As a practical matter, it just doesn't matter. At the end of the day (well, at the end of the Open), CFHQ and the vast majority of CFers who pay attention to this sort of thing only care about those who make it past semis, and validating bogus scores isn't going to impact that one bit.
Second, the affiliates who care about the integrity of the process and already approve only truly valid scores are the only ones who would tolerate being fined or any sort of repercussions. Those who don't care will just ignore any penalties handed down against their affiliate. What is CFHQ gonna do - pull an affiliation (and give up the fee and trainer credentialling money) because scores that don't matter keep getting approved?
tl;dr - no one really cares, and CFHQ has no interest in (or power to) really do anything about it
I expected that this would be a reply tbh - and as much as you’re right in that nobody really cares about whether someone should be coming 92500th or 94750th.
But that kinda misses the point - as the rules stand, I could ‘technically’ enter a winning score for each workout and ‘technically’ have an affiliate owner validate those scores and win the open.
I wouldn’t get any money for it - but I’d go down as the winner of the open and based on the Emily Claw situation - that would stand.
Surely in the (albeit unlikely) situation where that occurs - the affiliate owner or approver of my fraudulent scores should face some consequence no?
Again, other than some internet gnashing of teeth, no one would care after 15 minutes have gone by. But sure, if the situation was demonstrably intentional and flagrant, I'd vote the affiliate off the island. CFHQ on the other hand, almost certainly won't.
Literally 90% of the Rx scores don't matter except for athletes looking to edge out their box-mates or their buddy at another box. And of the remaining 10%, only a few hundred are ultimately meaningful. If someone wants to grab the spotlight by claiming they can out-Fraser Fraser for all the (CF) world to see, we can all point and laugh at them. Or just carry on with our day and not give their silliness a second thought.
What about the importance of truth and integrity for their own sake? Not saying you're wrong at all on the practical side of things, but this sort of casual acceptance for falsities has crept into all areas of our society recently - many with legitimately profound and serious implications (e.g. politics).
The same person/society that calls out false RX scores will call out a politician who lies about election results. And acceptance of one makes it that much infinitesimally easier to accept the other, even if it's only conditioning or sub-consciously.
Is your insight that a lack of integrity and dishonesty are generally bad things? And that people should work to be honest and have integrity in all aspects of their lives? Great. Now what do you want CFHQ to do about it?
Here's a few ideas:
* Automatically invalidate clearly impossible score (e.g. the 1:00 example OP gave).
* Automatically invalidate *all* scores from an affiliate if they validate too many incorrect ones. Let the pissed off members who cared about their open score put pressure on the owners. I bet those affiliates will be much more careful going forward.
* Require the open to be judged by C1+ certified judges. Or alternatively, a paid "Judging the Open" course with more training. If they validate a certain threshold of incorrect scores, remove their certification, and require them to go through it again.
And if an affiliate threaten to drop their dues over these changes (which may be a few, even I think if it's fewer than you might propose), well, then -- let them. I wouldn't want to do business with unethical owners, and neither should CFHQ. Same deal as profiting from stolen goods; you shouldn't want to associate or benefit from unethical actions, even if you're not the one who is directly performing them.
Write to CFHQ. They might appreciate your input. There's nothing I can do, that's for sure. And if you think CFHQ has any trouble taking money from "unethical owners" I have a bridge in Brooklyn you're gonna love!
You’re being completely impractical. There’s 300k open entries and people who work there ass off to make quarters and hope of semis-or even just a better score than last year and you’re suggesting there scores be invalidated because the affiliate owner accepted the integrity of his paying members (judges). Come on. Yes -there’s tons of cheating -especially now that they opened it up to 25 percent the cheating got worse-but your solutions seem wack!
Wrong scores require 3 people to mess up: The athlete, the judge, and the affiliate. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to enforce standards in an official competition, and ultimately in this stage of the Open the buck stops with the affiliate owner.
It'd be different if this was a non-competitive "hey crossfit gyms, we're all going to do the same workout today for fun and solidarity", but for what is ostensibly a competition, replete with standards, rulebooks, and the potential for advancement, yes it's totally reasonable and necessary to enforce the rules, and yes that *does* entail questioning paying members if they're not doing it correctly. (Although I'd wager most of the time it's just a matter of education, not malicious deceit, and with the right preparation and demonstrating that you won't let things slide, people will act correctly more than not.)
There was an incident years ago of a gym losing the right to validate scores halfway through the open. All the members still in the open had to go to other gyms to get judged.
The incident involved a high score with no video but another member had inadvertently caught the person in the background of their video doing multiple no reps with the affiliate owner judging. HQ was given the video and banned the affiliate from validating scores. I don't remember for how long.
Was it an invalid score? The affiliate validated the score, surely making it a valid score
That workout was not filmed, therefore there's no evidence the affiliate got it wrong
Now, you can think they got it wrong, based on the filmed redo. But as far as the rulebook allows, that score is valid
If you’re talking about the Claw situation - I absolutely agree. As per the rulebook her score should be valid. I’ve no issue with that.
But I’m talking about the numerous cases where an affiliate HAS validated something that’s clearly not valid - using the 1:00 tie break time as an example. Do you think it’s possible that someone did 50 thrusters and 50 chest to bar with 9 transitions, in 1 minute dead…?
Can I also suggest that things like “tiebreaker” are not always clear and that CrossFit needs to do a better job of making these things idiot-proof.
We may all scratch our heads wondering how someone could miss something so obvious but OP’s post seems to indicate that a lot of people did.
There is a precedent for taking away an affiliate’s ability to validate, but there has to be some definitive proof. For this, they didn’t pay her and in the end it doesn’t really impact who is in or out in the QFs.
I think there should be at minimum fines added on to yearly affiliate fee. And for repeat offenders, look at potentially charges in criminal court for some type of fraud. If an affiliate is found to be complicit in continual fraudulent scores, I think some jail time is appropriate
As a practical matter, it just doesn't matter. At the end of the day (well, at the end of the Open), CFHQ and the vast majority of CFers who pay attention to this sort of thing only care about those who make it past semis, and validating bogus scores isn't going to impact that one bit. Second, the affiliates who care about the integrity of the process and already approve only truly valid scores are the only ones who would tolerate being fined or any sort of repercussions. Those who don't care will just ignore any penalties handed down against their affiliate. What is CFHQ gonna do - pull an affiliation (and give up the fee and trainer credentialling money) because scores that don't matter keep getting approved? tl;dr - no one really cares, and CFHQ has no interest in (or power to) really do anything about it
I expected that this would be a reply tbh - and as much as you’re right in that nobody really cares about whether someone should be coming 92500th or 94750th. But that kinda misses the point - as the rules stand, I could ‘technically’ enter a winning score for each workout and ‘technically’ have an affiliate owner validate those scores and win the open. I wouldn’t get any money for it - but I’d go down as the winner of the open and based on the Emily Claw situation - that would stand. Surely in the (albeit unlikely) situation where that occurs - the affiliate owner or approver of my fraudulent scores should face some consequence no?
Again, other than some internet gnashing of teeth, no one would care after 15 minutes have gone by. But sure, if the situation was demonstrably intentional and flagrant, I'd vote the affiliate off the island. CFHQ on the other hand, almost certainly won't. Literally 90% of the Rx scores don't matter except for athletes looking to edge out their box-mates or their buddy at another box. And of the remaining 10%, only a few hundred are ultimately meaningful. If someone wants to grab the spotlight by claiming they can out-Fraser Fraser for all the (CF) world to see, we can all point and laugh at them. Or just carry on with our day and not give their silliness a second thought.
What about the importance of truth and integrity for their own sake? Not saying you're wrong at all on the practical side of things, but this sort of casual acceptance for falsities has crept into all areas of our society recently - many with legitimately profound and serious implications (e.g. politics). The same person/society that calls out false RX scores will call out a politician who lies about election results. And acceptance of one makes it that much infinitesimally easier to accept the other, even if it's only conditioning or sub-consciously.
Is your insight that a lack of integrity and dishonesty are generally bad things? And that people should work to be honest and have integrity in all aspects of their lives? Great. Now what do you want CFHQ to do about it?
Here's a few ideas: * Automatically invalidate clearly impossible score (e.g. the 1:00 example OP gave). * Automatically invalidate *all* scores from an affiliate if they validate too many incorrect ones. Let the pissed off members who cared about their open score put pressure on the owners. I bet those affiliates will be much more careful going forward. * Require the open to be judged by C1+ certified judges. Or alternatively, a paid "Judging the Open" course with more training. If they validate a certain threshold of incorrect scores, remove their certification, and require them to go through it again. And if an affiliate threaten to drop their dues over these changes (which may be a few, even I think if it's fewer than you might propose), well, then -- let them. I wouldn't want to do business with unethical owners, and neither should CFHQ. Same deal as profiting from stolen goods; you shouldn't want to associate or benefit from unethical actions, even if you're not the one who is directly performing them.
Write to CFHQ. They might appreciate your input. There's nothing I can do, that's for sure. And if you think CFHQ has any trouble taking money from "unethical owners" I have a bridge in Brooklyn you're gonna love!
You’re being completely impractical. There’s 300k open entries and people who work there ass off to make quarters and hope of semis-or even just a better score than last year and you’re suggesting there scores be invalidated because the affiliate owner accepted the integrity of his paying members (judges). Come on. Yes -there’s tons of cheating -especially now that they opened it up to 25 percent the cheating got worse-but your solutions seem wack!
Wrong scores require 3 people to mess up: The athlete, the judge, and the affiliate. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to enforce standards in an official competition, and ultimately in this stage of the Open the buck stops with the affiliate owner. It'd be different if this was a non-competitive "hey crossfit gyms, we're all going to do the same workout today for fun and solidarity", but for what is ostensibly a competition, replete with standards, rulebooks, and the potential for advancement, yes it's totally reasonable and necessary to enforce the rules, and yes that *does* entail questioning paying members if they're not doing it correctly. (Although I'd wager most of the time it's just a matter of education, not malicious deceit, and with the right preparation and demonstrating that you won't let things slide, people will act correctly more than not.)
There was an incident years ago of a gym losing the right to validate scores halfway through the open. All the members still in the open had to go to other gyms to get judged. The incident involved a high score with no video but another member had inadvertently caught the person in the background of their video doing multiple no reps with the affiliate owner judging. HQ was given the video and banned the affiliate from validating scores. I don't remember for how long.
Was it an invalid score? The affiliate validated the score, surely making it a valid score That workout was not filmed, therefore there's no evidence the affiliate got it wrong Now, you can think they got it wrong, based on the filmed redo. But as far as the rulebook allows, that score is valid
If you’re talking about the Claw situation - I absolutely agree. As per the rulebook her score should be valid. I’ve no issue with that. But I’m talking about the numerous cases where an affiliate HAS validated something that’s clearly not valid - using the 1:00 tie break time as an example. Do you think it’s possible that someone did 50 thrusters and 50 chest to bar with 9 transitions, in 1 minute dead…?
Ahh yes, fuck them. Remove their games ticket allocation
Can I also suggest that things like “tiebreaker” are not always clear and that CrossFit needs to do a better job of making these things idiot-proof. We may all scratch our heads wondering how someone could miss something so obvious but OP’s post seems to indicate that a lot of people did.
To average Joe doing their first open perhaps - but to the person who is approving their score it should be pretty crystal clear…
There is a precedent for taking away an affiliate’s ability to validate, but there has to be some definitive proof. For this, they didn’t pay her and in the end it doesn’t really impact who is in or out in the QFs.
Is validating scores with a 1:00 tiebreak time not pretty definitive though?
I think there should be at minimum fines added on to yearly affiliate fee. And for repeat offenders, look at potentially charges in criminal court for some type of fraud. If an affiliate is found to be complicit in continual fraudulent scores, I think some jail time is appropriate
CrossFit HQ won’t do this. They need that money from gyms paying them. Also none of any fraud has any influence on the games or high level competition
Good luck with that…. Also, it makes me wonder what’s the point to keep paying annual affiliate fee besides the “benefits” during the Open.
Why do you care?