SDA becoming less relevant?

2013-02-17 01:35:44 pm

This is always going to be a touchy subject, simply because it's basically saying a community is losing its shine.

But I feel as if SDA needs to do some rebranding, and rethink there part in the speedrunning community.

Over the past couple of years, we have seen some pretty radical changes in the speedrunning community, and SDA has something to do with it. For me, some of the biggest changes are:

1. Live streaming becoming more prominent
2. Runners breaking their records quicker and quicker
3. Major runner bases leaving SDA to expand there discussion (such as SDA losing the Zelda speedrunning community. Never having the Halo speedrunning community, etc.)
4. SDA is slow, and many runs are out of date compared to the records on Youtube
5. Speedrunning has become much more popular
6. With popularity, newcomers are not nearly as concerned about legitimacy, so verifying runs has become less important

There are probably many other things that have changed in the speedrunning community, but these are some of the large things that are going to affect SDA negatively. The biggest problem, to me, is the prevalence of live running that has taken place over the past year. And in fact, SDA started this with classic games done quick years ago. It has become insanely popular, with thousands of viewers on popular SRL channels everyday. Viewers are able to see speedrunning done in real time. They get to see their favorite game played and do not have to wait for a run to go through verification to see it. SDA is becoming too slow for people to care much for it.

The forums seem to reflect this a bit too. There were only 11 threads updated in Older Console discussion today, and only 6 threads update in Newer Consoles. That's... unsettling. A couple of years ago, I seem to remember those numbers being much higher. Discussion was occurring more frequently. Maybe that was just me.

However, I think the management of SDA needs to reflect on their place in the speedrunning community. Speedrunning has come a VERY long way since the time of the Quake demos and even MK2K. Ocarina of Time is now runnable in under 20 minutes. Things have changed dramatically, and the values of the community as a whole have changed.

Please, do not get offended. I love this site. Do not think I'm saying SDA is bad or something stupid like that. I just feel as if SDA is on the road to becoming irrelevant with the ease speedrunners now have to attract an audience, and SDA might have to take steps to change that if they're going to stay at the top of the speedrunning community game.

Thread title:

This is always going to be a touchy subject, simply because it's basically saying a community is losing its shine.

But I feel as if SDA needs to do some rebranding, and rethink there part in the speedrunning community.

Over the past couple of years, we have seen some pretty radical changes in the speedrunning community, and SDA has something to do with it.  For me, some of the biggest changes are:

1.  Live streaming becoming more prominent
2.  Runners breaking their records quicker and quicker
3.  Major runner bases leaving SDA to expand there discussion (such as SDA losing the Zelda speedrunning community.  Never having the Halo speedrunning community, etc.)
4.  SDA is slow, and many runs are out of date compared to the records on Youtube
5.  Speedrunning has become much more popular
6.  With popularity, newcomers are not nearly as concerned about legitimacy, so verifying runs has become less important

There are probably many other things that have changed in the speedrunning community, but these are some of the large things that are going to affect SDA negatively.   The biggest problem, to me, is the prevalence of live running that has taken place over the past year.  And in fact, SDA started this with classic games done quick years ago.  It has become insanely popular, with thousands of viewers on popular SRL channels everyday.  Viewers are able to see speedrunning done in real time. They get to see their favorite game played and do not have to wait for a run to go through verification to see it.  SDA is becoming too slow for people to care much for it.

The forums seem to reflect this a bit too. There were only 11 threads updated in Older Console discussion today, and only 6 threads update in Newer Consoles.  That's... unsettling.  A couple of years ago, I seem to remember those numbers being much higher. Discussion was occurring more frequently. Maybe that was just me.

However,  I think the management of SDA needs to reflect on their place in the speedrunning community. Speedrunning has come a VERY long way since the time of the Quake demos and even MK2K.  Ocarina of Time is now runnable in under 20 minutes.  Things have changed dramatically, and the values of the community as a whole have changed.

Please, do not get offended.  I love this site.  Do not think I'm saying SDA is bad or something stupid like that.  I just feel as if SDA is on the road to becoming irrelevant with the ease speedrunners now have to attract an audience, and SDA might have to take steps to change that if they're going to stay at the top of the speedrunning community game.

zewing

2013-02-17 01:47:42 pm

just( •_•)>⌐■-■ ..... (⌐■_■)wing it

Less relevant? AGDQ and SGDQ.....nuff said

moooh

Edit history:

moooh: 2013-02-17 01:48:43 pm

2013-02-17 01:48:22 pm

Exoray

Problems without suggestions to solutions is as little worth as pennies in a rain forest.

To my knowledge there is no other site that allows visitors to browse and find runs for a vast amount of games from several different people, in a single place. I don't think that service will become less relevant anytime soon.
SDA has been and will still be an archive of runs (that's what the A in SDA stands for), intended to hold the polished version of a run. It'll also remain a source where one can download high quality videos of speed runs.

I think what you are doing wrong is that you are trying to compare live streams to finished runs.

nate

2013-02-17 02:01:58 pm

have you read this?

not much to say other than to correct one small thing. cgdq was just the speed gamers' charity marathon concept done by sda people. they were even there to help support us that year. so no it's not really a fact that sda started it.

Quote from Time:

I just feel as if SDA is on the road to becoming irrelevant with the ease speedrunners now have to attract an audience, and SDA might have to take steps to change that if they're going to stay at the top of the speedrunning community game.

how do you define irrelevance? what is "at the top of the speedrunning community game"? times change. irrelevant i picture like a hand crank for a car. i don't think sda is quite there or ever will be due to streaming alone. maybe sda is like a bike where srl and friends are like cars. a lot of people have both. some people prefer one and won't touch the other. it's not my place to judge. but as for me, i usually take a bike when i can.

detailed suggestions as to how we could "take steps" would be most welcome. we actually have a lot going on this year already in terms of changes to the site, especially toward the goals of speeding up and simplifying submission, verification, and distribution, but we're always open to additional suggestions.

have you read [url=http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/continuation_of_roundtable_discussion.html]this[/url]?

not much to say other than to correct one small thing. cgdq was just the speed gamers' charity marathon concept done by sda people. they were even there to help support us that year. so no it's not really a fact that sda started it.

[quote="Time"]I just feel as if SDA is on the road to becoming irrelevant with the ease speedrunners now have to attract an audience, and SDA might have to take steps to change that if they're going to stay at the top of the speedrunning community game.[/quote]
how do you define irrelevance? what is "at the top of the speedrunning community game"? times change. irrelevant i picture like a hand crank for a car. i don't think sda is quite there or ever will be due to streaming alone. maybe sda is like a bike where srl and friends are like cars. a lot of people have both. some people prefer one and won't touch the other. it's not my place to judge. but as for me, i usually take a bike when i can.

detailed suggestions as to how we could "take steps" would be most welcome. we actually have a lot going on this year already in terms of changes to the site, especially toward the goals of speeding up and simplifying submission, verification, and distribution, but we're always open to additional suggestions.

Flip

2013-02-17 02:07:57 pm

1-Up!

Yeah check the roundtable thread. All of these points have been brought up plenty already and there's lots that we're doing to make ourselves better.

Rakuen

2013-02-17 02:33:08 pm

Weegee Time

Quote:

The forums seem to reflect this a bit too. There were only 11 threads updated in Older Console discussion today, and only 6 threads update in Newer Consoles. That's... unsettling. A couple of years ago, I seem to remember those numbers being much higher. Discussion was occurring more frequently. Maybe that was just me.

January 2013 had more posts made than any month since August of 2007, which was well before TSG was even a thing to give us the idea of doing a charity event. February is on track to do the same. Take a look at the stats page sometime, it's got some interesting stuff.

There's been a lot of suggestions and a lot of action taken for the better in the past year; I imagine there's more on the horizon. You have to remember, though, we're building a community. A large portion of the burden is on us: the users. It's our responsibility to welcome new users and ease them into our site's culture. Frankly, we've done a better job at some points than others. If you asked about right now then I'd say we're doing quite well. It's also up to us to reach out more beyond the community. You see someone nail a run on a game? Encourage them to submit to SDA. You see someone who wants to discuss strategy? Encourage them to start up or contribute to a thread on the forums.

Everyone here plays a role in making this community great. Every. Single. Person. It's easy to forget but important to remember.

[quote]The forums seem to reflect this a bit too. There were only 11 threads updated in Older Console discussion today, and only 6 threads update in Newer Consoles.  That's... unsettling.  A couple of years ago, I seem to remember those numbers being much higher. Discussion was occurring more frequently. Maybe that was just me.[/quote]
January 2013 had more posts made than any month since August of [b]2007[/b], which was well before TSG was even a thing to give us the idea of doing a charity event.  February is on track to do the same.  Take a look at the [url=http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/stats/stats.html]stats[/url] page sometime, it's got some interesting stuff.

There's been a lot of suggestions and a lot of action taken for the better in the past year; I imagine there's more on the horizon.  You have to remember, though, we're building a [i]community[/i].  A large portion of the burden is on us: the users.  It's our responsibility to welcome new users and ease them into our site's culture.  Frankly, we've done a better job at some points than others.  If you asked about right [i]now[/i] then I'd say we're doing quite well.  It's also up to us to reach out more beyond the community.  You see someone nail a run on a game?  Encourage them to submit to SDA.  You see someone who wants to discuss strategy?  Encourage them to start up or contribute to a thread on the forums.

Everyone here plays a role in making this community great.  Every.  Single.  Person.  It's easy to forget but important to remember.

DK28

2013-02-17 02:34:20 pm

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas

What everyone has said. Also, I've always viewed SDA as a community of runners who come together to collectively encourage and help others to destroy games as quickly as possible, with a side of competition. Who cares about sites like youtube? Yeah, it's great for WIPs and stuff, but how many people steal others' runs or use a TAS and try to pass it off as their own? SDA has more integrity than any other site. People who truly appreciate what this site offers will frequent here. I could care less about much else. This is home.

P.S. Our admins are also sexier than any other site as well.

Lag.Com

2013-02-17 02:35:35 pm

sda loyalist

If anything all the questions you ask just ram home the point that SDA will always be relevant: it's the only way to get high quality video of verified speedruns.

presjpolk

Edit history:

presjpolk: 2013-02-17 03:59:35 pm

2013-02-17 03:59:01 pm

HELLO!

SDA has a very valuable role. That the community si growing, and more roles are coming up that new sites are filling (SRL, various leaderboards, etc.) does not diminish SDA.

That SDA has fathered new sites only enhances SDA's importance. Heck, ever noticed SRL doesn't even have forums?

Also yeah, complaining that SDA is slow is about 3 months out of date. That problem is being addressed pretty handily.

Ghostwheel

2013-02-17 04:13:15 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

May as well poke in here. In addition to what everyone else has said, I'm not sure how founded the claim is that because speedrunning has become more popular, newcomers aren't as concerned about legitimacy. These seem like independent variables, and while an increase in people might be an increase in the number of people who don't care, it is also an increase in the people who do.

I feel that SDA will always be the principal place for me to have a gaming discussion. A lot of the communities I care to converse with are right here, and they are receptive to newer players like me trying to get a solid run out there.

In theory, streaming should expedite the discussion process, but lately I've felt as if it restricted my ability to discuss thing with other runners. If I so much as suggest something to a runner in a game I happen to be an authority on, or whose community I am active in, half the time i'll get called out by the chat for "backseat gaming". Streaming is an excellent boon for speedrunning, but it seems like it makes the experience more about the runner than the game.(This is the words of most chats I've been in) This isn't bad. Its just a different flavor which gives each incarnation its own relevant flavor.

May as well poke in here. In addition to what everyone else has said, I'm not sure how founded the claim is that because speedrunning has become more popular, newcomers aren't as concerned about legitimacy. These seem like independent variables, and while an increase in people might be an increase in the number of people who don't care, it is also an increase in the people who do.

I feel that SDA will always be the principal place for me to have a gaming discussion. A lot of the communities I care to converse with are right here, and they are receptive to newer players like me trying to get a solid run out there.

In theory, streaming should expedite the discussion process, but lately I've felt as if it restricted my ability to discuss thing with other runners. If I so much as suggest something to a runner in a game I happen to be an authority on, or whose community I am active in, half the time i'll get called out by the chat for "backseat gaming". Streaming is an excellent boon for speedrunning, but it seems like it makes the experience more about the runner than the game.(This is the words of most chats I've been in) This isn't bad. Its just a different flavor which gives each incarnation its own relevant flavor.

Time

2013-02-17 08:26:25 pm

I had not seen the roundtable thread, I apologize for that. It addresses everything that I had noticed about SDA. I posted the thread because I had not been sure this was addressed, and if any dialogue had occurred. I should have looked harder, then.

Quote:

January 2013 had more posts made than any month since August of 2007, which was well before TSG was even a thing to give us the idea of doing a charity event. February is on track to do the same. Take a look at the stats page sometime, it's got some interesting stuff.

True, but this is due to the charity event. It happened last year and the year before that. January and February see spikes in post rate, then die down in March. Overall posts have been declining pretty much since 2006.

The top threads are mostly Zelda threads, which have since lost most of their activity, since ZSR has been created. I'm not saying that SDA is losing more than 20% of its posting power. I'm saying that it seems like it's slowing down at a steady rate.

Also, I know I gave no suggestions to these types of problems. That wasn't my purpose. In fact, the purpose of my thread was to see if any of these things had been addressed. In fact, they have. Most of my points have been directly addressed in the round table thread. Sorry for not going to that, instead.

I had not seen the roundtable thread, I apologize for that.  It addresses everything that I had noticed about SDA.  I posted the thread because I had not been sure this was addressed, and if any dialogue had occurred.  I should have looked harder, then.

[quote]January 2013 had more posts made than any month since August of 2007, which was well before TSG was even a thing to give us the idea of doing a charity event.  February is on track to do the same.  Take a look at the stats page sometime, it's got some interesting stuff.[/quote]

True, but this is due to the charity event. It happened last year and the year before that. January and February see spikes in post rate, then die down in March.  Overall posts have been declining pretty much since 2006.

The top threads are mostly Zelda threads, which have since lost most of their activity, since ZSR has been created.  I'm not saying that SDA is losing more than 20% of its posting power.  I'm saying that it seems like it's slowing down at a steady rate.

Also, I know I gave no suggestions to these types of problems.  That wasn't my purpose.  In fact, the purpose of my thread was to see if any of these things had been addressed.  In fact, they have.  Most of my points have been directly addressed in the round table thread.  Sorry for not going to that, instead.

Heidrage

2013-02-17 09:00:55 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Small interjection, but another reason for fewer posts are simply because of skype and IRC. People are getting direct conversations threw other mediums other than the forum. But I feel the forum is a much better place as all the ideas are "stored" per say for others to come along later and still be able to be filled in. Because of this, I hate talking about any games in any other medium other than the forum. Allowing the ability for newcomers or others who follow but are not active to stay up to date easily.

tjp7154

2013-02-17 09:53:28 pm

#Casual

Instead of using forums, people can chat directly and communicate tricks, routes, etc. through separate wikis and pages, bypassing SDA. The question is: Why would people want to bypass our forums?

Another angle: The SRL Twitch page is larger and has more activity than the SDA Twitch page. How are those people getting information?

It seems to me that some people think of SDA as submitting videos and NOT discussing planning. It also seems to me that some people are turned off by SDA for some reason. Am I off on all this? -- because this is what it seems to me...

Heidrage

2013-02-17 09:55:41 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

♥

doicm

2013-02-17 09:56:05 pm

I'm pretty active on SRL, but I utilize a lot of the resources that SDA and its forum provides. I honestly try to grab my resources from wherever I can, but most of them are either achieved from asking other speedrunners on SRL's IRC, or I search through the forums here (which sometimes are so convoluted that I struggle to find information sometimes).

Rakuen

2013-02-17 10:13:24 pm

Weegee Time

Quote from Time:

True, but this is due to the charity event. It happened last year and the year before that. January and February see spikes in post rate, then die down in March. Overall posts have been declining pretty much since 2006.

Actually, the forum activity has had an upward tick since 2010. That's the case even if you cut out the first and last three months of the year to account for marathon hype. I don't see the forums declining; at worst you could say they're stable. In some ways you could say that's a good thing. Stable yet sustainable growth, rather than the volatility seen in the speedrunning community as a whole over the past few years. There is and will always be room for improvement and we must continue to work towards it. I'd still put my stock in SDA for the long haul.

MilkComesInBags

2013-02-17 10:16:13 pm

In Canada, milk comes in bags!

Without SDA many games would never even have runs. Even now people are getting into quirky games that no one else has ever thought of. Speed running really community oriented. I might be a prime example of how SDA is growing from the marathons and twitch, since I just joined SDA forums because of it and I'm getting into speed running. This is really a great community and I hope it never does become irrelevant.

Paraxade

Edit history:

Paraxade: 2013-02-17 11:51:41 pm

Paraxade: 2013-02-17 11:43:41 pm

Paraxade: 2013-02-17 11:41:22 pm

2013-02-17 11:41:05 pm

Yeah, saying the forum is a great repository of information is a great point, but a lot of the time I also see a lot of people outside SDA saying the forums are hard to search through since all information is clumped into one thread which can be hard to search through if you're looking for one piece of information. I've also seen people bring up in the roundtable topic that they see the function SDA serves to the greater speedrunning community being an archive (as the name implies)... but not just a speedruns archive, but also an information archive, which is where the forum fits in.

I think the information archive angle has potential and expanding on that here is something that would fit in really well with SDA's mission as a whole. While we already have the strategy wiki, it's kind of buried and I'm not sure many people really use it (edit: and it's completely overrun with spam). Something that I think would work really well would be to make it more prominent, easier to edit, and perhaps rebranding it a bit; making it so the look and aesthetic of each game's pages can be customized would be another good addition.

It would be cool to have something where you can start writing down strategies for a game and SDA will give you a layout to work with similar to m2k2 that's designed to organize this information in a way that makes it easy to browse and quickly find what you're looking for. Then you could also have the option of using either the generic SDA style or using your own custom graphics, colors, fonts etc. to represent the game. Maybe that sort of thing would require moving away from wiki software and making something custom built for the speedrunning community, I dunno. Anyway, just some ideas.

Yeah, saying the forum is a great repository of information is a great point, but a lot of the time I also see a lot of people outside SDA saying the forums are hard to search through since all information is clumped into one thread which can be hard to search through if you're looking for one piece of information. I've also seen people bring up in the roundtable topic that they see the function SDA serves to the greater speedrunning community being an archive (as the name implies)... but not just a speedruns archive, but also an information archive, which is where the forum fits in.

I think the information archive angle has potential and expanding on that here is something that would fit in really well with SDA's mission as a whole. While we already have the strategy wiki, it's kind of buried and I'm not sure many people really use it (edit: [url=http://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Optimize_Your_Site_With_These_Tips_On_SEO]and it's completely overrun with spam[/url]). Something that I think would work really well would be to make it more prominent, easier to edit, and perhaps rebranding it a bit; making it so the look and aesthetic of each game's pages can be customized would be another good addition.

It would be cool to have something where you can start writing down strategies for a game and SDA will give you a layout to work with similar to m2k2 that's designed to organize this information in a way that makes it easy to browse and quickly find what you're looking for. Then you could also have the option of using either the generic SDA style or using your own custom graphics, colors, fonts etc. to represent the game. Maybe that sort of thing would require moving away from wiki software and making something custom built for the speedrunning community, I dunno. Anyway, just some ideas.

jayTOH

2013-02-18 12:22:32 am

RAMENhamehaaa

Quote from Paraxade:

It would be cool to have something where you can start writing down strategies for a game and SDA will give you a layout to work with similar to m2k2 that's designed to organize this information in a way that makes it easy to browse and quickly find what you're looking for. Then you could also have the option of using either the generic SDA style or using your own custom graphics, colors, fonts etc. to represent the game. Maybe that sort of thing would require moving away from wiki software and making something custom built for the speedrunning community, I dunno. Anyway, just some ideas.

This is actually what I wanted to say here, too! I created a page for Borderlands and had no idea where to start; too many tricks, ideas, and shenanigans in my head! A general template would probably work wonders for those who'd like to contribute to these pages, but can't organize structure and whatnot very well themselves.

[quote="Paraxade"]It would be cool to have something where you can start writing down strategies for a game and SDA will give you a layout to work with similar to m2k2 that's designed to organize this information in a way that makes it easy to browse and quickly find what you're looking for. Then you could also have the option of using either the generic SDA style or using your own custom graphics, colors, fonts etc. to represent the game. Maybe that sort of thing would require moving away from wiki software and making something custom built for the speedrunning community, I dunno. Anyway, just some ideas. [/quote]
This is actually what I wanted to say here, too! I created a page for [url=http://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Borderlands]Borderlands[/url] and had no idea where to start; too many tricks, ideas, and shenanigans in my head! A general template would probably work wonders for those who'd like to contribute to these pages, but can't organize structure and whatnot very well themselves.

Manocheese

2013-02-18 12:38:25 am

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

Quote from Paraxade:

Yeah, saying the forum is a great repository of information is a great point, but a lot of the time I also see a lot of people outside SDA saying the forums are hard to search through since all information is clumped into one thread which can be hard to search through if you're looking for one piece of information.

This is a good point. It's hard to search in threads without the "print thread" feature found in most other forum software. I think Nate didn't want to add it to Taiga, though.

tjp7154

2013-02-18 07:55:44 am

#Casual

It'll take a great amount of effort and cooperation for SDA to be a repository of information. People will have to be actively involved, and it's a time-consuming process.

mike89

2013-02-18 08:25:45 am

SEGA Junkie

That's true, but that's no reason to discourage it. I used TASvideos as an example during the roundtable; they did a fantastic job of making all their TASing information easily accessible by newcomers, there's no reason we can't do the same.

nate

2013-02-18 08:40:16 am

i think tasvideos' example is a good goal. the whole wiki thing gets a bad name just because of mediawiki, but they went off and did their own thing and it turned out great. problem is i'm no longer a web developer and i'm overbooked for the near future with yua. none of us on staff really has a good idea what to do about this so if anyone has any insight now would be the time.

Piston

Edit history:

Piston: 2013-02-18 09:34:51 am

2013-02-18 09:34:27 am

Heh, amateurs...

Quote from tjp7154:

It also seems to me that some people are turned off by SDA for some reason. Am I off on all this? -- because this is what it seems to me...

The outdated information on runs, which is impossible to avoid with the speed of changing records these days, is the first turnoff. Even with a dozen people dedicated to updating the times, it would still be out of date on a daily basis. The second is the high video quality demand requirements. I feel confident in saying I will never meet the quality standards of SDA, despite running exclusively PC games for a lack of console. I'm not alone when it comes to not having a super-computer.

nate

2013-02-18 09:43:21 am

i'm curious - what is it specifically you are having trouble meeting in terms of quality standards? i'm a little surprised to hear that from the pc side since i mostly think of interlaced video as the killer and you almost never have to deal with that with pc screen capture.