There is a disucssion in a neighbouring thread about changing the format of the "mean of three-events" to average of five, where the main argument for the change is that with mean of three, one failed solve ruins the results. I agree that this is not a good situation, and something should be done about it. I also agree with Ron that we shold have less kind of penalties, not more. Furthermore, the main reason not to change the format is time constraints, as Ron points out. The reason I start a new thread is that we also need to consider the format of 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 if they are going to be official events. To resolve the issue, I suggest that we abandon the "mean of three" format and replace it with an "average of three" format. Thus, remove the best and worst times, and take the "average" of the middle time. For me, this seems more fair. /Anders

Personally, after I tried the unofficial competition in Brussels I changed my mind. I wouldn't like to see the 6 and 7 to be official at all. We already have trouble with times with the events we have nowadays. If you would include 6 and 7, for example multi BLD or FMC sometimes can't be part of the same tournament, unless everything runs VERY smooth (probably only 2 out of 5 competitions would be fit for this). (See the schedule for Dutch Open, where there is no multi) Looking at the 'competition procedure' or whatever you want to call it: scrambling 6 and 7 is a pain. Imagine, people are scrambling the 6 and 7 and then discover they made a mistake! Solving a badly scrambled sq-1 is doable, but solving a 6 or 7 because they made a mistake in scrambling is... well I don't even want to think about that... The mean of three thing for Clock, Sq-1, and megaminx is not very nice in my opinion either. Let's look at all 3 puzzles and the possibilities and effects: For megaminx you can have a +2 and it's not very likely you will mess up big time at megaminx in the first place. Also, if you would make megaminx an avg of 5 it would have a big influence on the total time of the tournament since it just takes long to solve AND scramble. I think megaminx therefore is not doable/wanted for an avg of 5. (though 5 solves would of course be nicer, but if it's not possible.. then it's not possible) Then clock, I really don't like this format for clock. Personally I have a DNF for my average time in 41 percent of all competitions! I know it's my own fault of course, but it doesn't make it very nice to solve the clock (and sometimes it's just the clock that doesn't work properly (Arnaud?)). Plus, I know I'm certainly not the only one with a lot of DNF's overall. Opposite to megaminx, I think the switch to an avg of 5 for clock doesn't really influence the total time of the tournament THAT much. Therefore I think it is pretty doable to make clock an avg of 5. Finally, square-1. I'm in doubt about square-1, I think if there would be a strict time limit for the first 2 solves (like 40 seconds, depending on the number of competitors) and good scramblers an avg of 5 is doable. However, sadly sq-1 is the puzzle people find the hardest to scramble and make a lot of mistakes on. For example at Brussels open alone I had to solve at least 5 because they were scrambled wrong (and Lars also had to solve some ) Conclusion: I'm not sure about sq-1. Hope you will read this and value my points in the same way I do Erik A.

[quote:1xb7kdnc]See the schedule for Dutch Open, where there is no multi[/quote:1xb7kdnc] I did this intentionally. Thanks for making my point. I wanted to see how many competitors would make remarks or complaints. The reactions were interesting: - I received 5 reactions about not having FMC and 6 reactions about not having multi blind - some people came with the solution to have more events in parallel, like multi blind and 6x6/7x7 during the same time frame (as if 6x6/7x7 solvers are not interested in multi blind) - one person said that we should simply start earlier or end later (which is not possible because of the restrictions of the kind provider of the room) My conclusion is that a significant number of members of our community like more events and more solves, but they do not like the negative effects of it. Personally I am open to many official events. We do not need to do all official events in a competition. We just select the events based on popularity of the attending competitors. WCA can rank the events by popularity (order on record, results and event pages). My boundaries are: - only twisty and Rubik puzzles (so no Samuel Loyd sliding puzzle) - only basic puzzles (so no Homer Simpson cube, because it is a 2x2 in disguise, and no 2x2 event using a 4x4) - special events only for Rubik's Cube (so no one-handed 2x2 or blindfolded Magic, also no 5x5 blindfolded...) There is a database with unofficial events during official competitions at: http://www.speedcubing.com/results We will see what our community decides for WCA Regulations 2009. Happy cubing, Ron

For the record: the advised scramble length for 6x6 is 80 and for 7x7 100. This is based on short research by one of our advisers.

I agree with Erik that megaminx is kinda "slow" compared to the other 2 events which currently are mean of 3. But let me try to do some maths: Say you make it a combined round, with the "time limit" being 3:00. Suppose 5 people advance. With current format, it would be 1 or 3 solves for each person. With average of 5, would be 2 or 5 solves for each. 2 more solves for the advancing 5 people, with average being 2:30, would add around 25 minutes of solving. If you have 5 timers, they can all do their solves at the same time. With the new scrambler, scrambling can be done much quicker (I can scramble in around a minute, last time I timed). So, let's say 2 min/scramble. (2min + 2:30min)*2 solves = 9 minutes. I'd say it's not all that much. But that is considering 3 min to advance and just 5 people doing the full average. If you're in a big competition, you may have 10 or more people advancing. So that would be like 20min added to the total time. Again, not that much, but this is kind of an optimal scenario, with no delays, enough scramblers, timers and judges. I don't know about clock because I don't have one. I heard scrambling is not that easy, but the solving times are pretty fast (85 out of 115 people - 74% - have a sub-30 mean), so maybe it wouldn't add all that much to the total time of the event. Square-1 is getting faster recently, 40% of the people have a sub-min average. But scrambling is not trivial, and most of the people think it's incredibly hard to scramble, before even trying or doing a couple tries. It gets much easier with time, and with the new CCT, we can follow each move through the scramble, to avoid mistakes. I just did an average of 5 and got (22.84), 23.99, (25.75), 23.79, 25.40, which gives a 24.39s average for scrambling. I'm experienced at this, but I guess the "common person" could scramble the square-1 in less than 1:30 with a bit of practice. So, this would add about 3 mins (1:30 scrambling, 1:30 solving) per solve, which is 6 per 2 solves. Considering the number of competitors (not big), combined rounds could be done pretty quickly too. Sorry for the big post, but I think I've made my point I'm in favour of changing the formats. Also, I think it would be quite unpractical to have 6x6 and 7x7 in competitions. We already have short time, and the times for those are (still) so high that makes it almost impossible to host them. Well, that's what I think. And that's why I like the WCA. We can express our opinions, disagree, debate and come to a conclusion

Megaminx is not very much slower than current events, though. 41% of Megaminx solvers are under 3 minutes, compared with 47% of 5x5 solvers. And with Pochmann's scrambling method/notation, scrambling a Megaminx is about twice as fast as scrambling a 5x5, at least for me and the people I know. Clock and Square 1 are both now faster than 4x4 by a long shot, also.