# The WDC and Brazilian Community Rant. (See latest edit, final decision)



## weatherman223 (Dec 24, 2018)

To anyone coming from the final report: This was my initial rant towards the WDC calling for better investigations, transparency and a reopening into the investigation. Since these have been achieved and the final decision has been reached, the points in this thread have been retracted. You are more than welcome to read it and view my initial opinions.

Before I start this long rant, I'd really quickly like to say that this is not an "F*** this community" or "F*** this country" rant, all I am trying to point out in this post is how personal beef and WDC action has caused a countries cubing community to completely turn on one of their own members, and that getting lucky is *NOT *a crime.

You may have heard a few months back of the WDC banning WCA competitors for blindsolving incidents. To be clear, this post focuses on the second decision made by the WDC. I fully support the actions on the first decision, as it had clear evidence, but I am shocked, completely shocked, and utterly opposed to the decision made on the second decision.

Here is the text in question of the second decision:



Spoiler: Quoted from WCA



"The WDC has also decided to retroactively DNF specific results of another competitor, who obtained exceptionally good results under unclear circumstances. Since the competitor in question failed to cooperate with the WCA Disciplinary Committee during the investigation, acted in an extremely defensive and suspicious way, and failed to present any sort of evidence or acceptable explanation, the WDC deemed impossible for these results to have been achieved in compliance with the WCA Regulations. The competitor has consequently been banned from any WCA Competition for one year. The WDC conducted a thorough investigation in this case, considering the opinion of top-level speedcubers and cooperating with multiple witnesses. The ban is conditional, though, since we are willing to reopen the investigation if the competitor decides to cooperate and provides the evidence that we requested. "



The competitor in question on this second decision is no other than our own @Fábio De'Rose, a respected blind solver on the r/cubers subreddit and here as well. As you can see from his reddit account /u/enigmagico, he has been working on blind for over two years and has worked his living ass off to get to this speed of 40-50 seconds at home with the uncommon 30-40 and the occasional sub 30. The results DNFed were most of his big blind solves, specifically his 5BLD SAR, and his almost NR 3BLD single of 28.xx.

Now, let's get into the dissection of the decision, and my own personal rebuttal, of why this ban is targeted, untrue, and slanderous.


First and foremost, the WCA states that the competitor "*failed to cooperate with the WCA Disciplinary Committee during the investigation, acted in an extremely defensive and suspicious way, and failed to present any sort of evidence or acceptable explanation" *Not true. He didn't refuse or fail to present evidence. He didn't have time. Failing to, and not having the time to, are much, many different things. Fabio didn't provide evidence because he was working and returning back to night school, where he was busy and did not have enough time to provide evidence to the WDC. Trying to manage almost 8 classes of work, *AT NIGHT SCHOOL*, is MUCH more important than writing a long email and many videos proving that he can solve a Rubik's Cube Blindfolded. A competitor also has the right to be defensive of their own results, which they got in legitimate circumstances, and also have the right to defend themselves toward the Disciplinary Committee. If the Committee treats this as being rude or suspicious, they can graciously dissolve or reform.

*"The WDC conducted a thorough investigation in this case, considering the opinion of top-level speedcubers and cooperating with multiple witnesses." *

Top level speedcubers my ass. According to a few inside sources that I won't name, the WDC initially only spoke to a few speedcubers, some good at blind and some not even top 25 or 100in blind. (DISCLAIMER: Edit: Was wring initially, It was a few speedcubers, not 1) If this is true, how the hell is this fair? And if this is true, as a followup, *how do we know if the WDC is conducting other investigations fairly?* Multiple witnesses apparently include judges, in some cases clueless, a delegate (who may or may not be biased towards other fast blinders in Brazil) and a few select competitors. I understand the witnesses part, but why, JUST WHY, would you only include only one or a few blinders? Include like 5 or 10! Let them have a say, not just one. After the Facebook drama however, they got more opinions from fellow blind solvers that were top level, which was one of the only good choices of this investigation in my personal opinion.

Another point that I should mention was that Lorenzo Vigiani Poli, the leader of the WDC, was completely rude and unprofessional to Fabio during the investigation. Here are some of the excerpts of the emails he sent with side commentary and responses.



Spoiler: Messages (clogs up thread)



Message 1 with side talk.


Formal Response to that message

Message 2 with side talk (We both point our bias, which adds to a theory that the WDC conducts *GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT INVESTIGATIONS*).

Formal response to message 2

Message 3 with some side talk and response. A good point to mention is that Lorenzo has decent blind results and should definitely know that multi is much much harder to do than 5BLD.

Another thing from message 1, now on his 3bld single. A good rebuttal to his "headache" claim is that I mention that he could have gotten it after the solve.

Here was his response:

I then asked him a little bit about Diego, with some side talk as well.



I also asked him about if he thought Diego reported him to the WCA out of spite and jealousy, and he said, quote "I don't doubt it"

Gonna have to spoiler this next one, but this is him talking about when the delegates asked him for reconstructions days after the competition, and accused him of faking them. Now, his comms are much different than other blind solvers, so of course they will be different.


Spoiler: Walls of text





*COPY PASTING THE NEXT BITS DUE TO IMAGE LIMITS*
lol forgot to complement that recon thing, when you come back read this:



*[9:14 PM]Enigmagico:*
What he said



*[9:14 PM]Enigmagico:*
The scrambler is sure about scrambling your cube correctly and you confirmed that you, indeed, received the second scramble. Therefore, the reconstruction that you sent is not what you actually did. My question at this point is: what did you do? Why did you send a fake reconstruction?


*[9:16 PM]Enigmagico:*
Given that you inexplicably took the liberty of blatantly accusing me of faking a reconstruction, let me approach this in parts, in order to ensure we are on the same page, but on a comparatively polite level. I will not take this as a personal insult at the moment, in hopes that what you actually meant was somehow lost in translation. "The scrambler is sure about scrambling your cube correctly."- As much as I am sure of my reconstruction I sent, so what exactly is your point? You seem to happily accept the the word of the person who scrambled as well as that of the runner who brought me the cube, trusting their subjective recollections of minor events nobody would bother keeping in mind for long (who even remotely thinks keeps track of multiple scrambled cubes anyway?), as well as taking into account what, and I quote, "apparently" happened (regarding the previous point). Having said that, I kindly ask you to please refrain from using such derogatory terms, as I would never address you, or anyone for that matter, in such a way.



*[9:16 PM]Enigmagico:*
"and you confirmed that you, indeed, received the second scramble." - As previously detailed, this happened days after the competition had ended. Keep the following in mind: What I specifically said to the delegate, after the competition was over is that if such was the scramble, such was my solution and reasoning to every decision taken during the solve, both memorization and execution-wise. "Therefore, the reconstruction that you sent is not what you actually did. My question at this point is: what did you do?" - Again my answer will assume you're minimally acquainted with blind solving: By using a fixed orientation and a predetermined set of algorithms, as well as strategies regarding various common situations (reorientation, move canceling to and from certain algs, cycle breaks, flipping and twisting pieces et al), I can detail to you what is my specific approach in regards to that scramble.



*[9:17 PM]Enigmagico:*
I was given the scramble many days after the competition had finished, so while there is not a single remotely plausible way of comparing it to my recollection of that specific time of the day (that is, I would not be able to claim that the scramble I was sent after the competition was over matches the one I received). Not having any other means of saying what the scramble was like (I rarely ever film my own official solves), my only tool at hand was the scramble the delegate provided me with when asking for a reconstruction. And that's what I did: I told him, specifically, that if that was the scramble at the competition, then I am positive I solved the cube in this specific way. Again I must emphasize: Had the delegate asked me during the competition, and ideally after the round had ended (or even during it), I would have discussed the matter at hand with him as extensively as he would deem necessary, in order to clear any possible questions accordingly. Since this did not take place until days after everything was over (and by then I had already been made aware of the possibility of a wrongly scrambled cube, by discussing the events with fellow BLDers), I'm not exactly sure as to what I should do right now, besides of course responding to your questions as thoroughly and politely as possible. In short, the events took place in the following order:



*[9:17 PM]Enigmagico:*
1. 3BLD R1 happens; 2. Shortly after, Diego asks me about one aspect of my solution. We discuss it briefly; 3. The competition runs as per usual; 4. Two days later (Sep. 18th), and right after results were posted, the delegate asks me for a reconstruction (7:18am); 5. He gives me the scramble (7:20am), upon seein his message I confirm I'll do the reconstruction (11:50am); 6. I do the reconstruction without a cube at hand. I was otherwise engaged at work and did it on a virtual cube (02:11pm) and he confirms receiving it (02:14pm); 7. I find some free time to verify with an actual cube and notice there's a wrong alg. I redo the reconstruction, confirm all is good and send it to him, asking to disregard the first draft (03:06pm); 8. He asks me if that's what I did on my 2nd attempt. I tell him, and I quote: "If that was the scramble, for sure it was my solution" (03:21pm); 9. Hours later, I had been made aware of the video and discussed the matter with fellow BLDers. We concluded it was most likely a misscramble; 10. I tell so to the delegate, that my reconstruction was indeed not matching the video, and as him what should I do (11:02pm); 11. He confirms that there's a discrepancy indeed, and he'd forwarded all information to the WCA and we should wait (11:08pm).



*[9:19 PM]Enigmagico:*
Again, I might be biased but I feel like even my mild explosion at him was somehow expected, but somewhat polite (that's how I perceive it, at least, and I could be wrong)


*Edit: Here is Lorenzo’s Facebook Posts
https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...-community-need-to-change.72029/#post-1308607*

Text form of the Facebook posts: https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...nity-need-to-change.72029/page-4#post-1308781

Needless to say, Fabio has appealed this outrageous decision and is currently waiting for a response from the WDC, which EDIT: has reopened the investigation according to @porkynator.

I am really pissed off about the investigation, in fact, really, REALLY pissed off, however, I'm also concerned about how the Brazil community is turning on this once friendly and trustworthy competitor. I present the following reasons:

1. He was almost restricted from entering the SA Champs venue, even though he was spectating

2. This was possibly triggered all because of personal beef and jealousy.

Starting off with one, yes, Delegates at SA Champs tried to prohibit him from merely entering the venue for SA Champs to *SPECTATE!!! *In any case, he should be treated as any other person interested in spectating the championships, allowed in. Apparently, he was told that he was not allowed into the venue to spectate, however, he was let in. This is unacceptable behavior from WCA Delegates. First of all, he is allowed to spectate under his ban, just not compete. If the delegates are ignorant enough to hate and speak out against a competitor and try to remove him from a competition that he has a right to spectate, they can give up their positions as well. According to the delegate website, the WCA Delegates responsibility is to make sure that, "All WCA Competitions are run according to the Mission, Spirit, and Regulations of the WCA" Spirit was definitely not monitored at the entrance by these delegates.

Secondly, we are pretty sure that this ban was only caused by a competitor jealous of the results Fabio was getting. I speculate this by one of his reddit posts, specifically where he got his 5BLD SAR. If you go into an old cache, you can see a comment where he lists Diego Meneghetti as an inspiration. Right after his ban, he was edited out. This is not a coincidence. He definitely had something to do with it. For context, Diego is the NR holder for 3BLD in Brazil. Looking at the decision, it looked like he became very suspicious and jealous of the results Fabio got in competition and decided to take measures to make sure he would not come back. If this did happen, this is f**ked up. You should be supporting your fellow competitors, not spreading slander and false claims to the organization that oversees it all. As well, his attitude had changed towards Fabio after the almost NR.

*This specific case is why the WCA Disciplinary Committee needs change and reform, specifically to investigate in an unbiased way and to switch to an innocent until proven guilty investigation style, to prevent false bans for lucky solves like these. As well, this is proof that Brazil needs to change in terms of these competitors. What if an underdog comes out again and competes, they think he is cheating, and the ban him like what happened with Fabio? I hope that soon Fabio can get his competitive privileges back.*

Feel free to post down below your thoughts, or anything I forgot to add. What do you think about this? I look forward to reading them.

(I have also invited Fabio to this thread to speak for himself. I hope this thread remains civil and follows the rules. Another side note, I am not trying to be angry or attack anyone, I am just criticizing the WDC and the Brazil Community for the way they handled this.)

Edit: Please read the post below for some more context and additions by Fabio.

Edit 2: Thank you for all the support! Added Facebook posts https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...-community-need-to-change.72029/#post-1308607

Edit 3: Some information has been edited due to some accidental false claims, which have been fixed. I’d also like to say to any mods reading this: This doesn’t break rules. I have the right to post my own opinions here in rant form just like any other poster. Even though some information may be false, I tried to uphold the truth during this rant. Apologies for any misunderstanding.

Edit 4: Here is a text form of the Facebook post: https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/rant-the-wdc-and-the-brazilian-community-need-to-change.72029/page-4#post-1308781

Edit 5: To attempt to tip the bias wheel towards the center, refer to these comments to someone from the Brazilian community https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...nity-need-to-change.72029/page-5#post-1308873

Edit 6: Here is a response to the above from Fabio https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...nity-need-to-change.72029/page-7#post-1308929

Edit 7:

https://drive.google.com/a/worldcub...TI8yOR6YwC2n8V5wBAGtLOPBNcff/view?usp=sharing

The WDCs final report has been released, confirming that the competitior cheated, and an extra year has been added to the ban.

First of all, I would like to thank the WDC for becoming significantly more transparent. I and the rest of the community greatly appreciate this.

Second of all, I will be retracting all points made in the thread. Even though some thing about the investigation could have been tweaked, after reading the report my standings have changed.

I apologize to the speedsolving forums for the controversy I caused. The point of the rant for transparency has been achieved in a since, but my points in defense of the competitor are now in retraction.

Please remain civil.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 24, 2018)

I'll probably add some other points later, but some which might be of interest and perhaps give some extra context:

*1) Re: Facebook drama *

First off, When the ban was announced on the main page of the WCA, Kamil came to talk to me and asked if it was OK for him to post on Cyoubx's Friends (a huge cubing Facebook group), along with his thoughts on how the whole situation was handled by the WDC. I showed him parts of the email exchanges which helped provide some further context so he (Kamil) could form a more solid opinion on the matter - whether for or against me, it doesn't matter. I want to resolve this situation as much as anyone.

I obliged, as I also was (still am) frankly baffled as to how this situation has been handled. There was some community outrage, and the responsible part of the WDC was understandably questioned there. And while I agree that he has the right to defend himself and what he represents, his response was, to put it lightly, nothing short of absurd.

From alleging that I "decided to bring this matter to Facebook instead of properly appealing" (unbeknownst to him at the time, I was still in the process of gathering further evidence in my favor), to accusing me of faking solves on Youtube, this is definitely not the way I would expect a WDC official to behave publicly. _I'll try to find the Screenshots and post them here later._

2) South American Champs

I knew I was banned (I mean, except for the fact that the WDC never notified me about this ban. I found it out because of the front page notice on the WCA website and simply assumed it regarded to me given who had posted it and the accusatory tone in which it was written), and I was (still am) in the process of appealing. 

Edit: To clarify: I was exchangjng emails with the WDC and assumed that there would be a response to the latest one sent from me. There was no response: They banned me and posted a passive-aggressive note on the WCA website. In other words, I was expecting a bit more dialogue so we could reach common ground. 

At first I didn't want to go to the SA Champs venue at all because I feared being mistreated there. After much insistence from friends, I went as a spectator and to enjoy the community aspect I'd always enjoyed (and to see Gianfranco at work, as a BLDer it would be a great experience and it truly was). I also figured that, since I owe nothing to nobody, and am 100% sure about being in the right side of the story, there was no reason to not go. Competitions are fun, after all.

Upon entering the venue, I was asked for my name by the receptionists. I gave it to them, and figuring I had paid the registration fee very well in advance, at least I could get my freebies (it was a cheap plastic cup and a promotional pen, lol), so hey why not.

Then this one guy rushed to me saying, on behalf of two delegates, that I was not allowed there. I said I wasn't there to compete, just to spectate but would very much like to hear this directly from the delegates - remember, I never had any official notification from the WCA regarding the ban. I explained to him, got the sake of context, that "documentally speaking", for all official means I was not banned - if I was, there would be some official document (email or whatnot) stating so. But I did not mean to cause a scene, or didn't want to compete. I just wanted to be treated fairly. No delegate came to talk to me after that. This guy whose name I forgot, said they claimed to be "too busy doing their job" to give me any sort of attention.

3) Confidentiality

The WDC official imposed me to keep all my communications with them in secret. Given how severe their accusations are, the sheer lack of actual evidence other than, and I quote, "_the word of an experienced competitor_" to back up their claims, I see absolutely no sense in NOT using those e-mails in a fair, legally legitimate manner, to build my defense, which naturally involves sharing portions of them with people of trust, which are far more knowledgeable and experienced than myself. Do I not have the right to a defense attorney, after all?

I have other stuff to take care of now, but I'd like to make it very clear:


- I do feel like this was a massive, disproportionate misunderstanding. Much was apparently lost in translation, with neither the WDC official's first language, nor mine, being English, with us being from different countries and cultural backgrounds on top of it. Therefore I excuse him for some of his poor wording (and do recognize mine has also, at times, been misplaced).
The way in which the WDC official behaved, by publicly accusing me on Facebook and offering no evidence whatsoever, yet seemingly abusing his privileged position as a trusted individual within the WCA to drive the public opinion against me was completely uncalled for.

- I also have a solid impression, on the other hand, that there is a considerable about of bias involved. As to why a fellow BLDer to whom I'd always been grateful for his support and insights would actively pursue tarnishing my reputation within the community (as humble as it may be), is is however beyond me. The fact this compatriot has messaged at least two world class blind solvers from other continents to try and push his personal views seems to confirm my theory.

So, I really gotta go now lol. I'm open for questions as long as people keep it civil. I'm more interested than anyone in sorting this out, and want to restore both my BLD results and right to compete as soon as possible. Always playing it fair and square - like I always did.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 24, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> snipped


Thank you for adding the extra context. This is definitely an addition to the post above and I greatly appreciate you posting this followup.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

When Kamil first posted in Facebook I was surprised at this whole thing and ticked, after reading lorenzo’s post I saw some reasoning but then after talking with Fábiano that all got thrown out the window. Literally the sole reason they banned him was not providing evidence that they already had, not only that but the evidence proves almost nothing. Also something that surprised me about this whole thing is that a delegate was never in the room where the 4bld and 5bld solve occurred when
“The primary duty of a Delegate is to oversee competitions on behalf of the WCA. A WCA Delegate is responsible for making sure that all WCA Competitions are run according to the Mission, Spirit, and Regulations of the WCA.”
Kind of hard to oversee the comp and make sure the regs are being followed when you aren’t even there.


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## Dancing Jules (Dec 25, 2018)

This is even worse than I imagined. Looks like the WDC was acting extremely unprofessionally.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

Dancing Jules said:


> This is even worse than I imagined. Looks like the WDC was acting extremely unprofessionally.


Yeah the email was straight up shocking, the guy straight up verbally attacked him and constantly made assumptions.

Craziest part is he is the WDC leader


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

Here's the Facebook posts from the WDC official that I mentioned.

Disclaimer: I don't know whether the original thread on Cyoubx's Friends is still available.

The most baffling portion of this, IMO, is when he literally says "(...) I have no proof, this is just speculation", which shows the ban was solely based on his perception on my "defensive attitude" and the unfounded claims of mysterious witnesses, whose legitimacy and motives have somehow never been questioned by the WDC.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1M_1O3RuCXIppw9yRhB3NdVwFH65l6Pl9

Edit: link is hopefully fixed now

Also, in regards to his claims that I "refused to cooperate" and said I "rested my case", seeing no point on providing the requested evidence, clarifications must be made:

This pertains specifically to a series of repeated questions from him. He had asked me to describe a number of situations, which I did in as much detail as I possibly could. Unsatisfied with my responses, he said, and this is a direct quote from one of his e-mails:



> Please, tell us what really happened at the competition. I know it’s a longshot to ask again, but I hope you’ll reconsider your position. There is no point in lying, because I have solid evidence that things didn’t go as you say. And this is a fact.



This was before the FB post linked above, where he says he has no proof. What he calls "solid proof" is simply the word his mystery witnesses.

It also specifically pertains to this portion of one of our email exchanges. He says [excerpt], with regards to a misscramble I received:



> "and you confirmed that you, indeed, received the second scramble."



To which I responded

_



As previously detailed, this happened days after the competition had ended. Keep the following in mind: What I specifically said to the delegate, after the competition was over is that if such was the scramble, such was my solution and reasoning to every decision taken during the solve, both memorization and execution-wise.

Click to expand...

_
And his counter-argument was this:



> No, you confirmed that you received the correct scramble at the competition, when Diego showed it to you and when you confirmed that you indeed solved that specific scramble in front of multiple witnesses


.

And my response, in turn, was the following:



> > I have exhausted this matter throughout this and (mostly) the other email. No further comments.



As you see, I saw no point in repeating what I had already said, and could be read in full context on previous e-mails.

He had also requested me to film videos of myself doing 3BLD 4BLD, 5BLD solves - execution only. Not only did I not, at the time, have the availability (in regards to quality time at home to make something decent) to do it, but I also assumed that my YouTube videos, where one could see me do full featured blind solves, would suffice. After all, those had been posted long before any of this drama started, which simply adds to the fact I had already shown my capabilities as a blind solver while not being affected by a situational bias.

Full disclaimer, it didn't occur to me at the time that I did not in fact have 5BLD solves on cam. This was way before his tirade on Facebook where he thinks my videos are somehow faked.

Edits: formatting


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 25, 2018)

Nice article, what will the WCA do if they read this?


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## weatherman223 (Dec 25, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> Nice article, what will the WCA do if they read this?


Hopefully

1. The WDC can reopen the case and unban Fabio
2. The Board can investigate the handling of the case.
3. Best case scenario, all of the above
4. All of the above plus a reform of the WDC.

Also, thank you everyone for the support! I really appreciate us coming together as a community on this issue.

Edit: Also, share this everywhere. Share this with your cubing friends, your delegate, make videos, I don’t care. The community needs to know how the WDC acts in their investigations.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> Nice article, what will the WCA do if they read this?



It's worth mentioning that I have recently asked them whether there's any news, and my formal appeal has been sent to the board of directors as well, so they're well aware of this.


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## porkynator (Dec 25, 2018)

Background: I was contacted by Lorenzo to help him investigate on this case. He only gave me the necessary information (Fabio's times in competition, including the DNFs, and Fabio's reply on the questions about the methods he uses and what are his average times at home). I didn't have access to all of the emails that the WDC exchanged with Fabio. I have done my best to make an objective analysis and give an unbiased opinion in the end.

I think there are quite a lot of false facts in the OP, I will try to reply to some of them.



weatherman223 said:


> First and foremost, the WCA states that the competitor "*failed to cooperate with the WCA Disciplinary Committee during the investigation, acted in an extremely defensive and suspicious way, and failed to present any sort of evidence or acceptable explanation" *Not true. He didn't refuse or fail to present evidence. He didn't have time. Failing to, and not having the time to, are much, many different things. (...)



How do you know this is not true? Is it just Fabio's word against Lorenzo's? As I have said, I don't have access to all of the emails, but it seems to me that your opinion is based on the excerpts that Fabio showed you, and on the reasons he gave for not replying. How do you know this is the full story?



> *"The WDC conducted a thorough investigation in this case, considering the opinion of top-level speedcubers and cooperating with multiple witnesses." *
> 
> Top level speedcubers my ass. According to a few inside sources that I won't name, the WDC only spoke to one speedcuber who is not even top 25 in blind. (DISCLAIMER: May be wrong) If this is true, how the hell is this fair? And if this is true, as a followup, *how do we know if the WDC is conducting other investigations fairly?* Multiple witnesses apparently include judges, in some cases clueless, a delegate (who may or may not be biased towards other fast blinders in Brazil) and a few select competitors. I understand the witnesses part, but why, JUST WHY, would you only include only one or a few blinders? Include like 5 or 10! Let them have a say, not just one.



Thank you very much. As I said, I was contacted, so you are wrong. I don't know who else was contacted at first, except me and Diego Meneghetti, but after the "facebook drama" many more top-level blinders were contacted (and proper top-level this time, not just crappy European blinders like me).



> Another point that I should mention was that Lorenzo Vigiani Poli, the leader of the WDC, was completely rude and unprofessional to Fabio during the investigation. Here are some of the excerpts of the emails he sent with side commentary and responses.



I hope you realize how bad it is to accuse the leader of the WDC of being unprofessional based only on some excerpts that a competitor under investigation sent you to defend himself.



> Needless to say, Fabio has appealed this outrageous decision and is currently waiting for a response from the WDC, which has ignored his appeal.


This is again false. As I have said, the WDC has reopened the investigations.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> The most baffling portion of this, IMO, is when he literally says "(...) I have no proof, this is just speculation".


As far as I know, he meant that he has no proof of *the exact way* you cheated, not that you did so. I find it quite dishonest that you keep snipping his sentences out of context.



I don't want to accuse Fabio of cheating or defend Lorenzo's (not yet final) decision here. Fabio has the right to defend himself (and he can appeal to WEC if he thinks that the investigation was not handled properly). I just want to defend Lorenzo and the rest of the WDC from your (weatherman222's) accusation, which is mainly based on lies and other people's (i.e. Fabio's) version of the story. For this reason, I have reported the OP.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> Background: I was contacted by Lorenzo to help him investigate on this case. He only gave me the necessary information (Fabio's times in competition, including the DNFs, and Fabio's reply on the questions about the methods he uses and what are his average times at home). I didn't have access to all of the emails that the WDC exchanged with Fabio. I have done my best to make an objective analysis and give an unbiased opinion in the end.
> 
> I think there are quite a lot of false facts in the OP, I will try to reply to some of them.
> 
> ...



I’m on mobile so apologies for the weird formatting and potential spelling mistakes.

First of all, I would like to post my right to express my own opinions and what I view as factual information to the speedsolving community. You may not think the information in here is true and you have the right to side with the WDC here.

After looking into it, I’m pretty sure what happened was a few blinders were contacted first, then many more. I will edit this part of the OP to reflect this.

Secondly, I only used excerpts with correct context to avoid sharing full WDC communications. I hope this is made clear. I’ve also posted Facebook posts into the OP (link to a post with them) and these still prove my point.

Third, as of writing, Fabio had never received a response. I will once again edit the OP to reflect that the WDC is reopening the investigation (the best course of action here)

Lastly, I did not control the last post you quoted, but it definitely came off of translation that way to me. He is keeping his sentences in the utmost context he can.

As well, he has submitted a multi page appeal to the WCA Board along with the ethics community on this, with the support of other cubers and blinders. I am not “accusing” I am simply criticizing how the investigation was held, and am not lying. I trust Fabio and have always for the past year. I am not promoting lies here


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## Dancing Jules (Dec 25, 2018)

@*porkynator*

So, what is your opinion. Are Fabio's results reasonable? Why, or why not?

And why were "many more top-level blinders" only contacted after the facebook-drama.


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## porkynator (Dec 25, 2018)

Dancing Jules said:


> @*porkynator*
> 
> So, what is your opinion. Are Fabio's results reasonable? Why, or why not?


3BLD: I think a sub-30 for Fabio is only possible on a lucky scramble performed at his best. So in the best case scenario he received a misscramble. I think Fabio tried to cover up the fact that he received a different scramble, in order to keep his result (I am not blaming him for doing so at the competition, I know that getting your best solve DNFed can be very hard to accept).

5BLD: I think a sub-10 solve is not possible for Fabio, considering the (DNF) times he had at the same and the following competition (4BLD and 5BLD), and taking into account what methods he claims to use for memo and execution.

I know also a 4BLD solve (6:xy) was DNFed. I have no particular opinion on this result. His other times at the competition were much slower, but I deem possible (although a bit strange) that he actually got that time. This only becomes truly suspicious when considering that similar cases happened for 5BLD and 3BLD.



> And why were "many more top-level blinders" only contacted after the facebook-drama.



The people that were contacted at first all agreed with Lorenzo's opinion, so he did not consider necessary asking more people, as he just thought everyboy would say the same. After that, he has contacted both people that openly defended Fabio and people who did not express their opinion before (or did not now about the incident at all).


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## Dancing Jules (Dec 25, 2018)

@porkynator

Would you recognize your 3bld scramble two days after the comp?


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

Hi @porkynator, I appreciate you taking your time to clear up your side of the story.

To address some of your points,



porkynator said:


> 3BLD: I think a sub-30 for Fabio is only possible on a lucky scramble performed at his best. So in the best case scenario he received a misscramble.



I disagree, having had a handful of sub 30s at home, even with regular scrambles. My major hinderances are, by a very wide margin, related to nerves and execution.




porkynator said:


> I think Fabio tried to cover up the fact that he received a different scramble, in order to keep his result.



That is simply not true, but I understand your opinion and where it might come from. Through the e-mail exchanges with the WDC, I never denied the plausibility of a misscramble and at any moment did I challenge their decision of retroactively DNFing this specific result - in fact this was made even clearer during the appeal. My only concern is how it was handled by the delegate at the competition (as explained above, but I can provide further details if needed).



porkynator said:


> This is again false. As I have said, the WDC has reopened the investigations.



They have only repeoned the investigation because I appealed, so this is not false - I formally appealed with the help of actual world class blind solvers, and only then the investigation was reopened.




porkynator said:


> 5BLD: I think a sub-10 solve is not possible for Fabio, considering the (DNF) times he had at the same and the following competition (4BLD and 5BLD), and taking into account what methods he claims to use for memo and execution.



As far as I know, and I might be wrong here, the execution and memorization methods that I employ are the exact same as pretty much anyone who does BigBLD.

Your opinion also seems to diametrically differ from that of actual experts that I consulted, all within the top 5 WR for all BLD events, so if you could clarify your reasoning a bit more it would be nice. Again, I understand your opinion, and would say that you're simply misinformed instead of "wrong", but that's my personal perception and should not be taken as an offense, please.

Fot context, and full disclosure: I do not use full 3Style yet for big cubes. And I have had, however, times as low as 3 minutes on 4x4 BLD by employing the most basic methods of execution for most piece types.

In regards to the time discrepancy between the two competitions in question: This was explained and thoroughly xontextualized in the email exchanges with the WDC, but in short: The competitions happened months apart, a period during which I had barely practiced at all (compared to my unhealthy, obsessive pre-Nationals training regimen) paired with external factors which contributed to a performance that was nowhere close to my full potential.



porkynator said:


> I know also a 4BLD solve (6:xy) was DNFed. I have no particular opinion on this result. His other times at the competition were much slower, but I deem possible (although a bit strange) that he actually got that time. This only becomes truly suspicious when considering that similar cases happened for 5BLD and 3BLD..



Shortly put: My first attempt was a safety solve, DNF. Second attempt (16min~) was also evidently very much safe, in regards to memo and execution. When I got a success, then I went full-blast, all or nothing, given my podium was already secured. Nerves hit me and I had some hiccups, but 6 minutes on 4BLD was not even that good for my personal standards.

I should also mention that, like I told the WDC, all my results at Nationals - especially my 5BLD SAR, have been validated by not one, but three separate delegates.

II suppose that's all I have to comment for now, feel free to ask anything you want to know.


Edit: Forgot to address this point:



porkynator said:


> As far as I know, he meant that he has no proof of *the exact way* you cheated, not that you did so. I find it quite dishonest that you keep snipping his sentences out of context.



He has not provided any proof at all. He simply suspects of cheating, and never provided any evidence or reasonable ground for this argument.

I have also provided full context from where he was quoted. If you cannot for some reason visualize the images for yourself, please let me know and I'll upload them elsewhere.


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## Dancing Jules (Dec 25, 2018)

What I find a bit weird is how Lorenzo compares big-blind results to MBLD results. By that logic Stanley Chapel should have 50+ MBLD points and Shivam Bansal should have a 3-minute 5bld result.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

Is the full email on here? If not would anyone mind if I posted the whole thing?


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## weatherman223 (Dec 25, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> Is the full email on here? If not would anyone mind if I posted the whole thing?



Unfortunately I don’t have the email, only the excerpts posted above. Fabio can post it but he might get into hot water with the WDC if he does.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> Unfortunately I don’t have the email, only the excerpts posted above. Fabio can post it but he might get into hot water with the WDC if he does.


They never said in the emails that he has to keep it private, and lorenzo and you have already said plenty about the emails so I don’t see why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: actually probably best to not risk fabiano getting in more trouble  once the WDC makes a final decision to the appeal I can post this I think


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## weatherman223 (Dec 25, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> They never said in the emails that he has to keep it private, and lorenzo and you have already said plenty about the emails so I don’t see why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



I get your point. I’ll ask Fabio.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

Actually the WDC official in question imposed to me that I "keep all communications secret", which legally speaking makes no sense because I have the right to make fair use of such communications. 

That's why I haven't publicized them - but in order to clear up specific points, I'm referring to quotes of those (all within context, of course).



Underwatercuber said:


> They never said in the emails that he has to keep it private


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

In email:
WDC: you aren’t allowed to tell anyone any of the email
Fabiano: ok

To public:
Wdc: he was suspicious and defensive in the email
Fabiano: I wasn’t?
Public: prove it fabiano! 
Fabiano: -_-


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## porkynator (Dec 25, 2018)

Dancing Jules said:


> @porkynator
> 
> Would you recognize your 3bld scramble two days after the comp?


It depends, but probably not. I have assumed that Fabio was shown the actual scramble a few minutes after the attempt. There are different versions for this part of the story, I am believing what the delegate told.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> Your opinion also seems to diametrically differ from that of actual experts that I consulted, all within the top 5 WR for all BLD events, so if you could clarify your reasoning a bit more it would be nice. Again, I understand your opinion, and would say that you're simply misinformed instead of "wrong", but that's my personal perception and should not be taken as an offense, please.



My main comparison was done with the 37m DNF on the first attempt. I thought that, in order to get a sub-10 single with some luck and under perfect conditions, your average time for a 5BLD attempt could not be slower than 15-16 minutes. And I have considered an extreme situation. I personally could not get any "lucky" solve sub-10 minutes until I was averaging around 12.
Then I tried thinking about what could lead a 16 minutes solver to get a 37 minute solve, and I couldn't think of any good reason. If I remember correctly your justification was that it was a safe attempt (and possibly that you kept getting distracted for some reason?). I didn't consider this a plausible explanation. I thought that, in a similar situation, I would have just DNFed the attempt if I realised it was taking too long, in order not to waste precious time for the cumulative time limit and not to get exhausted.
A possible explanation for the discrepancy in your times was given by some other blinder who tried to defend you. They said that you use full audio memo for rushed attempts, and that explains why you can get much faster times. Regardless the validity of this explanation, this contradicts your own words: you said that you use "the exact same as pretty much anyone who does BigBLD", and this coincides with what you told the WDC (but not with the "full audio" part).
To sum it up: I don't believe that it is possible for anyone to get a 37 DNF and sub-10 success on the same day, unless they are going slow on purpose on the first.

But now that Lorenzo has contacted more experienced people, my opinion may become less relevant. I know that it coincides with that of some other top 5BLDer, so this "diametrically different opinions" exist within the top 5 WR.



Dancing Jules said:


> What I find a bit weird is how Lorenzo compares big-blind results to MBLD results. By that logic Stanley Chapel should have 50+ MBLD points and Shivam Bansal should have a 3-minute 5bld result.



I think he did not use those Fabio's multiBLD results to imply anything about his bigBLD solves. I can certainly say that I did not do that.
What Lorenzo told me - I can't tell you the exact words, it was during a video call with me and another person (one defending Fabio) - is that after the first emails he wanted to "test" Fabio to see if he was trying to fool him around. So he asked him general questions about his BLD methods and results.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> I think he did not use those Fabio's multiBLD results to imply anything about his bigBLD solves. I can certainly say that I did not do that.
> What Lorenzo told me - I can't tell you the exact words, it was during a video call with me and another person (one defending Fabio) - is that after the first emails he wanted to "test" Fabio to see if he was trying to fool him around. So he asked him general questions about his BLD methods and results.



Vincenzo:
What was the memorization time?

Fabiano:
About 4 minutes, give or take.

Vincenzo:
Again, I don’t believe this is possible, given your level of ability.
“As another example, I also see that your best result in multiblind is a 7/7 in 55 minutes, which indicates a very different capability of memorization with respect to a 9-minutes solve on a 5x5.”


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## weatherman223 (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> snip



I feel like Fabio should defend himself on the first and the second responses here, but your speculation seems spot on. He always starts with an intentionally slow safety solve but due to nerves and constant review to get his first ever 5BLD result he went very very slow. He then, what he described to me, went all in (yolo) on his last attempt doing memo and exec as fast as he possibly could, getting the 9 minute solve.

As underwater mentioned, that third point is easily refuted in the OP under the discord post spoiler.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> the first attempt. I thought that, in order to get a sub-10 single with some luck and under perfect conditions, your average time for a 5BLD attempt could not be slower than 15-16 minutes. And I have considered an extreme situation. I personally could not get any "lucky" solve sub-10 minutes until I was averaging around 12.



Paraphrasing what I have stated to thr WDC: My very few official results on 5x5 BLD are not directly reflective of my global average at home. I had been practicing extensively, and had already achieved similarly low times prior to the competition.



porkynator said:


> Then I tried thinking about what could lead a 16 minutes solver to get a 37 minute solve, and I couldn't think of any good reason. If I remember correctly your justification was that it was a safe attempt (and possibly that you kept getting distracted for some reason?). I didn't consider this a plausible explanation.



I'm not really sure how acquainted you are with blind solving, but safety solving is a well known, tried and tested strategy which lends further fluctuation in times, at varying levels. If you do not consider it a valid strategy refrain from using it - just be aware many people do, and use it indeed.

Side note: The distractions you are thinking of probably refer to the second competition, where I was indeed ill, which was a major distraction.




porkynator said:


> I thought that, in a similar situation, I would have just DNFed the attempt if I realised it was taking too long, in order not to waste precious time for the cumulative



That's an objectively bad strategy, and I would argue it would even be against the WCA Regulations. But that's just me, I'd rather DNF knowing I tried my best than simply give up but to each their own 



porkynator said:


> A possible explanation for the discrepancy in your times was given by some other blinder who tried to defend you. They said that you use full audio memo for rushed attempts, and that explains why you can get much faster times. Regardless the validity of this explanation, this contradicts your own words: you said that you use "the exact same as pretty much anyone who does BigBLD", and this coincides with what you told the WDC (but not with the "full audio" part).



I'm pretty sure anyone who does BigBLD also uses audio memorization for parts of the solve. I never stated to use full audio 100% of the time, so I'd kindly ask you to refrain from twisting my words.

Edit | Just adding this to make it perfectly clear: I don't remember ever stating anywhere that I use full audio for 5x5 BLD, specifically. I have, however, used it a couple times with 4BLD and that is my main memorization method for 3BLD. 



porkynator said:


> It depends, but probably not. I have assumed that Fabio was shown the actual scramble a few minutes after the attempt. There are different versions for this part of the story, I am believing what the delegate told.



I was only shown the actual scramble after the competition had ended - and have stated this multiple times to the WDC.



porkynator said:


> words, it was during a video call with me and another person (one defending Fabio) - is that after the first emails he wanted to "test" Fabio to see if he was trying to fool him around. So he asked him general questions about his BLD methods and results.



How professional of him. /s

I'm legitimately impressed.



weatherman223 said:


> He always starts with an intentionally slow safety solve but due to nerves and constant review to get his first ever 5BLD result he went very very slow. He then, what he described to me, went all in (yolo) on his last attempt doing memo and exec as fast as he possibly could, getting the 9 minute solve.



Yup. That's pretty much the strategy I employ in all my BLD solves (which is fairly common as far as I know).

I have also detailed this to the WDC during our e-mail exchanges.


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## porkynator (Dec 25, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> I'm not really sure how acquainted you are with blind solving


Seriously? Maybe I am not a cubing VIP, but you can easily check from my WCA profile that I am good enough at BLD to know at least what safe solves are. As I said, I have considered this in my analysis as well.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> I'm pretty sure anyone who does BigBLD also uses audio memorization for parts of the solve. I never stated to use full audio 100% of the time, so I'd kindly ask you to refrain from twisting my words.



Sorry if it was unclear or badly worded, I know you have never claimed that. I meant that those people who tried to give a possible explanation for you assumed you use a different memo method for that attempt.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> How professional of him. /s


I don't see the problem. This method may work with people who don't know anything about BLD and try to cheat by peeking under the blindfold and doing normal speedsolves. On the other hand, someone who knows how to do proper blind solves has nothing to be afraid of.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 25, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> Yup. That's pretty much the strategy I employ in all my BLD solves (which is fairly common as far as I know).
> 
> I have also detailed this to the WDC during our e-mail exchanges.


sorry if this sounds dumb or completely off topic, but Fabio provided what was enough to say that there was no cheating involved butt...


Spoiler



of course people wouldn't bring up a investigation if everything was perfect. By no means am I criticizing anyone but Vincenzo kind of rushed it due to maybe some pressure to get a answer out to the community about the issue.


 wow... I actually did something on this thread


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> Seriously? Maybe I am not a cubing VIP, but you can easily check from my WCA profile that I am good enough at BLD to know at least what safe solves are. As I said, I have considered this in my analysis as well.



It's just that I didn't recognize your username, lol. I browse the forum on mobile only so view space is limited (e.g.: signatures aren't shown). Sorry if that sounded rude, it wasn't my intention.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 25, 2018)

porkynator said:


> I don't see the problem. This method may work with people who don't know anything about BLD and try to cheat by peeking under the blindfold and doing normal speedsolves. On the other hand, someone who knows how to do proper blind solves has nothing to be afraid of.


He has a whole channel that the WDC knows about full of solves. They don’t need to question if he knows bld methods 

Edit: wait I forgot the videos are fake/prepared in the eyes or Lorenzo lol


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 26, 2018)

assuming there is no video of the event...


Underwatercuber said:


> He has a whole channel that the WDC knows about full of solves. They don’t need to question if he knows bld methods
> 
> Edit: wait I forgot the videos are fake/prepared in the eyes or Lorenzo lol


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> assuming there is no video of the event...


I’m talking about how Vincenzo supposedly wants to make sure he knows valid methods of solving a cube blindfolded but when he watches his videos which clearly shows he knows the execution methods he decides they are prepared lol. You could argue he knows the memo beforehand or something but regardless the execution (what we are looking at right now) is legitamite


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## weatherman223 (Dec 26, 2018)

porkynator said:


> I don't see the problem. This method may work with people who don't know anything about BLD and try to cheat by peeking under the blindfold and doing normal speedsolves. On the other hand, someone who knows how to do proper blind solves has nothing to be afraid of.


Thats why paper blockers exist

Still really shady by the WDC. You shouldn't try to "fool" you should try to find the evidence without deception.

(Also the name is Lorenzo.)


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> I’m talking about how Vincenzo supposedly wants to make sure he knows valid methods of solving a cube blindfolded but when he watches his videos which clearly shows he knows the execution methods he decides they are prepared lol. You could argue he knows the memo beforehand or something but regardless the execution (what we are looking at right now) is legitamite


 I know that he does BLD videos but I am %99.9999 on Fablo side on this scandal


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> Thats why paper blockers exist
> 
> Still really shady by the WDC. You shouldn't try to "fool" you should try to find the evidence without deception.
> 
> (Also the name is Lorenzo.)


Oh yeah that brings up another point, if fabiano cheated then it’s basically a guarantee that the judge was in on it, Lorenzo even mentions the judge being the same person. If fabiano cheated then doesn’t that basically confirm the judge did too? If so then why wasn’t action taken with the judge?

Must have somehow gotten the V from vigani and slapped it in Lorenzo and then tweaked a few things lol


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## weatherman223 (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> Oh yeah that brings up another point, if fabiano cheated then it’s basically a guarantee that the judge was in on it, Lorenzo even mentions the judge being the same person. If fabiano cheated then doesn’t that basically confirm the judge did too? If so then why wasn’t action taken with the judge?
> 
> Must have somehow gotten the V from vigani and slapped it in Lorenzo and then tweaked a few things lol


DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!

Exactly on point! Why not punish the judge then too?


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!
> 
> Exactly on point! Why not punish the judge then too?


And while we are talking about have any of the 3 delegates not doing their job been punished in any way? None were present during the 4/5bld solves. This clearly isn’t in line with what the delegates should be doing

“The primary duty of a Delegate is to oversee competitions on behalf of the WCA. A WCA Delegate is responsible for making sure that all WCA Competitions are run according to the Mission, Spirit, and Regulations of the WCA.”

How are you supposed to oversee and ensure regs are being followed if you aren’t in the same room and you are allowing problematic situations (like only 1 judge and 1 competitor in the room) to arise lol


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## DesertWolf (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> How are you supposed to oversee and ensure regs are being followed if you aren’t in the same room and you are allowing problematic situations (like only 1 judge and 1 competitor in the room) to arise lol


Not picking sides. Although it is wrong let's be honest if a competition has only few blind competitors solving at the same time of bigger events like pyra, skewb, 5x5 and mega the delegates will prefer to take care of those events. This isn't the first time something like that happens and it isn't uncommon either. I'm not saying it is correct and i'm not saying nothing should be done to change it, but we cannot target those 3 specific delegates for this reason specifically.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

DesertWolf said:


> Not picking sides. Although it is wrong let's be honest if a competition has only few blind competitors solving at the same time of bigger events like pyra, skewb, 5x5 and mega the delegates will prefer to take care of those events. This isn't the first time something like that happens and it isn't uncommon either. I'm not saying it is correct and i'm not saying nothing should be done to change it, but we cannot target those 3 specific delegates for this reason specifically.


1. A delegate could have appointed a trusted person to watch over everyone in the bld room (sketchy way to do things imo but it would be better than not having anyone)
2. There were 66 people at this comp lol, it’s not unusual for delegates to solo delegate 70+ people at comp so why not have 2 watch over the non-bld part and then have 1 watch over the bld. Should be easy for them to have less than 33 people each to watch over competing. 
3. Also to note another thing in point 2, not everyone competes at once so they probably had even less competitors they needed to watch over lol


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## DesertWolf (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> 1. A delegate could have appointed a trusted person to watch over everyone in the bld room (sketchy way to do things imo but it would be better than not having anyone)
> 2. There were 66 people at this comp lol, it’s not unusual for delegates to solo delegate 70+ people at comp so why not have 2 watch over the non-bld part and then have 1 watch over the bld. Should be easy for them to have less than 33 people each to watch over competing.
> 3. Also to note another thing in point 2, not everyone competes at once so they probably had even less competitors they needed to watch over lol


Yeah i'm not saying it was a valid reason (or atleast if i said so then i phrased it wrongly) i was just pointing out that this is a more common problem. So targeting these three specific delegates for something that is done by other delegates for this specific scenario is what bothered me. As i said i'm just talking about this single point.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

DesertWolf said:


> Yeah i'm not saying it was a valid reason (or atleast if i said so then i phrased it wrongly) i was just pointing out that this is a more common problem. So targeting these three specific delegates for something that is done by other delegates for this specific scenario is what bothered me. As i said i'm just talking about this single point.


Is this happening in other places? If so that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.


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## Kit Clement (Dec 26, 2018)

I personally don't have the motivation or obligation to really delve into this to form a well-thought opinion, but I can't help but notice that the primary focus of discussion is on mostly how people acted and interacted rather than the actual evidence. Assuming innocence, any change from the WDC will happen more easily with cooperation from them rather than public outrage, and potentially from the WEC too if the WDC is not acting appropriately.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 26, 2018)

Kit Clement said:


> I personally don't have the motivation or obligation to really delve into this to form a well-thought opinion, but I can't help but notice that the primary focus of discussion is on mostly how people acted and interacted rather than the actual evidence. Assuming innocence, any change from the WDC will happen more easily with cooperation from them rather than public outrage, and potentially from the WEC too if the WDC is not acting appropriately.


I can completely see this Kit. Let me quickly write a paragraph on the evidence. 

I am very disappointed on how the committee handled this case and their bias just because of speculation as seen from the excerpts and facebook posts. However, another point I should mention is that the WDC fails to realize that the evidence is right in front of them: Fabio's entire youtube channel and entire Reddit account. However, they fail to recognize this because of Lorenzo's obsession over the videos possibly being faked. Fabio has submitted a full appeal to the Board and Ethics committee backed by many top solvers with videos and textual evidence and as Sebastiano mentioned earlier it seems the WDC is reinvestigating and issuing their final decision soon. (DISCLAIMER: I don't have any of the videos that Fabio submitted to the board)

I will reiterate: Fabio is 100% innocent. There is no way that he could have cheated, and there is no proof that he cheated. The WDC clearly failed to see this according to the Facebook posts and the emails. The community deserves to be outraged over this and demanding change.

I hope the WDC can, like you say, cooperate with the case and the community to hopefully change and prohibit future incidents like these.

Edit: Grammar and changing place of disclaimer


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## porkynator (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> (...)
> However, another point I should mention is that the WDC fails to realize that the evidence is right in front of them: Fabio's entire youtube channel and entire Reddit account. However, they fail to recognize this because of Lorenzo's obsession over the videos possibly being faked. (...)



I have to admit I also find some of Fabio's video quite suspiscious, in particular a 4BLD solve with a total of 3:05 and 46s memo. So it is not "Lorenzo's obsession". More people have been consulted on this as well.
I simply don't see how someone's claims on reddit can be considered evidence of anything. Can't people lie online?


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 26, 2018)

porkynator said:


> I have to admit I also find some of Fabio's video quite suspiscious, in particular a 4BLD solve with a total of 3:05 and 46s memo. So it is not "Lorenzo's obsession". More people have been consulted on this as well.
> I simply don't see how someone's claims on reddit can be considered evidence of anything. Can't people lie online?


So your saying that Fabio and all the delegates, including the judge, should meet up in person to discuss the issue?


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## DesertWolf (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> Is this happening in other places? If so that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.


Yh that's kind of where i was getting too.
Edit: I'm talking mainly from videos i saw of BLD attempts which clearly indicate this sort of behaviour. I haven't been to a comp where this has happened but that's because I've never been to a comp with a "Long" Blind event happening at the same time as another.


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## porkynator (Dec 26, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> So your saying that Fabio and all the delegates, including the judge, should meet up in person to discuss the issue?


No, people can lie also in real life. I am just saying that reddit coments are not evidence for Fabio's innocence.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 26, 2018)

porkynator said:


> No, people can lie also in real life. I am just saying that reddit coments are not evidence for Fabio's innocence.



Alright, so I’m going to ask you a few questions. Apologies once again for the formatting.

So I’m your personal opinion, do you think Fabio has lied about blind progress on reddit for the past two years? If you think so, why was he so eager to help other blinders on reddit as well? EDIT: Reddit Profile of Fabio: https://www.reddit.com/user/enigmagico

Also, let me ask you this question: How do you exactly know that he cheated and what ideas and theories do you have on how he cheated in competitions?

Do you recognize the idea of Fabio intentionally practicing for long periods of time, sometimes for more than 10 hours a day?

I’d also like to thank everyone on both sides for keeping this thread relatively civil. I hope that we can all continue friendly relationships on the forum outside of this thread regardless of opinions


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## porkynator (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> So I’m your personal opinion, do you think Fabio has lied about blind progress on reddit for the past two years? If you think so, why was he so eager to help other blinders on reddit as well? EDIT: Reddit Profile of Fabio: https://www.reddit.com/user/enigmagico


I don't follow reddit, and I'm sorry but I don't feel like going through 2 years of posts. I think it is possible that he kept telling lies. The reason could be as simple as this: claiming faster times gets you more appreciation and compliments from other people, and that makes you feel good about yourself.
As for "why would he help other people" I don't see a contradiction. People are not either completely good or completely evil like in movies. Fabio may be lying about his times and possibly cheating in competition, but still be willing to help other people and be kind to them.



> Also, let me ask you this question: How do you exactly know that he cheated and what ideas and theories do you have on how he cheated in competitions?


The only ideas I have about him cheating (for 5BLD) are that either he concurred about it with the judge, or that he took advantage of the judge not paying attention. I have not thought about this extensively, my considerations are mostly based on his times.



> Do you recognize the idea of Fabio intentionally practicing for long periods of time, sometimes for more than 10 hours a day?


Yes, but I don't see what this would imply. Different people improve at different speed. It took me 4/5 years to get sub-30 with 3BLD, while some people have smashed this barrier in a matter of months, and some other have been practicing for 10 years or more and still average slower times.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 26, 2018)

I got fair enough answers for 1 and 3 so I’m going to follow up on your answer to question 2: 



porkynator said:


> The only ideas I have about him cheating (for 5BLD) are that either he concurred about it with the judge, or that he took advantage of the judge not paying attention. I have not thought about this extensively, my considerations are mostly based on his times.



So your ideas revolve around the judge being involved? 

If so, then why wasn’t the judge banned from WCA competitions as well, for the same speculation that Fabio was banned on?


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## porkynator (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> So your ideas revolve around the judge being involved?


Either involved or distracted/inexperienced enough to not realize the competitor was cheating.



> If so, then why wasn’t the judge banned from WCA competitions as well, for the same speculation that Fabio was banned on?


I am not part of the WDC, I was only asked an opinion about the discrepancy between Fabio's BLD results. I don't know if the WDC is investigating on the judge as well (or is planning to do so). I can imagine them not wanting to take any action against the judge because they believe he was distracted or inexperienced and did not let the competitor cheat on purpose. But this is speculation on my side.


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## DesertWolf (Dec 26, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> I got fair enough answers for 1 and 3 so I’m going to follow up on your answer to question 2:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There is no specific regulation regarding what would happen to a judge. From what I read from the regulations, the competitor may be disqualified but not the judge.
Note: I’m not claiming this is the reason. I was not involved in the process, but from what I know of the regulations no action is taken on the judge. 
I may be wrong on this one as I’m basing this off a quick read of the regulations. Although if this was the case id be for a change in such regulation as a judge is as much responsible as a competitor if the competitor cheats.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 26, 2018)

Since Sebastiano has plenty of assumptions, theories and speculations, yet no evidence to back any of those up (which leads me to question why wouldn't the responsible part from the WDC, contact, from day one, better qualified and more responsible blind solvers to offer factual, unbiased insight on the matter - but that's not my actual point right now), as I'd kindly like to assess his concerns about me somehow taking advantage of the judge by pointing out to a picture taken by Diego M. (which apparently was one of the "specialists" consulted by the WDC, make of that what you will) *without my consent or knowledge*, during the 4x4 BLD round.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm just camera shy And if someone wants to take pictures of me, I'd rather be asked about it before. This was not the case.

This picture has been sent by himself on a WhatsApp group, apparently in a cheap attempt to make fun of me for reasons unclear. It was then forwarded to me since I am not part of said group.

That's a harmonica holder (supplied by me) with the blocking paper in front of it (supplied by the organization). Both of which have been assessed and approved by not one, but three separate delegates.


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## porkynator (Dec 26, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> Since Sebastiano has plenty of assumptions, theories and speculations, yet no evidence to back any of those up (which leads me to question why wouldn't the responsible part from the WDC, contact, from day one, better qualified and more responsible blind solvers to offer factual, unbiased insight on the matter - but that's not my actual point right now) (...)



I have only made speculations now that I was explicitly asked for an opinion. The only opinion that I was asked from the WDC was on the plausibility of your times, and I have done so to the best of my experience. I don't see why you would consider me biased or not responsible enough. I don't have anything personal against you, nor any reason to want your results disqualified, if they are legitimate.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 26, 2018)

porkynator said:


> I have only made speculations now that I was explicitly asked for an opinion. The only opinion that I was asked from the WDC was on the plausibility of your times, and I have done so to the best of my experience. I don't see why you would consider me biased or not responsible enough. I don't have anything personal against you, nor any reason to want your results disqualified, if they are legitimate.


For someone who is making speculations and doesn’t have bias you seem to be pointing out a lot of possibilities of him cheating and not a whole lot of things which indicate him not cheating


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## DesertWolf (Dec 26, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> For someone who is making speculations and doesn’t have bias you seem to be pointing out a lot of possibilities of him cheating and not a whole lot of things which indicate him not cheating


Well if he finds more things that indicate he’s cheating rather then not it seems pretty hard to point out an even number of things... (wether or not his findings are valid is another thing)


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## Sajwo (Dec 27, 2018)

So Fabio, did you sent the videos they were asking for after all?


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## porkynator (Dec 27, 2018)

Sajwo said:


> So Fabio, did you sent the videos they were asking for after all?



Nobody mentioned this but yes, in the end he did, and they are being considered in the re-evaluation of the case.


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## One Wheel (Dec 27, 2018)

Sorry for asking what appears to be general knowledge, but what exactly is the claim? That he peeked during the solve? Performed moves during memorization? Had outside help to remind him of the memo or algs? And what are the times in question, since I presume they’re not currently on the WCA site?


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## porkynator (Dec 27, 2018)

One Wheel said:


> Sorry for asking what appears to be general knowledge, but what exactly is the claim? That he peeked during the solve? Performed moves during memorization? Had outside help to remind him of the memo or algs? And what are the times in question, since I presume they’re not currently on the WCA site?


The times were:
3BLD: 26.19+2 at Mineirim Open Spring 2018
I don't remember the exact times for 4BLD and 5BLD, they were around 6 minutes for 4BLD and 9 minutes for 5BLD, both done at Campeonato Brasileiro 2018. The 5BLD solve would have been SAR.

There is no official claim on how exactly he cheated, although the WDC is convinced that he couldn't get those times legitimately. (Keep in mind that this is under re-evaluation). Quoting from Lorenzo's Facebook post:
"I’m going to end this post by saying that I also have a couple of ideas on how he cheated, but I have no proof. Hence, the one year ban. If I could prove what I think happened, Fabio would have been banned for at least three years. Since this is all speculation, I won’t disclose any of my opinions on the matter."


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 27, 2018)

They claim I got "suspiciously good results under unclear circumstances" (or something along those lines, forgot the exact words).

Times being:

9:02min 5x5 BLD

16:xx and 06:xx 4x4 BLD

28:xx 3BLD

The latter has been confirmed to be a misscramble (and the WDC official seems to imply at times, in our email exchanges, that this is somehow my fault? lol).

As for the big BLD results, they simply doubt I'm capable of achieving such results and attempt justifying this by comparing attempts from different competitions which happened months apart.

They claim I cheated, yet have no evidence to back that up other than the word of a few select competitors.



One Wheel said:


> Sorry for asking what appears to be general knowledge, but what exactly is the claim? That he peeked during the solve? Performed moves during memorization? Had outside help to remind him of the memo or algs? And what are the times in question, since I presume they’re not currently on the WCA site?


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## porkynator (Dec 27, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> As for the big BLD results, they simply doubt I'm capable of achieving such results and attempt justifying this by comparing attempts from different competitions which happened months apart.


As I have already said, my main comparison was done with the other BigBLD results that you achieved _at the same competition._


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 27, 2018)

In other words, they have no proof and inexplicably have adopted a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude.



porkynator said:


> There is no official claim on how exactly he cheated, although the WDC is convinced that he couldn't get those times legitimately.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 27, 2018)

porkynator said:


> There is no official claim on how exactly he cheated, although the WDC is convinced that he couldn't get those times legitimately. (Keep in mind that this is under re-evaluation).


To me, invalidating solves for the singular reason that the WCA has decided the competitor is incapable of the results seems like a dangerous precedent to set. I'd think we would always want at least some sort of possible explanation or explanations of how the false result might have been achieved, taking into account the known facts.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 27, 2018)

porkynator said:


> As I have already said, my main comparison was done with the other BigBLD results that you achieved _at the same competition._



I'm not talking about you, chill - I'm referencing the comparisons the WDC official has made with the help of so-called "specialists", which did include comparing times from two different competitions, as well as an attempt to compare my big BLD results to my MBLD results.


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## mark49152 (Dec 27, 2018)

For information, here is the full text of the statement Lorenzo made on 21 Nov 2018 in response to the Facebook discussion, laying out his reasoning in this case.

Hello everyone, 

I want to address the concerns that some members of the community expressed in a previous post here on Cyoubx’s Friends regarding the outcome of the WDC investigation about Fabiano Pereira’s results in blindfolded events. 

I want to clarify from the beginning that I will not disclose all the evidence that the WDC has gathered in the last two months, because a good part of it consists of statements from multiple witnesses. No statement will be discussed here, nor any identity of the witnesses involved will be revealed. I have taken the decision of sharing some information, because I think that it’s important to reply to the concerns of the community, and I don’t have anything to hide. 
Something else that I think is important to clarify is that nor I, nor the WDC, take any decision to ban people lightly. We evaluate carefully each and every aspect of our investigations. Banning someone is our last resort and it’s never an easy decision. 

I’ll divide my considerations into points, to facilitate the reading. Please, take a moment to read the whole thing, let it sink into your mind and think about it before jumping to conclusion. Even if the whole thing is quite self-explanatory, in my opinion. 

[Fabiano’s attitude] Fabio (I always called him “Fabio” during the investigation, so I’ll stick to it) immediately got on the defensive when we contacted him, never replied on point to our questions, always tried to mislead us when we confronted him with the accounts that multiple witnesses provided to us. When I say “defensive”, I don’t mean that he tried to defend himself providing explanations or evidence. I mean that he just refused to cooperate. When I asked him to provide the evidence that we needed, he indeed replied that he had no time to do it, but he also said that he didn’t see the point in sending it to me, so he decided to rest his case and he stated that he had no further comments. 

[The evidence requested] I asked Fabio to send me the following evidence:

- A video of his solution of the 2nd scramble of the first round of 3x3 blindfolded at Mineirim Open Spring 2018, where he got the 28 single. I told him that he could solve while watching, because I was only interested in seeing his execution (of course, the solution had to be with the method he uses to solve the cube blindfolded);

- A video of a 4x4 solved with the method that he uses whilst blindfolded, but again I was only interested in seeing the execution, so he could have done it without memorizing without any problem on our part. I also asked for the scramble of the solve, in order to be able to follow what he did;
- The same for a 5x5.

I didn’t set any deadline, so there were no time constraints on our part. He just refused to do it. By the way, I watched all of his videos on his youtube channel and I must say that I think a lot of them are just fake/prepared solves. 

[The video of the 28 single in 3x3 blind] Until this video emerged, Fabio never raised the concern that he could have received a mis-scramble. He confirmed he received the correct scramble at the competition in front of multiple people, when he was unaware of the existence of the video. In the unedited video (not the one on Fabio’s channel), it’s possible to see the execution of the last corners. They don’t match the official second scramble, nor any other scramble generated by TNoodle for the competition. Also, the execution is very, very slow. We also have another piece of evidence, a picture, that shows that the cube had all of its edges solved at around 14 seconds. Do the math.

[Fabio’s times in competitions] We have the scorecards of Mineirim Open Spring 2018 (September), we don’t recall times by memory. We have the scorecards of his attempts with the recorded time also for the DNFs, as it’s becoming more and more usual in WCA competitions, because of cumulative time limits. Therefore, I can say with absolute certainty that his times in blind events at this competition were: 

- 3x3x3 Blindfolded
1st Round: DNF (1:40.18); 28.19; 50:01.
Final: DNF (55.38) ; DNF (56.17) ; DNF.

- 4x4x4 Blindfolded
Final: DNF (19:01); DNF (11:40); DNF (14:46)

- 5x5x5 Blindfolded
Final: DNF (33:46); DNF (22:45)

- 3x3x3 Multiple-Blindfolded
Final: 7/7 55:05

To give a little bit more context, at the Brazilian Championship in July, he obtained a successful solve in his first attempt in 4x4 Blindfolded in 16 minutes (which I deem plausible) and a 6 minutes success on his last attempt (which raises some eyebrows). In 5x5 Blindfolded he got a DNF in 37 minutes in his first attempt and a 9 minutes success in his last attempt (SAR at the time). Both the 6 minutes success in 4x4 Blindfolded and the 9 minutes success in 5x5 Blindfolded happened while there was no one else in the room, apart from Fabio and his judge, who was always the same guy and who is also the judge of the 28 single in 3x3 Blindfolded. 

[The opinion of experts] The WDC consulted top level speedcubers, with results under 30 seconds in 3x3 Blindfolded, under 4 minutes in 4x4 Blindfolded and under 10 minutes in 5x5 Blindfolded. All of them helped us extensively during the analysis of Fabio’s times, videos, claimed methods of solution.

I’m going to end this post by saying that I also have a couple of ideas on how he cheated, but I have no proof. Hence, the one year ban. If I could prove what I think happened, Fabio would have been banned for at least three years. Since this is all speculation, I won’t disclose any of my opinions on the matter. 
The decision about the length of the ban derives from an analogue case that happened in the past. Results that didn’t reflect the level of the speedcuber under investigation were DNFed and a one year ban was given after the speedcuber failed to prove his abilities in a Skype call with the WDC. Fabio didn’t even want to record a 30 seconds video for a 3x3 solution.

I saw some reference to Ushakov’s case in the comments of the other post. This is not like that case. Ushakov always replied on point to our questions, always cooperated during the investigation.

I’m still open to re-examine this case if new evidence arises, as it’s always the case with WDC investigations. Also, I informed Fabio that he has the right to appeal to the WEC if he thinks that the WDC decision is unfair. As far as I know, he has not appealed. He decided to bring the case on Facebook, instead. 

Thanks for reading.

Best,

Lorenzo Vigani Poli
WDC Team Leader


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## weatherman223 (Dec 27, 2018)

Mike Hughey said:


> To me, invalidating solves for the singular reason that the WCA has decided the competitor is incapable of the results seems like a dangerous precedent to set. I'd think we would always want at least some sort of possible explanation or explanations of how the false result might have been achieved, taking into account the known facts.



Exactly, and this is what I made the rant post on. What if cases like these are being investigated and they base their reasoning off of times achieved, and what does this mean for future competitors.

Like Mike said, this is a dangerous road to be going down. We should be celebrating people’s accomplishments, not punishing them for it.

Edit: Mark, I’ll hyperlink the full Facebook post to the OP alongside the images in the drive folder.


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## porkynator (Dec 27, 2018)

Mike Hughey said:


> To me, invalidating solves for the singular reason that the WCA has decided the competitor is incapable of the results seems like a dangerous precedent to set. I'd think we would always want at least some sort of possible explanation or explanations of how the false result might have been achieved, taking into account the known facts.





weatherman223 said:


> Exactly, and this is what I made the rant post on. What if cases like these are being investigated and they base their reasoning off of times achieved, and what does this mean for future competitors.
> 
> Like Mike said, this is a dangerous road to be going down. We should be celebrating people’s accomplishments, not punishing them for it.



This is a valid point, and I would personally be happy to see a response from the WEC or the Board on how the investigation was handled (after the case gets re-closed).



Fábio De'Rose said:


> I'm not talking about you, chill - I'm referencing the comparisons the WDC official has made with the help of so-called "specialists", which did include comparing times from two different competitions, as well as an attempt to compare my big BLD results to my MBLD results.



I cannot talk for everyone here, but since I am one of the "specialists" contacted by the WDC I can say that I have never used your MultiBLD as a reference and I have only marginally considered your times at the following competition.


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## One Wheel (Dec 27, 2018)

As someone who hasn’t (yet) done big blind, I will say that 6 vs. 16 minutes 4BLD and 9 vs. 37 minutes 5BLD looks suspicious, and the issue of no one in the room except the same judge for the questionable big blind attempts seems VERY problematic.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 27, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> <Facebook post>


Thanks, Mark. That does lessen my concerns somewhat. Although a specific description of how the false result was achieved is not directly given there, it is certainly true that some possible explanations are implied by that post.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 27, 2018)

I’ve gotten news that the WDC is formulating a final report with the final decision regarding this case. Even though debate may continue, I will ask everyone to prevent further speculation on whether he was cheating or not until the WDC releases a report and hopefully the WEC and Board can look into how this was handled. Thank you everyone for the support and remaining civil.


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## Riley M (Dec 27, 2018)

One Wheel said:


> As someone who hasn’t (yet) done big blind, I will say that 6 vs. 16 minutes 4BLD and 9 vs. 37 minutes 5BLD looks suspicious, and the issue of no one in the room except the same judge for the questionable big blind attempts seems VERY problematic.


Earlier, Fabiano stated that does safe solves, so is first solves are slower. This is intentional and a legitimate BLD strategy to my understanding.


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## pglewis (Dec 27, 2018)

It's 2018 and cameras are dirt cheap. I'm surprised the WCA hasn't yet required a camera per table to look into these sorts of things.


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## One Wheel (Dec 27, 2018)

Riley M said:


> Earlier, Fabiano stated that does safe solves, so is first solves are slower. This is intentional and a legitimate BLD strategy to my understanding.


Fair enough, but was he running up against a cumulative time limit, or did he get a second slow success between the 37 minute 5BLD DNF and the 9 minute success? Was the judge the same for those two attempts, or were there different judges?


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 27, 2018)

One Wheel said:


> Fair enough, but was he running up against a cumulative time limit, or did he get a second slow success between the 37 minute 5BLD DNF and the 9 minute success? Was the judge the same for those two attempts, or were there different judges?



1. The event had a 60min cumulative limit, Bo3 format;

2. The 37min solve was an overly safe attempt indeed followed by the 9min success - Having already secured my podium with the latter, I simply DNS'd the third one;

3. The judge was the same. I don't know whether he volunteered or was picked by the delegates.


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## xyzzy (Dec 27, 2018)

pglewis said:


> It's 2018 and cameras are dirt cheap. I'm surprised the WCA hasn't yet required a camera per table to look into these sorts of things.


One camera is dirt cheap.

One camera multiplied by the number of tables used multiplied by the total number of competitions probably isn't. (Yes, they can be reused across comps, etc. etc. etc. but my point is, you can't judge the expenses required just from how expensive a single camera is.)


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## pglewis (Dec 27, 2018)

xyzzy said:


> One camera is dirt cheap.
> 
> One camera multiplied by the number of tables used multiplied by the total number of competitions probably isn't. (Yes, they can be reused across comps, etc. etc. etc. but my point is, you can't judge the expenses required just from how expensive a single camera is.)



Yeah, I'm a developer and we're quite adept at hand-waving past the details when considering solutions . I would imagine it's perfectly feasible to cover two solving stations with a single camera so it'd probably require roughly half the number of cameras as StackMats needed for a comp. Then there are the logistics involved in what to do with the footage, how long to archive it in case of incident, all sorts of potential snags and added workload. 

I think it's fortunate that there was security camera footage to allow reconstruction of the recent 3x3 single and I think footage would have likely resolved these incidents to everyone's satisfaction. I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse, I'm sure this discussion has come up before despite not having seen it myself.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 27, 2018)

xyzzy said:


> One camera is dirt cheap.
> 
> One camera multiplied by the number of tables used multiplied by the total number of competitions probably isn't. (Yes, they can be reused across comps, etc. etc. etc. but my point is, you can't judge the expenses required just from how expensive a single camera is.)


Just something I saw on fb the other day, I’m personally going to be buying one or two to test out at comps and if they work well we will do it more. While I think it shouldn’t be required (at least for a long time) it’s doable with a low budget. It’s only capable of solving incidents in the last 3 hours. Cost aren’t too bad at $30 per station, about the same cost as a stackmat. For just smaller local comps it would probably take 1-2 competition proceeds to pay them off. 

Camera link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=272950894907

Example video:


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## mark49152 (Dec 27, 2018)

Mike Hughey said:


> Thanks, Mark. That does lessen my concerns somewhat. Although a specific description of how the false result was achieved is not directly given there, it is certainly true that some possible explanations are implied by that post.


To be clear, I reposted Lorenzo's statement for information because so many people are opining on how he has handled the case; I was not meaning to imply support one way or the other in this case. Indeed I do have an opinion, but it is irrelevant (as are most people's, to be frank).

Personally I'm a little disappointed at the lack of confidence that some parts of the community have in the people and processes of the WCA. It was made clear by the WDC that this investigation would be reopened if additional evidence were presented. We also have processes of appeal, the oversight of the Ethics Committee if the WDC falls short, and indeed of the Board itself. All of this organisation and process exists for the purpose of ensuring fair outcomes, and we should have confidence that they can and will achieve that, and let them get on with their jobs.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 27, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> To be clear, I reposted Lorenzo's statement for information because so many people are opining on how he has handled the case; I was not meaning to imply support one way or the other in this case. Indeed I do have an opinion, but it is irrelevant (as are most people's, to be frank).
> 
> Personally I'm a little disappointed at the lack of confidence that some parts of the community have in the people and processes of the WCA. It was made clear by the WDC that this investigation would be reopened if additional evidence were presented. We also have processes of appeal, the oversight of the Ethics Committee if the WDC falls short, and indeed of the Board itself. All of this organisation and process exists for the purpose of ensuring fair outcomes, and we should have confidence that they can and will achieve that, and let them get on with their jobs.



Starting to agree with you a bit. The appeal has been submitted and they have reopened. Now we just play the waiting game.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 27, 2018)

> Fabio didn’t even want to record a 30 seconds video for a 3x3 solution.


a little off... but i still think there was no wrongdoing


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## Sajwo (Dec 28, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> 3. The judge was the same. I don't know whether he volunteered or was picked by the delegates.



I like how the OP straight up ignored this fact. You must agree that this is *very *suspicious and for sure something went wrong at those competitions. Not a single delegate would allow the same person to judge you over and over again. For the same reason PSS (Polish Speedcubing "Association") required judges to pick random competitors and disallowed judging the same person a few times in a row some time ago after Zalewski incident.

If the decision was up to me, I would DNF your attempts anyway just because there was possibility that you cheated.


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## campos20 (Dec 28, 2018)

First I'd like to start by saying I really like Fábio de’Rose for the funny, helpful and smart person he is. He stood at my parents for a competition, I left him alone at my place during another (while I was busy) and we always kept a friendly relationship. Hopefully, this shows how much I used trust him. I’m a little disappointed at him because of what I think he did during these incidents and it’s quite painful to think of this again, since I was ready to let this go, but I think he’s misleading a few people here. There is a lot of information on this thread, I’ll just point those I know or I think that are lies.

The ban was posted on nov/20th. On the same day, he said to me he was looking for a new job. The day before, he had plenty of time to do a lot of posts/reply on reddit, 13 posts, if you count from midnight to 11:59 p.m.

The latest one

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/9ydo1w/_/ea2nail

This includes a description of a MBLD attempt.

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/9y3enp/_/ea0dm6f

You can check for yourself here.

Also, on the same day the announcement was made, he posted/replied 21 times during all the day long. So, I'm finding hard to agree that he was in such a hurry working and studying that he did not have 15 min to record the video then for WDC. It was not a weekend.

I’m posting about Reddit here because he blocked me on Facebook and WhatsApp days after the ban.

About what you said regarding the top cubers, I believe Sebastiano answered in a decent way, therefore I'm leaving it.

About the chair blocking the way in. It was there, I saw it (and at least 3 other competitors). As you can see, I was there too during his first attempt. I left the room since I was organizing stuff and I spent over 40 min on a total DNF. About 15 or 20 min later, I decided to check on him. The chair was clearly blocking the way in and it was not there when I left. I could move it out, but I thought this would make some noise, so I let it be. This chair also kept the guy who was recording stuff during Brasileiro2018 from going in. The chair was clearly put there by someone who did not wanted to let people in.

I was also at Mineirim, where he got his 28+ (later DNFed) solve. I remember him coughing but it was really occasional. A healthy person could cough like that, I don’t think I'd be affected by it if it were with me. There’s another thing I remember. We were all ready for MBLD, he stood and said “I need to go to the toilet”. The delegate said “can’t it wait? We’re about to start here”. Fabio replied “I can’t” and he left the area. The delegate wanted to wait for him to start, since the cubes were already scrambled. We waited him for about 8 min when I said to the delegate “Diego Meneghetti and me are using the full hour, if we don’t start without him, this will disturb the schedule”. We started, so I’m not sure when he returned. That's the only thing I remember regarding possible illness there.

About the reconstruction of his 28+, it was made just after the solve, not a couple of days after. Diego asked the delegate for the scramble and presented Fabio with it and asked how he did it. He reconstructed it, perfectly, I was there. He was calm and steady during it. His description included just regular comms with simple setups, not an R2 setup for 3 comms as claimed here (isn't it strange how could he reconstruct a R2 if it were a misscramble?). He posted another reconstruction on Facebook and then, after the video, he started claiming misscramble.

About Diego’s behavior. He was always a loyal competitor and I don’t think he would try to attack Fábio just because Fábio was a threat to him. Before that, Israel Fraga got a 28 and Diego did not make a thing. Israel even beat him on a competition. I believe Israel is more a threat to Diego then Fábio is, so it would make no sense to attack Fábio and let Israel be. Diego has a past of fighting against cheaters, like a guy who just inverted an FMC scramble and added a few redundant moves to cover it up. At the time, they both got a 29 single SAR. Diego asked to see it and warned the delegate about the inverse scramble thing. This was before the RUF addition.

About the judge, I trust the guy. He might be a little inattentive, and he definitely can’t tell the difference between a 3style solve on a 5x5 a yau5 solve, but I don’t think he can take part on any cheating. I believe he is just another victim here, since people are questioning whether he helped a competitor to cheat or not.

I was also at the South American championship. I did not see him entering, but I did not talk to him there. Since he blocked me everywhere he could, I decided to respect his decision, perhaps he got upset by how I was gathering information about the incidents so I could choose a side here, instead of trusting a friend just because of the friendship. What I know is that a few people really made he feel home there.

And finally, I was the first person to suspect Fábio’s acts. On Feb/2017, we competed together for the first time and I was a little afraid of him, that’s why I remember him. I was there trying to get podium on 3BLD (after driving 750 km) and he used to post solves in around 1 min on Facebook. He DNFed there with 7 and 8 minutes, he did not even try the third one. I thought “how can someone around 1 min get a 7 min DNF?”. He continued to get DNFs in competitions (11 in a row) and he was posting sub1 videos on Facebook. His first official success was a sub3 after a lot of sub1 videos. This is the only thing I have no proof. He deleted all messages of the Facebook group in which he posted such times (I really would like to see again some videos from early 2017). At the time, by July/2017, I spoke both to Diego Meneghetti and Israel Fraga I thought Fábio faked videos for Facebook and possibly for YouTube. They both defended Fábio saying they believed him, despite neither of them had competed with him back then. Diego and Israel used to believe Fábio mostly because of his questions about BLD and how helpful he was for the new BLDers. After he got his first success, I decided to trust on Diego's and Israel's analysis. If these 2 top BLDers believed, why shouldn’t I? I even said this to Fabio: “I thought you were fake, but now I believe you” during Silent Swap 2017. Looking back now, I wish I kept suspecting, at least I’d have stayed with him and the judge at the room when he got the 9 min success.

I do have 1 thing that show we can suspect his posts on internet. On Jan/30th/2017, he posted a 15,63 3x3 avg. 12 days later, he got a 36,92 official avg. Even Feliks used to fake some solves on the internet (like starting with a cross already done) to impress fellows, but he was like 12 years old or so. I know other competitors who used to fake solves and became good at it anyway (like Antônio), but Fábio was already over 30 years old when he started competing, no need to impress people to try to look good, I think.

About his videos on YouTube, I just have one thing to say. When we had the Jake Klassen incident, Fábio said on our WhatsApp group that Jake should record “long sessions of solves as proof”, Fabio even said he spoke that to Jake himself. Fábio should do as he said and record long sessions of solves, but his channel just have 1 solve each video.

There are some other strange things here that I did not include (like he asking around for a cube before getting the 9 min success. Why did he need a 5x5? Doesn’t he already had one or how did he practice?), but I included mostly things I have proof of.

I think the original poster (and others) has 2 ways here: believe there’s some sort of conspiracy against Fábio de’Rose including delegates, (former?) friends, fellow competitors, WDC or believe the he might be mislead by a competitor accused of something and that is telling lies to convince people about a conspiracy.

It looks like he told you a few lies to convince you (lack of time, position of the chair, time of reconstruction for a start). So, shall we agree that he could be misleading you?

I think the best closure here would be he saying "OK guys, I did something wrong and I feel deeply sorry". He could inform WCA about how he did it so we could improve competitions all over the world, the ban would be suspended, we'd all accept him back with open arms and he could get good results with his own efforts only right away. Of course some things would change, like we would look him closer, but that's a small price to pay, I'm sure he enjoy cubing.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

First of all Campos, thank you for posting your side of the story.

I’d like to reiterate my and your right to post opinions in this thread backed by evidence, whether it be right or wrong. I however, believe I am in the right here.

First of all, this is 100 percent not a conspiracy and I am trying not to get people to believe in a conspiracy theory, I’m pointing out the ways the WDC handled the investigation and the community in your country before and after.

In fact, if you believe this is a conspiracy, take yourself over to reddit yourself and ask people about the Fabio situation. People have been shocked and confused and angry, always saying and describing the ban as a witch-hunt and a completely unfair punishment. I posted this on reddit, and even though I posted it at the wrong time of day. I still got support and even Reddit Gold. People believe in Fabio, not just me as you seem to word it. (Apologies if I misunderstood.)

*Quick Edit: The reddit comment was not necessarily evidence towards my case, it was just showing the general support of the subreddit, even though experience may be low.*

Also, yes, I am a bit biased here, but I didn’t really want to email a WDC member with a list of questions and interrupt any type of investigation they may be conducting out of general kindness.

Also, I should also mention Fabio is starting to record his sessions as proof (for multi however) and I have encouraged him myself to start these for bigblinds and blind and possibly livestream his practice sessions.

On me suspecting Diego. You basically confirmed what I said earlier. You say above that Diego has gone out to cheaters in the past. I get that someone else beat him, but what if he thought Fabio cheated, and decided to take action? Ever since, As he told me during his account, Diego seemed to have a spite against him. As you said, this may not be true, but once again, I trust him.

I understand that there was one delegate at the competition. Fabio claims he received a reconstruction request 2 days after the comp, and you claim it was just after, there is definitely a collision of thoughts in this story and I hope that you both can clear up discrepancies.

However, I do believe you missed the full point of the rant, which was how the WDC handled the investigation of the case, which was in a guilty until proven innocent case, biased, and was banned only on speculation without evidence of any cheating.

Like Mike and others said, I’m trying to point out that the WDC may be setting a dangerous precedent here for the future of scrutinizing new competitors for unexpected solves. I agree that the WDC should investigate suspicious results, but in an unbiased and innocent until proven guilt way. This was the main point of the rant.

I may be right, I may be wrong about Fabio. I just wanted to get this off my chest to a speedcubing platform where I can address my own opinions on things that matter to me.

To prevent myself from imploding, I will attempt to refrain from responding until the final decision is posted. Worst case, he waits out the ban and comes back a better and more skilled competitor. Also, I’m getting close to requesting a lock as I am sure this post has 100 percent served it’s purpose, but I will leave it open until the decision is made.

Edit:


> I like how the OP straight up ignored this fact. You must agree that this is very suspicious and for sure something went wrong at those competitions. Not a single delegate would allow the same person to judge you over and over again. For the same reason PSS (Polish Speedcubing "Association") required judges to pick random competitors and disallowed judging the same person a few times in a row some time ago after Zalewski incident.
> 
> If the decision was up to me, I would DNF your attempts anyway just because there was possibility that you cheated.



I didn’t ignore the fact, I just didn’t ask him about he judge. Campos clears any concern about the judge.

It’s common to get a judge possibly more than once here in Colorado, as I once got the same person 3 times in a 3x3 round, sometimes back to back. I don’t know if this is common in Brazil.

Also, another point I should mention: If you think the judge wasn’t involved and neither was the delegate, then how, in other ways, did he cheat the solve? I understand the idea of peeking, which With a music stand, harmonica holder and paper I’m pretty sure is impossible unless he was standing during his attempt.

Sorry about the grammar instances, I’m on mobile.


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## Sajwo (Dec 28, 2018)

@*weatherman223*

How exactly do you want us to provide solid evidence of him cheating when he was *alone* with *the same judge *during those attempts?

Here is how I see it:
- He put a chair/sign preventing other people from entering the room where he obtained his results.
- He was alone in the room without any supervision from someone else than the judge which most likely was his friend/inexperienced cuber (doesn't even matter at this point which one)
- Has a history of faking solves on youtube and claiming false times on reddit (campos20 provided links)
- Uncooperative behaviour and lack of respect for WCA officials
- Didn't record the solves straight away, because he allegedly didn't have time (not true, as for the couple of days he was fighting on facebook for *hours* over this. Recording sighted execution would probably take him <5 minutes.)
- Hiding uncomfortable facts in this thread

For me, it is *evidence beyond reasonable doubt*. With all my heart, I wish that after reopening the investigation he will be banned for at least 3+ years.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

Sajwo said:


> @*weatherman223*
> 
> How exactly do you want us to provide solid evidence of him cheating when he was *alone* with *the same judge *during those attempts?
> 
> ...


I haven’t heard of this chair thing before so I’m not sure why everyone is bringing it up, how was it placed exactly? Inside our outside the room?

Yeah he was alone, not the competitors fault 

I don’t see any fake videos and you can’t really prove those claims. Also people claiming false times at home =/= cheating an official wca competition and getting great results lol. 

I have read the email and he may have been sassy but only when Lorenzo was rude.the only way in which he didn’t cooperate was in sending video evidence (which his channel provided except 5bld)

Well he didn’t record the solves for a while why would he record them straight away, also I was messaging him at the time of his ban announcement and he was out of town visiting family and didn’t have a cube on him. He could reply but not send in any solves.

Example of hiding uncomfortable facts? 

Evidence beyond reasonable doubt =/= assumptions that imply someone cheating lol. The only way we have evidence beyond reasonable doubt is if video evidence is provided or if fabiano confesses to cheating.


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## Sajwo (Dec 28, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> Yeah he was alone, not the competitors fault



Someone above said that he placed a chair preventing people from entering so yes, it is 100% his fault he was alone there.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Sorry @Sajwo, I was mainly talking to Campos when I was asking about evidence. This came off a little misconstrued.

I respect your opinion even though it seems a little crazy and I hope you respect mine as well.

I was about to type a response but Samuel beat me to it, and expressed all the points I wanted to and that faking at home doesn’t align with good results in comp.

Also @Underwatercuber it seems that someone placed a chair outside of the room to prevent entry. Fabio says it wasnt him, everyone else says it was him.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

campos20 said:


> First I'd like to start by saying I really like Fábio de’Rose for the funny, helpful and smart person he is. He stood at my parents for a competition, I left him alone at my place during another (while I was busy) and we always kept a friendly relationship. Hopefully, this shows how much I used trust him. I’m a little disappointed at him because of what I think he did during these incidents and it’s quite painful to think of this again, since I was ready to let this go, but I think he’s misleading a few people here. There is a lot of information on this thread, I’ll just point those I know or I think that are lies.
> 
> The ban was posted on nov/20th. On the same day, he said to me he was looking for a new job. The day before, he had plenty of time to do a lot of posts/reply on reddit, 13 posts, if you count from midnight to 11:59 p.m.
> 
> ...


Could you re-explain the chair thing again? Was it placed inside the room or outside?


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Alright, I just found this reddit comment that basically just /threads this. It was a reply to mine basically mentioning something in the thread and if anyone agreed. The community response aligns with my side.

Much credit given to /u/g253


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/aa77mk/_/ecqilmd


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> Sorry @Sajwo, I was mainly talking to Campos when I was asking about evidence. This came off a little misconstrued.
> 
> I respect your opinion even though it seems a little crazy and I hope you respect mine as well.
> 
> ...


Either the judge place the chair, in which there should be consequences for him (also would become a cheating conspiracy but probably not the case, or Fabio himself blocked the way into the room. That should lead to even more of a punishment. Also, If the WCA or WDC sees this then they should add a regulation so that a camera or a trusted person (besides the judge) should be in the "quiet room" when no delegate is present for ensuring no cheating is happening.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> Either the judge place the chair, in which there should be consequences for him (also would become a cheating conspiracy but probably not the case, or Fabio himself blocked the way into the room. That should lead to even more of a punishment. Also, If the WCA or WDC sees this then they should add a regulation so that a camera or a trusted person (besides the judge) should be in the "quiet room" when no delegate is present for ensuring no cheating is happening.


Or the delegate can do their job ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

Underwatercuber said:


> Or the delegate can do their job ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Their job being to magically see through walls to monitor both rooms?


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> Their job being to magically see through walls to monitor both rooms?



There's something called walking. You should really look into it.


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## campos20 (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> I understand that there was one delegate at the competition. Fabio claims he received a reconstruction request 2 days after the comp, and you claim it was just after, there is definitely a collision of thoughts in this story and I hope that you both can clear up discrepancies.


This is the most clear part of it. 5 people confirmed the reconstruction was asked even before the end of the round and I watched it.

Diego (do you think he is tendentious? Discard his opinion, you still have 4 of them).
Myself
The delegate (he received the cube and scrambled it)
The guy who recorded the video of his final seconds of the solve
The organizer
Remove the word conspiracy I mentioned, and I never implied you are started one, as you mentioned. But if Fabio is legit, a lot of people that were actually there with him is wrong.

About how WDC conducted the investigation, when this all started I thought "if I was in charge of it, how would I conduct it?". I think it's a very difficult position, all my respect for his hard work on this case.



weatherman223 said:


> it seems that someone placed a chair outside of the room to prevent entry. Fabio says it wasnt him, everyone else says it was him.



I'm a teacher and I've had about 3000 different students over the past 5 years. I'm proud that, among other things, I can recognize some students by its handwriting while they are studying with me. The chair had a sign on a paper placed on it saying "BLD area, keep it quiet" or something like that. When I read the sign, I recognized his handwriting at the time, since he did some written joke somewhere else. I don't think I could recognize it by now. Besides, who else would be interested in doing so?



Underwatercuber said:


> Could you re-explain the chair thing again? Was it placed inside the room or outside?


This is the room (actually, a corridor on the back of the venue)

​
You can see his judge, Fabio, me and the guy who was taking pictures of everyone (not of the second attempt, because of the chair). The chair was standing where I was (my left leg would be touching the chair), blocking the way in from outside. You couldn't even peek inside without moving the chair or going over it (by kneeing or something, risking making some noise during an ongoing BLD event). I did not try to move the chair out of empathy with a fellow BLDer. There was 2 types of chairs on the venue: plastic one, light, mostly used for WF solving and metal one, heavy. The chair blocking the way in was the made of metal one. About the position where Fabio was solving, he chose the most far place.

​
This is the opposite view. Pic was taken before the comp, we were studying the venue (I was one of the organizers). Fabio moved his table so it was touching those green pipes when he got the 9 min (I saw him moving his table. Since I was about to leave, I said "hey, move your table to the center, better lighting" and he replied "actually, here on the corners is perfect, just like the light of my bedroom, where I practice"). You can see the entrance and how a chair could block the way. People from outside couldn't even look.

Now, some more evidences

When he got the 26+2=8, he spent 7 seconds on 2 comms. If it were an easy misscramble, it would be like 7 comms. Considering this speed, it would take 24s just the execution. Now another possible scenario. If he got a fast memo, it would be like 8 s. The video I've seen starts at 19, so he would need 11 s to quickly execute 5 comms (almost 5 tps) and then 7 seconds to execute 2 slow comms, for some reason (almost 3 tps). The video includes a D2 after making a comm on the U face, so the D2 was useless here. This D2 led to the +2. Also, he has the entire recorded video, but he posted just the reaction on his channel (not to mention the pic with solved edges at 14, as Lorenzo posted), he didn't post the slow turning 28+ BLD.
Correct reconstruction just after the attempt, he posted another reconstruction featuring an R2 setup and then he started claiming misscramble.
On our WhatsApp group, about 1 week before the 9 min success, he posted that he got his first success in 5BLD in about 30 min.
People can confirm what is listed here. I don't know the details of the investigation and how much more info from other sources they have. I have more info but these are the most relevant somehow.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> There's something called walking. You should really look into it.


But walking through a barricaded door is possible to whom?


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> But walking through a barricaded door is possible to whom?


Theres also a really cool body function where you can lift stuff and move it out of the way. You should try it.


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## One Wheel (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> But walking through a barricaded door is possible to whom?


Anybody with ready access to a fourth spacial dimension. Seriously, though, I can understand wanting to keep spectators out but if the delegate felt like he couldn’t get in to the room that ought to be reason enough to stop the attempt immediately.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

One Wheel said:


> Anybody with ready access to a fourth spacial dimension. Seriously, though, I can understand wanting to keep spectators out but if the delegate felt like he couldn’t get in to the room that ought to be reason enough to stop the attempt immediately.



But it’s a chair. The delegate can move the chair to the side and enter the room. Besides, we don’t know who moved the chair there in the first place

Edit: wrong posts quoted.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> But it’s a chair. The delegate can move the chair to the side and enter the room. Besides, we don’t know who moved the chair there in the first place
> 
> Edit: wrong posts quoted.


If there was a collusion with the solves and it required a chair to get away, then the chair would be somewhat heavy


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## One Wheel (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> The delegate can move the chair to the side and enter the room.


Presumably, yes. I don’t find the chair argument entirely convincing, but it does support a pattern.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

One Wheel said:


> Presumably, yes. I don’t find the chair argument entirely convincing, but it does support a pattern.



Sure, it does, however like that reddit post I quoted earlier, it doesn’t fit his character to go out of his way to cheat at turning a piece of plastic. 

I mean, it could have been anyone placing a chair. Someone that wasn’t affiliated with the blind events may have put the chair there in good measure and didn’t mean harm.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

Or it could just be overreacted privacy


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> Their job being to magically see through walls to monitor both rooms?


Delegates description from wca site
“The primary duty of a Delegate is to oversee competitions on behalf of the WCA. A WCA Delegate is responsible for making sure that all WCA Competitions are run according to the Mission, Spirit, and Regulations of the WCA.”

A delegate should have been in that room the whole time ideally, if not even assigning a trusted friend to watch over. Also the fact that there were 3 delegates at the comp and only 66 competitors is surprising to me, locally our delegate has to watch over far more people and many other places have similar situations. And guess what, if a delegate was there doing their job we wouldn’t have a single problem right now other than the misscramble which would just be a DNF and probably no bad.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

o I thought there was only one delegate at the comp


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> o I thought there was only one delegate at the comp



Nope, Campeonato Brasileiro 2018 had 3 delegates.


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> o I thought there was only one delegate at the comp


 if there is one delegate there probably shouldn’t be more than one room. When i organized my first comp i wanted 2 rooms (one bld one non-bld) he wouldn’t allow it since he couldn’t watch over both simultaneously. While I don’t think there is anything saying a delegate has to be present watching all competitors I think something should be changed in the regs to make sure we don’t have problems like this again. Having a delegate solves almost the entirety of this whole fiasco and can help stop lots of other problems.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Also Campos, thank you for responding, but what you said seems clear. I can’t respond that well today but thank you for clearing your post up. I’ll put this in the OP.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 28, 2018)

WillyTheWizard said:


> ]fabio is awfully quiet on this thread all of the sudden



Or maybe I'm busy with other things? I'm watching the thread occasionally and have plenty of comments to make on some of Campos' allegations. But if I'm to do it, I'd rather do so with a clear head, at home and away from distractions. 

Also please keep in mind my appeal process is still ongoing, and is also strongly supported by actual evidence instead of mere speculations.

(It's not "all of a sudden" also, lol, just asynchronous communication)


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Alright. I made the point of my rant clear, which was to mainly criticize the WDC on their investigation. 

I am not requesting a lock, but I will no longer be responding to comments as occasionally just to preserve the original point of the OP. I will be leaving the decision to you guys: Did the WDC investigate this in a professional and unbiased way? Why or why not? (Note this is not about if he cheated or not.) As well, what is your opinion on the communities reaction? 

Thanks for responding and chiming in to the post. I appreciate hearing both sides of the story this week. 

I’d also like to apologize to Campos for the way I worded the reddit comment, I was a bit rushed and didn’t reread before I submitted. I can’t access my reddit account due to a time limit set by parental controls but I will look into it tomorrow. 

I will repeat: 
Did the WDC investigate this in a professional and unbiased way? Why or why not? (Note this is not about if he cheated or not.) As well, what is your opinion on the communities reaction?


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## Kit Clement (Dec 28, 2018)

weatherman223 said:


> Alright. I made the point of my rant clear, which was to mainly criticize the WDC on their investigation.
> 
> I am not requesting a lock, but I will no longer be responding to comments as occasionally just to preserve the original point of the OP. I will be leaving the decision to you guys: Did the WDC investigate this in a professional and unbiased way? Why or why not? (Note this is not about if he cheated or not.) As well, what is your opinion on the communities reaction?
> 
> ...



To me, all you've shown is that you believe that WDC investigations are super simple and that there is always an easy way to carry them out that hurts no-one's feelings. Or that support from people on Reddit (many of whom have 0 experience with the incidents, including yourself) or your posts receiving Reddit gold are actual evidence in this investigation. I agree that Fabio is a super nice and helpful guy on Reddit, but the hive mind of that community is anything but evidence.


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## Dancing Jules (Dec 28, 2018)

Fabio said himself that he wrote the note about "BLD ongoing, please be quiet / do not disturb" after asking a delegate. So the fact that it's his handwriting, isn't surprising.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Kit Clement said:


> To me, all you've shown is that you believe that WDC investigations are super simple and that there is always an easy way to carry them out that hurts no-one's feelings. Or that support from people on Reddit (many of whom have 0 experience with the incidents, including yourself) or your posts receiving Reddit gold are actual evidence in this investigation. I agree that Fabio is a super nice and helpful guy on Reddit, but the hive mind of that community is anything but evidence.



WDC investigations, as I believe, are complex and do require lots of time to carry out, as do most other investigations in other organizations and the real world. However, the main point I was making was not “simplicity” I was making the point of “unfairness”.

And no, community support is definitely not evidence. I was using it for a completely different reason. If this got misconstrued, I heavily apologize. I’ll go back and check the post.

I’ll clarify really quickly I appreciate all that you do for the community and I appreciate you taking the time to read my rant, whether you agree or not.

Edit: I may be misunderstanding this but when you say that the community has 0 experience in these types of incidents, are you also assuming everyone else in this thread who also has 0 experience with incidents is bandwagoning or wrong? (I understand others have experience in this thread)


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 28, 2018)

Dancing Jules said:


> Fabio said himself that he wrote the note about "BLD ongoing, please be quiet / do not disturb" after asking a delegate. So the fact that it's his handwriting, isn't surprising.



Just to quickly clarify: There was a "please be quiet" sign right by the scrambler's table, but it wasn't handwritten.

(And I did indeed ask one of the delegates if it was ok to hang it there, which was next to the entrance, to which he obliged).

Side note: I'm still drafting an answer to Campos' allegations because many false claims have been made there.

What matters, however, is that my actual appeal procedures are ongoing with whom they concern. And hopefully we will all find common ground, all backed by facts and evidence.

Edit: clarity


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## Underwatercuber (Dec 28, 2018)

ComputerGuy365 said:


> I still don't ****ing get how Ushakov's situation is any different from this. All of the "proof" seems to be speculation. But then again, I guess we don't know what Lorenzo saw. I still think that info should be made public so we know the decisions weren't made unjustly.


“I saw some reference to Ushakov’s case in the comments of the other post. This is not like that case. Ushakov always replied on point to our questions, always cooperated during the investigation.”
-lorenzo

The fact he said this is surprising to me, as leader of the WDC you would expect a bit more professionalism but instead you take a jab at fabiano because some sass and compare him to arguably the most famous cheater in the wca (except maybe matyas). Not only that but it makes it sound like you can get away with cheating if you cooperate


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## T1_M0 (Dec 28, 2018)

It feels like there are tons of people arguing with very minimal knowledge or experience in blindsolving.

Getting 37 and 9 minute 5bld attempts on the same round is mainly impossible within normal circumstances (as @porkynator stated). Going safe is nonsense as an explanation since there's no way you would spend extra 20 minutes on memo, when you should be able to memo the whole cube multiple times in that time. There's no reason to do that intentionally either.

Given only that, I'd say it's most probable that the competitor cheated in some way. Add in the fact that he achieved similar very suspicious results in 3/4bld with the same judge, it's almost certain that something hasn't been right.

According to wdc, fabio reconstructed the 3bld solve on the spot, said he was sure it was not a misscramble but suddenly, as a video evidence was presented, he changed the story (video showed the state wasn't matching the scramble, and additionally, his execution was way slower than what it should've been). Wdc has also stated that they have been asking for a video of fabio's bigbld execution methods, which he's failed to provide (seems like he's definitely trying to hide the truth (if the wca consulted me about me about the legitness of my results with false assumptions, I'd definitely do everything I could to prevent any suspicions).

Definitely seems like a right decision to me.

Additionally, Fabio has spent very much time with writing replys to all discussions about the case, which contradicts his statement about being busy with other things. Maybe his goal is to win the community by his side rather than actually providing the evidence wdc asks, since he actually is incapable of the results he's fighting for.


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Alright guys. It seems that my rant has 100 percent more or less served its purpose. I was able to tell the community about the investigation and, in my personal opinion, how unfair it was, along with a negative community reaction before and after. This thread will be locked in the next few days, or even hours, whenever I feel like the discussion should come to an end. I have no further opinion or comment. Please keep it on topic of the rant, whether it be the community or the investigation, and not how Fabio could or couldn’t have cheated. (I made the same mistake).

Thank you all for reading. This was my first time doing this. Even though it was controversial it was definitely worth writing my opinions and getting it off my chest. I hope we can ALL continue great relationships on the forum and enjoy cubing together.

Disclaimer: I am not “wussing” out because I feel like I lost, I feel like it’s best to prevent further hate and arguing.

Edit: If you feel like continuing debating, feel free to make a separate thread.


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## WillyTheWizard (Dec 28, 2018)

Fair enough


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## weatherman223 (Dec 28, 2018)

Thread lock request submitted.


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## Fábio De'Rose (Dec 29, 2018)

I'll try to keep this as straightforward as possible, , addressing only the most relevant points (in my opinion, sure, but feel free to ask about any particular points if you wish) and claims which had not been brought up before.

I'll also stick to facts and try my best not dwell on personal matters or clutter this with irrelevant anecdotes.



campos20 said:


> posted on nov/20th. On the same day, he said to me he was looking for a new job. The day before, he had plenty of time to do a lot of posts/reply on reddit, 13 posts, if you count from midnight to 11:59 p.m.
> 
> The latest one
> 
> ...



The request for videos happened way before the ban was announced, so I find it rather intellectually dishonest that one would twist the time-line of events in such a way. I'll cut him some slack, however, since as far as I know, my email exchanges with the WDC had been taking place under confidentiality, so it's somewhat justifiable that one would perceive the situation in such a misinformed way. 

After I informed the WDC that I could not record the vídeos when those were requested and in the manner in which those were requested - again, I never refused to provide them with anything, I also expected to hear back from them with a counter-proposal as to how could I provide them with evidence on a way that would both be satisfactory for them and doable for me during this period. I never heard back, and then about one month after this, the ban was laid - yet I was never informed about it.

The only response I received was after issuing the appeal (which has indeed included the requested vídeos, which have been - to the best of my knowledge, sent for review by actual world class blind solvers) and thus the investigation was reopened. I'm just mentioning this for full context. 



campos20 said:


> About the reconstruction of his 28+, it was made just after the solve, not a couple of days after. Diego asked the delegate for the scramble and presented Fabio with it and asked how he did it. He reconstructed it, perfectly, I was there. He was calm and steady during it. His description included just regular comms with simple setups, not an R2 setup for 3 comms as claimed here (isn't it strange how could he reconstruct a R2 if it were a misscramble?). He posted another reconstruction on Facebook and then, after the video, he started claiming misscramble.



I'd like to specifically point out, in regards to the last paragraph:

That competitor in question did not ask me about the full reconstruction, and I was never shown the full scramble. He had asked me about one aspect of the solve only - This has also happened after the round was over.

The * full * reconstruction was only made possible after the delegate had sent me the full scramble, days after the competition was over. This has been discussed at length with the WDC already. 

Only after doing the reconstruction, now with the actual scramble at hand (as well as the video) and discussing the matter with other people is that I was also wondering whether it could have been a misscramble. I never denied this possibility and this concern was never raised during the entire course of the competition by anyone.

Bottomline is, as much as it appears as Campos is intentionally bending the time-line of events, again I'll give him the benefit of doubt and assume he is merely misinformed. 



campos20 said:


> and he used to post solves in around 1 min on Facebook. He DNFed there with 7 and 8 minutes, he did not even try the third one. I thought “how can someone around 1 min get a 7 min DNF?”. He continued to get DNFs in competitions (11 in a row) and he was posting sub1 videos on Facebook.



Lorena Open happened in February, 2017. It was my first time competing in 3BLD; Back then I was far, way far from getting 1min solves. I never posted vídeos doing sub 1 BLD solves on Facebook leading up to this competition (this is actually a laughably false claim from Campos, just read my post history from Reddit and you'll see most of my progression reports). In fact, my first sub-minute solve happened in May that same year, here's the video: 




Cumulative time limit @ Lorena Open was 20 minutes. My first attempt took (roughly) 11 minutes, and the second one was cut short when I reached the limit, about 9 minutes in (give or take). That's why my third attempt was a DNS. 

Campos keep claiming I have many sub 1 vídeos on Facebook but he can't find those, which is a convenient excuse now that he no longer has access to my profile. For reference on my 3BLD learning curve, I suggest he digs a bit deeper into reddit and ask around there. I also invite anyone who does access to my FB profile to look through my plethora of cat pictures and political rants to let me know if there's any such video as Campos claims.



campos20 said:


> His first official success was a sub3 after a lot of sub1 videos. This is the only thing I have no proof.



As stated above and hopefully made clear throughout not just this thread, but the investigation as a whole, this is far from being the only thing Campos has no proof of. He keeps making severely biased accusations and speculations, and providing zero evidence other than his subjective perception of my social media history as well as his objectively wrong recollection of events from years past (namely Lorena Open 2017). 



campos20 said:


> (I really would like to see again some videos from early 2017).



Sure:











My reddit history clearly shows a rather large amount of progress tracking, most notably about 3BLD after that first competition experience in February. It's open and public. 



campos20 said:


> (like he asking around for a cube before getting the 9 min success. Why did he need a 5x5? Doesn’t he already had one or how did he practice?)



Regarding this matter, I was looking for a borrowed replacement corner piece, specifically. This happened before the 5x5 Blindfolded round started at all, not in between attempts.

Context: My cube had a minor discoloration in one of the corner facelets, which I assumed would not make it competition legal. After consulting with two out of 3 delegates there, it was cleared off and I was allowed to use it. 

Now, in reference to his follow-up post, which contains what I can only consider a massive amount of blatant lies:. 



campos20 said:


> This is the most clear part of it. 5 people confirmed the reconstruction was asked even before the end of the round and I watched it.
> 
> Diego (do you think he is tendentious? Discard his opinion, you still have 4 of them).
> Myself
> ...



The conversation he claims having overheard, and to which there are allegedly all those witnesses, has happened after the round was over.

And that's for one simple reason which Campos conveniently ignores: There were so few competitors, we had fixed solving stations for each person. In other words, I only left the table after the round was over.

May I also remind anyone interested, that as explained and contextualized beforehand, the delegate (who's a close friend of Campos’, no less) has not only never raised any suspicion on my solve in question, which he actually watched me do with his own eyes and fromjust a couple feet away, with the cube he had (AFAIK) scrambled himself and brought to me just moments before.



campos20 said:


> I'm a teacher and I've had about 3000 different students over the past 5 years. I'm proud that, among other things, I can recognize some students by its handwriting while they are studying with me. The chair had a sign on a paper placed on it saying "BLD area, keep it quiet" or something like that. When I read the sign, I recognized his handwriting at the time, since he did some written joke somewhere else. I don't think I could recognize it by now. Besides, who else would be interested in doing so?



I suggest he consults his doctor for prescription glasses, because while there was indeed a “please be quiet” sign close to the entrance, it was not handwritten.



campos20 said:


> This is the room (actually, a corridor on the back of the venue)
> 
> View attachment 9832​
> You can see his judge, Fabio, me and the guy who was taking pictures of everyone (not of the second attempt, because of the chair). The chair was standing where I was (my left leg would be touching the chair), blocking the way in from outside. You couldn't even peek inside without moving the chair or going over it (by kneeing or something, risking making some noise during an ongoing BLD event). I did not try to move the chair out of empathy with a fellow BLDer.



Campos keeps insisting there was a chair blocking the entrance, so even though he carries the burden of proof, he has not offered substantial evidence to back up his claim at all.



> About 15 or 20 min later, I decided to check on him. The chair was clearly blocking the way in and it was not there when I left. I could move it out, but I thought this would make some noise, so I let it be.



This is the excuse Campos gives. As the organizer of a National Championship, experienced competitor and especially as someone who had been questioning my results for well over a year, why would he not remove the chair? Because of noise? Sure someone capable of solving a Rubik's Cube Blindfolded would be capable of moving a chair away without making too much noise, if any at all. This is a silly excuse, and pretty much settles the deal for me: not only he has no proof of the existence of this chair, he also fails to justify why said object, if it ever existed, wasn't moved away.

The following is exactly what I told the WDC. This is copy-paste directly from the very first e-mail I responded to about this investigation 



> Did you put a sign on a chair to prevent people from accessing the room where you were solving? Why did you do it?
> 
> There was a sign at use to prevent people from making noise, the "Please be silent" kind. The room had thin walls and was right behind the general competitors' area so it was a simple way to signal there was still a blind round happening. It was never put there to "prevent people from entering the room", as you described. I also specifically asked a delegate if it was OK to hang it by the entrance and they obliged. Side note: Same situation happened, for example, as with me providing my own harmonica holder as a support for the additional sight blocker, as per regulations of Blindfolded events (that is, where the competitor is expected to take a longer time to solve).



Perhaps something was lost in translation (notice how the WDC official asks “a sign on a chair”, not “a chair” so perhaps that's where this whole subject started at?) or Campos is intentionally twisting semantics here, but one fact remains true: I have not put any chair anywhere and unless he is able to back up his statements with evidence that this happened, as well as an explanation as to why neither one of the 3 delegates or the competition organizer (oh, wait, that was him) who allegedly took notice of said chair did not do anything about it during the course of the competition (which, had this situation really happened, should have been settled right there and then so either he is lying about this chair which neither he nor anyone has proven to even exist, or he's admitting to his [and the delegates’] incapacity of running a proper competition under the WCA regulations), I'd kindly suggest, again, that he refrains from spreading any further falsehoods and speculations. 



campos20 said:


> l
> There was 2 types of chairs on the venue: plastic one, light, mostly used for WF solving and metal one, heavy. The chair blocking the way in was the made of metal one. About the position where Fabio was solving, he chose the most far place.
> 
> View attachment 9833​
> This is the opposite view. Pic was taken before the comp, we were studying the venue (I was one of the organizers). Fabio moved his table so it was touching those green pipes when he got the 9 min (I saw him moving his table. Since I was about to leave, I said "hey, move your table to the center, better lighting" and he replied "actually, here on the corners is perfect, just like the light of my bedroom, where I practice"). You can see the entrance and how a chair could block the way. People from outside couldn't even look.



I was solving closest to the door because lighting was better there, as explained to the WCA official (as per the quote below). I never moved any tables, as there were plenty of those available covering nearly all of the wall space between the entrance and the back of the room, yet Campos conveniently provides a picture of an empty space.

I kindly refer now to another quote from my first email response directed towards the WDC official. 



> Why did you choose to move to another place for the second attempt?
> 
> Both attempts took place in the exact same room and at most I slightly moved the chair sideways, since light conditions at this venue were far from optimal and thus I chose to sit closer to the entrance.



Also I don't practice on my bedroom  If he or anyone wants to keep making up lies, I suggest they inform themselves better to at least make them somewhat plausible. 




campos20 said:


> When he got the 26+2=8, he spent 7 seconds on 2 comms. If it were an easy misscramble, it would be like 7 comms. Considering this speed, it would take 24s just the execution. Now another possible scenario. If he got a fast memo, it would be like 8 s. The video I've seen starts at 19, so he would need 11 s to quickly execute 5 comms (almost 5 tps) and then 7 seconds to execute 2 slow comms, for some reason (almost 3 tps). The video includes a D2 after making a comm on the U face, so the D2 was useless here. This D2 led to the +2. Also, he has the entire recorded video, but he posted just the reaction on his channel (not to mention the pic with solved edges at 14, as Lorenzo posted), he didn't post the slow turning 28+ BLD.





This was discussed at length during my initial appeal with the WDC,backed up by real specialists but if Campos wants a list of commutators that involve both doing D2s and affecting pieces on the U layer, I'll be happy to teach him some of those, lol. 



campos20 said:


> [*]Correct reconstruction just after the attempt, he posted another reconstruction featuring an R2 setup and then he started claiming misscramble.



Rhetorical question: How could I make a “correct reconstruction” unless I'm being presented with the actual scramble sequence? 



campos20 said:


> [*]On our WhatsApp group, about 1 week before the 9 min success, he posted that he got his first success in 5BLD in about 30 min.



Oh, I remember that one - It had been a while since I last had a successful attempt at home, and my times (even if DNF), as per usual, fluctuated a lot. Here's a tip: Just because you're DNFing a lot, it doesn't mean you're not improving.

This is obviously a “my word against theirs”, situation, but being a close friend to the delegate and involved witnesses would definitely puts this one Campos in a privileged position.

It's unfortunate that him, out of all people, would actively exploit his position and go to such lengths in order to hurt a “fellow BLDer” who, up until this point, had nothing towards him but gratitude for the support and words of encouragement back when I first started. But that's just me rambling, sorry lol.

Not only I'd kindly request that Campos stops lying and fabricating factoids, but would like to end this by reminding everyone that when you point a finger at someone, three others will point back at you.

I'm collaborating with the WDC in resolving this issue, which I will reiterate: Is simply a disproportionate misunderstanding which I hope is amicably settled on a timely manner.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 29, 2018)

At the request of the OP, I locked this thread, but a discussion among the moderators led to the conclusion that this thread should remain open; hence I have unlocked it again. Sorry for any inconvenience the lock may have caused.


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## campos20 (Dec 29, 2018)

Fábio De'Rose said:


> That competitor in question did not ask me about the full reconstruction, and I was never shown the full scramble. He had asked me about one aspect of the solve only - This has also happened after the round was over.



It seems contradictory. Why would someone ask just a few aspect of the reconstruction? And you admitted he asked right there for a few aspects of the solve, you'd probably recognize the misscramble here. Yet again, I remember him asking you for the entire solve, I even remember this one pair you executed since I thought of an image that somehow I still remember (not that it really matters, since I could just get the scramble and use it, since I know your orientation, buffer and method).



Fábio De'Rose said:


> I was also wondering whether it could have been a misscramble. I never denied this possibility and this concern was never raised during the entire course of the competition by anyone.



Of course we did not raise a thing during Mineirim, you confirmed you got the right scramble. This is something I remember, Diego gave you the cube and then he asked you how you did it. You looked at the cube and then started saying the pairs in order, always looking at the cube, and executing the comms. Every pair you mentioned, Diego agreed with you, since you share orientation, buffer and method. I wonder what we would get if he asked you, but kept the cube for himself and waited for your answer.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> Campos keep claiming I have many sub 1 vídeos on Facebook



Nice videos you posted, of course I've seen them. I claimed you had videos. Of course I looked up for those before you blocked me up.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> And that's for one simple reason which Campos conveniently ignores: There were so few competitors, we had fixed solving stations for each person. In other words, I only left the table after the round was over.



I remember that while you were reconstructing, people were still competing. That's what I meant. It's to give people a context about how quick you were asked for the reconstruction. Couple of minutes instead of couple of days.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> May I also remind anyone interested, that as explained and contextualized beforehand, the delegate (who's a close friend of Campos’, no less) has not only never raised any suspicion on my solve in question, which he actually watched me do with his own eyes and fromjust a couple feet away, with the cube he had (AFAIK) scrambled himself and brought to me just moments before.



I wonder what relevance my relationship with the delegate Ronan has here. Btw, I have never spoken to him outside a competition.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> As the organizer of a National Championship, experienced competitor and especially as someone who had been questioning my results for well over a year, why would he not remove the chair? Because of noise? Sure someone capable of solving a Rubik's Cube Blindfolded would be capable of moving a chair away without making too much noise, if any at all. This is a silly excuse, and pretty much settles the deal for me: not only he has no proof of the existence of this chair, he also fails to justify why said object, if it ever existed, wasn't moved away.



I questioned your results from Feb/2017 to Oct/2017, I believed you from Oct/2017 until Sep/2018. I provided WDC a list of people that saw the chair, including 2 that are on your side and 1 that I'm not sure of what he thinks. I had a lot of stuff to take care of during Brasileiro 2018. Of course I could try to quietly move the chair, but since I wasn't suspecting anything anymore at the time, it doesn't seemed necessary, so I turned around and went to take care of other business.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> I was solving closest to the door because lighting was better there, as explained to the WCA official (as per the quote below). I never moved any tables, as there were plenty of those available covering nearly all of the wall space between the entrance and the back of the room, yet Campos conveniently provides a picture of an empty space.



No, you weren't. Now, a pic of the attempt #1.

​
The place you chose had the worst lighting (which I remember, because I was glad at the time, since I could solve under a better lighting).



Fábio De'Rose said:


> Also I don't practice on my bedroom


That's not what you said to me back then, but this is just word against word.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> This was discussed at length during my initial appeal with the WDC,backed up by real specialists but if Campos wants a list of commutators that involve both doing D2s and affecting pieces on the U layer, I'll be happy to teach him some of those, lol.



Here's the reconstruction of the video I made.

19.456 - 23.681
D' U2' L D' L' U L D L' U D R // the end of a UBL-DFR-BRD (missing a R' at the beginning video)

12 turns, 2.84 tps

23.681 - 26,192: D2' U' L' U R2 U' L U R2 // UBL-RUB-LDB [Edit, I realized now what the D2 was for]
9 turns, 3,58 tps

Total: 21 turns, 3.12 tps.



Fábio De'Rose said:


> This is obviously a “my word against theirs”, situation, but being a close friend to the delegate and involved witnesses would definitely puts this one Campos in a privileged position.



We are all friends on the cubing community. I don't know how my friendship with anyone is a thing here. I consider myself friends with your judge (he even stayed at my place 3 days for a competition) and he believes you. I'm totally ok with that, I won't show facts or try to convince him. I think it's important that you keep friends on the cubing community as well. I don't want no one turning the back on you and I gain nothing if your results are accepted or DNFed, I don't have any BLD records for you to be a threat.


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## weatherman223 (Feb 11, 2019)

Edit 7:

https://drive.google.com/a/worldcub...TI8yOR6YwC2n8V5wBAGtLOPBNcff/view?usp=sharing

The WDCs final report has been released, confirming that the competitior cheated, and an extra year has been added to the ban.

First of all, I would like to thank the WDC for becoming significantly more transparent. I and the rest of the community greatly appreciate this.

Second of all, I will be retracting all points made in the thread. Even though some thing about the investigation could have been tweaked, after reading the report my standings have changed.

I apologize to the speedsolving forums for the controversy I caused. The point of the rant for transparency has been achieved in a since, but my points in defense of the competitor are now in retraction.

Please remain civil.

For further edit, for those curious of my opinion, I’m still conflicted on what to think. I want to believe he didn’t cheat but with the evidence presented, that might not be the case


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## pd159 (Feb 11, 2019)

weatherman223 said:


> Edit 7:
> 
> https://drive.google.com/a/worldcub...TI8yOR6YwC2n8V5wBAGtLOPBNcff/view?usp=sharing
> 
> ...



Hey, there's no need to apologize. Civil discussion on serious issues such as these are totally fine, and it's always nice to have the ability to share multiple viewpoints. The controversy only becomes toxic if people wish to make it that way.


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