2019 → 2025 → 2026 · Institutional history
The framework question did not begin with Clock
Years before the decision to remove Clock, the WCA had already identified the need for a clear and transparent process for changing official events.
This page reconstructs that documented history and preserves the community observation that brought this precedent back into the discussion in August 2026.
4 December 2019 · Documented precedent
3x3x3 With Feet is removed
Following a full year of feedback and review, the WCA Regulations Committee and the WCA Board concluded that 3x3x3 With Feet would lose its status as an official WCA event from 1 January 2020.
The significance of that announcement for the current discussion lies not only in the removal of an event, but in what the WRC said about the process itself.
“We would also like to take this time to apologize for the flaws in the process used for this decision. We have learned greatly from the community's feedback, and will prioritize a clear and transparent process for event changes in the future.”
WCA Regulations Committee · 4 December 2019
The WRC explicitly acknowledged problems in the process used to remove an official event.
The Committee explicitly stated that it had learned from community feedback.
It said that a clear and transparent process for future event changes would be prioritised.
Institutional continuity
Lessons should survive the people who learned them
The individuals serving in the WCA change over time. That does not make institutional learning less important. It makes mechanisms for preserving that learning more important.
Governance frameworks, procedures, strategic planning and documented lessons learned exist precisely so that institutional knowledge can survive changes in the people who make up an organisation.
If the lesson identified in 2019 disappeared simply because the people involved later left their positions, that would not resolve the governance question. It would become part of the governance question itself.
Had the clear and transparent event-change process identified in 2019 subsequently been developed and consolidated, later Boards would not need to depend on the personal memory or experience of those who were involved at the time.
They would inherit an institutional framework with predefined criteria, documented knowledge and an established process for evaluating the addition or removal of official events.
This is not a question of who happens to sit on the Board. It is a question of how the WCA functions when the people within it change.
If institutional commitments disappear when people change, the problem is not the people: the problem is the continuity of institutional governance.
2025–2028 · Strategic planning
The need for a framework remained
The issue did not disappear with the 2019 announcement. Years later, the development of a framework for changes to the official event list remained part of the WCA's own strategic planning.
The governance question
What happened to the lesson learned in 2019?
The significance of the 2019 precedent is not that the volunteers involved then should remain personally responsible for decisions made years later.
The issue is institutional continuity.
If the WCA identified in 2019 the need for a clear and transparent process for event changes, and the development of an event framework subsequently remained part of its strategic planning, why was another official event removed before that framework was established?
A lesson identified in 2019 cannot simply be presented as a new lesson in 2026 without asking what happened in between.
22 August 2026 · Community contribution
The precedent returns to the discussion
During the community discussion following the Clock decision, Ryan Fong highlighted the connection between the 2019 precedent, the WCA's subsequent strategic planning and the decision taken in 2026.
WCA leadership has absolutely had enough time to learn that a good framework for changing events is needed before events are actually changed, as they’ve essentially said as such almost six years ago.
That, in addition to this framework also already being asked for per the Board’s Strategic Plan, is why we should not accept that Clock should be an outlier before a framework is established.
The expectation for a “transparent process” was already set far before the opaque and ill-defined process of removing Clock, and it suggests that the opaque removal of Clock really needs a deep reconsideration under a properly defined framework.
Please see SaveClock.org if you’d like to read more about the need for an event changing framework.
Ryan's contribution is reproduced here as part of the documentary record of the community discussion. SaveClock subsequently reviewed the 2019 WCA announcement and the relevant strategic context before incorporating the historical precedent into its analysis.
SaveClock response
Why the 2019 precedent matters
Ryan, this is a very important point, and I think it brings to the table a historical precedent that we simply cannot ignore.
If we go back to the official WCA announcement regarding the removal of 3x3x3 With Feet in December 2019, the WRC explicitly stated:
“We would also like to take this time to apologize for the flaws in the process used for this decision. We have learned greatly from the community's feedback, and will prioritize a clear and transparent process for event changes in the future.”
In 2019, therefore, the WCA Regulations Committee explicitly acknowledged flaws in the process, stated that it had learned from community feedback, and announced that it would prioritise a clear and transparent process for future event changes.
Almost seven years later, following the Clock decision, we are hearing remarkably similar language again: the need for clearer criteria, greater transparency, and a better-defined framework for future event changes.
What happened to the lessons learned in 2019?
If the need for a clear and transparent process for changing events had already been explicitly identified in 2019, we cannot treat the current situation as though this were the first time the WCA has discovered that such a framework is needed.
The reference to the Strategic Plan makes this issue even more significant. If the need to develop a framework for event changes subsequently remained part of the WCA's strategic planning, then this is not simply a historical statement. It becomes a question of institutional continuity.
From the audit perspective applied throughout SaveClock, this precedent needs to be examined and documented.
A lesson identified in 2019 cannot simply be presented as a new lesson in 2026 without asking what happened during those almost seven years.
This documented precedent deserves a clear explanation from the WCA Board. The question is now part of the documented history of this process, and leaving it unanswered would not make the governance issue disappear.
SaveClock methodology
Community observations are leads, not evidence by themselves
SaveClock approaches this issue from an audit perspective. Community contributions may identify relevant questions or historical connections, but the analysis is based wherever possible on documented and verifiable primary sources.
We examine what can be evidenced, not what can be assumed.
Sources
Documentary record
The historical analysis on this page is based primarily on WCA publications and documents. The community contribution is preserved separately and identified as such.