|
| 1 | +# Vision |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +The vision behind creating the WCIF specification. |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +## Motivation |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +There has always been tools used to help organizers prepare the various aspects of organizing a competition, |
| 8 | +but as those were separate, it was hard for them to talk to one another |
| 9 | +(which lead to various export files in different formats). |
| 10 | +In order to support the idea of relatively small tools cooperating with each other |
| 11 | +and allow them to talk the same language, the idea of a standardized data format has been coined. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +The underlying spirit is the [Unix Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy) |
| 14 | +emphasizing building small, focused software trying to solve one problem, and solve it well |
| 15 | +(as opposed to monolithic systems). |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +## Example applications |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +#### Nametag generation |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +A tool generating nametags for all the competitors requires at least the following information: |
| 22 | +- competitor name |
| 23 | +- competitors WCA ID |
| 24 | +- competitor task assignments (e.g. in which group they participate) |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +#### Scorecard generation |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +A tool generating scorecards for the given round requires at lest the following information: |
| 29 | +- competitor name |
| 30 | +- competitor ID (for data entry) |
| 31 | +- round cutoff and time limit (to display it on the scorecard) |
| 32 | +- expected number of attempts |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +Furthermore, there is a need to generate scorecards for subsequent rounds of an event. |
| 35 | +Without a proper way of exchanging results data, this forces authors of data entry platforms |
| 36 | +to implement scorecards (a task which is somewhat orthogonal to data entry itself). |
| 37 | +With a standardized data format that includes all the information about who advanced to the later rounds of an event, |
| 38 | +there can be a single piece of software handling the entirety of scorecard generation. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +#### Group assignment |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +A tool assigning groups to people (i.e. competing as well as other tasks) |
| 43 | +requires or may benefit from the following information: |
| 44 | +- competitor personal bests (to split people into groups based on their skills) |
| 45 | +- competitor roles (to handle organizers, delegates, staff in a special manner) |
| 46 | +- competitor WCA ID (to handle newcomers in a special manner) |
| 47 | +- competitor birthdate (to handle youngsters in a special manner) |
| 48 | +- schedule data (to avoid assigning multiple tasks at the same time and also optimize assignments based on time) |
| 49 | +- round results, advancement information (to assign groups for subsequent rounds) |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +#### Scramble generation |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +A tool generating scrambles for a competition requires at lest the following information: |
| 54 | +- the number of events an rounds |
| 55 | +- the number of scramble sets to generate for each round |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +## Falsehoods programmers believe about WCA competitions |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +> A competition occurs in one time zone and all competitors register for the same venue of a competition. |
| 60 | +
|
| 61 | +**False!** Some competitions have multiple venues, such as FMC simultaneous competitions (FMC USA, FMC Europe). |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +> Ok, but surely a given venue of a competition can be identified by a latitude and a longitude? |
| 64 | +
|
| 65 | +**Mostly false!** [Euro 2016](https://euro2016.cubing.net/venue) had a side room that was a noticeable walk from the main venue. |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +> At a given point in time, a competition has at most one event occurring at once. |
| 68 | +
|
| 69 | +**False!** US Nationals has had 6 stages spread across multiple rooms and buildings, with up to 5 events occurring simultaneously. |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +> One round of a competition occurs on one calendar day. |
| 72 | +
|
| 73 | +**False!** The 3 attempts of a 3x3x3 Fewest Moves round are usually split across multiple days. The same is true for 3x3x3 Multi-Blind. |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +> Ok, but FMC and MBLD are weird. Surely a given round of 3x3x3 will at least all occur on one calendar day? |
| 76 | +
|
| 77 | +**False!** US Nationals runs a staff competition on Thursday before the regular competitors do their first rounds on Friday or Saturday. |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +> A competitor will receive all his scrambles for a round from one group. |
| 80 | +
|
| 81 | +**False!** Many competitions have a "rolling group" system where competitors get called up in groups, but the next group might get called up while you're still competing, which means you'll roll into the next group. |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +> Ok, that's annoying, but at least for planning purposes, we can assign competitors to 1 group for a given round, and if they roll into the next group, then that's ok. |
| 84 | +
|
| 85 | +**False!** Remember FMC and MBLD from before? You may be scheduled to compete in group A of MBLD Round 1 Attempt 1, but group B of MBLD Round 1 Attempt 2. |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +> 3x3x3 Final Round will have >= 3 competitors in it. |
| 88 | +
|
| 89 | +**False!** See the results of [Korean Spring Picnic 2017](https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/KoreanSpringPicnic2017/results/all?event=333). |
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