I feel this must have been discussed before, though searching through the forums I cannot find an exact match to what I am proposing here. For the 2011 review of the regulations I propose a change to the scrambling notation for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5. I think this change would make the notation scheme we use more uniform, and perhaps also easier for volunteer scramblers to learn at a competition in order to help scramble bigger cubes. My proposal is to do away with the wide notation, and use the exact same notation we use for 6x6x6 and 7x7x7. An example of this is below. Here is a 5x5x5 scramble in the current wide notation: 1. Uw Bw2 F2 Lw' D Lw Rw' R Dw R2 F' Uw Lw B' Uw2 L' B' Uw2 R' Bw2 D' Bw Dw' R' B2 Fw L2 D Rw2 R' Bw' Dw2 Fw Rw Dw2 Uw2 L' Dw Fw' Lw D Dw2 L Uw' F' R' Fw2 Dw Bw2 D Fw' L2 R2 Uw2 Rw2 B' F' Rw R2 F2 What I am proposing is to write it the same way we would for the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 as below: 1. 2U 2B2 F2 2L' D 2L 2R' R 2D R2 F' 2U 2L B' 2U2 L' B' 2U2 R' 2B2 D' 2B 2D' R' B2 2F L2 D 2R2 R' 2B' 2D2 2F 2R 2D2 2U2 L' 2D 2F' 2L D 2D2 L 2U' F' R' 2F2 2D 2B2 D 2F' L2 R2 2U2 2R2 B' F' 2R R2 F2 This would make the entire big cube notation set exactly the same for all cube sizes, which I think is a worthwhile change. A non-cuber or cuber with very little scrambling experience learning to help scramble would now only have to learn one notation scheme to apply to any larger sized cube, rather than two notation schemes - one for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5, and a different one for 6x6x6 and 7x7x7. Again, I feel this must have been discussed in the past already, but a search of this forum did not readily produce a thread or discussion of it that I could find. Chris

I think R 2U is pretty confusing with R2 U. Maybe we could use TxR where x is the number of layer, like randelshoffer's cube applet does.

I would actually prefer to replace ie. 2R by Rw in the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 scrambles.

I second what Sébastien said. I notice that most of the mistakes I make during 7x7 scrambling for instance is that I didn't do 3R2 but 2R2 or something like that, the double use of numbers is confusing. Even though it would be more consistent to also do the 2R2 notation for 5x5 I think the only effect would be that more errors on scrambling are being made. Actually I'd rather see a 7x7 scramble with either: Rw2 D2 Rx' L2 or something like that, or just that what Sébastien said. Thinking up one more sign for the triple layer wouldn't be that hard, this is just an example of course. You might think then: but what for higher cubes than 7x7? Well, practically those cubes will probably never be official anyway...

For me the problem is just the couble use of the number '2' which confuses a lot. 3R2, 4R2, 5R2 etc. cause no severe problem to my mind.

I also find the 2 prefix somewhat confusing; on scrambling the biggest cubes I have several times had to pause on a 2F or something similar to make sure I was doing the turn right. We can avoid a 2 prefix completely if we use SiGN. A single, double, and triple layer turn on the R side would be written R, r, and 3r. This is consistent with the older 4x4/5x5 notation which used a lowercase turn for double layer turns; using a 3 as a prefix is no problem since a 3 does not show up anywhere else.

Perhaps a better way to phrase my proposal is to make the notation for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 the same as that used for 6x6x6 and 7x7x7. For the record, I greatly prefer the notation used for 6x6x6 and 7x7x7. It is very simple to read and apply when scrambling a 6x6x6 or 7x7x7. As to the comment about R2 U being difficult to distinguish between R 2U perhaps a larger spacing between letters could be used on the WCA scramble applet? I don't really find it difficult to distinguish between these two, personally. I think the SiGN notation might be a decent idea as well. R, r, and 3r are easily distinguishable when reading a set of notation. I like this as well, although I personally prefer R, 2R, and 3R. Chris

Agreed with Chris here. (I actually prefer not to have 6x6 or 7x7, but that's another matter... )