Talk:Speedcubing

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Contents 1 "Art" 2 Overhauled 3 One word or two? 4 Cleanup Tag 5 New image 6 References? 7 Terminology section 8 Sport infobox 9 Cube used for speedcubing

[edit] "Art"

In the introduction, and in the "History" section, speedcubing is being referred to as an "art". Is this the most accurate term to use? Would "activity", or "sport", be more appropriate? I'm leaving it as "art" for the time being, as I'm not sure what I think is best -- what do you all think? --Twilightsojourn 18:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC) (just fixed a few typos in my comment --Twilightsojourn 20:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC))

I think I wrote that, and I was thinking more in the terms of 'martial art' then 'picture art'. I realize at this point in time speedcubing with all it's media attention and competitions is seen by the general public more as a sport, so yes, let it be sport. Consider that 'cupstacking'/'speedstacking' as of a couple of months ago also renamed themselves to 'sportstacking', in order to get a better recognition. -- Blonkm 17:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I knew you meant it not as graphical art, but more like "the art of cooking", or something like that. I didn't know that speedstacking had changed their name to "sportstacking", although I don't think speedcubing's classification should be based solely on that bit of news. "Sport" does work, however, as does "practice", I think ("Speedcubing is the practice of solving a Rubik's Cube . . ."). It's hard to find the appropriate terminology, because so many of the words have somewhat loaded meanings and associations. So I'm still not sure what to do. :-) --Twilightsojourn 19:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

OK then, but I'll change it to activity. The loaded meanings I think are:

• sport - it's an 'official', e.g. Olympic, sport. This is not the case.
• art - it requires creativity. Not. It can be done by following rules, however becoming a top speedcuber does require creativity, as does everything.
• practice - does sound like it is less than a hobby, more like a necessary thing.
• activity - same here, but slightly better, could be a hobby as well. Since it is used for the sport stacking page, let's keep things consistent. Ok, I think that's enough rambling over one word! -- Blonkm 12:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overhauled

I just went ahead and rewrote much of the article, cleaning up a lot of the typographical, grammatical, and factual errors, making terms, spellings, etc. more consistent. I added a "See also" section, re-worded many of the external links (deleting a few I thought shouldn't have been there, and adding one or two I thought were relevant), and alphabetized the "Terminology" section. I essentially rewrote every section of the article, adding more information, reorganizing the way it was presented, and making it easier to read (especially to those who aren't already familiar with much of the information presented here).

What do you think? I worked hard on this, and I hope it helped! Let me know what you think of the new look of the article. (Also -- how does one have the cleanup notice re-evaluated?)

Thanks! --Twilightsojourn 20:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One word or two?

While both spellings of the term ("speed cubing" and "speedcubing") are listed as valid in the article, I feel that "speedcubing" (one word) is used more frequently, at least within the cubing community. What do you think about changing the name of the article to reflect this (but still having both spellings redirect to the article)? --Twilightsojourn 12:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the original entry for speedcubing and spelled it as such. Later I noticed it was changed (by a bot?) to speed_cubing. I know from the community that the no-space version is preferred, but in proper English words should be separated (door knob, not doorknob). In fact, I am Dutch and in Dutch we do say 'deurknop' for door knob, as is done in German. But we also refer to speed cubing as speedcubing, since we don't have our own word for it. Anyway I am rambling, but we should definitely make it one word, and hope the WikiGods of Spelling won't object. -- Blonkm 17:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. That's an interesting point. I know from my experiences, as well, that the one-word version seems to be the one that is preferred (I know that I certainly prefer it). That's strange, about how you had originally written the title as one word, and it was changed. The earliest edit of the page that I can find, however, has it written as two words -- so I'm not sure how it happened, either.

I think we should wait for a little bit longer to see if others reply to this question, but if they don't, I agree that we should change it to be one word. Do you know how to change the title? And to adjust the varying re-directions to this article accordingly? I would want to make sure that both the one- and two-word versions will lead people to this article, and that all links to this article from other articles will still work properly. Thanks! --Twilightsojourn 19:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the title to one word, and adjusted the intro sentence accordingly. If there are any problems with this, make sure to post it here, and we can fix them! --Twilightsojourn 20:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Tag

I placed a comment on the Talk page of the person whose bot most recently updated the cleanup tag on this page, but I haven't gotten a response yet. What do you all think about removing the tag? If I don't hear any objections in the next few days, I think I'll go ahead and remove it. --Twilightsojourn 00:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I´d say remove the silly Tag. Why is it even there? This is a fine article. Cleanup was a good job too. I´d like to see a bit more discussion on the pro´s and con´s of the various methods, what are the pro´s using etc. But that is for another day. Sander123 20:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll leave it up for another day or two, to see if anyone else has thoughts on the matter, and if they don't, then I'll go ahead and remove it. And I'll be adding some more info to the article later, once I have time to write it up properly. :-) --Twilightsojourn 00:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I can expand a little bit on the methods sections, which I wrote anyway. I think it would be a good idea to make a short classification of method types. There is corners first (e.g. Waterman, Ortega), Layer by layer (e.g. Singmaster and Fridrich), Block first (e.g. Petrus and Roux). See methods

About the cleanup: I don't know why people keep adding links to the external links section. This is a reason to get the cleanup link everytime. I stripped it down to about 4 links, and now there are over 10 again. Please, people! Blonkm 03:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think your suggestion about the different methods types is a good one. If I have time, I'll do it soon, but otherwise, I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with!

I don't think the external links section is too overloaded, but I can see a few that could be taken off. I think the first four (speedcubing.com, WCA-approved records, Fridrich, and Petrus) should stay, as well as the Yahoo! group and the Rubik's Cube Wiki. The documentary isn't a bad link to have, as I think it lends further credibility to the subject. As much as I like Jess and Dan H.'s pages (and them as people, too), those links might be taken down, along with Chris's page. What do you think about the competition tutorial, though (along with everything else I've said)? --Twilightsojourn 20:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes I completely agree. Personal pages should not be on wikipedia, however important you as a person in the speedcubing community are. So goodbye Dan, Jess and Chris! And delete the tutorial as well, there are a lot of those tutorials on the web and it's nothing official. If this page was just about speedcubing competitions it would be relevant enough. Blonkm 03:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think that personal pages are not out of the question (after all, aren't the pages of Lars and Jessica personal pages?), but I since we seem to agree on this, I went ahead and removed those links. I must say, it looks a lot better! If people have other opinions, though, post them, and we can revert/change as necessary. --Twilightsojourn 15:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the cleanup tag, as it has been almost two weeks, and it doesn't appear that there are any objections. Please feel free to put it back up again if you feel it is necessary, and we can continue the discussion here as to how to fix the article up enough to remove it. Otherwise, what do you think about it having being removed? --Twilightsojourn 06:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New image

I went ahead and put a new image up, as I thought that the one we had, while it was nice, was not really an adequate example of speedcubing (as it was just an image of a cube with one side stopped after an eighth of a turn). What do you think? I have a few more that we might use, if you don't really like this one -- I just thought this one might work well. I'd love to hear your thoughts, though! --Twilightsojourn 21:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References?

There seems to be something funky going on with the references here -- I've noticed it on other pages, too (though not all). It seems that the references have been doubled, so that all citations are starting with the second set, making it look like there is no footnote #1, etc., and that the first footnote is instead #5. I don't think I'm being very articulate in trying to explain this, but if you take a look at the citations, you should see what I mean. How can we fix this? --Twilightsojourn 20:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology section

Just wanted to create a place to talk about the editing I just did to the Terminology section. Someone put a lot of work in there, and it was certainly appreciated. However, there was a lot of information that was making that section overly long, and that I felt didn't really belong in a general article about speedcubing. I removed several of the entries, and edited down many of the others. I didn't want it to look like the work wasn't appreciated, or that I had simply reverted what had been written -- this is not the case. Quite to the contrary, I went through the section carefully, weighing what I thought worked and didn't work, removing what I felt didn't belong, and editing/tweaking what seemed fit to stay. Additional input is certainly fine, and this is a space where it would be best to discuss changes related to that edit. Thanks, Twilightsojourn 01:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I checked what Doug wrote, and it looked fine, besides some incrowd mistakes (like mentioning algs instead of algorithms). I think the glossary should be as glossaries generally come: just mentioning what the abbreviation or term means. A more detailed explanation can be either linked to the cube wiki outside of wikipedia, or we could decide to create another page on wikipedia about that term. Take e.g. CLL; we could write lots of pages about CLL!! So an important question is: how much detail do you write in an encyclopedia? --Blonkm 17:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a good question. I feel like there shouldn't be too extensive a glossary in the main article, as it isn't really conducive to an understanding of what speedcubing is. A short terminology section might be fine, but I was thinking that perhaps creating a separate article for terminology (either in Wikipedia or in the Cube Wiki) might be a better move -- the main article won't feel like it is becoming a list of facts/definitions, and the information (which is important) will have a place of its own. I won't go ahead and do this yet, but I really think that it would be a good idea. Right now, it is feeling less like an encyclopaedia article, and more like a speedcubing dictionary (again, which is valuable, just not in the main article). --Twilightsojourn 18:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I am fine with whatever. I was hoping someone would go in and refine what I put in. I basically used some material I collected after consulting a few other cubers such as Bob and Macky. This is the way wikipedia was meant to be used. I am not at all offended or in objection. Although I don't think the changes I made where significant, most of the time I just go fix typos and stuff. There are ppl that regularly write entire articles. Although I do believe that the term "alg/algs" should be included since it has become such a popular term that at competitions (in the States at least), people freqently use the abbreviation in speech. It may also be the case that certain terms have caught on more in the States than in other places in the world. I'd also like to point out that terminology changes over time, and although some terms are being depreciated I feel it is best to include them. I can add like 100 more entries to terminology, but it seems to be fine as is. I guess we could have a link to a separate page that gives a much more extensive collection, and I would be willing to contribute to that. I have been a speedcuber for a little over 8 years now so I do consider myself qualified for such a thing. Some help in revising and condensing it would be welcome since I can be overly zealous sometimes. DougCube 12:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sport infobox

two things, firstly does anyone know of any motto for speedcubing? i dont think there is any but jsut wanted to check to make sure. Secondly when do you think the date of foundation should be? possibillities include

• 1974 (invention of the cube)
• 1980 (introduced to Europe/US)
• 1982 (first official competition)
• 2004 (WCA foundation although this is probably too late)

ive put it as 1980 because that when the cube "took off"

Thatperson 17:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

any suggestions would be gretly appriciated

Thanks for your effort on this! I have to wonder, however, why there is an infobox for this at all. If one goes to the entries for other sports, there are no such infoboxes. In addition, many of the statistics/facts are either inaccurate or, at least, incomplete. I would prefer to eliminate to box altogether -- what do other people think? --Twilightsojourn 08:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

There hasn't been a response, so I'm going to go ahead and delete it. If this raises problems, let's talk about it here. --Twilightsojourn 04:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cube used for speedcubing

Do speedcubers just use a standard Rubik's Cube or is there a nicer (more expensive) version produced that most use. Not sure if this is a dumb question, but I was curious about this and think it might be worth mentioning in the article either way. wubb 18:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It tends to depend on the speedcubist. Different people have different speedcubing styles, which also lends itself to different preferences regarding the physical cubes. Technically, there is more than one variant of the official Rubik's Cube (which just about everyone uses -- I don't know of any speedcubists who use non-official 3x3x3 cubes), depending when it was made. For example, some of the cubes that were made back in the 1980s, in Rubik's Hungarian studio, are considered by some to be superior to any cubes that have been made more recently, due to the way the internal springs are set up, etc. Many people dislike the newer official variants, as they stopped using screws to tighten the axes, which meant that they were less customizable (with regards to tuning the screws, and therefore the tension of the central axes and the relative looseness of the layers) than the older ones. However, since speedcubing has started to see a resurgence, the Rubik's brand has started making a special cube for speedcubers, which brings back the customizability. From what I know, that model has had a positive reaction in the speedcubing community.

I hope that helps! Let us know if you have more questions. --Twilightsojourn 16:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Do you know where I can find info about the special cube? I don't think I'd want to buy one, but I would be interesting in reading up on it or seeing how much it runs in relation to the standard issue. wubb 22:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)