Dear WCA Community,

The WCA Executive Assistants Team is seeking new members!

What does WEAT do?

The WCA Executive Assistants Team (WEAT) is a team that assists the WCA Board with administrative tasks. The rights and duties of the WEAT are documented in WCA Motion 10.25.5.

Requirements and expectations

The following are the expected requirements for applicant:

• Commitment of approximately 4-5 hours per week
• Strong organizational skills
• Good communication skills
• Trustworthiness

How to Apply

The candidacy documents must be in PDF format, and must include:

• Brief personal introduction
• Summary of activities done for the WCA Community
• Reasons you are fit for the role

The application period is open for applicants to submit their application document from now until May 25, 2025 23:59 UTC. Interested candidates should send their application to the Executive Assistants Team (assistants@worldcubeassociation.org), CC’ing the Board (board@worldcubeassociation.org).

Source:: worldcubeassociation

Dear WCA Community,

In the first quarter of 2025, the WCA Quality Assurance Committee (WQAC) has been developing initiatives to improve overall quality in the World Cube Association. Here are the main updates within the Committee in the last few months:

The WQAC is currently working in three different areas: Projects, Investigations, and the Learning Management System (LMS).

In the Projects area, the Committee has developed an update to the WCA Scramble Accountability Policy (WSAP) in line with the 2025 Regulations and Guidelines.

In the Investigations area, the WQAC has conducted investigations regarding quality issues at competitions, such as:
* Unfair extras given by Delegates;
* Delegates influencing organizers to add their favorite events to competitions;
* Lack of communication in WCA Teams;
* Unusual handling of scramble sets;
* Failing to follow the WSAP and WCA Regulations

In the LMS area, the WQAC LMS sub-team kicked off the content creation for the Trainee to Junior Delegate course. By surveying Regional and Senior Delegates, we conducted a training needs assessment to gain valuable insight into what a Trainee Delegate should and should not know in order to become a Junior Delegate. We have also been hard at work determining the curriculum plan for the training and have begun creating questions for the Trainee to Junior Delegate training assessment. This work would not have been possible without our new members, who have been able to use their individual and collective expertise to develop this project further.

In December 2024, the Committee onboarded ten new members, who have been quite productive and are of great value to the Committee. Please welcome them:

• Amitai Ziv
• Juan M. Gerardo
• Keaton Ellis
• Roxana Johnson
• Sarah Strong
• Sherry Tao (陶心仪)
• Tenley Baumann
• Timothy Zhang (张学义)
• Ziang Yan (晏子昂)

Unfortunately, a few of our previous members have left the Committee in the last few months. We are sad about their departure, but thank them for their help and wish them the best in their future endeavors:

• Albert Garriga Gea
• Daniel Vaedele Egdal (former Leader of the WQAC)
• Jode Brewster
• Nevins Chan Pak Hoong (陈百鸿)

The WQAC would also like to inform that if any community member wants to reach out to the committee, to report quality issues, asking questions or propose ideas, they can reach us out through the quality@worldcubeassociation.org at any time!

Source:: worldcubeassociation

Dear WCA Community,

In the last quarter, the WIC opened 7 cases and closed 10. This resulted in 3 bans and 6 warnings. Also, 1 case ended with no action. Below, you can find summaries of some notable cases:

• The WCA Integrity Committee was informed of financial misconduct by a competition organizer. After reviewing details from multiple community members, the committee determined the competitor misused competition finances for personal gain. As a result, the WIC issued an indefinite ban to the competitor until the misused funds are repaid, along with an additional multi-year ban in accordance with the severity of the offense.
• The WCA Integrity Committee received reports of misconduct by a competitor’s guest. After consulting multiple witnesses, the committee confirmed that the guest engaged in inappropriate behavior, including disrespect towards delegates, hate speech, intimidation, and advocacy of such conduct. The WIC decided to issue a short-term ban on the guest from competing and attending competitions.
• The WCA Integrity Committee was provided conclusive footage of a competitor starting the timer inappropriately by sliding the hands on the timer during one of their official attempts and wearing in-ear headphones during the same official attempt. Due to the lack of cooperation from the competitor, the WIC decided to issue a short-term ban from competing and disqualify all the attempts from the round in which the video evidence was recorded.
• The WCA Integrity Committee has also prioritized improving existing workflow with new members and project collaboration with other WCA teams.

Do you have questions for the WIC? Feel free to send us an email, or ask your question in the Integrity section of the WCA forum.

Source:: worldcubeassociation

Dear WCA Community,

The WCA Regulations Committee (WRC) has been hard at work over the past few months, and we have some updates to share with you!

General Updates

• In January, the team onboarded 10 new members, who have all been a huge help in continuing our operations. Congratulations to those members!
• We would like to recognize Jonas Balsfulland (Delegate Reports subteam leader) and Oliver Hexter (Regulations Development subteam leader), who have recently been promoted to Senior Member!
• 3 new Translations have been added since the most recent Regulations update. If you would like to assist in translating the WCA Regulations, please contact us!

Incidents Resolved in Q1

The WRC resolved incidents from over 100 competitions in Q1! A summary from some of the most notable incidents can be seen below, a few of which describe applications of Regulations in the most recent Regulations update:

Al-Madar Open 2025 – Competitor likely received a misscramble on a National Record attempt

Franconia Spring 2025 – Competitor thought timer malfunctioned after getting second DNF for timer start

German Newcomer Day 2025 – Missing signatures from the judge and competitor, video evidence was available but the judge could not be located

NxNationwide Lewis Center 2025 – Competitor checked if camera was on during inspection

Pampulha Open 2025 – Judge did not reset timer and recorded the previous competitor’s time

PBQtah 7 2024 – Competitor got a DNF result on a timer that was not reset

PUCP Cubing Festival IV 2025 – Competitor stopped timer with potential karate chop

Rzeszow Open 2025 – Competitor entered the scramble area after scrambling started, but before his first solve

SacQuiet Winter 2025 – Competitor started a Multiblind attempt without a judge present

Santa Barbara Winter 2025 – Competitor realized the color scheme on their puzzle was swapped during their solve

If you have any questions about the application of the Regulations, please reach out to us at regulations@worldcubeassociation.org

Source:: worldcubeassociation

Dear WCA Community,

The WCA has experienced unprecedented growth over the last few years. Such growth has been remarkable for the cubing community, but it has not come without challenges. In particular, the size of our database has grown exponentially, leading to massive operational costs in both time, money, and opportunity. Put succinctly, the current trajectory of our database growth no longer matches our capacity.

To ensure that we maintain enough free space in our database for future operations of the WCA, we will no longer allow new scramble sequences to be added to our database. Instead, the WCA is introducing the WCA Set of Standard Scrambles. Every event will have a hand-picked selection of twelve scrambles that are optimally tuned for maximum performance. WCA Delegates will construct scramble sets for use in competitions by randomly selecting five scrambles from the standard set.

Please note important exceptions to the above: 3x3x3, 3x3x3 One-Handed, 3x3x3 Blindfolded, 3x3x3 Multi-Blindfolded, and Fewest Moves will use the same scramble set for maximum space savings. The same will apply for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 and their blindfolded variants. Additionally, Clock will only have two scrambles in its scramble set, because even a broken Clock is right twice a day.

Naturally, we can’t leave such an important component of speedcubing up to chance. That’s where we need your help: the WCA will be accepting submissions for scrambles to use in the standard set. The speedcubing community will vote on their favorites, and the twelve highest rated scrambles for each event will be inducted into the Set of Standard Scrambles forever. To ensure scramble secrecy, those who are lucky enough to have their scrambles selected will no longer be allowed to compete. However, they will be appointed Honorary Delegate in recognition of their contributions to the WCA.

Please submit your very best scrambles at this Google Form.

We couldn’t be more excited for the efficiency and savings this will bring to the WCA. Current estimates project that this change will save over 8 megabytes of storage space over the next 10 years.

We look forward to seeing your scrambles! May the odds be ever in your favor.

Sincerely,
The WCA Board of Directors

Source:: worldcubeassociation