Continuation of Roundtable Discussion

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2012-11-10 05:46:56 pm

2012-11-10 05:45:54 pm

Not a walrus

Quote from CMiller:

I use http://keepvid.com to grab youtube videos. There's ads and stuff, but adblock gets rid of them all. You can download any of the versions, including HD.

Having to download an addon or visit a non-obvious external site doesn't count as "easy" for purposes of my statement. "Easy" means there's a download link right next to the video.

I myself have FlashGot so it's not an issue for me.

Paraxade

2012-11-10 06:47:34 pm

Not sure if this is entirely relevant, but while we're on the subject of YouTube, I think it'd be better to replace the embedded flash player on game pages with a YouTube embed where available. The flash player is bad quality and doesn't work very well (a bit buggy, doesn't play IL tables in the right order). Everyone already uses YouTube, it has multiple quality settings, it makes it easier for viewers to go leave a comment on the run, etc.

Aftermath

2012-11-10 07:07:38 pm

Quits halfway

I've never had an issue with the flash player and much prefer it over youtube embeds. The 1/2/3/4x control is better than youtube's quality selectors, anyway.

Lee

2012-11-10 10:32:46 pm

I've seen repeatedly on here that WR's isn't SDA's thing, and isn't the direction that SDA should be going in. But then my question is, why is that? Sure, I agree that the video portion of SDA should not be frantically updated to reflect the current WR. However, there's no reason why that information should not be made available on site. People also mention that the KB should be utilized more. I've already touched upon the fact that making a wiki even on wikia is more user friendly than trying to use the KB. But let's say that the KB starts being used, or is improved and people want to update and use it. Why would WR record not be a relevant point of information for the KB? Why would it not be a relevant point of information for a game page, or other place where people go to seek information?

SDA is not only a source for high quality videos. It is also one of the only places where there's a permanent exchange of information. Yes, it's possible to focus only on the videos. What about the forums then? The KB? In my mind the forums are just as important as the videos, if not more so.

I've seen repeatedly on here that WR's isn't SDA's thing, and isn't the direction that SDA should be going in. But then my question is, why is that? Sure, I agree that the [i]video[/i] portion of SDA should not be frantically updated to reflect the current WR. However, there's no reason why that information should not be made available on site. People also mention that the KB should be utilized more. I've already touched upon the fact that making a wiki even on wikia is more user friendly than trying to use the KB. But let's say that the KB starts being used, or is improved and people want to update and use it. Why would WR record not be a relevant point of information for the KB? Why would it not be a relevant point of information for a game page, or other place where people go to seek information?

SDA is not only a source for high quality videos. It is also one of the only places where there's a permanent exchange of information. Yes, it's possible to focus only on the videos. What about the forums then? The KB? In my mind the forums are just as important as the videos, if not more so.

UraniumAnchor

2012-11-10 11:33:40 pm

Not a walrus

I think we'll eventually transition to offering both options (youtube and flash player). It won't be hard to do.

VorpalEdge

2012-11-11 11:38:01 am

welcome to the machine

Quote from CosmoWright:

Quote from VorpalEdge:

Leaderboards have never been something I've felt are really important. At SDA's inception, the prevailing attitude towards TG's leaderboards was basically lol, look at all these bad times.

I don't see what's wrong with bad times. I feel like the more people who can get involved the better, and that includes people who are slow or still learning.

The attitude was mostly due to TG's stance that they were official WRs, along with some of the players over there being... let's go with unpleasant, and so on. Nothing's wrong with bad times.

Quote:

don't know what you mean by reversal, but the RTA function was buggy, and it was sort of ridiculous to expect people to use an IRC bot for every attempt. also the timing of when people hit .done isn't entirely accurate, not enough to be auto-submitted I think.

ah, i see. I'd always assumed the rta function got removed instead of fixed because it would've been preferred for people to race instead. guess i was overthinking it. good to know.

[quote="CosmoWright"][quote="VorpalEdge"]Leaderboards have never been something I've felt are really important.  At SDA's inception, the prevailing attitude towards TG's leaderboards was basically lol, look at all these bad times.[/quote]

I don't see what's wrong with bad times. I feel like the more people who can get involved the better, and that includes people who are slow or still learning.[/quote]

The attitude was mostly due to TG's stance that they were official WRs, along with some of the players over there being... let's go with unpleasant, and so on.  Nothing's wrong with bad times.

[quote]don't know what you mean by reversal, but the RTA function was buggy, and it was sort of ridiculous to expect people to use an IRC bot for every attempt. also the timing of when people hit .done isn't entirely accurate, not enough to be auto-submitted I think.[/quote]

ah, i see.  I'd always assumed the rta function got removed instead of fixed because it would've been preferred for people to race instead.  guess i was overthinking it.  good to know.

InsipidMuckyWater

2012-11-11 02:04:00 pm

Visit my profile to see my runs!

Manocheese brought up a good idea for helping to get games verified. Perhaps people could stream in order to pay for the purchase of obscure games in order that the speedrun of said game can get verified by someone subsequently? I've done a few "reverse bounties" in the past where I purchased the game for whomever was willing to verify it on the condition that they play through and offer to verify the corresponding speedrun. In fact, I have an arrangement to get someone a copy of "Tunnel Rats" as we speak, but my piece of sh*t brokeass can't scrounge up a spare $20 right now, so it's been waiting awhile. I'll get around to it asap, but the point is it would be great if we used a stream, or maybe even an occasional casual marathon (similar to the Japan relief one, but more casual) to afford the purchase of some games that have been or are likely to be waiting awhile in the verification stage.

Or for that matter, to pay for other SDA expenses. -Anyway, not to hijack the thread.

I actually think Manocheese made many good points, though perhaps we should be slightly more open-minded to "open verification." I personally agree that allowing just anybody to verify by posting whatever casual comments they want is probably a bit extreme. However, maybe there's a compromise? Like, maybe we'd only need to get one reviewer who has sufficient experience to verify (and this person would be chiefly responsible for checking consistency/cheating issues), and then instead of waiting 6-12 months to find a second, we use open verification to supplement their opinion with that of the community. I don't know. I'm definitely open to ideas.

Manocheese brought up a good idea for helping to get games verified.  Perhaps people could stream in order to pay for the purchase of obscure games in order that the speedrun of said game can get verified by someone subsequently?  I've done a few "reverse bounties" in the past where I purchased the game for whomever was willing to verify it on the condition that they play through and offer to verify the corresponding speedrun.  In fact, I have an arrangement to get someone a copy of "Tunnel Rats" as we speak, but my piece of sh*t brokeass can't scrounge up a spare $20 right now, so it's been waiting awhile.  I'll get around to it asap, but the point is it would be great if we used a stream, or maybe even an occasional casual marathon (similar to the Japan relief one, but more casual) to afford the purchase of some games that have been or are likely to be waiting awhile in the verification stage.

Or for that matter, to pay for other SDA expenses.          -Anyway, not to hijack the thread.

I actually think Manocheese made many good points, though perhaps we should be slightly more open-minded to "open verification."  I personally agree that allowing just [i]anybody[/i] to verify by posting whatever casual comments they want is probably a bit extreme.  However, maybe there's a compromise?  Like, maybe we'd only need to get [i]one[/i] reviewer who has sufficient experience to verify (and this person would be chiefly responsible for checking consistency/cheating issues), and then instead of waiting 6-12 months to find a second, we use open verification to supplement their opinion with that of the community.  I don't know.  I'm definitely open to ideas.

Greenalink

2012-11-11 02:17:31 pm

DS Dictator

Quote:

Not sure if this is entirely relevant, but while we're on the subject of YouTube, I think it'd be better to replace the embedded flash player on game pages with a YouTube embed where available. The flash player is bad quality and doesn't work very well (a bit buggy, doesn't play IL tables in the right order). Everyone already uses YouTube, it has multiple quality settings, it makes it easier for viewers to go leave a comment on the run, etc.

Embedded flash player on here supports full framerate compared to YT's capped 30fps and no adverts added to the video. The Chinatown Wars Speed run on both mine and SDA's Youtube channels has a small advert that viewers will need to close down to fully watch it without distraction.
So I have no problems with the flash player on this site in other words.

Flip

2012-11-11 08:57:38 pm

1-Up!

Obviously a big point of contention here is verification. I'd like to take this opportunity to offer up the current state of verification and then do my best to project that forward to the post-verification part of the queue.

A bit of history - when I took over Submission / Verification, keeping track of all the information was a bit daunting. I did my best to restructure and rethink the front half of the queue, and I was happy with the system I came up with. When puwexil came on to take care of Submissions, only a slight tweak was required for him and I to work in tandem and it gave me more time to focus on verifications. All of that is a drop in the bucket now that our new queue system is in place (as always, massive thanks to UraniumAnchor). With all of the data in one place, tracking runs has never been easier. When the community spoke up about wanting verification deadlines, I warned the staff that when we implemented deadlines, it would create a one-time huge chunk of verifications. That's what happened last week - all of the old verifications got posted.

Now - there are only 10 runs being verified, and it is easier than ever for me to keep tabs. If you're in a verification thread right now, odds are I posted in your thread today to poke verifiers or answer questions. The queue automatically sends out reminders to get runs verified within a month, max. Note that this can be pushed back for super long runs, but generally, 1 month will be the maximum wait time going forward. I'm doing my best to push all of these to be done well under a month. My personal goal is to get verifications posted in less than 2 weeks after they're sent out. Obviously at the end of the day this is verifier driven but I am and will do my best to keep on top of things. If you're in a thread right now hopefully you see what I mean. I'm being more persistent in getting verifiers to take care of business.

What this means for right now is that a lot of runs (33 verdicts posted in November before today, 5 more today) have just hit the post-verification part of the queue. I've already spoken with the updaters about increasing the size of the updates now to accommodate the impending influx of runs ready to post. I can't say yet whether we'll need or want a micro Big Push to get all of those runs posted once they become ready.

People have been asking what happens between verification and posting. Runs have to be timed, then the official SDA Stat ID is created, then the game page is created, also after Stat ID we have to make sure we have the final copies of the run (this can mean nate encodes them or the runner torrents them), once we have the final copies, they need to be checked by our volunteer Prerelease Checkers (yes this is a horrible run-on sentence, deal with it). Once they are checked by someone in the PRC group, they become Ready to Post. None of those steps tend to be a bottleneck in their own right, but any run can get stuck at any step for a multitude of reasons. When volume becomes a concern at the Ready to Post stage, we just up the number of runs per update and frequency of updates to get it back where we want it. Obviously the flip side of that is we don't want to run out of runs ready to post. Sounds crazy, but we've had to consider that before (not recently, ofc). Note that longer runs will take longer at almost every step. That contributes a small difference.

Anyhow, once this chunk of runs gets posted, the backside of the queue will be the smallest it's ever been since I took over (much like verification is now). At that point, the gap between verification and posting will shrink by quite a bit. I've already said in this thread that I can't/won't predict how low it will go because it would be 100% arbitrary. My hope is that once this all happens that one of the biggest deterrents to submitting a run to SDA will be taken care of.

As for the other good suggestions presented in this thread - currently the staff is discussing the implementation of some of these features and as soon as we decide the how and the when we will let you know. Big thanks to mike89 for pushing for this roundtable to begin with. I can see how SDA will benefit from the conversation. I hope that the next time we do this I can be in the chat at the very least, if not in the call.

I'm sure there's more I could discuss / touch on but that's all for me for now. Like I said, we're currently talking about how to implement ideas that are being put forth in this thread. Thank you to everybody for contributing and for remaining civil in the process (a rare treat in threads such as these).

Obviously a big point of contention here is verification. I'd like to take this opportunity to offer up the current state of verification and then do my best to project that forward to the post-verification part of the queue.

A bit of history - when I took over Submission / Verification, keeping track of all the information was a bit daunting. I did my best to restructure and rethink the front half of the queue, and I was happy with the system I came up with. When puwexil came on to take care of Submissions, only a slight tweak was required for him and I to work in tandem and it gave me more time to focus on verifications. All of that is a drop in the bucket now that our new queue system is in place (as always, massive thanks to UraniumAnchor). With all of the data in one place, tracking runs has never been easier. When the community spoke up about wanting verification deadlines, I warned the staff that when we implemented deadlines, it would create a one-time huge chunk of verifications. That's what happened last week - all of the old verifications got posted.

Now - there are only 10 runs being verified, and it is easier than ever for me to keep tabs. If you're in a verification thread right now, odds are I posted in your thread today to poke verifiers or answer questions. The queue automatically sends out reminders to get runs verified within a month, max. Note that this can be pushed back for super long runs, but generally, 1 month will be the maximum wait time going forward. I'm doing my best to push all of these to be done well under a month. My personal goal is to get verifications posted in less than 2 weeks after they're sent out. Obviously at the end of the day this is verifier driven but I am and will do my best to keep on top of things. If you're in a thread right now hopefully you see what I mean. I'm being more persistent in getting verifiers to take care of business.

What this means for right now is that a lot of runs (33 verdicts posted in November before today, 5 more today) have just hit the post-verification part of the queue. I've already spoken with the updaters about increasing the size of the updates [b][i]now[/i][/b] to accommodate the impending influx of runs ready to post. I can't say yet whether we'll need or want a micro Big Push to get all of those runs posted once they become ready.

People have been asking what happens between verification and posting. Runs have to be timed, then the official SDA Stat ID is created, then the game page is created, also after Stat ID we have to make sure we have the final copies of the run (this can mean nate encodes them or the runner torrents them), once we have the final copies, they need to be checked by our volunteer Prerelease Checkers (yes this is a horrible run-on sentence, deal with it). Once they are checked by someone in the PRC group, they become Ready to Post. None of those steps tend to be a bottleneck in their own right, but any run can get stuck at any step for a multitude of reasons. When volume becomes a concern at the Ready to Post stage, we just up the number of runs per update and frequency of updates to get it back where we want it. Obviously the flip side of that is we don't want to run out of runs ready to post. Sounds crazy, but we've had to consider that before (not recently, ofc). Note that longer runs will take longer at almost every step. That contributes a small difference.

Anyhow, once this chunk of runs gets posted, the backside of the queue will be the smallest it's ever been since I took over (much like verification is now). At that point, the gap between verification and posting will shrink by quite a bit. I've already said in this thread that I can't/won't predict how low it will go because it would be 100% arbitrary. My hope is that once this all happens that one of the biggest deterrents to submitting a run to SDA will be taken care of.

As for the other good suggestions presented in this thread - currently the staff is discussing the implementation of some of these features and as soon as we decide the how and the when we will let you know. Big thanks to mike89 for pushing for this roundtable to begin with. I can see how SDA will benefit from the conversation. I hope that the next time we do this I can be in the chat at the very least, if not in the call.

I'm sure there's more I could discuss / touch on but that's all for me for now. Like I said, we're currently talking about how to implement ideas that are being put forth in this thread. Thank you to everybody for contributing and for remaining [u]civil[/u] in the process (a rare treat in threads such as these).

InsipidMuckyWater

2012-11-11 11:57:44 pm

Visit my profile to see my runs!

There's nothing more encouraging or exciting that when an admin posts about the plans for the site. You guys are always doing so much to continually improve and keep this site progressive without receiving anything in return. Thanks to you all

presjpolk

2012-11-11 11:58:34 pm

HELLO!

I love it when a plan comes together, even if I'm just a spectator to it.

Carcinogen

Edit history:

Carcinogen: 2012-11-12 01:05:24 am

2012-11-12 01:01:14 am

Since I first started speedrunning, I've always recognized the importance of having a site like SDA. It's an archive. I want to see the fastest videos available for a run instead of having to hunt for them. On top of that, it's a place where people can come to exchange ideas about how a game should be ran and how to make things better.

Flip - It's awesome that verification deadlines have been implemented and it's a massive step in the right direction. However, I think SDA *does* want to run out of runs to post for the time being. Pardon the analogy, but if you ask me, it'll be like an enema after a nice big peristaltic movement. Fewer runs = higher demand for people to submit, and best of all, it'll clear out the system so you can focus on improving it. Theoretically, with all the steps you've outlined, it shouldn't take any more than 10-14 days for ONE run to make it on the front page. One month for verification, is still very long, probably can't help that, but it doesn't hurt to try seeing how fast one run can make it from submission to front page without any Dear Esthers clogging up the works. I seem to recall AndrewG's 4:58 making it on the site pretty fast after submission, near record time if I've ever seen it.

Private verification, to me, only seems to serve to mitigate the admins' workload in its current state and slow things down. That's important since it'll keep all the bad runs and 1-2 second improvements away, but I don't want to see highly competitive games with substantially better times KO'd because of a few mistakes. It's the runner's prerogative whether he wants to do better (since he probably is), and if someone else knows they can do better, then they should! Speedrunning is a form of competitive gaming, and since SDA is one of the few centralized locations for speedrunning competition to take place; it's an attraction! People keep running back to watch these runs because they're all grinding it out and beating each other out, effectively making speedrunning a less esoteric thing to partake in.

I like rigorous verification, it means someone was able to appreciate my run and tell me how to improve; but at the end of the day, I want it to be looked at in the grand scheme of things. New Game? Does it use all known tricks? Post it. Improvement? Does it do anything substantially different from the old run? Post it. Neither? Reject! It's not worth the one month it should (theoretically) take to post it if it's only one or two seconds faster (again, save for close to threshold).

As far as open verification goes, I like the idea of open verification for popular games. More people publicly watch the verifier copy, means that more people can pick out cheaters and video encoding issues. Obviously, people who know more about the run can be placed in higher standing. It's streamlined, and I really can't see why it's a bad idea to ditch all this cloak and dagger "the verifiers should be a secret" bullshit. People outside verification have historically had some influence on whether a run that got rejected gets re-verified and accepted anyway, which shows that there's definitely something up with having a practical "electoral college". Just do away with it for the most part unless established runners/members have their doubts about legitimacy.

Take Super Metroid as an arbitrary example. Run was obsoleted recently and there's a lot of runners for that game. Just give them a thread and let those runners duke it out with a ballot box over a period of a week or something. Someone calls cheating? Take it to private verification. A/V okay, no cheating? Take it to final encoding and work the HTML for the page.

Also, this is a particularly dumb idea I came up with during the roundtable discussion, and I want someone to explain to me why this would not work since I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why this wouldn't fly: I considered a "referee" system of sorts. TG has that system in place, and it makes perfect sense for them since they have statistics across the board for so many games. If an established community member who plays a specific game knows HTML, he could code the pages after verification is finished. Maybe even have a third-party "judge" delegate verifiers/PRCs for certain games. I'm not sure how feasible that is, since I too am worried about the idea of too many cooks spoiling the pot, but it's something to consider as an idea for getting shit done.

That's a wall of text.

Since I first started speedrunning, I've always recognized the importance of having a site like SDA. It's an archive. I want to see the fastest videos available for a run instead of having to hunt for them. On top of that, it's a place where people can come to exchange ideas about how a game should be ran and how to make things better.

Flip - It's awesome that verification deadlines have been implemented and it's a massive step in the right direction. However, I think SDA *does* want to run out of runs to post for the time being. Pardon the analogy, but if you ask me, it'll be like an enema after a nice big peristaltic movement. Fewer runs = higher demand for people to submit, and best of all, it'll clear out the system so you can focus on improving it. Theoretically, with all the steps you've outlined, it shouldn't take any more than 10-14 days for ONE run to make it on the front page. One month for verification, is still very long, probably can't help that, but it doesn't hurt to try seeing how fast one run can make it from submission to front page without any Dear Esthers clogging up the works. I seem to recall AndrewG's 4:58 making it on the site pretty fast after submission, near record time if I've ever seen it.

Private verification, to me, only seems to serve to mitigate the admins' workload in its current state and slow things down. That's important since it'll keep all the bad runs and 1-2 second improvements away, but I don't want to see highly competitive games with substantially better times KO'd because of a few mistakes. It's the runner's prerogative whether he wants to do better (since he probably is), and if someone else knows they can do better, then they should! Speedrunning is a form of competitive gaming, and since SDA is one of the few centralized locations for speedrunning competition to take place; it's an attraction! People keep running back to watch these runs because they're all grinding it out and beating each other out, effectively making speedrunning a less esoteric thing to partake in.

I like rigorous verification, it means someone was able to appreciate my run and tell me how to improve; but at the end of the day, I want it to be looked at in the grand scheme of things. New Game? Does it use all known tricks? Post it. Improvement? Does it do anything substantially different from the old run? Post it. Neither? Reject! It's not worth the one month it should (theoretically) take to post it if it's only one or two seconds faster (again, save for close to threshold).

As far as open verification goes, I like the idea of open verification for popular games. More people publicly watch the verifier copy, means that more people can pick out cheaters and video encoding issues. Obviously, people who know more about the run can be placed in higher standing. It's streamlined, and I really can't see why it's a bad idea to ditch all this cloak and dagger "the verifiers should be a secret" bullshit. People outside verification have historically had some influence on whether a run that got rejected gets re-verified and accepted anyway, which shows that there's definitely something up with having a practical "electoral college". Just do away with it for the most part unless established runners/members have their doubts about legitimacy.

Take Super Metroid as an arbitrary example. Run was obsoleted recently and there's a lot of runners for that game. Just give them a thread and let those runners duke it out with a ballot box over a period of a week or something. Someone calls cheating? Take it to private verification. A/V okay, no cheating? Take it to final encoding and work the HTML for the page.

Also, this is a particularly dumb idea I came up with during the roundtable discussion, and I want someone to explain to me why this would not work since I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why this wouldn't fly: I considered a "referee" system of sorts. TG has that system in place, and it makes perfect sense for them since they have statistics across the board for so many games. If an established community member who plays a specific game knows HTML, he could code the pages after verification is finished. Maybe even have a third-party "judge" delegate verifiers/PRCs for certain games. I'm not sure how feasible that is, since I too am worried about the idea of too many cooks spoiling the pot, but it's something to consider as an idea for getting shit done.

That's a wall of text.

gammadragon

2012-11-12 04:30:00 am

Might be magic...

Just watched the discussion. I haven't been around that long, but it seems like SDA, SRL and twitch.tv are separate sites but each brings something good to the table. I think it would be great to have a lot of cross-promotion between them. I'm envisioning something like the attached image (obviously done with much better web design skills than I have Smiley

). Now that I've drawn it, there does seem to be a similarity to Youtube...

It's great how UraniumAnchor is doing a lot of work improving the workflow. There are so many improvements that can be made and I hope that enough resources become available to bring the site into the year 2012. Thanks Uranium!

Attachment:

SDA_NewGamePage.png

bangerra

2012-11-12 06:40:50 am

Quote from gammadragon:

(obviously done with much better web design skills than I have Smiley

).

Your lack of symmetry is disturbing I must say. But that image is a great summary of most things discussed here.
- Link to verification thread
- Link to forum thread (also helps in preventing multiple threads about the same game)
- Video of runs in (post-)verification with possible public verification
- External links to useful videos, information, wiki
- Maybe some way to click on the runner and see his other runs on the site?

ozzy88

2012-11-12 08:03:30 am

Wow, loving that page. Sorry for being useless in this discussion.

Worn_Traveler

2012-11-12 01:16:49 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

other stuff could also link to obsoleted published runs (unless that's what the related runs section is). Also, how would you set up categories? Would each category or run have it's own page?

Flip

2012-11-12 07:45:24 pm

1-Up!

In response to your post, Carc-

I only offered the fact that we've had to worry about running out of runs to post before in an effort to be complete. In this case we will be gunning to post as many as possible as quickly as possible. We just won't leave ourselves with 0 Ready to Post unless there are some in PRC that are ready to move to Ready.

I agree that private verification has cost us time before, but going forward it looks to be significantly less of an issue. I realize that I just have to show people this, and I don't really expect everyone to take me on my word regarding that, but I'm really happy with the current state of private verification and I'll be happy to show people how well it works now.

As far as "New Game? Does it use all known tricks? Post it. Improvement? Does it do anything substantially different from the old run? Post it. Neither? Reject!" goes, there's no reason verifiers can't do this now. There is no word requirement for a verification. Many verifiers write a lot or spend a long time for different reasons. It's not a bad thing, I appreciate them being thorough, but certainly there are instances where a shorter verification would suffice just as well as the novels I receive. This is part of the verifiers prerogative to get things taken care of in a timely manner.

In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers from the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly. I know that most people can name 3/4 of their verifiers no problem. I just want those verifiers to be able to discuss the run together without crowd noise or runner intervention. With that said, I feel like older runs will benefit more from public verification than popular runs will. Runs that didn't get verifiers can benefit from the groupthink of a public verification, whereas if a popular run were verified openly, I'd spend my time weeding through the junk to find the helpful verifications. I understand the desire for popular runs to get through quicker, but look at what happened yesterday - Whizz got posted after being in verification for just over 12 hours. Turnaround times of under a week are a very real possibility now if the verifiers let it happen. Also, I'm more likely now than I used to be to post w/o all verifiers comments in if it looks like a landslide.

Re: referees - Like I said above, after verification a run has to change hands ~5-6 times before it's ready to post. I anticipate going forward that most of the "lost time" in that range will come from transferring from one person to another. It's a necessary evil, though, one person can't do it all and expect to keep doing it for very long. Ask Mikwuyma. I hate to defer to an cliche like "too many cooks spoil the pot," but in this case where we have as few people touching the run as I feel is possible, adding more people to the mix will complicate things long-term.

Hope that helps.

In response to your post, Carc-

I only offered the fact that we've had to worry about running out of runs to post before in an effort to be complete. In this case we will be gunning to post as many as possible as quickly as possible. We just won't leave ourselves with 0 Ready to Post unless there are some in PRC that are ready to move to Ready.

I agree that private verification has cost us time before, but going forward it looks to be significantly less of an issue. I realize that I just have to show people this, and I don't really expect everyone to take me on my word regarding that, but I'm really happy with the current state of private verification and I'll be happy to show people how well it works now.

As far as "New Game? Does it use all known tricks? Post it. Improvement? Does it do anything substantially different from the old run? Post it. Neither? Reject!" goes, there's no reason verifiers can't do this now. There is no word requirement for a verification. Many verifiers write a lot or spend a long time for different reasons. It's not a bad thing, I appreciate them being thorough, but certainly there are instances where a shorter verification would suffice just as well as the novels I receive. This is part of the verifiers prerogative to get things taken care of in a timely manner.

In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers [i]from[/i] the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly. I know that most people can name 3/4 of their verifiers no problem. I just want those verifiers to be able to discuss the run together without crowd noise or runner intervention. With that said, I feel like older runs will benefit more from public verification than popular runs will. Runs that didn't get verifiers can benefit from the groupthink of a public verification, whereas if a popular run were verified openly, I'd spend my time weeding through the junk to find the helpful verifications. I understand the desire for popular runs to get through quicker, but look at what happened yesterday - Whizz got posted after being in verification for just over 12 hours. Turnaround times of under a week are a very real possibility now if the verifiers let it happen. Also, I'm more likely now than I used to be to post w/o all verifiers comments in if it looks like a landslide.

Re: referees - Like I said above, after verification a run has to change hands ~5-6 times before it's ready to post. I anticipate going forward that most of the "lost time" in that range will come from transferring from one person to another. It's a necessary evil, though, one person can't do it all and expect to keep doing it for very long. Ask Mikwuyma. I hate to defer to an cliche like "too many cooks spoil the pot," but in this case where we have as few people touching the run as I feel is possible, adding more people to the mix will complicate things long-term.

Hope that helps.

Marlie Tang

2012-11-12 10:43:03 pm

Hi I'm Kryssstal

Quote from Flip:

In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers from the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly.

Honestly, Reaif's ALttP submission is one example of private verification causing unnecessary drama. One verifier (Murderbydeath) did choose to be very open and was met with such responses as "asshole" in the thread, with no way to really defend himself without posting about it (which defeats the purpose of anonymity). Comments that use anonymity to be more critical than most people are used to just makes people aimlessly try to guess who the verifier is... I don't really agree nor disagree with what MBD wrote (not relevant really), but it would be annoying if people randomly assumed I wrote it, and that in turn I must be a bitch or trying to troll or something when that wasn't the case at all.

I just don't want to see anything in the future along the lines of "Wow, it must be one of those 'Number SMW' people who wrote this awful comment. They really get MY panties in a twist."

[quote="Flip"]In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers [i]from[/i] the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly.[/quote]
Honestly, Reaif's ALttP submission is one example of private verification causing unnecessary drama. One verifier (Murderbydeath) [i]did[/i] choose to be very open and was met with such responses as "asshole" in the thread, with no way to really defend himself without posting about it (which defeats the purpose of anonymity). Comments that use anonymity to be more critical than most people are used to just makes people aimlessly try to guess who the verifier is... I don't really agree nor disagree with what MBD wrote (not relevant really), but it would be annoying if people randomly assumed I wrote it, and that in turn I must be a bitch or trying to troll or something when that wasn't the case at all.

I just don't want to see anything in the future along the lines of "Wow, it must be one of those 'Number SMW' people who wrote this awful comment. They really get MY panties in a twist."

Flip

2012-11-13 09:39:41 pm

1-Up!

Quote from Marlie Tang:

Quote from Flip:

In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers from the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly.

Honestly, Reaif's ALttP submission is one example of private verification causing unnecessary drama. One verifier (Murderbydeath) did choose to be very open and was met with such responses as "asshole" in the thread, with no way to really defend himself without posting about it (which defeats the purpose of anonymity). Comments that use anonymity to be more critical than most people are used to just makes people aimlessly try to guess who the verifier is... I don't really agree nor disagree with what MBD wrote (not relevant really), but it would be annoying if people randomly assumed I wrote it, and that in turn I must be a bitch or trying to troll or something when that wasn't the case at all.

I just don't want to see anything in the future along the lines of "Wow, it must be one of those 'Number SMW' people who wrote this awful comment. They really get MY panties in a twist."

I agree that this can be annoying. Any method will have annoyances, however. I'd rather verifiers be candid behind the mask of (somewhat)anonymity than feel pressured to say certain things knowing that what they say will reflect back on them. For instance, if somebody submits a popular run and we verify it openly, nobody will want to be "that guy" who writes a well thought out reject when 50 other people in the thread have already responded with "accept lol" or "this run is teh bestorz!"

As far as your last line goes, I haven't really noticed nor do I expect people to stereotype verifiers based on what group/clique they seem to belong to. Maybe I'm putting too much faith in the internet here but I just don't see it being a big issue. Considering how bad things could be (Think Youtube commenters / Twitch stream monsters), I'm really happy with how civil our verification process is.

[quote="Marlie Tang"][quote="Flip"]In my opinion, the major perk of private verification is not to keep verifiers secret from the runner, but to protect verifiers [i]from[/i] the runner, and give them a place to discuss openly.[/quote]
Honestly, Reaif's ALttP submission is one example of private verification causing unnecessary drama. One verifier (Murderbydeath) [i]did[/i] choose to be very open and was met with such responses as "asshole" in the thread, with no way to really defend himself without posting about it (which defeats the purpose of anonymity). Comments that use anonymity to be more critical than most people are used to just makes people aimlessly try to guess who the verifier is... I don't really agree nor disagree with what MBD wrote (not relevant really), but it would be annoying if people randomly assumed I wrote it, and that in turn I must be a bitch or trying to troll or something when that wasn't the case at all.

I just don't want to see anything in the future along the lines of "Wow, it must be one of those 'Number SMW' people who wrote this awful comment. They really get MY panties in a twist."[/quote]
I agree that this can be annoying. Any method will have annoyances, however. I'd rather verifiers be candid behind the mask of (somewhat)anonymity than feel pressured to say certain things knowing that what they say will reflect back on them. For instance, if somebody submits a popular run and we verify it openly, nobody will want to be "that guy" who writes a well thought out reject when 50 other people in the thread have already responded with "accept lol" or "this run is teh bestorz!"

As far as your last line goes, I haven't really noticed nor do I expect people to stereotype verifiers based on what group/clique they [i]seem[/i] to belong to. Maybe I'm putting too much faith in the internet here but I just don't see it being a big issue. Considering how bad things [i]could[/i] be (Think Youtube commenters / Twitch stream monsters), I'm really happy with how civil our verification process is.

Worn_Traveler

2012-11-14 05:02:10 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

Unless the runner has identified themselves, there is a chance that verifiers might not known who the runner is, since the runners name is not on the verification PM's so there's anonymity on both ends.

presjpolk

2012-11-14 09:20:47 am

HELLO!

Quote from Skullboy:

Unless the runner has identified themselves, there is a chance that verifiers might not known who the runner is, since the runners name is not on the verification PM's so there's anonymity on both ends.

That probably was the case more often in the past, but it seems to me if you read recent verification posts, streaming has brought everything out into the open.

UraniumAnchor

2012-11-14 10:54:30 am

Not a walrus

Not in all cases, but it's certainly more common than it used to be.

Paraxade

2012-11-14 08:12:34 pm

Quote from Flip:

I'd rather verifiers be candid behind the mask of (somewhat)anonymity than feel pressured to say certain things knowing that what they say will reflect back on them. For instance, if somebody submits a popular run and we verify it openly, nobody will want to be "that guy" who writes a well thought out reject when 50 other people in the thread have already responded with "accept lol" or "this run is teh bestorz!"

I don't think that's true actually. In all the cases I can think of where something like that happened (the aforementioned ALttP run, GTAIV, Super Monkey Ball), the verifier owned up to their comments and continued defending them in the verification thread after the verdict was posted. Also, they can just be outed by other verifiers anyway.

I like the idea of keeping the current system but revealing the verifiers when the verification thread gets posted.

Flip

2012-11-14 08:25:41 pm

1-Up!

Still, you're talking about a very small minority of all verifications. Verifiers don't have to reveal themselves if they don't want to and I would hope other verifiers would have the integrity to keep their peers secret. What advantage is there to revealing verifiers? None that I can think of, especially considering the negative consequence of having verifiers censor their comments knowing that they'll be tied back to them. I'm really not sure where this idea is coming from that verifier anonymity is a BAD thing... I don't mind if verifiers identify themselves but forcing them to do so seems like an obvious step backwards to me.

Darkwing Duck

2012-11-14 08:44:32 pm

Highly Evolved

In regards to to private verifications, I'm a bit concerned about the verifiers being able to see, and thus be influenced, by a previous verification in the thread. I look over a bunch of the verifications and some of the responses have basically been, "I agree with what the previous verifier said." If the verification is going to be private, shouldn't it be fully private?