Relying on external rules (IUF Rulebook, IAAF/WA rules, ...)
Comments about this discussion:
Started
I am struggling with an issue that relates to several discussions and proposals, and affects how we must phrase our rules. For that reason, some discussions are 'stuck', in my view. Therefore, I start a new discussion for it.
This is about the interconnectedness of World Record Guidelines and IUF Rulebook (and to a lesser degree the IAAF/WA rules. We did have Discussion 8 and Proposal 2 (which passed) about this subject, but this didn't go as 'deep' as I see the issue now.
The World Record Guidelines do rely on the IUF Rulebook. This is already the case in the current/old (2011) version of the Guidelines, and probably more so in the new version that we are developing.
We have identified many points where we want to suggest tighter or additional rules, such as for outdoor versus indoor, wind measurements, requirements for proof of course length, timing equipment and more. These additional rules are not in the current Guidelines AND they are not in the IUF Rulebook. It has been suggested that we put all the rules in full in the WR Guidelines until the IUF Rulebook is updated and contains these rules. At that stage, we could replace the literal text of the rules in the WR Guidelines with a reference to the Rulebook.
Note that because our sport continues to develop, the Rulebook will continue to change in the future. If in the WR Guidelines we refer to the Rulebook, the WR Guidelines change in principle with it. I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea. IUF Rulebook changes are in principle improving things, and these improvements would automatically apply to World Records from then on. It might be an issue though, that not all World Records have been done under the exact same rules.
More or less the same reasoning applies to IAAF/WA regulations. I think we agree, for example, that an athletics track is acceptable for unicycling records if it conforms to IAAF/WA standards. Again, these standards may change in the future. And unlike the IUF Rulebook where we may have a little bit control over changes (individuals in the World Record Committee could also be a member of a Rulebook Committee), any changes in IAAF/WA rules happen completely without us.
I see two things we can do:
A. Copy all the relevant rules of the IUF Rulebook and the IAAF/WA into the World Record Guidelines. And some rules (like wind measurement) we can put in the WRG even though they are not (yet?) in the IUF Rulebook. This has serious disadvantages. Firstly, it would expand the WR Guidelines enormously, to duplicate all that text. More importantly, if the IUF Rulebook changes, then Unicon has to comply with those new rules, possibly making it impossible to grant some records from Unicons. Hypothetical example: the number of attempts for jumps would increase from 12 to 15.
B. Do not put any rules in the WR Guidelines that can be covered by referring to the IUF Rulebook and/or the IAAF/WA rules.
If we have to choose between A and B, I would choose B.
The biggest problem with B is that the rules for World Records may change every now and then, and the WR Committee would not have control over this.
Maybe there is an intermediate solution (let's call it C), a hybrid between A and B, where some rules are explicitly duplicated in the WR Guidelines and some are not. Perhaps only include in the WRG those rules that we think should be implemented in the IUF Rulebook in the next editing round. The problem with that is, we don't know for sure if all those rules end up in the Rulebook like we want. And then we have a discrepancy between Rulebook and WRG.
Jan argued somewhere that we shouldn't be dependent on IAAF/WA rules because they can change without our involvement, changing our record conditions with it. But doesn't the same apply to the IUF Rulebook?
I've been thinking about these questions for days now, trying to wrap my head around it. Every choice has its disadvantages, but I tend to choose B.
If we do that, AND we have our way in implementing a lot of new rules in the IUF Rulebook in the next round, the requirements for World Records will change quite a lot at that time.
If we want the new WRG to be in place long (enough) before the 2022 competition season, we'll probably have many changes a year later - and records that are not really compatible.
Am I missing an obvious way out of this? Please share your views.
Comment
You are absolutely right that we should discuss this issue, as it is indeed linked to many other topics. I have been thinking about this a lot in the last few days and I find it quite difficult to find a suitable solution.
First of all, I would like to say that I am in favor of a close connection between the IUF Rulebook and the WRG - because basically WR should belong to the competition disciplines of the IUF Rulebook and it is therefore necessary that competitions and WR share the same rules. I also like the fact that the development of our sport is reflected in the regular revision of the rules.
But I also see an extremely big problem in such regular changes, because of course they have the risk that performances are not comparable with each other, which is a no-go for WRs. In my opinion, it is therefore the top priority of the WRG and the WR Committee to ensure that all WR are set up under the same conditions and - in the case that conditions change - to "reset" the WRs and manage old and new WRs, to clearly separate the performances. But of course, it wouldn't make much sense to "reset" the WRs and start new ones every two years. I think it would therefore need a certain continuity in the decisive rules. So the question I ask myself on this subject is, how could a certain cosistency be ensured over several years?
In my oppinon ideally, there should be some sort of " lock " on the rules that cannot be changed without "resetting" the WRs because the results would no longer be comparable. If during a rulebook update one of these "locked" rules is to be changed, the WR Committee should be informed and the IUF Board together with the WR Committee and the Rulebook Committee should jointly decide whether the rule change in question is worth "resetting" the WR and should really be implemented.
This way one would have control over whether the rules change to the point that it has a massive impact on the WRs (and on any other performance) and it would always be a conscious decision by all committees involved. Of course I know that this approach is absolutely not the current one and I am not sure if it would be feasible... But I think it would be a big step towards rule consistency over many years while keeping the possibility to consider developments in unicycling adequately in the rules. After all, not every change in the rules is so fundamental that the performances provided with the old and new rules can not be compared with each other.
With such a " locking system " one would never get into the situation that the rules change unnoticed and completely without control. Then one could write all rules in the Rulebook without having to think about it and only refer to them in the WRG.
Compared to the IAAF/WA rules, we have the possibility in our Rulebook (even without the " locking system ") to be aware of the changes and to actively participate in the discussion about the rule changes, because in principle we can all participate in the Rulebook Committee. With the IAAF/WA rules we do not have this possibility, which is why I would rather include these rules in our Gudelines (or the Rulebook) instead of just referring to them.
I would definitely bring the WRG now into a state of which we are convinced that it will be suitable for the next years and from our current point of view no more (fundamental) changes are necessary for the next years. Otherwise, we might have to "reset" all WRs in two years, which would not be beneficial for the athletes and our sport.
Including rules in the WRG that are currently not in the Rulebook does not necessarily contradict the solution B. A reference would not yet be possible and the WRG would represent a addition to the Rulebook.
In terms of consistency, I would be very much in favor of this variant.
Comment
There are some good elements in your writeup. I can see a way forward now.
Unfortunately, I have not enough time now to think about it thoroughly. I am packing my stuff for a one-week camping holiday, followed by a very busy weekend (partly unicycling :) ).
Realistically, I cannot respond before Monday 5 July. (This also goes for any other WRC work.)
Comment
I still can't get a clear view on these issues.
There are some Rulebook rules for which a change would have a large effect on the results.
But there are many Rulebook rules for which a change would have some effect on the results.
There is a wide spectrum of this. Just to pick a random example: a requirement that riders need to be able to scout out the route of a Road Race for x days in advance is benificial to some riders - and hence influences their result.
If you want to "lock" every rule that has a potential effect on the results, changing the rulebook will become very restricted.
If you only want to "lock" the essential rules, you need to decide which ones are essential enough. Difficult!
Can we again get insight from other sports?
How often do IAAA/WA change their rules, and what do they do with world records set under old rules? Does anyone of us know?
And on the issue of referring versus copying: do IAAA/WA have a similar separation between Rulebook and World Record Guidelines like we have?
Comment
I see your point... Essensiel for me would be everything that directly affects the performance - so competition equipment (unicycle size, crank lenght, transmission), course length and type, timing and accuracy, false start and finish monitoring, wind measurement and how these measurements are to be performed. Doping tests are not an issue in unicycling and so far not feasible - that would otherwise be another essential point for me.
Rules e.g. for course inspection would not be essential enough for me to "lock" them - of course a well-known course can be an advantage, but it depends strongly on the course - a course which goes e.g. on very wide streets in a rund course without narrow curves or something like that is with inspection perhaps just as fast ridable as without. In the end, a road world record will be set on an optimal course anyway, but the course is always different. But of course it is very very hard to decide what would be essential and what not...
I think really big changes are actually quite rare at the IAAF/WA, and editorial changes should also be quite limited. I would assume that when major changes are made, records become invalid or "historical" and are no longer kept as current world records. But in fact, I don't really know.
In the IAFF/WA, the rules for the world records are a section of the competition rules, so there is not such a clear separation as with us. However, since they form a separate chapter, they are not directly integrated into the other rules, but there are of course references to other sections.
Comment
The idea of 'locking' some parts of the rulebook is kind of revolutionary. We need the IUF Board behind us to get this effectuated.
I think the steps can be as follows:
1. Finalise the WRG, or at least the parts about the rules that should be added to the Rulebook (for example including wind measurements, but excluding witness requirements). (This in itself is a major task.)
2. Temporarily integrate the additional rules in the current Rulebook, as if they are approved.
3. Identify in this combined document which rules should be locked. As described in previous posts, this requires some judgement.
4. Propose the idea of locking some rules to the IUF Board, with our 'list' of candidates for locking so that they know the extent of what we propose.
As I wrote in my other post, unfortunately I am more or less unavailable until 3 October.
Comment
Sounds good to me. I think in October there is quite a lot to do for us.
Comment
Assuming that the above 4-step plan is the way forward, let's concentrate for now on "Finalise the WRG".
Comment
I'm sorry this has slipped for a long time. Currently the IUF Rulebook revision process (2022/2023) is about to start. Let's seize the opportunity to get our ideas into the IUF Rulebook. Then the WR Guidelines can rely on, and refer to, the IUF Rulebook without the interim solution described above.
I think we need a list of issues/rules/requirements to be implemented in the Rulebook.
Comment
I totally agree with that. I think a list/overview of issues/rules/requirements would make the work in the Rulebook Committee much easier. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to prepare a proper overview at the moment.
Comment
I have used a proverbial (but real) rainy Sunday afternoon to scan the WRG discussions and proposals for issues that need to be brought up in the various Rulebook committee.
A total of 8 issues (not listed here), all of them for Track, have already been brought up, mostly thanks to Jan Vocke.
1. In Track, there is one issue remaining. In 2D.1 (Venue) we need to include a statement that the track used must be proven to comply to IAAF/WA requirements. Currently, the Rulebook does not contain any requirements to the accuracy of the track length.
2. For Jumps, there is also one issue remaining that results from the WRG Discussions. We need to include somewhere in 13D a statement that results for any of the four jump events must be rounded down to the nearest cm before publishing.
3. Another issue for Jumps (not addressed in the WRG discussions yet) is that we will probably want to prescribe something about the accuracy of the length/height/distance measurement in the Rulebook, e.g. using a steel tape measure of a certain standard.
For Road, I see four things:
4. Course distance measurement. This discussion is still ongoing in the WRC, Simon Jan made good suggestions.
5. Time measurement. There is a section 3D.16 "Accuracy of results" in the Rulebook, but it does describe published time resolution rather than accuracy. I don't see anything about the accuracy of the time measurement. Since the published results are rounded down to seconds, I think the requirements to timing equipment for Road can be more relaxed than in Track with its 0.01 seconds resolution of published results. But may still need a rule.
6. We need a rule for drafting behind other vehicles (drafting behind competing unicyclists is OK), but I'm not sure we have reached consensus here in the WRC.
7. False start monitoring for Road is regulated in 3B.5.3, but that doesn't describe anything about the method to detect false starts. That implies that judging false starts by eye is allowed. An electronic system is probably not usable anyway with the non-lane start method of most Road races. That's fine with me, but then it would be better to explicitly allow judgement by eye.
Any additions or comments?
Comment
Thank you very much Klaas for looking through the discussions and proposals here and also for being so active in the Rulebook Committee.
For all things concerning the track disciplines, I have indeed tried to initiate corresponding proposals in the Rulebook Committee - for Rule 2D.1 Venue I have also initiated a corresponding discussion after your hint here. Thanks again for the hint at this point.
As for the aspects concerning Jumps - unfortunately these things are not in the hands of the Track Committee anymore, even if in my opinion the disciplines Long Jump on Track and High Jump over Bar belong to the Track Technical Disciplines. Nevertheless, I doubt that there would be a majority to move them back to the Track part :D
Comment
> Thank you very much Klaas for looking through the discussions and proposals here and also for being so active in the Rulebook Committee.
Let me mirror those thanks back to you! You have put a lot of excellent effort into the proposals, and in thoughtful comments.
I just noticed that I am a member of the Jumps committee, as I requested at the start of the Rulebook effort. Until now, there has been zero activity in the Jumps committee. When I put the above list together, I unfortunately wasn't aware of an impending deadline, so I was not in a particular hurry to start discussions there. I was just awaiting comments or additions on my list above. More or less the same for Road, although there has been activity there, in which I was involved.
One of these days I will try to start discussions on all remaining topics in Road and Jumps. I hope the deadline allows it. :-/
Comment
I have started all the discussions I mentioned for Road and Jumps, be it that for number 2, a discussion wasn't actually needed. I found out that 13B.7 (not 13D where I looked initially) describes already exactly what we want. I'm not sure if the rule (of rounding down to the nearest cm) is always adhered to, but at least it doesn't need an additional rule.
I'm awaiting comments. Those of you who are members of Jumps and/or Road in the Rulebook committee, are most welcome to comment!