7h) The competition area must have a competitors area. Competitors (or a group of competitors) who have been called to compete - and only those competitors - must stay in the competitors area until they finished all solves of the round. For blindfolded solving the competitors in the competitors area should not be able to see the puzzles of the competitors on stage. Shouldent it also be stated that a competitor must not talk about his recent solve to a person in his group that have not yet solved that scramble? To prevent cheating. Or perhaps that is covered somewere else!?

Who is to stop me from watching a competitor inspect the cube? This issue is more significant for BLD solving, though.

Thanks for the feedback. I added 7h3). [version March 19]

Getting competitors together for a round with only each other to talk to only [i:33luf18w]helps[/i:33luf18w] communication. We already have "Watch out for scramble 2. It's insane!" Isolating them together only encourages this possibility more, even if it's explicitly forbidden. It's really another article, but how about saying (like in contracts) that by beginning an attempt, a competitor agrees not to have had previous communication about the scramble? (Though, what happens if someone shouted to you: "GREEN X-CROSS, scramble #3! 4 moves!" Is that communication?) Also, what about, say, big cube and multi BLD? If competitors go at different paces, you'd have to force them to go back-to-back (so they can't leave to relax a bit, 'cause they could obtain scrambles... Chris K. already mentioned it, but if we're using RFC 2119, 7g should use "may."

I changed 7g to 'must' (not may, because that would imply other options, like while being horizontal. Yes, being together could improve the ability to talk to each other. But it also enables judges to better check for talking. Updated in version draft 4a, March 21, 2008 Thanks, Ron