Dear WCA Community,

As of August 1st, 2024, the WCA Integrity Committee (WIC) was established as part of an amendment to the Motions. The WDC and WEC were merged and the WIC has taken on the role of both committees, with additional responsibilities. You can find more details in a recent announcement here.

The WIC has been hard at work behind the scenes merging the two committees while ensuring that cases close in a timely manner. We appreciate your patience as we continue to adapt to the new workflow and learn to support each other with team members coming from various places within the WCA. You can find a full list of current members here.

With this merger, the WIC will continue to update the community on a quarterly basis with disciplinary cases. In the last quarter, the WIC and WDC combined opened 23 disciplinary cases and closed 17. This resulted in four bans and three warnings. Thirteen cases ended with no action, upholding a delegate ruling in a dispute, or otherwise deferred back to delegates to manage locally. Below, you can find summaries of some notable cases.

• A judge called over a delegate regarding a competitor turning their puzzle during inspection. The competitor initially denied doing it intentionally, but later admitted to the delegates that they had turned intentionally and provided a list of competitions and events where they had also turned during inspection. The WIC believed the competitor was honest about when the behavior began. The competitor received a short ban and all affected results were disqualified.
• A competitor and a judge were seen writing down an illegitimate time after the competitor was dissatisfied with the result. The two young participants were given a warning and the result was disqualified.
• A competitor submitted a Fewest Moves solution that did not appear legitimate, as it did not follow typical methods. After confrontation, the competitor admitted to using their phone to find a solution and as well as doing so on past attempts, but not all attempts. The WIC disagreed as to when the competitor began cheating, and disqualified additional solves we believed were affected. The competitor received a short ban.
• A delegate reported a competitor potentially engaging in bullying behavior, including racial remarks and physically harming the other competitor. The WIC learned this behavior has been ongoing for quite some time. The aggressor did not deny the behavior, but denied the severity of their behavior. The competitor received a short ban.
• The WIC closed three cases involving blindfold peeking. Two cases did not have enough evidence to conclusively prove or disprove cheating. The last case involved a delegate ruling being disputed after the delegate(s) disqualified an attempt under suspicions of cheating. After reviewing the evidence, the WIC agreed with the delegate’s conclusions.
• Finally, the WIC had two competitors come forward to confess results they achieved illegitimately by taking advantage of distracted or inexperienced judges. The results were disqualified but no further action was taken. The WIC is grateful for these competitor’s honesty.

Do you have questions for the WIC? Feel free to send us an email, or ask your question in the Disciplinary section of the WCA forum (to be updated to Integrity soon!).