# In Defence of Singaporean Cubers (Except Yish)



## optakeover (Dec 27, 2007)

In Defence of Singaporean Cubers (except Yish) [Version 1.2]




*Content:*
*Legal Issues*
*Version*
*Disclaimer*
*My Defence*
*Conclusion*

1)Legal Issues

This article took me a long time to write and was against the auspices of my parents and my sibling, who was at the time of writing 
requesting to use the computer which was utilised to write this article.. 
This article deals also with sensitive issues regarding several personae. 
Therefore, I will like to mention that the content of this article is *limited* to http://www.speedsolving.com and http://www.sgcubers.com.
No requests to reproduce it on other websites will be entertained.
As the creator, *I am allowed to reproduce it where I deem fit.* 
Failure to comply with this legal notice is *in violation of United States and international applicable copyright laws. 
[*]Any resemblance to any other people, either living or dead is purely coincidental.*

2)Version

Version 1.2: 28 December 2007 - I have now chosen to address any comments regarding this article.
Version 1.1: 28 December 2007 - Added another point at the conclusions section, which is a significant edit. Also includes countless other minor edits which has added up to significance.
Version 1.0: 28 December 2007 - The first complete write-up of this article. I hope that this is the first and last time I'll write and rectify this. However, I placed version numbering for this as I doubt so.

3)Disclaimer
Please *read* this *disclaimer* before you look at the main content and for http://www.speedsolving.com, since the discussion started in the forum section "General Cubing", I'll post it in the same section:

I'm only 16 years of age. I'm new to cubing, new to speedcubing, new to sgcubers and much newer to this forums. The recent accusations against Yish has led StefanPochmann apparently claiming that all of us are in liaison with Yish in his efforts to try and deceive cubers around the world over his 7 seconds solve and his 5 cube blindfold video. Let me mention that if I found out that if Yish really cheated, I'll make mention on http://www.speedsolving.com without doubt, or try to prove his innocence by making my own video, providing he wants to be seen on World Wide Web. Till then, I'm neutral over Yish but *partial* towards the other Singaporean cubers, including myself, *except when mentioned SPECIFICALLY.* Although I am young, I do not hold myself back from voicing out my fervent view on what I feel is appropriate to argue for. This article was written in British English, and I apologise beforehand for any possible difficulty in comprehension of this article. I encourage one to read the entire content once you have the time, otherwise you may not understand my full intentions and arguments which I have presented.​

4)My Defence
This is a response thread to StefanPochmann's article that "Yish is a liar". In my defence, I shall lay down every post and comment that I feel StefanPochmann is trying to lay claim that the rest of the Singaporean cubers are either supporting or entertaining Yish's alleged cheating and lying claims, but *ignoring anything that is to do with Yish*, once again [/b]except when specified.[/b] I will also be making special quotes but *quoted* and *not quoted* by StefanPochmann which I think are ridiculous and to me are aimed to propagate the fact that by StefanPochmann doing this would make him appear to be effective and competent.

But firstly, I would like to make special mention of one of StefanPochmann's quote about Yish:



StefanPochmann(Page 1) said:


> Pedro(Page 1) said:
> 
> 
> > what do they earn with that?
> ...



This quote was link to the full post by Pedro:


Pedro(Page 1) said:


> nice job, Stefan
> I think you should work at the FBI
> 
> that makes me wonder why people do that kind of thing...just to look fast? what do they earn with that?
> ...



You hope that Yish will earn lifelong distrust. Why do you need to do that? If someone cheats or lies, tell him off. Is there a need to wish that? Any personal grudges? We are all humans, and we all make mistakes, big and small ones. He may lie and cheat, but honestly ask yourself, do you? I have the courage to admit I have to, therefore I'm typing this out to you now to explain what you are being mistaken about.

Special quotes:


Jai(Page 1) said:


> I think I saw somewhere that Yish = Yi Sheng. I think that's his first name, assuming that Yish relates to his name.
> 
> You should make a video proving that it's fake, parodying the Michel Gondry fake solve proof vids, and also to get the word out there.





Lotsofsloths(Page 2) said:


> Wow..
> I couldn't do that in a million years, well maybe you should go around youtube proving even more fakes



Refer to whatever I have said above regarding StefanPochmann's quote, and an extra one regarding Lotsofsloths: please try not to turn this into a witch hunt. It is a waste of time, really. SwordsmanKirby put it nicely:



Swordsman Kirby(Page 2) said:


> There are simply too many.




Special quote:


badmephisto(Page 2) said:


> Mike Hughey said:
> 
> 
> > Of course. How brilliant! So maybe Yish is actually fake - Stefan made him up?
> ...



Two words: *Witch hunt.*

Another special quote:


Lofty(Page 3) said:


> i think the fact that he went out of his way to make it italic shows it was intentional.
> Very Nice Work Stefan! You have made the world a better place for us all to live.



If trying so soundly and downrightly to prove someone that he is a liar/cheater and tries so hard until it appears it appears that he is wanting to bring down someone's dignity to below-ground zero(tell me, by the first quote about the 'lifelong distrust', what is he trying to say?), I don't think it will make the world a better place, notwithstanding that he is targeting a single person.



StefanPochmann(Page 4) said:


> Lofty said:
> 
> 
> > And I will not believe anything from Yish or his bro until I see it in official competition.
> ...



This is ridiculous. If you don't believe in whatever WCA does to prevent cheating, then I suggest you give up speedcubing, as they are the main governing body. If you think they are incompetent on this, that means that they would be for the other more simple categories that like the regular sighted speed cubing.

Article 2(k) of the WCA Competition regulations Version 2007, 

"Disqualification of a competitor for a competition may be enforced by the leader of the organisation team for the following reasons:
3)2k2) competitor is suspect of cheating or defrauding the officials during the competition;"​
Article 8(f):
"If the WCA regulations are not followed correctly during a competition, then the WCA board may declare the competition, specific events or specific solves unofficial."

If there is any evidence to show that "..(Their) current competition blindfolds certainly don't prevent cheating", I will decline to join any WCA-sanctioned competition, although I don't do blindfold solving.

Yet another special quote:


hait2(Page 5) said:


> of all things, why would you fake something cube related? i mean, not to offend, but i'm pretty certain we all know the stigma associated with cubing.
> to people that cube, it's fake. to people that don't, it's no different than any legit video out there
> 
> i mean if you're gonna fake something, at least fake something that makes you look cool to the general public rather than an idiot to the cubing community. i dunno, fake a bicycle stunt jump over a lake of pirahna fish or whatever the rage is nowadays (levitating street magic?). jeez~



If its fake, it's fake. Whether it makes you look cool, uncool or completely stupid does not make a difference.



StefanPochmann
(Page 5);25566 said:


> chue.hsien(Page 5) said:
> 
> 
> > he averages around 12s. (meaning yish, not his bro)
> ...



As I have mentioned in the thread "Yish is a liar" in my personal defence, if you all think that he has done a meticulous and vehement job to prove that Yish was cheating/lying, he quoted me and brought me into the picture when I have absolutely NOTHING to do with that. If he was just mentioning about Yish using cubeexplorer, there is no need to mention about me. What is so special about me saying that "You can also use the software [Cube Explorer] to reverse the solving, to show you how form a clean cube you are able to obtain the pattern that you input into the facelet editor"? Isn't that how the software works? Why would whatever I said make a difference for Yish? Besides, if StefanPochmann understands that I have no role to help Yish to 'cheat' and 'lie', and just used whatever I said to prove the point that Yish might have used Cube Explorer illegitimately to fake his solve(s), then why don't he just underline Yish's quote? The source of the Cube Explorer discussion is here. Meticulous? Vehement? I beg to differ. 

*Now, I really see red when I view this post of StefanPochmann's:*


StefanPochmann(Page 5) said:


> Seeing that both in the video and this thread people during that Singapore cube meeting apparently didn't question any of this at all, I guess I'll from now on be very suspicious of Singaporean cubers and their results in general. Good job!



That was *very childish of you to marginalize all of us that we may be unscrupulously using under-hand schemes to gain an unfair advantage in whatever competition, whether WCA-sanctioned or not he did not specify.* I quoted from Articles 2 and 8 of the WCA Competition regulations above. In WCA-sanctioned competitions which are most important and significant as *all NRs, WRs and other competition results are logged and archived*, I staunchly believe cheating is NOT POSSIBLE. For non-WCA sanctioned competitions, they might I can say but is a possibility that there are many other non-WCA sanctioned competitions around the world. Why would you care? From what you quoted, StefanPochmann is marginalizing all of the Singaporean cubers and it is a definite slap on the face on the reputation of all of our other cubers. Also:



StefanPochmann(Page 5) said:


> ...cubers and their results in general. Good job!



Who was he saying good job to? Was it a mistake or was he praising himself? If it was the latter, he is really about to blow his trumpet. 



StefanPochmann(Page 6) said:


> His brother, the guy with the eye-patch who we're supposed to believe also broke the world record for regular 3x3x3 solve during that meeting, took over 11 seconds just for an N perm in his first solve in the 5-CFOP-BLD video, using a combination of d-adjustment, A perm, J perm and U perm:
> 
> d' d'
> R2 B2 R F R' B2 R F' R
> ...



Two things:


WCA won't listen to you as you're not a WCA official, and your evidence has nothing to do with WCA-sanctioned activity.
Go back to the other quote of StefanPochmann's fear that "(Their) current competition blindfolds certainly don't prevent cheating." If you have no faith in the undertakings of WCA, then you're just contradicting yourself as you do not recognise WCA.

In that case, you are either marginalizing against Singapore and/or Singaporean cubers.

Special quote now:


MiloD(Page 6) said:


> This thread exemplifies yish's naivety on the 3x3.
> 
> http://sgcubers.com/forum/index.php?topic=49.0
> 
> ...



Well people has their own methods and proposed. We can have our own discussions. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that if it looks odd and ugly it allows you to call someone naive. It might work for him, who knows. Please mind that. (Although I doubt it will work anyway.) Also, this post is off-topic.

Still another special quote; alot of Yish's critics are not rational enough


philkt731(Page 7) said:


> You know what would be the funniest thing ever? if these guys were actually legit all along...



One word: Marginalizing.



CorwinShiu(Page 8) said:


> philkt731(PAge 7) said:
> 
> 
> > You know what would be the funniest thing ever? if these guys were actually legit all along...
> ...



This is an example of the epitome of childishness attitude. If I were to prove he is legitimate(or in the case all of us), will you give me a cube? I really need a DIY cube and I will appreciate and cherish it. You don't want to? Surely you would not. That was totally rhetorical and infantile. Anyway,..



CorwinShiu(Page 8) said:


> If these guys are legit...



The same word: marginalizing.

Good quotes:


Dyste(Page 8) said:


> This has turned into such a sordid discourse.





Dyste(Page 8) said:


> Well, the generalizations of the integrity of certain inhabitants of areas isn't.





Schwatz said:


> i think that all of this can be settled if this member yish here posts up an actual pb video instead of single solves. cos frankly i have my doubts, and i dont like to accuse people of being liars and cheaters, so i am going to send him a message, telling him to post up an average video of 12.
> 
> it is a bit laughable though. we are all flaming him here and he probably doesnt even know it. imagine if he is legit. though i seriously doubt so.
> 
> it is just my humble opinion, but i dont think i will say anything until say he does/ doesnt post up an average video by like 3 days or something? but that is just my personal take on this issue.



I agree with all 3 quotes, but for Schwat's doubt of Yish's solves' legitimacy I will not comment on. By the way, once I post this article within http://www.sgcubers.com, he is bound to take notice of this.

Quote regarding me:


Pedro(Page 9) said:


> optakeover(Page 9) said:
> 
> 
> > Let me reproduce what he said:
> ...



Please refer to the quote regarding Cube Explorer and me much earlier.

5)Conclusion

I will draw up my conclusion in point form:

StefanPochmann is trying to prove and influence readers that Singapore's cubing community consist of 'liars' and 'cheaters' whom he thinks should not be taken seriously.
StefanPochmann is being over-zealous by saying that he hopes that Yish would "..gain lifelong distrust". Even though someone is a cheater and a liar, it does not mean he should own that kind of indignity.
The other various readers that quoted against the illegitimacy of Singaporean cubers appears as if they have been deceived by StefanPochmann's comments.
The other users appears to have been influenced adversely by StefanPochmann's 'investigation', trying to spark off witch hunts, in an attempt to spot more cubers 'cheating' and 'lying' in the same way.
StefanPochmann's investigations are not spotless, as proven by being unable to differentiate between Yish and my involvement in the disputed issue. The countless readers who have commended StefanPochmann must understand this.
StefanPochmann seems to have a disagreement of WCA's current competition blindfolds. If there are ireegularities in WCA's undertakings of their sanctioned competitions, these would already have surfaced and any WRs and NRs would be rendered null and void. He can either choose not to recognise WCA-sanctioned activity or either start or hope that someone would start a new cubing governing body that is recognised internationally, and whatever that he said that "..the WCA is properly warned" and other quotes against Singaporean cubers are completely obsolete and should be treated as marginalizing against Singapore and Singaporean cubers, due to the inclusion of the abbreviation "WCA" or "World Cube Association". There is a quote: "To those who believe, no proof is needed; to those who don't believe, no proof is possible."
Regarding Yish's proposed idea on wristing and other of his proposed ideas which have been criticized, let me reiterate that these are just ideas and in the cubing community, there are bound to be discussions like these. Ideas which may seem inappropriate, unnecessary or completely deplorable does not mean that Yish is 'naive'. 
"..very suspicious of Singaporean cubers and their results in general. Good job!" By StefanPochmann saying this, he may be starting to boast of his 'investigation' and the commendation he received or he made a critical mistake which can cause misunderstanding. For the latter case, it also goes to show that his 'investigation' is not all that perfect and his proponents should be wary. 
Overall, since that StefanPochmann is trying to prove Yish that he is not legitimate in his solves, his accusations are invalid as they are one-sided against Yish and contains no mitigating factors which will show that he does have a sense of legitimacy in his solves.

I hope to see that this issue is addressed beyond reasonable doubt and that this debate will end, and that all Singaporean cubers involved in this dispute one way or another are not intimidated or affected by it and continue cubing and posting on this forum. *I may continue to update this article, but only within my intentions.
*


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Copyright © 2007, Optakeover of http://www.sgcubers.com and http://www.speedsolving.com. All rights reserved.


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## CorwinShiu (Dec 27, 2007)

Well when I said "If these guys are legit", I meant Yish and his brother, not an attack at all Sgcubers. Just clarifying. And also, the smilie face is what people use as an indicator to joke?


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## Lucas Garron (Dec 27, 2007)

A few things:

I don't really suspect anyone but Yish of cheating (sofar). I don't feel a real need to suspect anyone like you, and I think the general cubing community feels that way. We're pretty open.

About Stefan himself: He is well-respected, and known for his tendency to doubt; he didn't do this to gain anything to the detriment of Singaporeans by actually supplying evidence.

Let me make a distinction: Singaporeans are not _guilty by association_, but _suspect by association_ if (unlike you) a good chunk of them believe and support a liar.

If there is a competition, and we get Singaporean competitors, we will accept the results as valid, for (hopefully) a trusted WCA delegate will oversee the competition.


I would, however, like to make an important note:
It is, in fact, possible to cheat at a WCA competition, especially a large one. Pembo once remarked that if he wanted, he could find a willing accomplice to help him cheat with BLD (by going first and giving him the scramble). If you have a few inexperienced judges, you could probably get away with a falsely strung magic that only requires the 6-flip...

There are ways to cheat; we have simply managed to trust each other so far.


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## optakeover (Dec 27, 2007)

@CorwinShiu: For Chue Hsien, he is not the one accused of 'lying' and 'cheating'. Why him?

@Lucas Garron: "...but suspect by association" I really don't like any suspicion about anyone of us in the first place. If we know our own selves that people in other countries suspect us of 'cheating', how will we enjoy competitive cubing? 

By the way, pardon me for my insistence, but I still believe that WCA still maintains their zero-tolerance for cheating and that any attempts to cheat will not go unnoticed.


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## MiloD (Dec 27, 2007)

drama queen


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## pjk (Dec 27, 2007)

This is getting out of hand. I am moving both of these topics ("Yish is a liar" and this one) to General Talk. If you want to discuss my decision further, PM me.


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## CorwinShiu (Dec 27, 2007)

His brother is Chue Hsien? From this post:


chue.hsien said:


> lmao.. haven;t been on the forums for some time, and i come back seeing this lol. in sch around 2 mths ago, i scrambled a cube myself, and he solved it in 12sec. the 7.52 might be a fake (i hv no idea) but he still has a CubeExplorer embedded in his head. *his bro is also as godly as him, he did 5 cfop blindsolves with around 3minutes of inspection time. now if only his bro could make a vid...*
> 
> steven, look at this vid now...
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXDr97IYN4


Well he mentioned Yish's brother in third person, so I wasn't aware he was talking about himself.
I doubt anyone could do 5 speedblindfold solves with a 3 minute memorization. That is 36 seconds of memorization each. I'm not a speedblindfold solver, but I know you memorize where the pieces are after each move. I doubt the possibly of this. 

Also that video as fake, you do not tap center pieces to recall what they are, center pieces are fixed. Also, his lack of full OLL and PLL just gives him less credibility for the speed of the memorization. I find it hard to believe that he can remember the permutations after multiple OLL's. It's possible, but highly unlikely. The eyepatch doesn't exactly make it more legit. Considering the position of the cube, I think he can look with his eye under the eyepatch.


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## Dene (Dec 27, 2007)

> Failure to comply with this legal notice is in violation of United States and international applicable copyright laws.





> This article was written in British English



Just, you know, to make a start, I do not see how these comply? I won't start an anti-American debate, but they DO NOT make the rules for the rest of the world, it's just that some of them THINK that they do. And how can you rely on American laws, and then write in British English?
There are also MANY grammatical and spelling errors in your nice little essay, that should not be there, especially after you went to such an extent to make this as formal as possible. However i'm just being picky.



> This is getting out of hand. I am moving both of these topics ("Yish is a liar" and this one) to General Talk. If you want to discuss my decision further, PM me.


Good idea, there is no need for outsiders to come in and see this, when they want some real cubing tips.

On the actual content: You are blowing this WAY out of perspective. The majority of the posts made in that topic were THROW-OFF comments, not intended in seriousness, and just to make inside jokes.
You mentioned some Christian related belief, and so I now ask you, is it not that we were asked to treat others as we wish to be treated? Is it not that Yish is clearly lying, and refuses to admit it, thus we must treat him as a liar? 

You mention a witch hunt. For a start, let us be less metaphorical, as we all know the concept of a witch is completely absurd, and this is intended to be a somewhat formal document... We just don't want these liars being a part of the cubing community, especially those who are going to have an influence on new cubers, and lead them awry.

You mention marginalising, yet I sense a hypocrite....


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## qqwref (Dec 27, 2007)

CorwinShiu said:


> Also that video as fake, you do not tap center pieces to recall what they are, center pieces are fixed.


I'd just like to take a moment to disagree with this statement (even though I don't disagree with the statement that the video is fake) - if you're doing speed BLD you're going to be memorizing moves themselves, so it could make sense to tap the center pieces if it helps you memorize what faces to turn. I wouldn't say this in itself is evidence that the video is faked.


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## Pedro (Dec 27, 2007)

well, again, let me say:



> As I have mentioned in the thread "Yish is a liar" in my personal defence, if you all think that he has done a meticulous and vehement job to prove that Yish was cheating/lying, he quoted me and brought me into the picture when I have absolutely NOTHING to do with that. If he was just mentioning about Yish using cubeexplorer, there is no need to mention about me. What is so special about me saying that "You can also use the software [Cube Explorer] to reverse the solving, to show you how form a clean cube you are able to obtain the pattern that you input into the facelet editor"? Isn't that how the software works? Why would whatever I said make a difference for Yish? Besides, if StefanPochmann understands that I have no role to help Yish to 'cheat' and 'lie', and just used whatever I said to prove the point that Yish might have used Cube Explorer illegitimately to fake his solve(s), then why don't he just underline Yish's quote? The source of the Cube Explorer discussion is here. Meticulous? Vehement? I beg to differ.



he's *NOT* blaming you or accusing you of helping/trying to help Yish to lie/cheat

he just quoted your post because it would really make no sense to quote just:


> yish: "woah sweet thanks! this will help me loads in improving my lookahead."



don't you think? "this will help me..." what will help him?
if he didn't quote your post about cube explorer, we wouldn't know what Yish was talking about...

---------------------------------------------------------------

next, as somebody said, you interpreted some posts that were meant to be jokes as serious...

------------------------------------------------------------------



> Two things:
> 
> 1. WCA won't listen to you as you're not a WCA official, and your evidence has nothing to do with WCA-sanctioned activity.
> 2. Go back to the other quote of StefanPochmann's fear that "(Their) current competition blindfolds certainly don't prevent cheating." If you have no faith in the undertakings of WCA, then you're just contradicting yourself as you do not recognise WCA.



as Lucas said, Stefan is well know in the "cubing world" and I'm pretty sure WCA would listen to him, if he has proofs...

and...

how can you say cheating is not possible if you didn't go to a competition yet?

I think it is indeed possible...on bld, magic and others...

but that's just the way it is...we don't have money to hire specialized people to be judges at every competition and make pretty sure there's no way to cheat

pay attention, I'm not saying people cheat in competitions...I'm just saying that it is possible

I'll make more posts if I remember more things later


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## Pedro (Dec 27, 2007)

> Who was he saying good job to? Was it a mistake or was he praising himself? If it was the latter, he is really about to blow his trumpet.



I don't think he was saying that to himself...

what he meant is:

if Yish is cheating doing those 7 seconds solves (of 10.48 averages) and nobody noticed in the meetings, he will be suspicious...

the "good job" is directed to those who saw Yish doing his fake(?) solves and said nothing


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## ThePizzaGuy92 (Dec 27, 2007)

yish screwed himself, he can never go to a tournament now because he wont live up to his unofficial times


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## Me (Dec 27, 2007)

O' the Drama!!
if any word related to cube wasn't written here, I'd think this was a World of Warcraft guild forum (an alliance guild of course they're always the most dramatic).

But anyway, I don't think that Pochmann was trying to degrade the Singaporean cubers, 
However what he said about alerting the WCA about a Singaporean competition could be said about almost any competition. Unless your judge really knows the WCA rules one can easily get away with stopping the timer with one's wrists.

I'll still hold to my belief that Yish is fake. 
/end


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## badmephisto (Dec 27, 2007)

is this thread being serious?

---
Special quote:
Originally Posted by badmephisto(Page 2) View Post
Originally Posted by Mike Hughey View Post
Of course. How brilliant! So maybe Yish is actually fake - Stefan made him up?
ill get right on that. Expect me back with the evidence within 24 hours.
Two words: Witch hunt.
---

dude i was just joking, i thought it would be apparent from the syntax.
this thread is ridiculous

edit: Although I must say that the disclaimer really put a grin on my face. That just nailed it


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## Dene (Dec 27, 2007)

I think, one person (the starter of this thread) is being serious, the rest of us are nit-picking at every detail possible  .


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 27, 2007)

I think this thread and the "Yish is a liar" thread are both sad. This forum has always been very civil, friendly, and helpful, and has almost always had a very positive, uplifting feel. Threads like these are very ugly and destroy the otherwise wonderful environment that has always been here. I wish we could just let this whole thing drop.

Stefan made some brilliant deductions that seem to indicate Yish's videos were faked solves. I think that much was somewhat interesting, and perhaps worthwhile. I think it was unfortunate that Stefan made the comment that he would be very suspicious of Singaporean cubers and their results in general. I don't see why he should hold the others at the meeting accountable for identifying what appears to be an at least somewhat carefully crafted hoax. If I were at a cube meeting, it wouldn't even occur to me to look for cheating. I can see holding Yish and perhaps his brother (with the rather unbelievable CFOP BLD solves) accountable for their behavior, but I don't see any reason to extend this to anyone else. Extending this to all Singaporean cubers, or even to those at the cube meeting, seems over the top to me.

Can't we just all be nice to each other?

<cue children singing "We Are the World" now>


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## Stefan (Dec 27, 2007)

I wrote some clarifications in the original thread:
http://www.speedsolving.com/showpost.php?p=25824&postcount=92


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## alexc (Dec 28, 2007)

This thread is way over dramatized, taking specific statements by certain people about yish and turning them into general all singaporean statements that were never meant to mean that.


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## optakeover (Dec 28, 2007)

http://www.speedsolving.com/showthread.php?t=2368

I'm tried of this. Can someone delete this thread? I don't enjoy reading it anyway...


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