use so much time checking FMC is not because of long solutions but because of a bad approach to the checking process!
> 
> If a solution solves, why check it again more than twice? A solution doesn't solve by coincidence. Twice is really the max if a solution is correct on first try



I do it quickly twice to see what happens. If I get something different (which does happen, due to all sorts of factors, not the least people writing messy) I obviously need to go again. Once I'm happy I've checked whether it works or not, if it does work I need to go through it slowly to see if I can figure out what was going on to ensure nothing naughty has been done. This should be the bare minimum for anyone checking FMC solutions. I sleep a lot better at night knowing the results going into the database are 100% accurate.

And yes I know there are going to be competitors using advanced techniques that I simply can't follow. This concerns me even more, as I want to be very careful to ensure they aren't utilising the scramble in an illegal way. If I don't check, how am I going to know the competitor is using advanced techniques? If I see they are, I check their paperwork to see if I can find any clues at to what is going on (I'm no expert, but I'm aware of a few techniques). I do the best I can, but if nothing obviously untoward is going on I'm happy.



Erik said:


> Again: why don't you get help from other competitors if you know the both of you aren't the fittest for checking solutions?



I have done this in the past, however this time that wasn't a practical option.



Erik said:


> This is a very inappropriate reaction! Threatening to not allow someone to compete for no reason and sheer rudeness is not appropriate behavior on the forums and especially not for a delegate. It wasn't too long ago I saw you name-calling here as well. Why do you do this? (yes I am aware of the issue going on)



I am a person that tends to develop very strong opinions. You should understand, as you seem to be the same. It's just the way I am. And I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to as "name-calling", but I say things as I see them. If I see someone being stupid, I'm not one to cotton-wool my views. As for this particular person, he is behaving in a way equal to someone with the maturity of a 15 year old. It looks to me like he is just taking the **** out of all the hard work people put into the WCA and competitions, for his own childish jokes. He needs to grow up. (and yes competitions are meant to be about having fun and all that, but there is a serious side to everything and people need to understand where to draw the line).



goodatthis said:


> It took me several months and 1000+ solves to finally make the cutoff for 4x4. And that was mainly because the cutoff was 20 seconds slower than most comps I've been to. I've spent tons of hours doing 6x6 and 7x7 solves and wasn't even close to the cutoff at Nats. I've put even more hours in since then, and I'm still not even close. But apparently, by your sickeningly elitist statement, I don't take the event seriously, and I haven't put in dedicated practice.
> 
> Anyway, I don't agree with this at all. Cutoffs are put in place to make sure the competition doesn't drag on forever. FMC is one hour, every single time, so you don't save time at all. And how dare you say that someone who isn't sub 40 doesn't care about the event and is wasting your time? Sub 40 is actually pretty hard sometimes. Besides, if you look at FMC rankings, 61% of FMC competitors aren't sub 40 anyway. Does it really take that long to score a 60 move solution?



I'm going to give you a bit of my time because I feel that you have unfair views about certain cubers and I want to clear the air a bit.

First of all, I assume you're referring to USNats, which I know nothing about so just bear that in mind.

Looking at your profile, you haven't been around for all that long, and you seem to be doing reasonably well considering how long you appear to have been cubing. I know people that have spent more than twice as long as yourself to achieve those 4x4 times (myself included). But you're going to need to spend more than a few hours on bigcubes to get fast enough to reach tight cut-offs. Surely you understand this, and understand the need for having tight cut-offs?

I think it's unfair to call my judgements "sickeningly elitist". Cubers put in years of work to get to top level speeds. You've been doing it for a few months. How about some perspective. You think Roger Federer got to be the best tennis player in the world after 6 months in the job? Or even close? I feel like you're unreasonably resentful of people like myself, because you aren't as fast as we are even though you're trying hard. Let me say, I can assure you when I had been cubing for 6 months I was barely sub20 on 3x3, and was slow as hell on everything else. It took me years and years of hard work and long hours practising to get as fast as I am (and tbh I'm not that quick).

Let me tell you a little story. At the first competition I delegated (NZ Champs 2009) I forgot to enforce cut-offs, and some kids spent almost an hour getting through five 5x5 solves. We could have had a whole extra event in the extra time put into that. It's not fair for everyone else to watch a few people take ages to do their solves.

The thing is, we have a competition to run. We have to keep things moving. So we have to have cut-offs. What would you suggest a reasonable cut-off to be? We organisers have to make these decisions to try and suit as many people as possible. Personally I think it is very reasonable to use a time generous enough to fit anyone that has worked hard at a puzzle (and by "hard" I mean "putting in the _time_ and _effort_"), or at least is fast enough to get through anyway (e.g. someone that practises 5x5 hard, doesn't care about 4x4 but still manages to get through 4x4 simply because of 5x5 practise). You've only been around for a few months, and while you might be passionate about a particular puzzle, "success" takes time, and if you don't realise this or think it's fair then life is going to be very hard for you. (Consider this words of wisdom from Uncle Dene).

It isn't about being elite, it's about being practical and fair. For example, usually I'll use 2:30 as a 5x5 cut-off, which is more than generous enough for someone who has put in a lot of time and effort, but not too slow to drag things on for hours. If I were an "elitist" I would use a 1:30 cut-off, which in my personal opinion is relatively slow compared to the top cubers these days (50% more time than Feliks or Hays would need), but still achievable by people like myself who have put in years of dedicated practise (although these days there's a good chance I wouldn't make that cut-off).

In short, you need to realise that cut-offs are going to be hard to reach sometimes, and you can't expect to be able to reach every cutoff when you're still new to everything. Getting faster is going to take time, no matter what you do. Be patient, keep working hard, and you'll soon reach every cut-off that you want to.



Now to FMC. You say cut-offs are there to prevent a competition going forever, but this isn't true. I could have no cut-off for 5x5, and simply schedule it for 2 hours and not have 6x6 or 7x7. The actual reason we have cut-offs is to find a balance between time spent on events.

Regardless, this doesn't affect FMC, which as you rightly pointed out goes for an hour anyway. I'll ignore your comments about the 40 moves thing (refer above). But I want to say in general, it isn't about time spent. Obviously the difference is minimal. My issue is with the fact that half of the people doing FMC (at ausnats) hadn't ever done it before. I got questions like "can you do rotations?" or, after the fact, comments like "I didn't realise you can do rotations!"

Let's try this from another angle. Imagine someone who doesn't know how to solve a cube blindfolded. What if they were to submit 10 cubes for multibld, and spend an hour on the side pretending to memorise and solve these 10 cubes. At the end of the hour they take off the blindfold with nothing solved and find the whole situation rather amusing. Even if they weren't wasting needed resources, I doubt many people (other than all the other childish people) would find this behaviour acceptable. They're having a joke at the expense of all the hard work people are putting into hosting a competition for them.

If we wouldn't allow people to make a mockery of what we do in any other event, why do we accept it for FMC? There needs to be a balance between having fun, and having a competition. If you aren't someone that "does" multibld, why should anyone be forced to spend their time watching you muck around? If you aren't someone that "does" FMC, why should anyone spend even a second giving you the time of day?

In my opinion, it should be up to the organiser to decide whether they wish to give you the time or not, hence why there should be an option for using a move limit.



In all honesty I don't know why there is so much negativity towards this idea. Perhaps people feel like I am being "elitist", because I mentioned 40 moves, but hopefully after reading this people will see that I wasn't implying anything of the sort, and will see things from a more reasonable point of view.


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## Erik (Aug 20, 2014)

Dene said:


> And yes I know there are going to be competitors using advanced techniques that I simply can't follow. This concerns me even more, as I want to be very careful to ensure they aren't utilising the scramble in an illegal way. If I don't check, how am I going to know the competitor is using advanced techniques? If I see they are, I check their paperwork to see if I can find any clues at to what is going on (I'm no expert, but I'm aware of a few techniques). I do the best I can, but if nothing obviously untoward is going on I'm happy.



Ok, so if you would be the delegate of a European competition you would be asking 50% of the competitors to show their thoughtprocess and let them explain their techniques? That's just simply unpractical and unecessary.



> I have done this in the past, however this time that wasn't a practical option.



Why not? 2 experienced delegates, who also are good FMC solvers have already given their approach on checking the results in like 10 minutes.



> I am a person that tends to develop very strong opinions. You should understand, as you seem to be the same. It's just the way I am. And I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to as "name-calling", but I say things as I see them. If I see someone being stupid, I'm not one to cotton-wool my views. As for this particular person, he is behaving in a way equal to someone with the maturity of a 15 year old. It looks to me like he is just taking the **** out of all the hard work people put into the WCA and competitions, for his own childish jokes. He needs to grow up. (and yes competitions are meant to be about having fun and all that, but there is a serious side to everything and people need to understand where to draw the line).



Strong opinions are fine. Name calling and being rude isn't. Especially for a delegate. Don't you think so?

You were calling someone a 'moron' on that post I was talking about. You can maybe ask a moderator to retrieve the exact post. I assume it has been deleted after I reported it. If this is the behaviour you think is appropriate, I seriously doubt your qualification being a delegate representing the WCA.


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## TimMc (Aug 20, 2014)

Erik said:


> Ok, so if you would be the delegate of a European competition you would be asking 50% of the competitors to show their thoughtprocess and let them explain their techniques? That's just simply unpractical and unecessary.



It'd be less time consuming for a delegate/organiser to enter an FMC solution into a system and have it automatically checked.

Would the time/effort to create a system that analyses the solution, beyond simply checking whether it solves the puzzle, outweigh the combined time/effort of people manually checking solutions all over the world?

In the mean time, a regulation that allows a maximum move limit to be set for a competition would make it slightly easier for organisers.

Tim.


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## Dene (Aug 20, 2014)

Erik said:


> Ok, so if you would be the delegate of a European competition you would be asking 50% of the competitors to show their thoughtprocess and let them explain their techniques? That's just simply unpractical and unecessary.



Preferably not. I don't even see why this is under discussion as it isn't the point of this thread. If I was a delegate in Europe with lots of good FMCers I would ask some of them to assist with the judging process. The reason we didn't get help at this competition is because we were flat out, and concerned about various factors which we hadn't dealt with before (number of competitors, and number of new competitors). Judging FMC sheets wasn't a priority. We had to be out of the venue at the end of the day, and everyone else went home. Myself and Tim were left doing it in the evening. Obviously we accept this responsibility and it wasn't an issue at all. However it did bring about some frustrations within me than lead to this thread.




Erik said:


> Strong opinions are fine. Name calling and being rude isn't. Especially for a delegate. Don't you think so?



You might call it name calling and rudeness. I might call it honestly and bluntness. I guess it depends on the sort of person you are how you see it. If you feel this makes me an unworthy delegate then perhaps you should talk to the Board. If they feel I should step aside then I'll respect their decision. Regardless, this is not the appropriate place to have such a discussion so it ends here now. If you wish to continue this topic I suggest you choose a different medium.


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## Erik (Aug 20, 2014)

TimMc said:


> It'd be less time consuming for a delegate/organiser to enter an FMC solution into a system and have it automatically checked.



I think you are wrong here. How long do you take to type over a solution into the computer? It'd be max the same speed I estimate.



> Would the time/effort to create a system that analyses the solution, beyond simply checking whether it solves the puzzle, outweigh the combined time/effort of people manually checking solutions all over the world?



I don't think so and even if it would, how would you program it? 

What is wrong with the current way? Is 10-15 minutes of checking really that much of a burden for you?



Dene said:


> Preferably not. I don't even see why this is under discussion as it isn't the point of this thread. If I was a delegate in Europe with lots of good FMCers I would ask some of them to assist with the judging process. The reason we didn't get help at this competition is because we were flat out, and concerned about various factors which we hadn't dealt with before.


 Why not? If you didn't have time at the competition, why not ask a few fast people to do it right after it? And regardless of this, why don't you try the approach mentioned before out in the future, but instead keep arguing in favor of your approach?




> You might call it name calling and rudeness. I might call it honestly and bluntness. I guess it depends on the sort of person you are how you see it. If you feel this makes me an unworthy delegate then perhaps you should talk to the Board. If they feel I should step aside then I'll respect their decision. Regardless, this is not the appropriate place to have such a discussion so it ends here now. If you wish to continue this topic I suggest you choose a different medium.



Are we talking in different languages? Or is calling someone a moron not namecalling? Defending your behavior is maybe even worse than the behavior itself. If you do continue this behavior I will contact the board, yes. Let's stop discussing this here now.


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## Sebastien (Aug 20, 2014)

Erik said:


> I think you are wrong here. How long do you take to type over a solution into the computer? It'd be max the same speed I estimate.



The time needed to type in a solution is not even the main problem I see. The real problem is, that by typing in a solution in somewhere, i.e. create a copy of that solution, you are just reducing the problem statement from "is this solution correct?" to "did I transfer the solution correctly?". So after performing that copying process that already requires at least the same resources than directly checking the solution, you will see yourself confronted with another maybe even more time consuming check. With this view, I don't think that any approach that includes transfering an FMC solution in order to check it is very senseful.


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## Erik (Aug 20, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> The time needed to type in a solution is not even the main problem I see. The real problem is, that by typing in a solution in somewhere, i.e. create a copy of that solution, you are just reducing the problem statement from "is this solution correct?" to "did I transfer the solution correctly?". So after performing that copying process that already requires at least the same resources than directly checking the solution, you will see yourself confronted with another maybe even more time consuming check. With this view, I don't think that any approach that includes transfering an FMC solution in order to check it is very senseful.



Oh yes, that as well! Very good point. So the only real alternative would be direct digital input, which we have seen earlier is not a practical or safe option either.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 20, 2014)

I don't see any intrinsic problem with allowing 'noobs' to compete, so am I right in thinking that the only problem we have here is that the checking process takes a while?
Sebastien and I have already explained how it doesn't take long for us, but I will elaborate on how I check.

1. I let other experienced competitors help if we want to get it done quickly.
2. Solved I only check once...what's the likelihood that I manage to do a wrong move (1 in 1000 moves?) which happens to be the same move that they wrote wrong (1 in 70)? And that assumes they wrote one move wrong (1 in 10?). It just isn't worth double checking everything for that sort of miniscule probability.
3. DNFs can be checked twice. I check it once and then let the competitor execute it while reading off the paper. They either say "cba whatever DNF is fine" or they try it and realise their mistake because they're usually doing CFOP and it's really obvious when it goes wrong (most people who write moves wrong are 'noobs' and use CFOP). This process is good because then the competitor is happy to accept the DNF, and I only have to check once myself - in fact I can even check another one while I keep an eye on them in my peripheral vision.

All in all, a few extra solutions takes very little time, and doesn't even hold up the competition (in the same way that no cutoffs in other events can) because you can do the checking at any point.

I feel this extra effort is massively outweighed by the positives of allowing everyone to compete (with the chance of getting a result).


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2014)

Dene said:


> My issue is with the fact that half of the people doing FMC (at ausnats) hadn't ever done it before. I got questions like "can you do rotations?" or, after the fact, comments like "I didn't realise you can do rotations!"



Maybe it would help if the regulations included a link to an example FMC sheet? I think that would be a good idea anyway.

Or if we changed the FMC sheet, like print the scramble on the back side and give competitors a few minutes to read the instructions on the front side and enter their name and id there and to "get ready" in general, before the actual hour and attempt starts? The back side could also have a field for a replacement solution, so one could write a "safety solution" on the front early on and replace it with a better one later. Not sure that's useful, just an idea.

Btw: Can you tell the lengths of the submissions at your 2014 Nats that were DNF? That would tell a more complete story than what's visible now.


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> The time needed to type in a solution is not even the main problem I see. The real problem is, that by typing in a solution in somewhere, i.e. create a copy of that solution, you are just reducing the problem statement from "is this solution correct?" to "did I transfer the solution correctly?". So after performing that copying process that already requires at least the same resources than directly checking the solution, you will see yourself confronted with another maybe even more time consuming check. With this view, I don't think that any approach that includes transfering an FMC solution in order to check it is very senseful.



I strongly disagree. With the computer...

 You can check and fix moves one by one. Without worrying that you might repeat your error or replace it with another one. The program could even show the entered moves overlayed onto a photo of the sheet, making comparison very comfortable and fast.
 You don't need to scramble.
 If something is unclear, like the _"L vs U"_ mentioned before, you don't need to scramble and solve twice. You need to enter just once (telling the computer that that move could be L or U). If there are let's say four moves that can be read two different ways, you don't need to scramble and solve sixteen times and keep track of what you tried, you still only need to enter the solution once.
 As I said before, the computer can find errors and point out where they are, so that the judge only has to check that move or those few moves!


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## TimMc (Aug 20, 2014)

Erik said:


> I think you are wrong here. How long do you take to type over a solution into the computer? It'd be max the same speed I estimate.



2-7 keystrokes per second.

Someone could type x2rflifir2fl2ul2rb2ru2biuiruirururyuiru2riufiuifu2 and it can be converted:
x2 R F L' F' R2 F L2 U L2
R B2 R U2 B' U' R U' R U
R U R y U' R U2 R' U F'
U' F U2

...like entering "12345" into Cubecomps for 1:23.45



Erik said:


> What is wrong with the current way? Is 10-15 minutes of checking really that much of a burden for you?



The scramble could be loaded for the attempt, and the solution could be applied to see whether it solves the cube. If the solution works, then further checks could be run to enforce: E2) The competitor's solution must not be directly derived from any part of the scrambling algorithm. This would make checking more consistent and remove some interpretations of what is and what isn't considered "directly derived".

10-15 minutes is fine. I'm happy volunteering 30+ hours on a weekend for those who really want to compete (i.e. improve their PB).

15-30 minutes will be allocated in the schedule for checking FMC solutions next time. 



Sebastien said:


> With this view, I don't think that any approach that includes transfering an FMC solution in order to check it is very senseful.



It'd give us a complete record of the results. It seems like we're manually transferring the solution to a puzzle and not keeping a record of what was submitted beyond "35 moves".

Tim.


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## TimMc (Aug 20, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Can you tell the lengths of the submissions at your 2014 Nats that were DNF?



43 moves + 2 rotations
47 moves
52 moves
52 moves + 1 rotation
54 moves + 5 rotations
57 moves + 8 rotations
65 moves + 3 rotations
65 moves + 2 rotations
66 moves



Stefan said:


> Maybe it would help if the regulations included a link to an example FMC sheet?



Great idea.

Tim.


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2014)

TimMc said:


> It'd give us a complete record of the results.



Right, that's another nice advantage. Also, the program could count the moves. And analyze the solution, like find out whether the "inverse-scramble" technique was used or whether it might have abused the scramble. And it could display the solution like alg.cubing.net does (allowing to go through it slowly without losing track, going forwards and backwards, and freely rotating the cube without losing track).


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> 2. Solved I only check once...what's the likelihood that I manage to do a wrong move (1 in 1000 moves?) which happens to be the same move that they wrote wrong (1 in 70)? And that assumes they wrote one move wrong (1 in 10?). It just isn't worth double checking everything for that sort of miniscule probability.



You're ignoring muscle-memory and commonality of algorithms. I remember checking my solution more than once and subconsciously fixing an error every time, because I "knew" the alg and did what I knew, not what was written. If I have the time, I also check my FMC solution several times before I hand it in, even if it appears correct every single time, because I don't trust myself. And I beliieve I'm not the only one.


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## Renslay (Aug 20, 2014)

Stefan said:


> You're ignoring muscle-memory and commonality of algorithms. I remember checking my solution more than once and subconsciously fixing an error every time, because I "knew" the alg and did what I knew, not what was written. If I have the time, I also check my FMC solution several times before I hand it in, even if it appears correct every single time, because I don't trust myself. And I beliieve I'm not the only one.



Checking without fingertricks (doing only "wrist turns") can help forgetting and avoiding muscle-memorized moves.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 20, 2014)

Stefan said:


> You're ignoring muscle-memory and commonality of algorithms. I remember checking my solution more than once and subconsciously fixing an error every time, because I "knew" the alg and did what I knew, not what was written. If I have the time, I also check my FMC solution several times before I hand it in, even if it appears correct every single time, because I don't trust myself. And I beliieve I'm not the only one.


True. Let's say a solve ends with a T perm that has a move written wrong. I might automatically do the T perm moves. There's no point me checking it again as I'll probably do the same thing. Anyone else might also do the same thing. So even handing every 'correct' solution to someone else to check won't be foolproof. Handy that we're discussing automated checkers already 

I think I rarely notice algorithms that I actually know when I'm checking solutions. Most UK cubers have been told enough times that no rotations is better for them, so even CFOP-esque solutions will be upside down etc. If I do notice an alg I think I already read more carefully to try and avoid the mistake you mention. Not foolproof, but this problem is getting off-topic from the original post anyway.

At risk of straying more off topic and riling a few people, we could even move onto whether writing down a move wrong should be considered a mistake 
After all, the essence of FM is to find a short solution, not to write one down


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## Laura O (Aug 20, 2014)

Stefan said:


> If something is unclear, like the _"L vs U"_ mentioned before, you don't need to scramble and solve twice. You need to enter just once (telling the computer that that move could be L or U). If there are let's say four moves that can be read two different ways, you don't need to scramble and solve sixteen times and keep track of what you tried, you still only need to enter the solution once.



I don't think that's something we need or that we should aim for. It certainly saves time but it's also some kind of trial-and-error-checking.
E2c says that you have to "[... ]give the judge a legibly written solution[...]". So if moves can be read two different ways that's a DNF.

In case of doubt you can still ask the competitor about specific moves. If he isn't able to read his moves, that's clearly a DNF.


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## Mollerz (Aug 20, 2014)

I've been tracking this thread since its inception and here's my input, most if not all of which has been said before but I believe its not really getting through.

Firstly, the process myself and Daniel do at competitions when it comes to checking. Once all of the results are in we will move onto the next event. Usually the organiser will call out the event and groups and such so myself and Daniel are not needed. Usually, if not all of the time, myself and Daniel are in different groups for events, and as much as possible, we will avoid scrambling/judging so we can actually delegate the competition. Obviously in some cases we will be needed, but most of the time we are not. Let's say Daniel is in the first group, and I am in the second group. If its 3x3 then it will be 20-30 minutes for each group. This gives me enough time to check all the solutions through. If the solution is correct, you don't really need to double check it, but I always do, to see what kind of method is used, what blocks they build, insertions, etc. If I find one that does not work, I will check it a second time, if it again does not work I will put it to another side. When Daniel finishes competing I tell him which scrambles are correct and which I could not get to work. Whilst I am competing, he will check to see if they are in fact incorrect or if I have made a mistake, and usually also check the correct solutions, first to make sure they are correct and also to see how the solution was made out of interest like myself.

When I check for solutions, first I just do the solution. I don't look for anything, no triggers, blocks, I barely look at the cube. The chances that if it is solved and the solution is written down incorrectly is so minute that usually it is good enough to see whether the solution is correct. After this I will write down the amount of moves. I will then check it again but this time looking at the solution and the method used, to see if there is anything interesting to do with the solve or something like that. If I then spot a mistake I may have made I'll leave it for Daniel to check, but usually I have no problem with this. If the solution does not produce a solved cube, I will do it again "blind" and see if it produces the same state as the first time I tried the solution. If it is solved then I obviously made a mistake the first time around, if it is the same state then the solution is very likely a DNF, if it is a different state I'm doing something idiotic and leave it for Daniel. I will then go through the solution step by step looking for everything. Usually there will be a U' written down as U or something similar, and I know this will be the cause of the DNF, and let Daniel know so he can try the DNF solutions as well.

If there are a lot of rotations in the solution, when counting moves I will just circle all of the rotations, and count them up separately. The ones that use rotations usually do CFOP so I will write at the end something like "63 - 8 = 55", showing that there were 63 moves including rotations, 8 rotations, meaning a solution of 55, which I will write in the box at the top.

Within the time of the next event, all solutions will have been checked thoroughly and to no dissaray of the competition proceedings. If you were slow to check the solutions or there were a lot of competitors for FMC, this could go into the next 2 or 3 events. If you are unable to check all solutions as 2 delegates before the end of the competition day then I recommend you seek help from trusted and experienced competitors, of which I know there are plenty in Australia.

Now, returning to the original reason. We've had a competitor in the UK try really hard at getting a good solution for FMC, and has struggled to get under 50, and at the last competition said person got a sub-50 and were really happy with the result. Just because the result has a lot of moves compared to world class FMC results, does not mean they are not trying their hardest.

What I gather from this is that if you think that someone who is getting 40+ solutions is a waste of time (obviously I am just using your example, as you said many times), then you should make qualification for 3x3 20 seconds, since anyone slower that should not be competing, as they are wasting your time too.


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## Dene (Aug 20, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> What I gather from this is that if you think that someone who is getting 40+ solutions is a waste of time (obviously I am just using your example, as you said many times), then you should make qualification for 3x3 20 seconds, since anyone slower that should not be competing, as they are wasting your time too.



First part of the sentence is not true, and baseless. Second part of the sentence is a strawman. Perhaps at the next competition I should have no time limits. We'll do 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Let's see how much we get through in 8 hours....


But thanks for detailing how you check solutions. At the very least, finally someone has acknowledged that we do make mistakes and solutions need to be checked over properly. I was starting to think everyone was judging FMC by checking once or twice quickly and going with it.

Regardless this isn't my point, and never has been. I don't care about the time taken. If you read near the end of my last post you'll see what my reasoning is.


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## Mollerz (Aug 20, 2014)

Dene said:


> First part of the sentence is not true, and baseless. Second part of the sentence is a strawman. Perhaps at the next competition I should have no time limits. We'll do 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Let's see how much we get through in 8 hours....
> 
> 
> But thanks for detailing how you check solutions. At the very least, finally someone has acknowledged that we do make mistakes and solutions need to be checked over properly. I was starting to think everyone was judging FMC by checking once or twice quickly and going with it.
> ...



But isn't the whole point and spirit of the WCA to encourage and support people, no matter how bad they may be, to compete and try their hardest? At UK competitions, someone is like, "Oh I don't know whether I should compete in this, I barely learnt to solve it this morning" we would still encourage them to compete. I know at least at my very first competition, I had been practicing 4BLD at home, and never got a success, but I still went into competition and attempted it. Before I competed in it I had never had a success, does that mean I should not be allowed to compete in it because I am incapable of doing it? Certainly not.

It is the same with these people competing in FMC for the first time. Obviously a lot of them want a result, especially if you only hold it *ONCE A YEAR* at AusNats. If you held it at every competition there would be one or maybe a couple of want their result. I guarantee those who are "Result getters" will come back next year and either A) Not compete because they have their result, or B) Will actively try and beat their previous best. People want results, that's why they compete. Would you deny a first time 3x3 solver their chance to compete even though they take 5 minutes to solve it? No, you would not (I would hope). Loads of people, the first time they compete in an event, compete to get a result. 

This is something that I noticed recently and I think it has some value in this discussion. Have you ever noticed that in US Competitions, they usually have like, 2, 3, maybe 4x4, and a couple of side events, the competitions last for half a day and then its over? And have you also noticed how a LOT of the competitors, only compete in say 3x3 and another event, but damn they are fast. It's not the norm to be good at a lot of events in the US, obviously there are outliers, but for the most part this holds true. Think about how often you hear about young US kids who got really fast at 3x3 or 2x2 or something, right? It's quite common. Now if you go over to European competitions, usually we have long 2-day competitions and most, if not all, events are held. If you look at the competitors from these countries, lots of the competitors compete in lots of the events. Now again, obviously there are outliers, those that only compete in 3x3 or a couple of events, but for the most part, people compete in lots of events. A more specific example, we usually hold all BLD events in the UK at every competition, we have WR podiums for things like 5BLD, because we hold the events all the time, so people have incentive to practice. I am fully aware of the argument that, it's only held once a year so you should practice a lot for it so you get a good result. However I don't think this is very true, you could practice a lot just to mess up at competition, now you do not have a chance for another year, it's quite demotivating. But if you know you'll get a chance at every competition you attend, it's much more relaxing since you know you will have more opportunities.

I'm sure there are Magic: The Gathering players who buy a deck, have no idea how to play and decide to go to a Magic tournament, they get put in the first round against some person who's played once or twice before, get destroyed and then leave. Are they making a mockery of the magic tournament? Are they wasting peoples time? No, they just want to have some fun and get a result, even if that result is 0W 1L. Someone would have played that match anyway, might as well be them.

I really do think it just boils down to you being lazy. What are you doing all day at competition if you do not have 15-45 minutes spread over the course of a few hours to find the solutions? I'll admit, myself and Daniel are fast at scrambling and solving so we would obviously be able to check results faster, but we also compete in every event and always get it done reasonably fast. As I stated before, if you are really struggling with checking solutions, pick a couple of trusted people to help you. You chose to hold FMC, you should be fully aware of what comes with it.


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## TimMc (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> What are you doing all day at competition if you do not have 15-45 minutes spread over the course of a few hours to find the solutions?



Competing, judging, scrambling, checking results to generate scorecards for the next rounds and so that competitors know that they've made it through for the next day, resolving incidents, announcing rounds, tracking down missing competitors etc. 

There's plenty to do with a tight schedule. It's easier to focus on other things that need to get done so that the schedule works. 

If there were two rounds of FMC then it'd become more of a priority to allocate time to check solutions straight away. 

It's be awesome if people spent 10min on CFOP solutions, and 5min checking what they wrote down before submitting it. Then all the CFOP solutions could be checked before the end of the round.

Tim.


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## Stefan (Aug 21, 2014)

larf said:


> In case of doubt you can still ask the competitor about specific moves.



That takes extra time for finding them, getting them there, and doing it. Hitting two or three keys is faster. And what if they're not even there (went to toilet, smoke, restaurant, home, whatever)?


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## Laura O (Aug 21, 2014)

Stefan said:


> That takes extra time for finding them, getting them there, and doing it. Hitting two or three keys is faster. And what if they're not even there (went to toilet, smoke, restaurant, home, whatever)?



And faster is better in this case?
As said before, hitting those two or three keys and making a program decide about the correct move is a trial-and-error method for me. If people can't write their solution down legibly that's a DNF.
Asking people about single moves is just the last option for me if the usual procedure (quite the same as James described) doesn't work out. I remember doing this only once when someone wrote down cryptic B and R moves and he immediately agreed that this is a DNF without any discussion.

Nevertheless illegible moves or solutions are more or less unusual in my experience. For example I helped to check the solutions at the European Championships and I think there was only one sheet (of about 30 or even 40) where I couldn't identify one move. I asked someone who was checking with me and he was sure that this was a L and not a U -problem solved without double-checking.


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## Dene (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> Before I competed in it I had never had a success, does that mean I should not be allowed to compete in it because I am incapable of doing it?



Your sentence is ambiguous. If you are incapable of solving 4bld, then obviously you shouldn't attempt it (you should be disqualified as per A1c). If you are "incapable", as in haven't done it before, but know enough to get it right eventually, then it depends on circumstances whether you should be allowed to attempt it or not.



Mollerz said:


> I really do think it just boils down to you being lazy.



I think this is quite possibly the most unfair thing anyone has said to me in a very long time. I would expect such comments from all these American kids that feel like it's their right, and not a privilege, to be able to go to competitions. But from you? That's disappointing...



btw I didn't respond to the rest because I didn't feel there was anything especially worth mentioning. If you feel strongly about me responding to a particular point, please ask.




Anyway, I think this thread is mostly exhausted. I already submitted this proposal to the delegates and WRC so it's up to them to consider the merits and flaws now.


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## Mollerz (Aug 21, 2014)

TimMc said:


> Competing, judging, scrambling, checking results to generate scorecards for the next rounds and so that competitors know that they've made it through for the next day, resolving incidents, announcing rounds, tracking down missing competitors etc.
> 
> There's plenty to do with a tight schedule. It's easier to focus on other things that need to get done so that the schedule works.



Personally for you I would hardly say competing since at the last competition you competed in two events. Dene competed in a few more but compared to how much myself and Daniel compete, you cannot really use this as an excuse.

As a delegate I don't think you should ever have to judge at a non-major competition. If you end up judging you are completely distracted from the rest of the competition that you should be delegating. Obviously if there is literally nobody else and you have to judge then I can agree with it. Daniel and myself rarely judge in a weekend. I usually judge the largest multi attempt, and Daniel will scramble/take results and oversee the rest of them, other than that I barely judge at all. 

Again, same thing applies to scrambling, do you not have people capable of scrambling at all in Australia? The only time myself and Daniel have to scramble are for things like clock, where we scramble twice as fast as anyone else who can even scramble, apart from the odd person. The only thing I scrambled at the last UK competition was skewb final for 5-10 minutes, because I scramble fast and accurately, and it was added to the schedule on the day.

I also do 90%+ of the data entry for the UK competitions, and I still have plenty of time throughout the day to compete in every single event, do registration for competition, and oversee delegating for a majority of the time. Resolving incidents takes seconds usually, sometimes there will be a decision that might take a bit longer to figure out but for the most part it will not eat into any time. This also means printing scorecards for the next rounds and organising scorecards for future rounds, all of which are done by me.

Announcing rounds should not be done by a delegate in my opinion, this should be left to the organiser. Obviously at some competitions you will be the organiser but announcing rounds does not take more than a few seconds. Generally if I have to announce I will also announce every person in the group if they do not have set groups beforehand (Usually at big UK competitions we will set the groups beforehand so we just called "3x3 ROUND 1 GROUP 2" for example). But this hardly eats into my time.

I also do not think you should chase up competitors. It is not your job to make sure they are the ones ready to compete. You give them schedules, have them on the wall, make it available well before the competition even starts. They should know X event starts at Y time, if they miss it is their fault. In the UK we nearly always host all events at competitions, we run extremely tight schedules all the time. If someone is missing from a group and I do not see them in the room, I'll add them to the last group. If it comes for the last group and they still have not see they are competing, I will quickly scan the room, if I don't see them, tough they miss their event. If I see them I'll call them over. Again it's seconds of time. We delegates and organisers set everything up on a plate for them, at the weekend all they have to do is be there at the right time, put their cubes down, and solve. When you start actively chasing people down they will be like "Oh I don't have to worry about when X event starts, Tim will come and get me." What would you do if you had to chase up every single person for every event? The competition would never finish and you would literally have no time.

I'm not going to repeat the last paragraph of my last post, because you are fully aware of it. If you are having trouble with time for the weekend then you need to delegate responsibilities to other people, and the easiest way to do that is with judging/scrambling.


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## Dene (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> Lots of stuff



Ok so we do things differently here to how you do them. So what? We didn't exactly consider judging FMC scrambles to be a priority, so we put it to the side. Gives us more opportunity to focus on what's going on in the competition.

btw, we are the organisers for every competition here (sometimes with a bit of help for venue etc., but we always run the show on the day).

Also, in my opinion delegates should scramble more often than not, as this is our most vital job to keep an eye on.


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## Mollerz (Aug 21, 2014)

Dene said:


> Your sentence is ambiguous. If you are incapable of solving 4bld, then obviously you shouldn't attempt it (you should be disqualified as per A1c). If you are "incapable", as in haven't done it before, but know enough to get it right eventually, then it depends on circumstances whether you should be allowed to attempt it or not.



These kids who attempt FMC for a result are also "incapable" of doing it. I don't see it as any different. They know how to do FMC, but they just do CFOP solutions. I knew how to solve 4BLD, I just did not have a result.



Dene said:


> I think this is quite possibly the most unfair thing anyone has said to me in a very long time. I would expect such comments from all these American kids that feel like it's their right, and not a privilege, to be able to go to competitions. But from you? That's disappointing...



Why do you think it is unfair? I understand everything behind organising competitions, and delegating competitions, so I am in some sort of position to make this statement. Given Tim's response, I believe you are not delegating roles to other members of the community enough as evident by this long response I have just made. When you hold a competition with lots of events with short breaks and little time for error, you should be prepared to do everything you signed up for, and that includes checking all FMC solutions. I'm going to repeat myself again, like you are doing for a few things, if you are struggling with time to check the FMC solutions, then get some trusted competitors to check the solutions with you, it will speed it up a lot. If there is no rush to check the solutions, then checking them in your own time after the competition should be expected. I remember at a competition, myself and Daniel took the FMC solutions to McDonalds after the day of competing to check the FMC solutions.

I don't think I've specifically said this but why does someone wanting a result make a mockery of the WCA? It's in the spirit of the WCA to encourage people to compete, even if they barely know how to compete it in. Having people compete for results in FMC is the least time-wasting of all as well, since it will be 60 minutes if you have 1 competitor, and it will be 60 minutes if you have 200 competitors. If you do not want to check solutions then do not hold FMC. Looking at your profile in particular, it looks like at San Francisco Open 2009, you competed in 3BLD just to get a success. If you were attempting to speedsolve it you would not have DNS'd your remaining 2 attempts, you would have tried to get faster.



Dene said:


> Ok so we do things differently here to how you do them. So what? We didn't exactly consider judging FMC scrambles to be a priority, so we put it to the side. Gives us more opportunity to focus on what's going on in the competition.
> 
> btw, we are the organisers for every competition here (sometimes with a bit of help for venue etc., but we always run the show on the day).
> 
> Also, in my opinion delegates should scramble more often than not, as this is our most vital job to keep an eye on.



I understand that we do things differently, I'm highlighting those differences so maybe you can apply them to future competitions you may hold. If you decide that FMC solutions are not a priority and put it to the side then you have all the time in the world after the competition to check them, no problem.

For running the show at least, I recommend you start trusting your organisers and give them a go at running the show. On arrival we usually have a good idea of how to setup venues so we will of course help with that, we do not want it cramped and hard to move around, but once the setup is done we let them run it. If we feel like they are doing something slightly wrong, or need help, we will help and give them tips or whatever is needed to make it more relaxed for them.

When Daniel started delegating he did absolutely everything, then a few of us competitors started organising and left him to delegate, and he enjoys it so much more now there is a lot less stress. Since I now delegate as well, Daniel mostly sits in the back just overseeing everything, I do a lot of the results and back-end organisation, the organisers of the competition do all of the front end stuff, and all our competitions now usually run ahead of schedule, we have time for breaks, and it is much more relaxing for every person involved. And most importantly, Daniel can delegate.

Obviously for major championships you would want delegates scrambling/judging the whole time. For Euro 2014 we tried our best to make it so only delegates scrambled and judged, but for smaller local competitions this is just not viable. When we let new people, who have not scrambled before, scramble, we tend to watch over them to make sure they are following along and checking the scramble afterwards. After a couple of rounds they will have gauged how to do it, and we will have trust in them that they do it correctly from then onward. Daniel oversees a lot, and sometimes he will end up scrambling as well, if he does not think people are capable of scrambling he will not let them do it. At local competitions, if delegates scrambled everything, nothing else would get done.


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## porkynator (Aug 21, 2014)

Something that I've just realized (I don't know if someone has already brought this up, forgive me if so):

Blaming people for using "just CFOP" in FMC solves is like blaming people for using "just LBL" in 3x3 speedsolves.

Not 100% in topic, but worth mentioning imho.


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## Renslay (Aug 21, 2014)

porkynator said:


> Something that I've just realized (I don't if someone has already brought this up, forgive me if so):
> 
> Blaming people for using "just CFOP" in FMC solves is like blaming people for using "just LBL" in 3x3 speedsolves.
> 
> Not 100% in topic, but worth mentioning imho.



I agree.


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## Tim Major (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> I recommend you start trusting your organisers and give them a go at running the show.



Dene and Tim are always the organisers. Even if someone gets the venue and it says their name as an organiser, generally they do nothing at the competition, it's Dene+Tim and people like me who scramble/run/judge for most if not all of the day when not competing (I rarely get to warmup for events).

I think this is going quite off topic. One valid thing can be taken out of this, it is acceptable for competitors to help check solutions. In future I definitely volunteer Dene, as I'm sure Feliks and Jay would too. However all of this other talk is just natural differences in competitions hosted by different people on different continents. We have our ways of doing things, you have yours, neither are necessarily superior, and I don't see the relevance to the topic at hand. Due to the mostly negative feedback on this idea I doubt the proposal will be approved, but the last 20 posts have been mostly irrelevant to an FMC move cap.


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## porkynator (Aug 21, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> [...] We have our ways of doing things, you have yours, *neither are necessarily superior*, and I don't see the relevance to the topic at hand.[...]


Since yours is causing problems and theirs is not, I'd say their approach is superior.


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## Dene (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> Why do you think it is unfair?



You obviously don't have a clue what I have done, and still do for this community, so you have no right to comment on this matter any more.



Mollerz said:


> If there is no rush to check the solutions, then checking them in your own time after the competition should be expected.



Why are you acting as if we have some sort of dispute about this? This is exactly what we planned (implicitly) right from the start. We never had any expectation of doing anything different. We were happy to dedicate time in the evening to marking FMC. We don't disagree on anything around this subject. It's just a thought that occurred to me while I was frustratingly going through solutions that are pretty irrelevant to the purpose of FMC.



Mollerz said:


> I don't think I've specifically said this but why does someone wanting a result make a mockery of the WCA?



My comment was specifically referring to people doing things such as going for 69 moves every time, or trying to stop the timer at 9:59.99.



Mollerz said:


> Looking at your profile in particular, it looks like at San Francisco Open 2009, you competed in 3BLD just to get a success. If you were attempting to speedsolve it you would not have DNS'd your remaining 2 attempts, you would have tried to get faster.



It was my first ever competition, I was new and extremely naive. Looking back now, I should never have done that attempt, nor been allowed to. It was unfair to Lucas, considering his competition was so big for the time and falling behind. And it was unnecessary for me to do it, because I didn't care too much about bld and I wasn't good at all. However I had been practising bld in the weeks leading up to it and I thought I would give it a shot. I was the very last person to go (I can't exactly remember, but I have a feeling someone persuaded me to try), and I was happy to have a success and leave it at that.

Incidentally, despite the theory that some people are bandying about, I didn't pursue an interest in bld at all after having that success in my first attempt. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I just think it's a really weak argument.




Mollerz said:


> For running the show at least, I recommend you start trusting your organisers and give them a go at running the show.



I already told you, _we_ organise _every competition_.



Mollerz said:


> When Daniel started delegating he did absolutely everything, then a few of us competitors started organising and left him to delegate, and he enjoys it so much more now there is a lot less stress. Since I now delegate as well, Daniel mostly sits in the back just overseeing everything, I do a lot of the results and back-end organisation, the organisers of the competition do all of the front end stuff, and all our competitions now usually run ahead of schedule, we have time for breaks, and it is much more relaxing for every person involved. And most importantly, Daniel can delegate.



That's good and well, but obviously this all depends on other people taking on that leadership role. We have people that have been with us from the start (such as Tim Major and Feliks) that have always helped a lot, but both were young back then and didn't take on a leadership role. In the past couple of years in particular Feliks' dad has taken on data entry and announcing duties a lot more. But ultimately, no one has put their hand up to truly take over control of a competition yet. Perhaps a lot of that has to do with me and Tim doing such a good job of running things so no one sees any need...

Anyway, I'm not sure if you're explicitly referencing ausnats when you talk about having time for breaks and stuff, but I feel like saying: usually we have time for breaks, but as far as I'm concerned time for breaks is time for more events. Running ahead of schedule is just bad scheduling (which can happen, as it can be very unpredictable, for example at ausnats we ended up well ahead of schedule).


idk why I'm still responding to this. None of it is relevant to the point at hand, so let me quote something I said earlier and how about you give a good response to it.



Dene said:


> Let's try this from another angle. Imagine someone who doesn't know how to solve a cube blindfolded. What if they were to submit 10 cubes for multibld, and spend an hour on the side pretending to memorise and solve these 10 cubes. At the end of the hour they take off the blindfold with nothing solved and find the whole situation rather amusing. Even if they weren't wasting needed resources, I doubt many people (other than all the other childish people) would find this behaviour acceptable. They're having a joke at the expense of all the hard work people are putting into hosting a competition for them.
> 
> If we wouldn't allow people to make a mockery of what we do in any other event, why do we accept it for FMC? There needs to be a balance between having fun, and having a competition. If you aren't someone that "does" multibld, why should anyone be forced to spend their time watching you muck around? If you aren't someone that "does" FMC, why should anyone spend even a second giving you the time of day?





porkynator said:


> Since yours is causing problems and theirs is not, I'd say their approach is superior.



There aren't any problems. How has this not been clear? Seriously what are people reading when they are reading my posts? I can't comprehend where all the confusion is coming from.


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## qqwref (Aug 21, 2014)

I don't agree with a lot of what Dene is saying (it's unnecessarily harsh to less skilled cubers), but I do think we should allow organizers to set a move limit in FMC, just as we allow them to set time limits in speedsolving events. It makes sense just for consistency's sake, regardless of how much time it actually saves. Similarly, an organizer should be able to set a minimum cubes limit in multiBLD, so someone who doesn't even have the potential of, say, 6 points cannot compete. All of these things already have official limits (80 moves, 10 minutes, 2 cubes) so we are just giving organizers the flexibility to adjust these if they want to.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 21, 2014)

Enough of the hostility between countries please  Time to find solutions, not to blame each other for being rubbish 

'For consistency's sake' is a decent argument for allowing it imo. I don't really have a problem with it being allowed, but I simply can't see the need to ever use it. Indeed 20 second hard cutoff for every solve is allowed in 3x3, but we never use that because the negatives outweigh the positives. I think there must be better solutions to this problem for Australia.

If Dene and Tim are really snowed under with work, I would humbly suggest that you should find organisers who actually organise 
I struggled with this problem for a long time in the UK - even when I wasn't officially an organiser I sometimes felt like I was the only organiser at the competition. I think continuing like this for a while only served to ingrain it in the minds of everyone that I would take care of everything and it didn't help the situation. We have managed to get away from it a bit now, by stressing to 'organisers' (venue-finders) that they do need to run the competition as well. I still work all day pretty much (I try to take a break during multibld), but I generally manage to restrict myself to scrambling and other random important stuff (inc. marking FM), rather than constantly having to watch how the competition is running, chasing people, chasing judges etc.


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## porkynator (Aug 21, 2014)

Dene said:


> There aren't any problems. How has this not been clear? Seriously what are people reading when they are reading my posts? I can't comprehend where all the confusion is coming from.



"Since you think you, with your approach, need a new regulation while they, with their approach, are fine with things as they are, I'd say their approach is better."

Fine?

Btw, I think that if you are suggesting a new regulation implies that for you, currrently not having that regulation is a problem.


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## TimMc (Aug 21, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> Personally for you I would hardly say competing since at the last competition you competed in two events.



Thanks 



Mollerz said:


> If you end up judging you are completely distracted from the rest of the competition that you should be delegating.



Judges just stand next to a table and wait for runners to bring puzzles in covers to them. If scrambling is slow then judges are standing around waiting.

It's easier for one delegate to judge when there's another delegate at the competition.



Mollerz said:


> Again, same thing applies to scrambling, do you not have people capable of scrambling at all in Australia?



There are some really good scramblers in Australia. But we can't expect them to scramble all the time. If conditions are going to be fair then the fast scramblers (fastest cubers in the world) should be in the same group and use the same scrambles for the final.



Mollerz said:


> I also do 90%+ of the data entry for the UK competitions



Thankfully fazdad has been volunteering his time to do this. I still double check the results while competitors walk up and interrupt to ask whether they've made it to the next round or to find out what their average was, or to take a photo of their scorecard, or to see whether a new world record was set...



Mollerz said:


> Obviously at some competitions you will be the organiser but announcing rounds does not take more than a few seconds. Generally if I have to announce I will also announce every person in the group if they do not have set groups beforehand



It usually takes about a 2-3 minutes.

I'd like to see older competitors step up and organise competitions. One competitor formed a club and then asked whether he can organise competitions when he attended AusNats. So it's looking promising for Sydney.

There are a handful of competitors aged 14-16 that really want competitions in their area and they go out of their way to find a suitable and affordable venue. This is great, but Dene and I end up organising those competitions.



Mollerz said:


> I also do not think you should chase up competitors.



When we're running 15-30 minutes ahead of schedule I'll try to start the next round. This rarely happens, but when it does I'll ask around and make an effort to find missing competitors. 

I'm happy to volunteer hundreds of hours each year to organise competitions and pay for my own travel ($10k over 4 years?). Free accommodation is greatly appreciated. Dene has been doing this for a bit longer and travels between AU and NZ to support both communities, so it'd be pretty easy to see how offensive the lazy comment was...

Perhaps it'd be easier to host FMC at the end of the first day for enthusiastic competitors and check solutions straight after...

Tim.


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## Kirjava (Aug 21, 2014)

How does doing FMC at a low skill level make a mockery of FMC?


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## cubizh (Aug 21, 2014)

qqwref said:


> I do think we should allow organizers to set a move limit in FMC, just as we allow them to set time limits in speedsolving events.


The fundamental difference I see between speedsolving events and events like FMC and MultiBLD in what limits are concerned is that speedsolving events *DON'T* have strict limits set in the regulations.
The regulations predict the chance of cutoffs/limits as a non-conflicting addon rule set by organizers to prevent time wasting.

For FMC (and MultiBLD) *THERE ARE* strict limits already written in the regulations that defines the event (80 moves max and 10 mins per cube up to 60 mins for mbld).
So allowing organizers to alter the number of moves that are clearly defined in the regulations already, would be to define a rule to essentially break or ignore a regulation of the event.

For all intends and purposes, it would be like having the possibility to have 5 second inspections on speed events if the organizers wanted (as strict 15 seconds is specifically defined in the regulations).
It would change the defined rules of the event.


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## TimMc (Aug 21, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> I would humbly suggest that you should find organisers who actually organise



We've organised 11 competitions in the past twelve months. Time isn't really a big issue. Seeing a bunch of DNF-CFOP solutions at the end of the day gave the impression that half the competitors didn't take the event seriously...

A prospective organiser in Sydney from the Unviersity of NSW approached the WCA Board and talked to us at AusNats. It'll be good to finally see someone else old enough take on a leadership role in Sydney.

Tim.


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## Mollerz (Aug 21, 2014)

I understand now why you think what I said was offensive and I apologise for that, and I also apologise for being blunt, I can see why it came across as rude reading back, but I stand by the points I made still.

Reading back on everything it seems like the only reason you really want to impose this limit is because you just do not like marking CFOP solutions in FMC. Seems a bit silly doesn't it?


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## rowan (Aug 21, 2014)

cubizh said:


> For all intends and purposes, it would be like having the possibility to have 5 second inspections on speed events if the organizers wanted (as strict 15 seconds is specifically defined in the regulations).
> It would change the defined rules of the event.



I don't think this is a fair analogy. The 15 second inspection and 1 hour FMC time are a fundamental part of these events as laid out by the guidelines. The length of solution and time taken for solving are both results, which makes them comparable. Your point would be more analogous to allowing organizers to reduce the FMC time given from 1 hour to 45 minutes or less, which is not the request here.


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## Jimmy Liu (Aug 21, 2014)

If you are trying to set FMC cutoffs just because you don't want to check long moves solutions, I suggest you not to hold FMC. I don't think the cutoffs can save that much time while checking solutions.
Again, FMC is a event that is different from speedsolving events, and the cutoffs will not be needed.


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## rybaby (Aug 21, 2014)

Dene said:


> I think this is quite possibly the most unfair thing anyone has said to me in a very long time. I would expect such comments from all these American kids that feel like it's their right, and not a privilege, to be able to go to competitions. But from you? That's disappointing...



Ok, now I believe you are just trying to make useless jabs at people without saying anything useful. "All these American kids"? How about you avoid inconsiderate generalizations that make no forward progress in this thread.



Dene said:


> You obviously don't have a clue what I have done, and still do for this community, so you have no right to comment on this matter any more.



Quit acting so high-and-mighty. You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?


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## kinch2002 (Aug 21, 2014)

rybaby said:


> Quit acting so high-and-mighty. You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?


That's because he has done more than most people for the community


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## AvGalen (Aug 21, 2014)

Since when do we have to take events seriously to be allowed to compete? I thought we did this for fun!
Move limits don't make any sense to me. They wouldn't make the competition go any better and they would prevent people from getting interested in an event. I did a 2/2 multiblind in 26 minutes and it was a national record at that time. I had never done a succesful single blind. I have never gotten another NR.
If you want to make cutoffs more regulated you should do something like "not worse than 3 times the WR average". So you couldn't do a 4x4x4 solve if you aren't under 1:30 or a multiblind if you didn't try at least 10 cubes. And still that would allow for 60 moves for FMC and only save a couple of minutes for checking on a timeframe of > 1 hour!
During the first competition that I organised I did all events (except fmc and big/multi-blind) on 1 day with multiple rounds for 2,3,4,5 (75% continued), no timelimit and we had time for a mystery event. You can see for yourself how slow several people were and still it didn't hold up the competition: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?allResults=All+Results&competitionId=1AVG2013

I would hate cut-offs for FMC, because it would mean that if I wrote an ' wrong on a 60 minute attempt I wouldn't get to do the other 2 attempts, just to save the one who checks my result. If you would allow people with a DNF first attempt to do another attempt, but not somebody with a valid 41 moves solution something would be even more messed up.


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## cubizh (Aug 21, 2014)

rowan said:


> I don't think this is a fair analogy. The 15 second inspection and 1 hour FMC time are a fundamental part of these events as laid out by the guidelines. The length of solution and time taken for solving are both results, which makes them comparable. Your point would be more analogous to allowing organizers to reduce the FMC time given from 1 hour to 45 minutes or less, which is not the request here.





Spoiler: Relevant Regulations to this reply



- A3a1) The competitor is allotted a maximum of 15 seconds to inspect the puzzle and start the solve.

- E2b) All competitors have a total time limit of 60 minutes to devise a solution.

- E2b1) The judge should call "5 MINUTES REMAINING" at 55 minutes, and must call "STOP" at 60 minutes.

- E2c) At 60 minutes, each competitor must give the judge a legibly written solution with the competitor's name, using the notation defined for Outer Block Turn Metric (described in Regulation 12a). Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).

- E2d1) The competitor is permitted a maximum solution length of 80 (moves and rotations).



Since all regulations have equal importance, they all represent a fundamental part of these events, regardless of what they say. The point of having regulations is to have a common set of rules that should always be followed everywhere. 

In essence, setting arbitrary FMC limits with the current way the regulation is written would conflict with E2d1) and would ultimately be saying "E2d1) no longer applies and organizer should do what they want", hence my analogy that it would be like proposing an inspection time limit, like saying "A3a1) no longer applies and organizer should do what they want", etc. I didn't go as far as as reducing FMC time in the example, as it would touch three regulations.

I feel the introduction of conflict-inducing regulations to be a path that one should not take.

There are other reasons that I disagree with this, but this was just a reply to what qqwref said.


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## dlo (Aug 21, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> During the first competition that I organised I did all events (except fmc and big/multi-blind) on 1 day with multiple rounds for 2,3,4,5 (75% continued), no timelimit and we had time for a mystery event. You can see for yourself how slow several people were and still it didn't hold up the competition: https://www.worldcubeassociation.or... size and time of the competition manageable.


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## Dene (Aug 21, 2014)

Kirjava said:


> How does doing FMC at a low skill level make a mockery of FMC?



It doesn't. Refer to my next comment about people that "do" the event.



kinch2002 said:


> Enough of the hostility between countries please  Time to find solutions, not to blame each other for being rubbish



There was only one person accusing others of being rubbish. (although I appreciate you trying do defuse the situation)



kinch2002 said:


> I think there must be better solutions to this problem for Australia.





kinch2002 said:


> If Dene and Tim are really snowed under with work, I would humbly suggest that you should find organisers who actually organise



There isn't a problem. I've been very clear about this, so I'm not sure why you still think this way. Me and Tim are happy to do all the work, it's basically our whole lives so we may as well keep busy with it. I just find it weird that we allow people who really aren't actually interested in FMC to compete in it simply because they know the notation.



rybaby said:


> Ok, now I believe you are just trying to make useless jabs at people without saying anything useful. "All these American kids"? How about you avoid inconsiderate generalizations that make no forward progress in this thread.



I've been around for years and I've seen many instances of this sort of behaviour. I might be biased because this forum is dominated by American kids though... But still, most of the attitude problems come from this group of people. NOTE: I am not saying every American kid has a sense of self-righteousness.



rybaby said:


> Quit acting so high-and-mighty. You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?



No I don't, but I'm not going to tolerate people calling me lazy when I contribute years of hard work, long hours, and loads of money to building the cubing community in Australasia, just so others can have a great experience.


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## Mollerz (Aug 21, 2014)

Dene said:


> No I don't, but I'm not going to tolerate people calling me lazy when I contribute years of hard work, long hours, and loads of money to building the cubing community in Australasia, just so others can have a great experience.



Obviously I was not calling you lazy for this, how could you ever infer that? I am clearly aware of all you have done for the Oceanic cubing community and I know for a fact that a lot of people respect you for that, myself included. I called you lazy for not wanting to spend the extra 5-10 minutes for checking "non-FMC" solutions.


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## Noahaha (Aug 21, 2014)

Dene said:


> I just find it weird that we allow people who really aren't actually interested in FMC to compete in it simply because they know the notation.



Whenever a competition holds pyraminx, I sign up for it. I am terrible at pyraminx since I only know three algorithms for it. I am not interested in the event, but I still have fun competing in it. I think a lot of people feel the same way about FMC. Just because you're not good or serious doesn't mean you can't have fun doing it and try to get a good result for you.




Dene said:


> I've been around for years and I've seen many instances of this sort of behaviour. *I might be biased because this forum is dominated by American kids* though... But still, most of the attitude problems come from this group of people. NOTE: I am not saying every American kid has a sense of self-righteousness.



I think this is it. I've interacted with younger cubers from many different countries through FB, YT, RL, and I don't see any difference in maturity between the American ones and the others.

That being said, it's always a mixed bag. Plenty of times I've been impressed with the maturity of a younger cuber or disappointed in the childishness of an older one.


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## AvGalen (Aug 22, 2014)

dlo said:


> There were only 32 competitors at this event. I wouldn't expect limits (such as the existing time ones and the proposed FMC move limit) to be used at small competitions. It's great that there are many small competitions where everyone gets to compete, regardless of skill level. However for large national and world competitions, limits are a useful option in order to keep the size and time of the competition manageable.


Actually, 32 is a fairly normal size competition in Oceania. Only a few competitions (all in the last year) have been bigger. Only 7 competitions in Oceania had FMC and only the last one had a substantial amount of competitors. a 40 move cutoff would not be a good idea (https://www.worldcubeassociation.or...ults&competitionId=MelbourneCubeDay2011#333fm)


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## ryanj92 (Aug 22, 2014)

I agree that changing the move limit should be allowed - 80 as a maximum seems a bit arbitrary to me anyway 

Obviously it's looking like not many people would use it, which is fine, but I can't see any reason why the move limit should not be changed if it is deemed necessary to. I think the initial mention of a 40 move limit has been the unintentional downfall of this thread, which is pretty sad to me. If organisers think that they could save a noticeable amount of time by just DNFing all solutions above some movecount, then so be it, I guess.


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## ottozing (Aug 22, 2014)

Sorry to add to the pile of posts that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand regarding FMC move cutoffs, but I was told to post my point of view in the thread because apparently its important so whatever. Hopefully this won't be too off topic by the end of it.



Mollerz said:


> For running the show at least, I recommend you start trusting your organisers and give them a go at running the show.



I understand that Dene and Tim have been running basically everything for a very long time, and as far as I can tell they're doing a good job, but I think it's probably time to start letting other people (Not necessarily me) do more work for you guys. As far as "other organizers" go, I can't really speak for everyone who's listed as an organizer for a comp, but from my experience, I haven't had to do anything beyond getting a venue, and I honestly think it's stupid that I'm listed as the "organizer for Australian Nationals 2013" when Dene and Tim did everything else. 

I'm too lazy to get the posts about how quickly Dene and Tim check FMC solutions, but from what I can tell, me/Faz/Tim Major would be faster (no offense) at checking solutions, and I think all 3 of us are trustworthy enough to be given that duty. In fact, even if they don't consider us trustworthy for whatever reason, then they could always just give us all the long solutions that won't be good enough to either podium or beat our comp PB's so you don't have to worry about us messing with good solutions due to bias. That way, Dene and Tim don't have to check the solutions of "competitors who don't take the event seriously who just want a result". For extra accuracy, Dene and/or Tim could double check any solution that me/Faz/Tim Major DNF'd incase there's still some sort of trust issue with one of us DNFing a solve because we don't like someone or something.

Again, I don't have a problem with a cutoff being implemented, but it seems like no one else aside from Australia would use it, and as far as I'm concerned, I think I just proposed a much much more effective way of dealing with our current "problem". Dene and Tim may be good at running the show, but it seems there's at least one case where getting other's involved would make it better.


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## AvGalen (Aug 22, 2014)

ryanj92 said:


> I agree that changing the move limit should be allowed - 80 as a maximum seems a bit arbitrary to me anyway
> 
> Obviously it's looking like not many people would use it, which is fine, but I can't see any reason why the move limit should not be changed if it is deemed necessary to. I think the initial mention of a 40 move limit has been the unintentional downfall of this thread, which is pretty sad to me. If organisers think that they could save a noticeable amount of time by just DNFing all solutions above some movecount, then so be it, I guess.


The point is that it doesn't save time for the competition but only for the organisors to check. The event will still take 60 minutes so a cut-off would not make the event shorter but would make "writing down the scores" shorter. In all other events a cut-off is used to make sure the event itself will not take too long because of a few excessive solvers.

Would anyone be in favor of having a 10 second cut-off for 333 finals? Clearly a sup 10 solve is not worth scoring and it would save time for the competition. How much time? Just a few seconds? So only a few percent of the total time for that round would be saved? Not worth it you say? Don't be stupid you say? I feel exactly the same about having a cut-off for fmc


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## Kirjava (Aug 22, 2014)

Dene said:


> It doesn't. Refer to my next comment about people that "do" the event.



I don't "do" FMC. Should I not compete in it?


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## IRNjuggle28 (Aug 22, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> Whenever a competition holds pyraminx, I sign up for it. I am terrible at pyraminx since I only know three algorithms for it. I am not interested in the event, but I still have fun competing in it. I think a lot of people feel the same way about FMC. Just because you're not good or serious doesn't mean you can't have fun doing it and try to get a good result for you.



There is no comparison between you sucking at pyraminx (averaging 15 seconds per solve) and someone sucking at FMC and taking an hour to do nothing. It's not obvious where to draw the line on just how indifferent is too indifferent to compete, but I think it's obvious that a 15 second pyra average is not past that invisible line, and an hour on a crappy FMC is past it.


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## AvGalen (Aug 22, 2014)

People don't take an hour to do nothing at FMC. They either write down a 10 minute solution and leave or keep trying to get a skip


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## Dene (Aug 22, 2014)

Mollerz said:


> Obviously I was not calling you lazy for this, how could you ever infer that? I am clearly aware of all you have done for the Oceanic cubing community and I know for a fact that a lot of people respect you for that, myself included. I called you lazy for not wanting to spend the extra 5-10 minutes for checking "non-FMC" solutions.



An unfortunate misunderstanding (not that I would take nicely to being called lazy in any case in general anyway  ).

The thing is, and what I have been trying to stress, is that, at the time when we got around to marking (not exactly looking forward to it but prepared to do the job anyway) it got steadily more frustrating as we came across what can only be described as really stupid stuff (someone naively doing L' L', and that sort of thing). It's the same as when you see someone in 3x3 doing Dan Brown method, but without exactly knowing which algorithms to use at which time, therefore repeating themselves a lot and screwing up etc. We accept it because it's 3x3 and we want everyone to compete, but it's painful to watch regardless. 

The way I look at things in general, and how I tend to structure competitions and cut-offs, is that there are the "core" events, or "beginner" events of 2x2, 3x3, and OH (and magic in the past). Then there are intermediate events like bld, 4x4 and 5x5. Then there are more advanced events, like multibld, 6x6/7x7, and FMC. (Obviously not a complete list). 

For beginner events we would usually have the most rounds, the most competitors, and no cut-offs. Intermediate events usually get 2 rounds, moderate cut-offs (depending on time available), and will be hosted based on community popularity. Advanced events will only get hosted at one or two competitions a year (based on popularity), will usually only get one round, and will have the strictest cut-offs (where applicable).

And in my opinion, the more advanced events should really only be for people that genuinely "do" those events, or are at least capable enough to do well anyway. (this answers Kir's question too).


I guess not many people see things the same way I do. 

I just think it's a shame this thread got sidetracked so much from the original purpose, and people got so distracted by things completely irrelevant. Can't some people that disagree with me actually give a few reasons against my proposal, rather than everyone being all "why are you hating so much? why are you such an elitist? are you really that slow?" because none of this is contributing at all.


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## Mollerz (Aug 22, 2014)

Dene said:


> The thing is, and what I have been trying to stress, is that, at the time when we got around to marking (not exactly looking forward to it but prepared to do the job anyway) it got steadily more frustrating as we came across what can only be described as really stupid stuff (someone naively doing L' L', and that sort of thing). It's the same as when you see someone in 3x3 doing Dan Brown method, but without exactly knowing which algorithms to use at which time, therefore repeating themselves a lot and screwing up etc. We accept it because it's 3x3 and we want everyone to compete, but it's painful to watch regardless.



I'd say I'm reasonably decent at FMC, I usually average low 30. Even I have done things like R2 R' in my solution in the past. I know plenty of other people who have done that too who I would consider decent at FMC.

It seems like after a full day of organising and sorting out competition you just want to relax in the evening instead of having to check FMC results, some of which are obviously not well versed in how to do FMC well. Just get a few people to help out straight after the round, get it done quickly, then it is out the way and you don't have to worry about it for later!


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## AvGalen (Aug 22, 2014)

Dene said:


> And in my opinion, the more advanced events should really only be for people that genuinely "do" those events, or are at least capable enough to do well anyway. (this answers Kir's question too).
> 
> I guess not many people see things the same way I do.


I think this sums it up nicely. You have categorised things in a certain way that doesn't really fit with the way competitors behave so you want to adjust the rules. I cringe when I see an <RU> U-Perm during FMC, but I also do that when I see somebody flip 2 edges in blind with a buffer-method or when I see somebody do several parity algs on 5x5x5 or....none of that is my business and those people are sometimes faster than me anyway. They are not holding up the competition, they are having fun, and they will later learn (or not) how they could have done something better and improve their result the next competition.


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## Kirjava (Aug 22, 2014)

Dene said:


> And in my opinion, the more advanced events should really only be for people that genuinely "do" those events, or are at least capable enough to do well anyway. (this answers Kir's question too).



"Don't compete unless you're able to do well" seems like a very alienating concept.


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## megaminxwin (Aug 22, 2014)

Dene said:


> It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database. While that may be nice for them, I consider it a waste of my time. I want to hold FMC for the few people that actually take it somewhat seriously, but I can't avoid all these tag-alongs just wanting a solve in the database. If I could enforce a move limit, perhaps I would host FMC more often.



Sorry.


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## Pedro (Aug 22, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I think this sums it up nicely. You have categorised things in a certain way that doesn't really fit with the way competitors behave so you want to adjust the rules. I cringe when I see an <RU> U-Perm during FMC, but I also do that when I see somebody flip 2 edges in blind with a buffer-method or when I see somebody do several parity algs on 5x5x5 or....none of that is my business and those people are sometimes faster than me anyway. They are not holding up the competition, they are having fun, and they will later learn (or not) how they could have done something better and improve their result the next competition.





Kirjava said:


> "Don't compete unless you're able to do well" seems like a very alienating concept.



Totally agreed here.

I don't think any event should be treated as "advanced" or something, and people should be deprived of the opportunity to even try it for a first time.
Of course a 20-min solve is probably not gonna be accepted for 4x4 (or even 7x7), because we have a schedule to follow, but, given the different nature of FM, and given the fact that everybody competes at the same time and it will last for an hour, no matter how good people are, we should not have a move-cutoff.

I believe it's not up to us to say "your solution is too long, I think you're a noob, so your result is not gonna count". (please keep in mind the difference from timed events here -> solution being too long = too much time spent = probably not fit in the schedule)


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## acohen527 (Aug 22, 2014)

As long as past results aren't deleted 
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2012COHE01


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## TMOY (Aug 22, 2014)

They aren't:

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2007JIPT01#333fm
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=2007DUSS01#333fm

For those wo weren't competing in 2009 yet, FMC originally had no move limit at all, and people submitting such absurdly long solutions were the reason why one was finally set.


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## Noahaha (Aug 22, 2014)

IRNjuggle28 said:


> There is no comparison between you sucking at pyraminx (averaging 15 seconds per solve) and someone sucking at FMC and taking an hour to do nothing. It's not obvious where to draw the line on just how indifferent is too indifferent to compete, but I think it's obvious that a 15 second pyra average is not past that invisible line, and an hour on a crappy FMC is past it.



I don't think this is true. In FMC it doesn't make a difference how many people compete. It takes an hour whether you have 5 competitors or 50. The only difference is in how long it takes to judge. When someone does an FMC attempt, they are not taking up an hour of the competition's time, just the amount of time it takes to check their solution.


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## Sebastien (Aug 22, 2014)

Well, at some occasions competition *space* might be limited. But that's again a completely different point.


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## Ranzha (Aug 22, 2014)

Kirjava said:


> "Don't compete unless you're able to do well" seems like a very alienating concept.



What about setting a limit as a motivational practice?
"Don't sign up unless you want to do better than _n_ moves."

From setting ridiculous cutoffs in the past, I know that people actually try to get beneath cut-offs so that they can not only compete, but improve.


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## Dene (Aug 23, 2014)

megaminxwin said:


> Sorry.



Tomas you absolutely don't have to apologise for anything (although I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or serious). I'm thinking about the future here, and you did nothing wrong.



Kirjava said:


> "Don't compete unless you're able to do well" seems like a very alienating concept.



It's a harsh way of putting it, but for the most part this is exactly what is done for most other events in the name of "saving time" and "reducing wasted resources" or whatever. Unless someone can genuinely justify using cut-offs in other events with a reason other than "you're wasting too much time", I fail to see why this should be any different.



ottozing said:


> long post



Hi Jay, I'm not really sure exactly what you're getting at? I mean, anyone can put their hand up to take full control of hosting a competition, and me and Tim wouldn't stand in the way of someone doing that. In fact, it would suit me just fine, and I'm pretty sure Tim would be glad to not have to do all the logistical work behind-the-scenes. I'm not sure if anyone has ever actually asked to do such a thing because people mostly e-mail Tim about that, but to my knowledge no one ever has.

As for the FMC marking thing, I think this is only the first or second time me and Tim have done all the work ourselves. I can explicitly recall a couple of other times when other people have done it (AvG, Brest, Major etc.). So it's not as if this isn't already being done. To be honest I'm confused as to where exactly you're coming from and what exactly you're getting at when referring to the "problem" we have here. My only problem is allowing people that don't really know how to do FMC doing FMC. Much in the same way it would be a problem if people that don't really know how to do 6x6 do 6x6. I mean, if you know how to solve a 5x5 you can pretty much guess your way through a 6x6 solve. If you know notation, you can easily write down a solution. But we don't generally allow people to sit there and muck about with a 6x6 for 10 minutes, so why do we allow it for FMC?

In my head, this doesn't make any sense at all. This is my only problem.


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## kcl (Aug 23, 2014)

Dene said:


> Tomas you absolutely don't have to apologise for anything (although I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or serious). I'm thinking about the future here, and you did nothing wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> It's a harsh way of putting it, but for the most part this is exactly what is done for most other events in the name of "saving time" and "reducing wasted resources" or whatever. Unless someone can genuinely justify using cut-offs in other events with a reason other than "you're wasting too much time", I fail to see why this should be any different.



Look. I'm not exactly an FMC pro, but if there is a full hour allotted for finding solutions, you aren't saving any time by restricting the movecount, because some people will always use the full hour. I know you think you're saving time with this, but being perfectly honest, all I'm hearing from your argument is that you're too slow in checking solutions and you don't want to have to put in that effort for the extra 20 moves. (I could very easily check a 60 mover in 2 minutes) You have had multiple competitors who are extremely reliable members of this community volunteer to help with checking solutions, and yet you turn them down? 

Sounds like your issue is yourself.


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## Dene (Aug 23, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> Look. I'm not exactly an FMC pro, but if there is a full hour allotted for finding solutions, you aren't saving any time by restricting the movecount, because some people will always use the full hour. I know you think you're saving time with this, but being perfectly honest, all I'm hearing from your argument is that you're too slow in checking solutions and you don't want to have to put in that effort for the extra 20 moves. (I could very easily check a 60 mover in 2 minutes) You have had multiple competitors who are extremely reliable members of this community volunteer to help with checking solutions, and yet you turn them down?
> 
> Sounds like your issue is yourself.



It sounds like your issue is you don't know how to read, because I never complained once about the time it takes to do it.


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## kcl (Aug 23, 2014)

Dene said:


> It sounds like your issue is you don't know how to read, because I never complained once about the time it takes to do it.



I'm not sure why you think I can't read. Honestly I'm too lazy to waste my time reading through this crap again, but if I'm interpreting this correctly your entire argument is based around the fact that you waste too much time grading solutions. You have no argument if you're claiming that isn't your issue.


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## Dene (Aug 23, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> I'm not sure why you think I can't read. Honestly I'm too lazy to waste my time reading through this crap again, but if I'm interpreting this correctly your entire argument is based around the fact that you waste too much time grading solutions. You have no argument if you're claiming that isn't your issue.



You are not interpreting this correctly at all. Everybody else seems to have made this implication, then responded as such, but I never made any claim of the sort. I have repeatedly stated my argument. In the post just above, in response to jay, I again stated my perspective, so you don't have to go far to find it.


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## kcl (Aug 23, 2014)

Dene said:


> You are not interpreting this correctly at all. Everybody else seems to have made this implication, then responded as such, but I never made any claim of the sort. I have repeatedly stated my argument. In the post just above, in response to jay, I again stated my perspective, so you don't have to go far to find it.



Case and point, if you didn't say it directly it was heavily implied here. 


Dene said:


> I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.
> *obviously this takes longer than normal.*
> Ultimately I would say Tim and myself spent at least an hour checking through solutions on Saturday night. This isn't exactly the most enjoyable task in the world, and it's made a lot worse going through long solutions by people that obviously don't practise FMC.
> *complaining about time spent*
> ...


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## Jimmy Liu (Aug 23, 2014)

> But we don't generally allow people to sit there and muck about with a 6x6 for 10 minutes, so why do we allow it for FMC?



I don't get this. Solving 6x6 for 10 minutes may delay the schedule, that's why we apply cutoffs. But doing a 60 moves FMC won't take more than an hour, the waste of time is checking the solutions, which might waste the delegates' time. So, long FMC solutions is not a problem for schedule. Since you don't bother checking the solutions for a long time, why not letting not pro FMCer have their results?


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## TimMc (Aug 23, 2014)

Off-topic:

Scramble: L2 R2 F' R2 F D2 R2 D2 U2 B2 D B D U R2 D2 L' D B D'

Solution: http://alg.cubing.net/?setup=L2R2F-...-R-U-Ry-RUR-y-Rw-U2RUR-URwUR-UR-U-R-U-R-URUR2

Tim.


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## AvGalen (Aug 24, 2014)

TimMc said:


> Off-topic:
> 
> Scramble: L2 R2 F' R2 F D2 R2 D2 U2 B2 D B D U R2 D2 L' D B D'
> 
> ...



When you have to type capitals and small letters it is too complicated! Basically this would make data-entry another problem-vector. It has some advantages, some disadvantages and should be discussed, but not in this topic


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## Sebastien (Aug 24, 2014)

Dene said:


> But we don't generally allow people to sit there and muck about with a 6x6 for 10 minutes, so why do we allow it for FMC?
> 
> In my head, this doesn't make any sense at all. This is my only problem.



Completely neutral statement as an observer:

The facts from our current system: Organisers can set time limits for all speed solving events.

You do apparently think that this does (at least partially) originate from the fact, that we want to require people to have at least a decent level in an event, or in other words are somewhat dedicated dedidated to an event. From this perspective, it is completely reasonable to extent the concept of a time limit in speedsolviing events to a move limit for FMC.

Meanwhile many others, and it seems to me that this is the vast majority, understands the concept of time limits as something that solely has the purpose to control the competition flow and to prevent delays because of extremely slow solvers. From this perspective, it is completely unreasonable to extent this concept to a move limit in FMC, as everyone is allowed 60 minutes anyway and as no competition time can be gained.


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## Dene (Aug 24, 2014)

Yes I think that is basically what it boils down to. Thank goodness someone can see my reasoning. Now it's up to others to decide whether it's acceptable or not. I'm happy to accept whatever decision the WRC/Board comes to.

Despite what a lot of people might think, it was simply just an idea that came to my mind. I'm not trying to cause a huge kerfuffle over the whole thing. Somehow it got completely blown out of the water...


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## kcl (Aug 24, 2014)

So my claims about grading FMC had no backup before. I graded nearly all of the solutions at Indiana. I checked each one multiple times, and the longest I ever took was 55 seconds. Brandon's 69 mover that you claim is an immature waste of time took 35 seconds.


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## AvGalen (Aug 24, 2014)

Dene said:


> Yes I think that is basically what it boils down to. Thank goodness someone can see my reasoning. Now it's up to others to decide whether it's acceptable or not. I'm happy to accept whatever decision the WRC/Board comes to.
> 
> Despite what a lot of people might think, it was simply just an idea that came to my mind. I'm not trying to cause a huge kerfuffle over the whole thing. Somehow it got completely blown out of the water...


Your reasoning was entirely clear from the beginning. But nobody seems to agree with it so it got blown out of the water. You just didn't seem to understand that all other cutoffs are used to limit competitor time to keep the competition on track. Your proposal only limited judging time so it doesn't compare with the current limitations that you DID compare it with. Many other people explained how you could speed up checking the results but you weren't open to those tips. That is why there are now 139 posts in this topic


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## Dene (Aug 25, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Your reasoning was entirely clear from the beginning. But nobody seems to agree with it so it got blown out of the water. You just didn't seem to understand that all other cutoffs are used to limit competitor time to keep the competition on track. Your proposal only limited judging time so it doesn't compare with the current limitations that you DID compare it with. Many other people explained how you could speed up checking the results but you weren't open to those tips. That is why there are now 139 posts in this topic



Well I'm glad you also thought my reasoning was clear. The only reason this thread got so derailed is because everyone assumed I'm just horribly slow at marking solutions, which simply isn't true and has nothing to do with it.

But I ask of you: Why have cut-offs for any other event? Is it really to keep a competition on track? It would be simple enough to allot more time to each event and let everyone get a full average.

The way I see it, everyone else just has a double standard but they don't want to admit it so they ignore my points and harp on about irrelevant stuff.


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## AvGalen (Aug 25, 2014)

Yes, it is purely to keep a competition on track. So for example somebody who needs 30 minutes for a 6x6x6 solve will not spend 90 minutes on the podium, occupying a judge and timer.
Instead, a timelimit of 10 minutes (default) or for example 5 minutes means that his solve will be interupted and written down as a DNF
Combined with the combined rounds rule, that means that such a person will not get a 2nd and 3rd solve. This can save a lot of time in such an extreme situation. But my experience is that people like this would only like to do 1 solve to get an official ranking, and will then take DNS for the other solves, so I don't have Combined/Cut-Off rounds at my competitions. "Everybody that wants to gets an average"

This has nothing to do with double standards. It is all about keeping the competition on track by putting limits on the competitor solving time


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## Erik (Aug 25, 2014)

Dene said:


> The only reason this thread got so derailed is because everyone assumed I'm just horribly slow at marking solutions, which simply isn't true and has nothing to do with it.



While you may have changed your reasoning to "consistency of the regs" and "motivating cubers to up their FMC level", this was not the case from the beginning (and if you say: "but it is what I ment", then it was just not clear enough). 

Let me quote yourself from your first post.


> It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database.


Which is a false assumption. Because of this, this part of your reasoning is not in line with "I want to motivate cubers to up their level of FMC", which it became later on.


> While that may be nice for them, I consider it a waste of my time.


 This was the start of the discussion about your 'solution checking approach'. As we have showed, this is only because of the way you work. Later on you claimed you did not see this as a problem (nor do you admit you are slower than others), although it sure sounds like it here.


> I want to hold FMC for the few people that actually take it somewhat seriously, but I can't avoid all these tag-alongs just wanting a solve in the database. If I could enforce a move limit, perhaps I would host FMC more often.



Not that it matters much, but I just wanted to point that your reasoning is not very consistent throughout this thread. I don't say this to bash you (at all), but maybe try to be clearer in the 'what' and 'why' of a proposal next time.



> But I ask of you: Why have cut-offs for any other event? Is it really to keep a competition on track? It would be simple enough to allot more time to each event and let everyone get a full average.



Yes it is. IF there was enough time to let everyone get a full average for all events, I'm sure any organizer would allow it. This reasoning is also in line with the WCA's "more people and more fun" goal, since a time limit with the goal of not letting low-skilled cubers compete (at all) would mean 'less people' and 'less fun'.

Edit: partly Ninja'd by AvG


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## Pedro (Aug 25, 2014)

Dene said:


> But I ask of you: Why have cut-offs for any other event? Is it really to keep a competition on track? It would be simple enough to allot more time to each event and let everyone get a full average.



Yeah, it would be simple enough. Let's have 5-day competitions with 3 rounds of everything and no time limit at all 

Simple, yet sadly not possible. So that's why we have time limits. Not the case for FMC, so I think your proposal shouldn't be implemented.


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## Dene (Aug 25, 2014)

@Erik Perhaps it wasn't entirely clear from my original post, but I certainly more than cleared it up in my response to "goodatthis".

@AvG, Erik, Pedro Why do we need cut-offs to keep a competition on track? You can simply have less events and let everyone get a full average. And yes Pedro sometimes there are practical reasons, such as hosting every event, or "themed" competitions like Melbourne Cube Day, but in most cases this isn't relevant.


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## ajayd (Aug 25, 2014)

Dene said:


> Why do we need cut-offs to keep a competition on track? You can simply have less events and let everyone get a full average.



Why have less events when you can host all of them if you enforce a relatively mild cutoff?


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## Tim Major (Aug 25, 2014)

ajayd said:


> Why have less events when you can host all of them if you enforce a relatively mild cutoff?



I can't make our 7x7 cutoffs because I've never practiced 7x7. (And we don't have the harshest of cutoffs)

I'm ok with this. If I spent a weekend practicing I could make the cutoff. If a 20 second solver who spends 5 mins getting a 70 move DNF practiced they could easily get 50 move successes. You can set very mild cutoffs and still weed out those who obviously do NOT care about FMC in the slightest


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## BaMiao (Aug 26, 2014)

I see nothing wrong with this proposal because it allows organizers to decide whether or not to implement the move limit. I imagine most competitions would not use it.

I understand that move limits do nothing to change how long the event actually takes, but it _does_ affect how many staff hours are required to check the solutions. People here have been saying "just get some trusted competitors to help out", but that may not always be possible. Maybe all the most trusted staff are busy scrambling/judging elsewhere during the competition, and checking FMC solutions is really the only thing that can be put off. Such a situation may not be that common, but that's the reason we'd leave it to organizers to make the call, since they're the ones who know the schedule best.

Perhaps I can offer a compromise that I don't think has been mentioned (it's a long thread, so sorry if it has). Maybe for competitions offering multiple attempts, you can implement a "soft cutoff" equivalent, where the first attempt must be under a certain number of moves for the next attempts. I imagine the burden on staff can be pretty high if every competitor suddenly wants a mean. A soft cutoff reduces this burden for the second two attempts, and might allow more competitions to offer the opportunity at a mean.


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## Methuselah96 (Aug 26, 2014)

BaMiao said:


> I see nothing wrong with this proposal because it allows organizers to decide whether or not to implement the move limit. I imagine most competitions would not use it.
> 
> I understand that move limits do nothing to change how long the event actually takes, but it _does_ affect how many staff hours are required to check the solutions. People here have been saying "just get some trusted competitors to help out", but that may not always be possible. Maybe all the most trusted staff are busy scrambling/judging elsewhere during the competition, and checking FMC solutions is really the only thing that can be put off. Such a situation may not be that common, but that's the reason we'd leave it to organizers to make the call, since they're the ones who know the schedule best.
> 
> Perhaps I can offer a compromise that I don't think has been mentioned (it's a long thread, so sorry if it has). Maybe for competitions offering multiple attempts, you can implement a "soft cutoff" equivalent, where the first attempt must be under a certain number of moves for the next attempts. I imagine the burden on staff can be pretty high if every competitor suddenly wants a mean. A soft cutoff reduces this burden for the second two attempts, and might allow more competitions to offer the opportunity at a mean.



Australia comps never have more than one round of FMC, so one of the organizers who would use this (Dene) would have no use for this regulation if they continued only giving one attempt.


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## kcl (Aug 26, 2014)

Dene said:


> @Erik Perhaps it wasn't entirely clear from my original post, but I certainly more than cleared it up in my response to "goodatthis".
> 
> @AvG, Erik, Pedro Why do we need cut-offs to keep a competition on track? You can simply have less events and let everyone get a full average. And yes Pedro sometimes there are practical reasons, such as hosting every event, or "themed" competitions like Melbourne Cube Day, but in most cases this isn't relevant.



Look. We don't want less rounds of stuff. We want as many rounds of as many things as possible while allowing as many people to get a result. Got it?

There's a fine line between saving time and restricting people from an event. You don't save any time doing this for FMC, so what's the big issue?


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## AvGalen (Aug 26, 2014)

BaMiao said:


> I see nothing wrong with this proposal because it allows organizers to decide whether or not to implement the move limit. I imagine most competitions would not use it.
> 
> I understand that move limits do nothing to change how long the event actually takes, but it _does_ affect how many staff hours are required to check the solutions. People here have been saying "just get some trusted competitors to help out", but that may not always be possible. Maybe all the most trusted staff are busy scrambling/judging elsewhere during the competition, and checking FMC solutions is really the only thing that can be put off. Such a situation may not be that common, but that's the reason we'd leave it to organizers to make the call, since they're the ones who know the schedule best.
> 
> Perhaps I can offer a compromise that I don't think has been mentioned (it's a long thread, so sorry if it has). Maybe for competitions offering multiple attempts, you can implement a "soft cutoff" equivalent, where the first attempt must be under a certain number of moves for the next attempts. I imagine the burden on staff can be pretty high if every competitor suddenly wants a mean. A soft cutoff reduces this burden for the second two attempts, and might allow more competitions to offer the opportunity at a mean.


Actually, it affects how many staff minutes are required to check the solutions and having a soft-cutoff is already possible and has been used in the past. You can simply say "to do 3 solves your first solve should be under 40 moves". This isn't used often because it doesn't affect the duration of the competition but this is surely possible


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## Ranzha (Aug 26, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> Look. We don't want less rounds of stuff. We want as many rounds of as many things as possible while allowing as many people to get a result. Got it?
> 
> There's a fine line between saving time and restricting people from an event. You don't save any time doing this for FMC, so what's the big issue?



This may be your idea of what competitions should be, but you can't assume it's everyone's.

My philosophy is "Motivate competitors to try excelling at a variety of events." I try using cut-offs, multiple rounds, and advancement rates in an attempt to have this happen each time I submit a schedule for consideration for a BASC competition.


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## Erik (Aug 26, 2014)

Dene said:


> @AvG, Erik, Pedro Why do we need cut-offs to keep a competition on track? You can simply have less events and let everyone get a full average. And yes Pedro sometimes there are practical reasons, such as hosting every event, or "themed" competitions like Melbourne Cube Day, but in most cases this isn't relevant.





ajayd said:


> Why have less events when you can host all of them if you enforce a relatively mild cutoff?



Roughly this, though I'd replace "all of them" with "more of them". Of course it's up to the organisers to come up with a well balanced schedule by setting clever limits.


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## Dene (Aug 26, 2014)

ajayd said:


> Why have less events when you can host all of them if you enforce a relatively mild cutoff?



What is "relatively mild"? Sounds pretty vague, and I doubt we have the same idea of "relatively mild" cut-offs if you think you can fit in a lot of events by using them.



kclejeune said:


> Look. We don't want less rounds of stuff. We want as many rounds of as many things as possible while allowing as many people to get a result. Got it?



That's lovely, and we all want that, but in reality it isn't practical at all. In the end, you have to decide what's more important: lots of people getting a full average in a small range of events, or a small group of people getting lots of full averages in a larger range of events (and a lot of people only getting one or two solves).

Just throwing out an example. At Ausnats we had 55 people registered for 4x4. We had very limited time so I was using relatively hard cut-offs, with 1 minute 20s, and a 2 minute hard limit. This took around an hour to get through with competent scramblers (think Feliks, Jay) and 12 solving stations. In the end 11 people didn't compete (a few probably didn't show up at all, the rest would have pulled out knowing they couldn't reach the cut-off). Five couldn't get under 2 minutes, and 10 couldn't reach the cutoff. Ultimately 29 got a full average (which in my opinion, looking back on it now, struck a really good balance). However had we allowed everyone a full average, I suspect the time spent on 4x4 would have almost doubled to two hours (bearing in mind that would probably be about 20 more people, the majority over 2 minutes).


Anyway, there isn't a "big issue" with FMC, nor does the "issue" have anything to do with time (as I have repeatedly said). It's about applying the same mentality to FMC as we do to most other events. That is, be good enough or miss out. (Put in a very blunt way).


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## Erik (Aug 26, 2014)

Dene said:


> What is "relatively mild"? Sounds pretty vague, and I doubt we have the same idea of "relatively mild" cut-offs if you think you can fit in a lot of events by using them.



Isn't that what it's all about? An organiser can decide for himself if he wants to have a competition with many people doing a few events and many rounds, or a competition for the broader audience with all events and less rounds and easier limits. Of course setting strict limits will not get you many registrations ;-)



> Anyway, there isn't a "big issue" with FMC, nor does the "issue" have anything to do with time (as I have repeatedly said). It's about applying the same mentality to FMC as we do to most other events. That is, be good enough or miss out. (Put in a very blunt way).



Exactly, the whole time limit thing is not applicable for FMC since the event is an hour anyway. There is no reason to apply the same mentality to FMC (at least not in the form of a move limit), since there is no effect to the competition time. So why propose it?

If you would want to properly apply the same mentality that has an effect on competition time, you'd have to shorten the 60 minutes (which of course nobody is suggesting afaik).


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## Pedro (Aug 26, 2014)

Dene said:


> Anyway, there isn't a "big issue" with FMC, nor does the "issue" have anything to do with time (as I have repeatedly said). It's about applying the same mentality to FMC as we do to most other events. That is, be good enough or miss out. (Put in a very blunt way).



Well, I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the nature of events is very different. In your example, you'd stop people at the 2 minutes mark and say "sorry, time's up".
For FMC, what would be the procedure? Let the person sit there and work his mind for an hour, only to tell him afterwards "sorry, solution is too long...DNF". That sounds pretty mean to me.

It's not just "about applying the same mentality to FMC as we do to most other events", because that's not even possible.
We often have a cutoff of 1:30 for 4x4, but a 3 min hard limit, to allow people who are not very fast (for whatever reason) to at least get a valid result, and not take too much time from our schedule. I just don't see how this could be applied to FMC. There is already a hard limit of 80, and since most events have best of 1 for FMC, I don't see the point of having a cutoff at all.

Someone said already that a cutoff for a mean/best of 3 round is possible and appliable as of now, so I (repeating myself) don't think we should allow a lower hard limit for organizers, since it poses no practical advantage, as Dene already said many times.


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## Dene (Aug 26, 2014)

Erik said:


> Isn't that what it's all about? An organiser can decide for himself if he wants to have a competition with many people doing a few events and many rounds, or a competition for the broader audience with all events and less rounds and easier limits. Of course setting strict limits will not get you many registrations ;-)



Lol tell that to all the people that registered for ausnats  . Then again, we put up the schedule once registration is finished >.<




Erik said:


> Exactly, the whole time limit thing is not applicable for FMC since the event is an hour anyway. There is no reason to apply the same mentality to FMC (at least not in the form of a move limit), since there is no effect to the competition time. So why propose it?



Well as it seems, not many people agree with me, but I still stand by my view that FMC should be treated as an "advanced" event, only for "advanced" competitors. Given all the opposition, it's obvious this isn't going to go through. However discussion in the delegate e-mail thread has been a bit more constructive, suggesting a modification of A1c is worthwhile. So at least this hasn't been a complete waste of time ^_^


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## AvGalen (Aug 26, 2014)

Dene said:


> Well as it seems, not many people agree with me, but I still stand by my view that FMC should be treated as an "advanced" event, only for "advanced" competitors. Given all the opposition, it's obvious this isn't going to go through. However discussion in the delegate e-mail thread has been a bit more constructive, suggesting a modification of A1c is worthwhile. So at least this hasn't been a complete waste of time ^_^


That is a pretty bad attitude, given that you are a WCA delegate and the WCA doesn't make a distinction in "advanced events for advanced competitors". Quite the opposite actually: The goal of the World Cube Association is to have *more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.*
The spirit of the World Cube Association is that
*people from all over the world have fun together in a friendly atmosphere, help each other and behave sportsmanlike.

I would also say that this thread has been very constructive, just not supporting your view. I checked A1c and that is horrible! "*A competitor competing with expectation of a DNF result may be disqualified from the event, at the discretion of the WCA Delegate.". I never noticed that before although it happened a long time ago and it means that basically everyone can now be banned from blind and FMC events because 2/3 of the time a blind solve ends in a DNF and almost nobody has an FMC mean of 3! Has this rule ever been enforced? Again, I would like to point out that my first ever succesful blind was a 2/2 during multiblind and that was NR! If somebody had enforced this rule they could have said "I am the delegate and I expect you to DNF multiblind because you have never done single blind"


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## Torch (Aug 26, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> That is a pretty bad attitude, given that you are a WCA delegate and the WCA doesn't make a distinction in "advanced events for advanced competitors". Quite the opposite actually: The goal of the World Cube Association is to have *more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.*
> The spirit of the World Cube Association is that
> *people from all over the world have fun together in a friendly atmosphere, help each other and behave sportsmanlike.
> 
> I would also say that this thread has been very constructive, just not supporting your view. I checked A1c and that is horrible! "*A competitor competing with expectation of a DNF result may be disqualified from the event, at the discretion of the WCA Delegate.". I never noticed that before although it happened a long time ago and it means that basically everyone can now be banned from blind and FMC events because 2/3 of the time a blind solve ends in a DNF and almost nobody has an FMC mean of 3! Has this rule ever been enforced? Again, I would like to point out that my first ever succesful blind was a 2/2 during multiblind and that was NR! If somebody had enforced this rule they could have said "I am the delegate and I expect you to DNF multiblind because you have never done single blind"



I think it means the expectation of a DNF by the competitor, not by anyone else.


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## cubizh (Aug 27, 2014)

Dene said:


> I still stand by my view that FMC should be treated as an "advanced" event, only for "advanced" competitors.


Suspending my disbelief for a moment that you actually not only said that but actually believe that, it would be cool to know what was the criteria that you have used to award the "advanced" status to this particular event, and what other events do you consider "advanced" or "behind".



AvGalen said:


> I checked A1c and that is horrible! "A competitor competing with expectation of a DNF result may be disqualified from the event, at the discretion of the WCA Delegate.". I never noticed that before although it happened a long time ago and it means that basically everyone can now be banned from blind and FMC events because 2/3 of the time a blind solve ends in a DNF and almost nobody has an FMC mean of 3!


I do not think this is the spirit of this regulation, but to allow delegate's discretion to disqualify someone that just sits at the solving station for 5 minutes and refuses to pick the puzzle up or do any effort to attempt to solve it, only being there for the photo opp and/or so that people can look at them, in a clear effort to waste people's time, which I don't recall ever happening, but I may be wrong.


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## Dene (Aug 27, 2014)

@AvG I'm fully aware of all of that. But I keep saying, and everyone seems to keep avoiding, the fact that this is pretty much what is done anyway. At least my attitude is consistent...

@cubizh I already gave some examples earlier in the thread.



Dene said:


> The way I look at things in general, and how I tend to structure competitions and cut-offs, is that there are the "core" events, or "beginner" events of 2x2, 3x3, and OH (and magic in the past). Then there are intermediate events like bld, 4x4 and 5x5. Then there are more advanced events, like multibld, 6x6/7x7, and FMC. (Obviously not a complete list).


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## TMOY (Aug 27, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> "A competitor competing with expectation of a DNF result may be disqualified from the event, at the discretion of the WCA Delegate.". I never noticed that before although it happened a long time ago and it means that basically everyone can now be banned from blind and FMC events because 2/3 of the time a blind solve ends in a DNF and almost nobody has an FMC mean of 3! Has this rule ever been enforced? Again, I would like to point out that my first ever succesful blind was a 2/2 during multiblind and that was NR! If somebody had enforced this rule they could have said "I am the delegate and I expect you to DNF multiblind because you have never done single blind"[/FONT][/COLOR]



I don't think any serious competitor has ever been disqualified because of that rule and I hope this will never happen. t is aimed at competitors who try to compete in an event without alctuallyknowing how to solve their puzzle: if the delegate notices someone who's just doing random stuff with his puzzle instead of actually trying to solve it, he may decide to stop the attempt before the hard limit is reached, just to save time.

And speaking about BLD, even if the final result is a massive DNF it is usually pretty easy to tell whether the competitor is actually applying a BLD method or if he's just doing random moves, so this should not be a problem.


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## AvGalen (Sep 7, 2014)

Dene said:


> @AvG I'm fully aware of all of that. But I keep saying, and everyone seems to keep avoiding, the fact that this is pretty much what is done anyway. At least my attitude is consistent...
> 
> @cubizh I already gave some examples earlier in the thread.


I don't know what you mean with " the fact that this is pretty much what is done anyway".
And having a consistent attitude sounds nice, but not when that attitude is wrong.
Also, your distinction in having 3oh as a beginners event and 444 is an intermediate is not supported by the amount of people that have succesfully participated in that event.

I see that people that tried to explain rule A1c all gave a different explanation about it, so it makes me happy that this rule never seems to have been enforced. Of course there should be a "don't behave badly" rule, but I thought that was already covered by 



2f) Competitors must obey venue rules and conduct themselves in a considerate manner
...and similar regulations in https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#article-2-competitors


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## DrKorbin (Sep 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I see that people that tried to explain rule A1c all gave a different explanation about it


Example of applying A1c:
A competitor registers for 3x3 bld, while not knowing how to solve it bld. During his attempt he looks at the cube for ten seconds, then puts on his blindfold and starts applying random moves. After taking off his blindfold he looks at his scrambled cube and exclaims: "Ahh, I missed!" If a delegate thinks that this person cannot into bld, he can disqualify him from further attempts.
If you are interested, this case was real, but A1c was not enforced because there was no A1c that time. Maybe this competitor actually had been the reason why A1c was invented.


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## Noahaha (Sep 8, 2014)

DrKorbin said:


> Example of applying A1c:
> A competitor registers for 3x3 bld, while not knowing how to solve it bld. During his attempt he looks at the cube for ten seconds, then puts on his blindfold and starts applying random moves. After taking off his blindfold he looks at his scrambled cube and exclaims: "Ahh, I missed!" If a delegate thinks that this person cannot into bld, he can disqualify him from further attempts.
> If you are interested, this case was real, but A1c was not enforced because there was no A1c that time. Maybe this competitor actually had been the reason why A1c was invented.



That's a pretty mild example of what someone could do if A1c didn't exist. Imagine a 30 cube MBLD attempt or 10 minutes turning a 7x7.


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## obelisk477 (Sep 8, 2014)

The biggest argument against this idea to me would be implementation. I mean you would already have to give the person the full hour anyway for at least one attempt (and then disqualify them for the remainder of the mean if they fail to get a sub-40 solution on attempt 1?). And then count the moves afterwards to decide whether or not it met the new move count requirement. At that point, you might as well have checked the solution anyway.

The point of this is that it's different than cutoffs for 3x3, 4x4 etc. With a 1:00 cutoff for first round of 3x3, for example, it makes sense to have the cutoff because after one short minute, if they fail, they're done, and no one has to deal with 1:00+ solvers anymore. With an FMC cutoff, you'd already have to give them a whole hour anyway.

Edit: Just saw the soft cut-off idea, which I like. But to give the person a shot anyway, I still think for the above reasons that their first attempt should count given that it is sub-80. And the load on the judges would still be there, but only for one attempt)


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## Lucas Garron (Sep 8, 2014)

obelisk477 said:


> The biggest argument against this idea to me would be implementation. I mean you would already have to give the person the full hour anyway for at least one attempt (and then disqualify them for the remainder of the mean if they fail to get a sub-40 solution on attempt 1?). And then count the moves afterwards to decide whether or not it met the new move count requirement. At that point, you might as well have checked the solution anyway.
> 
> The point of this is that it's different than cutoffs for 3x3, 4x4 etc. With a 1:00 cutoff for first round of 3x3, for example, it makes sense to have the cutoff because after one short minute, if they fail, they're done, and no one has to deal with 1:00+ solvers anymore. With an FMC cutoff, you'd already have to give them a whole hour anyway.



Well... at most competitions it's true that a few additional FMC competitor doesn't require more judges. (This is not true for all competitions. At Worlds last year there were many rooms, and we would have needed fewer rooms/judges if we had fewer competitors casually attempting FMC.)
That's why Dene's proposal addresses the part of FMC that takes organizer time.

FMC sheets have a total of 80 slots for the competitor to write the solution. It's very easy to tell if a competitor used 80 or fewer moves (and also very easy to change this to another amount). Checking if they met a cutoff takes one glance at the FMC sheet.

I agree that it makes basically no organizational difference to let the competitor *attempt* FMC, but it is false that "you might as well check the solution anyway". Checking the full solution is exactly where the cost is.


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## AvGalen (Sep 8, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> Well... at most competitions it's true that a few additional FMC competitor doesn't require more judges. (This is not true for all competitions. At Worlds last year there were many rooms, and we would have needed fewer rooms/judges if we had fewer competitors casually attempting FMC.)
> That's why Dene's proposal addresses the part of FMC that takes organizer time.
> 
> FMC sheets have a total of 80 slots for the competitor to write the solution. It's very easy to tell if a competitor used 80 or fewer moves (and also very easy to change this to another amount). Checking if they met a cutoff takes one glance at the FMC sheet.
> ...


Most competitions don't use FMC sheets


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## Lucas Garron (Sep 8, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Most competitions don't use FMC sheets



I'd love to see some stats on that. If TNoodle outputs PDFs with the scramble and image, what do they distribute to the competitors?

Since we introduced TNoodle, I've never explicitly heard of a competition that *didn't* use FMC sheets. The Delegate reports only mention things when FMC sheets were used, but I don't have information about most competitions. I'd love to know what the case is, either way. What leads you to believe your statement?

(Just to make sure: you mean "competitions", not "competitors", right? The latter would also be interesting.)

(Also, FMC sheets are easy to use for competitions that *do* want to be able to check the move limit for most competitors easily.)


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## Dene (Sep 8, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I don't know what you mean with " the fact that this is pretty much what is done anyway".
> And having a consistent attitude sounds nice, but not when that attitude is wrong.
> Also, your distinction in having 3oh as a beginners event and 444 is an intermediate is not supported by the amount of people that have succesfully participated in that event.



What I mean is at most competitions I am aware of (and as I get the reports for every competition around the world, that's quite a lot), organisers usually take advantage of implementing cut-offs so that _fast solvers can get more solves in more events_. Plain and simple; cut-offs are for the "elite". Anyone that uses cut-offs is already an "elitist".

Perhaps this is the wrong attitude, but then cut-offs in general are a much more serious problem than what I am proposing.

The reason I call OH a beginner event is because anyone that can do 3x3 can do it. OH is literally just an extension of that. 4x4 takes a bit more learning, that most people new to cubing wouldn't learn. Of course, I'm not really interested in disputing this moot point...


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## tseitsei (Sep 8, 2014)

Dene said:


> *The reason I call OH a beginner event is because anyone that can do 3x3 can do it.* OH is literally just an extension of that. 4x4 takes a bit more learning, that most people new to cubing wouldn't learn. Of course, I'm not really interested in disputing this moot point...



Anyone that can do 3x3 can also do an FMC solve. No need to even know the notation beforehand because it is explained in the FMC sheet...

Anyone can't do a GOOD FMC solve but anyone can't do a GOOD OH solve either...


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## AvGalen (Sep 8, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> I'd love to see some stats on that. If TNoodle outputs PDFs with the scramble and image, what do they distribute to the competitors?
> 
> Since we introduced TNoodle, I've never explicitly heard of a competition that *didn't* use FMC sheets. The Delegate reports only mention things when FMC sheets were used, but I don't have information about most competitions. I'd love to know what the case is, either way. What leads you to believe your statement?
> 
> ...


Maybe this his changed in the last year. I haven't participated in much FMC events because they are often spread out over the weekend and I am not always there both days. Basically the "mean of 3" rule has made me loose interest in FMC.



tseitsei said:


> Anyone that can do 3x3 can also do an FMC solve. No need to even know the notation beforehand because it is explained in the FMC sheet...
> 
> Anyone can't do a GOOD FMC solve but anyone can't do a GOOD OH solve either...


Dene already said he isn't interested in talking about this, but I would be interested to see him find some logic where 3FMC is advanced and 3OH is not.

Cut-offs are NOT for fast solvers to get more solves. They are to prevent the slowest solvers from holding up the competition. They can be used for both purposes though.


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## Dene (Sep 8, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Dene already said he isn't interested in talking about this, but I would be interested to see him find some logic where 3FMC is advanced and 3OH is not.



I guess it's fair enough I should respond quickly to this. Basically, FMC is an event where if one is to take it really seriously, one should be learning a lot more than [insert standard speedsolving method here]. I'm sure any top FMCer will say it is very different to a standard speedsolving method. But OH, other than maybe a few OH-specific algs, is the same thing with one hand.



AvGalen said:


> Cut-offs are NOT for fast solvers to get more solves. They are to prevent the slowest solvers from holding up the competition. They can be used for both purposes though.



This obviously depends on how the organiser chooses to use them. I'm willing to bet in the majority of cases this isn't true. Surely someone solving a 5x5 in 4 minutes isn't that much slower than someone in 3 minutes, but I doubt you would see a cut-off that generous in most cases.


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## DrKorbin (Sep 8, 2014)

Dene said:


> I guess it's fair enough I should respond quickly to this. Basically, FMC is an event where if one is to take it really seriously, one should be learning a lot more than [insert standard speedsolving method here]. I'm sure any top FMCer will say it is very different to a standard speedsolving method. But OH, other than maybe a few OH-specific algs, is the same thing with one hand.



In our competitions I see here and there people who use simple CFOP with PLL skip and get sub-35. Our NR (26 moves) is set with CFOP with OLL skip, though there is a splendid double X-cross.
So person who just try a bunch of CFOP solves with different crosses, pair order etc. can get a good result in FMC (or, more precisely, if a competition is full of such persons, then some of them most likely get good result).

I do agree with your events division by simple (3x3, 2x2, pyra) which should have very soft limits to encourage newcomers, middle (oh, 4x4, 5x5, bld) which should have some cut-offs (soft or hard, depending of the competition size, competition time etc.), and "complex" (sq-1, mega, clock, 6x6, 7x7...) which should have harder limits and cut-offs for several reasons: few people can scramble sq-1 and clock or sometimes mega, and 6x6 and 7x7 are long to scramble and to solve. Well, I don't agree that 2x2, 3x3 and pyra must necessarily have as many rounds as possible, let the organizer to decide this question.

I do not consider fmc in any events group described above because it is not speedsolving and has another nature. As many people said before me, a competitor in fmc doesn't waste competition time and only wastes organizer time. Therefore I think no additional limits should be applied to the one we already have.

And as for the "elite" cut-offs. Yes, you can say they are elitist. However, their existence does some profit to "non-elite" competitors too. Cut-off is the thing that allows holding more events. Suppose that you decide to make no cut-offs and to set limits to the default 10 minutes. Then you can find that you have time only to hold 3x3, 4x4 and 5x5. So everyone can make 5 attempts of 3x3, 4x4 and 5x5, and that's all. But if you set cut-offs, everyone can make at least two attempts in 4x4, 5x5, oh, clock, square-1, mega and so on. Diversity is cool.


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