Is The WCA Cooked? | Sliding Timer Stops And The Future 

Cant wait for 0.21s 2x2 wr single

I think that sliding should not be allowed, however i do not think that people should blame yiheng for this

Dick Fosbury is an extremely bad example, because he wasn't abusing any loopholes in the rules. He was just doing something no one else was doing. Normally when athletes abuse loopholes, the rules are changed to prevent it from being abused further. A better example is the pole vaulter David Volz, known for popularizing the method "Volzing", where you touch/push the bar back so it wouldn't fall while you jump over it. That method ended up being banned; you compete by seeing how high you can jump, not how well you can abuse a rule loophole. As for when you say "It's speedcubing, not speed timer-starting," I agree. That's exactly why sliding shouldn't be allowed. If the only way to get WR is through sliding, then short events will devolve into "speed timer-starting". That goes against the spirit of the WCA.

2:20 Love the Tingboy cover sightings 😍 Appreciate the thought that went into this video. Will be interesting to see what new regulations may arise from this issue!

I wonder how j perm feels about his son causing everything cubing related to possibly change.

The issue with allowing sliding starts is it is possible to essentially have negative timer starts and it be unnoticeable.

Maybe to stop this, the wca could make a stabilized distance to place the cube before starting the solve ??? Like: you have to place your cube 5cm away the timer, and maybe put a mark in the matt I don't know, I am just thinking

The problem with 4 pad is that if you get a bad scramble, you can actually just start and stop the timer really fast with your thumb, and then get an extra, as long as it's under 0.06 seconds.

For me, the solution to timer sliding starts would be to make the timers so that they start in four pad, making it very hard to slide start, but let the ending still be two pad, as I feel as though finding those thumb pads at the end is the biggest time waste of four pad. This would help with some issues of two pad, without completely ruining sprint event times. The only downside is that this would cost money, and could be a little bit confusing to add for new competitors/regulations. I do think that it could work and maybe make the problem a little bit better.

If the WCA wants cubing to become a sport and be taken more seriously officially, they can't allow sliding and need to fix this mess, whether it's 4-pad mode or something else. The integrity of fast events depends on it given that at least on one solve Yiheng was turning the cube before starting the timer and that's cheating, no matter how you look at it. Just my two cents.

I think this is a technology issue. The WCA needs to get away from stack mat and just create their own timer

Great analysis. Thanks. I think the community should adopt new timers such as a 4 pad start, 2 pad stop G5/G6 timers, or one made by TimeBase perhaps. That should solve the problem with the least impact.

I think what you summarised in part 5 will be the best option

And that's exactly why i main fmc

bro your editing is actually insane. I really hope to see you grow more cause ur understated af this video is amazing.

Legit issue: trying to start legally as fast as possible can actually lead to a slide by accident, especially if you are seated low (the timer is just in the way). The disputed incidents so far have all been with young kids apparently.

Yoo the editing is GOATED 🔥🔥🗣️🗣️

This is how you enforce a no timer sliding rule without a high speed camera: Put a boundary that's the same height as the cube, like a piece of cardboard, between the timer and the cube, so the competitor will have to lift their hands up instead of sliding. If the competitor touches and moves the cardboard while moving from the timer to the cube, then it's obvious they are guilty of timer sliding. Simply putting the timer on an elevation does not work, as you can still just slid forwards and down toward the cube. The only way an elevation might work is if you put the timer on a shelf with a space under it, where you will put the cube.

Fantastic video I had a squan average disqualification cause of frame analysis so I’m hoping that If there is a precedent that it’s consistent

So the solution is for the WCA to switch to requiring smartcubes. Smartcube can trigger start timing on first turn, and end timing when the cube hits the solved state. Focus on speedcubing, not speed-timer-starting.

your content is so underrated

very nice video!

IMO 4 pad is the solution, it doesn't affect that much

just be like stacking and enforce 4-pad at this point lol, stacking had the exact same problem

Then should instead make you have to put your palms on there but also have a longer distance to the cube so you cant pick it up instantly

This is kind of the same situation as in powerlifting; There are rules set to prevent people from cheating or getting a small advantage, but it still happens, because it is really hard to determine if it was just over what was allowed and what was not allowed.

To me, allowing sliding stops feels like a cheap solution. There are very easy, free strategies we can use to make sliding non viable, while I think 4-pad should be the norm (and eventually will be anyway), elevating the timer would work well enough. While I agree that making records slower is a bad idea, it still feels like sliding gives new players an unfair advantage over older records, it's not an improvement in any type of skill at all. Kind of feels like we're reaching a moment where cubing just needs it's own timer system built for cubing. Making the timer taller and putting the sensors further apart would probably be better for cubing. But that's also logistically not going to happen so 🤷‍♀

Solution is to require high speed footage and timers for any elite records to stand. Just as you use high tech timers at the olympics, but a stop watch will do for a school event. Would ensure all WR's are legit, and wouldnt impact the average competitor/event in any way.

Yoo nice

Cool video! What editing program do you use? Also what font did you use?

Yo the picture you used at 3:45 was from a comp I just went to

I like the idea of getting closer to the actual solve time without pickup time. Waiting for the day when there will be a switch over for everyone to use Smart Cubes. Of course it will suck for all previous solving ranks similar for all clock solvers before the pin change

This is how the downfall of cubing starts. It happens with every competitive hobby: When a hobby becomes more competitive and it attracts more people, companies and corporations and "official" groups start to get involved. It becomes mainstream. Eventually, the whole thing becomes corporate and soulless, and not about the actual hobby any more, it's just about being the best at any cost. Casual enjoyers are then alienated from the community for not being "real" blanks because they don't go to "official" events. This will continue until eventually the only people left will be the people at the top who don't actually care about cubing itself at all.

I actually managed to find the 2 solves using slide at 2:15 lmao, i thought the 1st used sliding, then the 2nd i thought was normal, and the 3rd i also thought used sliding, and i was like wtf? is there actually only 1?

im ngl i used sliding timer starts in like all of my 2x2 avgs, im not even sure people even noticed it until recently

Possibly stupid question, but couldn't they just put the timer behind the cube, so you have to slide back (and therefore instantly engage the timer) to pick up the cube?

1:35 You said putting your palms on the pad is a big no no, but right here his palms are on the pads, heck his fingers aren't even touching them they're actually touching the surface of the table and most definitely not the pads.

REAL

4pad is such an obvious solution

4 pad 2x2?

Zayn has said he will never do sliding starts

i may be weird to yall, but 15s inspection and 5s solve is insane. i wanna global reset and no inspection: solver should pick up paper cup covering cube themself

Hi nice video

Just use 4-pad and it will be fine.

The puzzle should have to be a certain distance from the timer (there would be a mark on the mat)

We need a timer that is the least disruptive, not the most disruptive, adding unnecessary time sucks, use camera tracking or whatever.

I think that, the top 10 or something of an event must have a vidéo reccord of his solve to be axcepted as a reccord by the WCA, we all have Phone, this is totaly possible to do and this would stop sliding which is totaly a cheat...

We Dont have to purchase New timers, it is only necessary to use a 4 gen timer with the 4 pad mode

this is my alternate account of my cubing channel but why im commenting is i just want to say that the wca should enforce 4-pad mode so this cant happen in my opinion

To be fair we should fix abusing hardware material. Should speedstacks make better and more improved timers?

ahh i know! all competitiors must use the stackmat g5 an 4 pad then noone can cheat anymore

4:28 ayoo is this my video??? 👀Haha

Did the WCA actually make any statements about this? You keep saying the record will stand and I'm assuming thats just speculation on your part...

Just use smart cubes for time

Where's Pomni740 when you need him?

I guess we can just let it "slide". See what i did there

Opinion:in the cubing community,WRs are so important that they define your skill level completely and that's the only thing non-cubers and even most of the cubers look up to. So much so that it is more important than winning big competitions even the world championships. Due to this situation, people(cubers) only seem to care about anything when the wr is broken. Why?nobody would have cared if kalindu got a 23-24 ish mean and entered the top 100 rankings. But due to it being a wr, it caught so much attention that the wca got involved. Here also, if yihengs skill set was lower and he averaged just over 1 sec and there was no way to get videos of his averages, nobody would have given a damn even if he was in the top 5. Most of the cubing achievements are centred around getting WRs and that makes me think how much cheating actually goes on at the lower levels that is people who cheat but aren't world class to actually get those WRs. They might win comps due to this and nobody bothers to check at all. Wca needs stricter regulations. WRs aren't the only thing that matters. As speedcubing evolves into a sport, the overall integrity of official competitions plays a huge role in its development.WRs get broken every weekend but for how long?in the next 10-15 years many events will reach their limit(I might be wrong on this one) and WRs will come once in a blue moon and then what? Will nobody care about anything and people will still go on winning comps,entering top rankings and developing a good reputation in the community just because they can get away with things.

In my eyes theres 2 things to do Ether just allow sliding as a official way of starting timer as with all sports there is innovations or if not, requiring video for all solves/have official cameras, stacking comps have pretty much used official cameras for its entire existence so maybe its time WCA follows so it can get caught faster then not

You cannot willingly allow cheating. 4-pad mode is the obvious move forward

good video, i hope people stop the hate towards Yiheng

*I don't care how anyone stops the timer, as long as his cube is finished before they karate chop or whatever. The best way to see if someone is cheating is to look at the main clock and the cube when it started and stopped. Did he already pick up the cube before his timer started, as Wang does, and did his timer stop before he finished his last layer turn? It's so easy to look at the main clock and the cube and not at his hands or wrist and the clock.*

Hey

I think it’s definitely hard, we need to ban sliding but it will be very hard to enforce

if you asked any timed sporting event (sprinting, swiming, etc) to wait to start the timer until after you took your first 2 steps off the blocks, but ONLY for you, they would laugh you off the field. When fractions of a second matter, you can NOT allow this type of behavior. It isn't 'being creative' like the poor example of Fosbury. it's deliberately sabotaging the equipment used to keep things fair.

"its only a matter of time before pro clockers, skewbers and pyraminxers start using this" i know that ezra at least uses sliding starts, and has used in comp

the wca could put like a piece of cartboary between the cube and the timer that pervents the cuber to slide and forces the cuber to lift his hands up and start the timer with his fingers

i dont want to learn sliding for clock im already busy enough learning psuedo 7simul 😎😎😎😎

Just make it a requirement for the cube to be at least 15cm away from the timer or so before beginning the solve. 4 point start could help as well.

I have defended sliding starts ever since the WR average dropped, and this is a really good video, thanks NotMe

Answer is no, and yes, respectively

I think sliding should be discouraged but not abolished

Smart cubes.

L takes tbh and the wca won't get better by allowing unfair advantages with potentially reg breaking practices. Just use 4 pad and if your excuse is finances then you have no clue how much goes to waste behind the scenes.

Oh no... skill issue

disappointing

4:19 Please use nicklas : R U' L' U R' U' L

yiheng wang is the goat you cant change my mind

Okay, but why aren't we talking about timers being a thing of the past? As cubing gains more viewers worldwide, it has to refine how it's timed. Smart cubes are what we need. Not only will that eliminate all these controversies, but also give us the EXACT time in which a cube is solved.

everybody does this, stop dragging yiheng

People just tryna find new ways to undermine yiheng’s skill because they are agist.

I think this is a technology issue. The WCA needs to get away from stack mat and just create their own timer