Differences Between SDA and speedrun.com (etc.)

2018-02-26 12:53:43 pm

Hi Caveman...

2018-02-26 05:37:51 pm

The Great Farming Empire

Quote from LotBlind:

There's a whole area of the forums now that's solely about volunteering. How exactly is SDA not telling people how to volunteer?

It's not a matter of how to volunteer but rather encouraging them to volunteer in general in combination with that section being fairly underutilized. For instance, even with this topic detailing how to help out with getting a run onto the front page, there are only two other topics to discuss volunteering. Front Page Writer and Wiki Person. That doesn't exactly leave a whole lot of room for others to help out with on the site. What if people want to offer their hand at moderating the forums? Hell, What if people want to actually make headway at designing a new forum using a new forum base. How about the front page itself? What if people want to try and make strides at getting a new design for the front page?

Actually to bring that up, it has been mentioned that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to have the site updated. Why not actually tell us what needs to be done? And not just the bottom line, I mean everything. That way, people can offer their hand in areas they know they can work in.

I understand that there is a Volunteer section of the forum; but if there is a drive to have any change around here, then you're going to have to use that section in more creative ways. I apologize if this sounds rude, I just to make sure I got all of my points across.

Quote from Guest:

SDA is forgetting the obvious solution. To simply give up

The survey responses are pretty telling. It speaks volumes when people are saying SDA isn't required for publishing runs anymore, SDA is pretty dead at this point, Nobody is going to read a huge wall of text filled with LotBlind's stale ass memes. Nobody cares about SDA nor do they take them seriously. Especially, when SDA keeps deflecting the blame to users and then wonders why users are leaving. People don't want to waste their time doing extra work just to fix your problems.

Quote from Worn_Traveler:

I know that some people just don't like each other but if we're all supposed to be one big community with differing goals, how about let's talk instead of feuds that have been going on for half-a decade.

People not liking each other is an understatement. People really hate each other and it is not hard to find evidence of this. The constant infighting is a reason why the site’s dead.

Blame yourself SDA. The ship has sailed

Um...dude. You're asking only a dozen or so people to update 1289 pages worth of text, images and videos to a new system. That...is not logistically possible, let alone in a fast manner. If there's anything I know from working with databases, its that it can't simply be hastily done. If you mess up with single entry, then there is a chance that you will never be able to find that entry again. Just to speak from personal experience, That's a problem i've been trying to fix from previous generations at my work; and let me tell you, it is NOT fun.

Putting the blame entirely on the staff isn't exactly any better than them blaming the user base for leaving. You're doing the exact thing you're accusing staff of doing.

Anyways, I understand if posting here is getting annoying. LotBlind, If you or anybody else want to discuss this with me, I recommend we take this to PM so as to not clutter this topic. Although considering time zones, it may be difficult to talk to you.

P.S. I honestly wish I could volunteer, I just haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to any large scale projects. That's part of the reason why I submit my runs, it's my way of updating these pages without manually updating them. Tongue

[quote="LotBlind"]There's a whole area of the forums now that's solely about volunteering. How exactly is SDA not telling people how to volunteer?[/quote]

It's not a matter of how to volunteer but rather encouraging them to volunteer in general in combination with that section being fairly underutilized. For instance, even with [url=https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/readme_how_can_i_help.html]this topic[/url] detailing how to help out with getting a run onto the front page, there are only two other topics to discuss volunteering. Front Page Writer and Wiki Person. That doesn't exactly leave a whole lot of room for others to help out with on the site. What if people want to offer their hand at moderating the forums? Hell, What if people want to actually make headway at designing a new forum using a new forum base. How about the front page itself? What if people want to try and make strides at getting a new design for the front page?

Actually to bring that up, it has been mentioned that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to have the site updated. Why not actually [i]tell[/i] us what needs to be done? And not just the bottom line, I mean everything. That way, people can offer their hand in areas they know they can work in.

I understand that there is a Volunteer section of the forum; but if there is a drive to have any change around here, then you're going to have to use that section in more creative ways. I apologize if this sounds rude, I just to make sure I got all of my points across.

[quote="Guest"]SDA is forgetting the obvious solution. To simply give up

The survey responses are pretty telling. It speaks volumes when people are saying SDA isn't required for publishing runs anymore, SDA is pretty dead at this point, Nobody is going to read a huge wall of text filled with LotBlind's stale ass memes. Nobody cares about SDA nor do they take them seriously. Especially, when SDA keeps deflecting the blame to users and then wonders why users are leaving. People don't want to waste their time doing extra work just to fix your problems.

[quote="Worn_Traveler"] I know that some people just don't like each other but if we're all supposed to be one big community with differing goals, how about let's talk instead of feuds that have been going on for half-a decade. [/quote]
People not liking each other is an understatement. People really hate each other and it is not hard to find evidence of this. The constant infighting is a reason why the site’s dead.

Blame yourself SDA. The ship has sailed[/quote]

Um...dude. You're asking only a dozen or so people to update [i][b]1289[/b][/i] pages worth of text, images and videos to a new system. That...is not logistically possible, let alone in a fast manner. If there's anything I know from working with databases, its that it can't simply be hastily done. If you mess up with  single entry, then there is a chance that you will never be able to find that entry again. Just to speak from personal experience, That's a problem i've been trying to fix from previous generations at my work; and let me tell you, it is NOT fun.

Putting the blame entirely on the staff isn't exactly any better than them blaming the user base for leaving. You're doing the exact thing you're accusing staff of doing.

Anyways, I understand if posting here is getting annoying. LotBlind, If you or anybody else want to discuss this with me, I recommend we take this to PM so as to not clutter this topic. Although considering time zones, it may be difficult to talk to you.

P.S. I honestly wish I could volunteer, I just haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to any large scale projects. That's part of the reason why I submit my runs, it's my way of updating these pages without manually updating them. :P

2018-02-27 11:35:30 am

Sonikku: The theory here is if anyone is enthusiastic enough about SDA to want to do something like coding, as they have sometimes in the past, they should probably just send me that PM that I'm requesting in the thread you linked there. I don't even WANT messages from people without enough initiative to at least do that on their own, based on the generic prompt given: there have been enough cases where the new guy vanishes after I've told them what they could be doing (and I always give them something simple to start with just to see if they're serious) so I end up just wasting my time. The second reason is, and I'm not happy to be in this position, that I don't exactly know what the backend needs even though I'm supposed to be speaking on behalf of the whole staff here. Apparently it uses Python and I don't know what else. I'll try to make some inquiries [again] to see what's holding us back in this regard. I can only post a wanted ad when I know what to write in it.

I recognize that the weakness of the first point above is not that new people won't eventually notice the volunteering section, but rather that old visitors who no longer actively check the forums won't necessarily. I believe I gave it a shout-out in one of the updates and also in this reply itself. And if you're not checking the site anymore, maybe it means you don't have time to volunteer either? Hmm...

That having been said, I want to emphasize SDA's code may be revised, but its philosophy will not be, in case someone reading this thinks it means easy slackey times are coming. I don't personally even see too many dire problems with how the site works, or even looks, but I'm fairly sure there's people with more of an imagination for this kind of stuff than me. Some better linking on the front page is one of the obvious changes I'd like to make.

Glad to have you here Sonikku! Keep sending in those good, quality runs...

Sonikku: The theory here is if anyone is enthusiastic enough about SDA to want to do something like coding, as they have sometimes in the past, they should probably just send me that PM that I'm requesting in the thread you linked there. I don't even WANT messages from people without enough initiative to at least do that on their own, based on the generic prompt given: there have been enough cases where the new guy vanishes after I've told them what they could be doing (and I always give them something simple to start with just to see if they're serious) so I end up just wasting my time. The second reason is, and I'm not happy to be in this position, that I don't exactly know what the backend needs even though I'm supposed to be speaking on behalf of the whole staff here. Apparently it uses Python and I don't know what else. I'll try to make some inquiries [again] to see what's holding us back in this regard. I can only post a wanted ad when I know what to write in it.

I recognize that the weakness of the first point above is not that new people won't eventually notice the volunteering section, but rather that old visitors who no longer actively check the forums won't necessarily. I believe I gave it a shout-out in one of the updates and also in this reply itself. And if you're not checking the site anymore, maybe it means you don't have time to volunteer either? Hmm...

That having been said, I want to emphasize SDA's code may be revised, but its philosophy will not be, in case someone reading this thinks it means easy slackey times are coming. I don't personally even see too many dire problems with how the site works, or even looks, but I'm fairly sure there's people with more of an imagination for this kind of stuff than me. Some better linking on the front page is one of the obvious changes I'd like to make.

Glad to have you here Sonikku! Keep sending in those good, quality runs...

2018-03-03 08:12:53 pm

The Great Farming Empire

Quote from LotBlind:

Sonikku: The theory here is if anyone is enthusiastic enough about SDA to want to do something like coding, as they have sometimes in the past, they should probably just send me that PM that I'm requesting in the thread you linked there. I don't even WANT messages from people without enough initiative to at least do that on their own, based on the generic prompt given: there have been enough cases where the new guy vanishes after I've told them what they could be doing (and I always give them something simple to start with just to see if they're serious) so I end up just wasting my time. The second reason is, and I'm not happy to be in this position, that I don't exactly know what the backend needs even though I'm supposed to be speaking on behalf of the whole staff here. Apparently it uses Python and I don't know what else. I'll try to make some inquiries [again] to see what's holding us back in this regard. I can only post a wanted ad when I know what to write in it.

I heard that most pages with runs before October 2013 are the ones that need to be updated. Is it possible to have a list of all those pages? That could at least be a start.

[quote="LotBlind"]Sonikku: The theory here is if anyone is enthusiastic enough about SDA to want to do something like coding, as they have sometimes in the past, they should probably just send me that PM that I'm requesting in the thread you linked there. I don't even WANT messages from people without enough initiative to at least do that on their own, based on the generic prompt given: there have been enough cases where the new guy vanishes after I've told them what they could be doing (and I always give them something simple to start with just to see if they're serious) so I end up just wasting my time. The second reason is, and I'm not happy to be in this position, that I don't exactly know what the backend needs even though I'm supposed to be speaking on behalf of the whole staff here. Apparently it uses Python and I don't know what else. I'll try to make some inquiries [again] to see what's holding us back in this regard. I can only post a wanted ad when I know what to write in it.[/quote]

I heard that most pages with runs before October 2013 are the ones that need to be updated. Is it possible to have a list of all those pages? That could at least be a start.

2018-03-05 08:40:54 am

I'm not sure what you mean by "updating" them, but I'm assuming you're talking about importing them into the database. In that case, yes, the modern database wasn't implemented until something like then, and me and my predecessor have been entering old runs into it on the basis of which game pages got new entries, because if all the data is in the system, it can auto-generate the game page in a pretty neat way. This needs to be completed for all pages that were created manually from templates in the past for a full revision to be launched, but there's much simpler things that could be done as well. I don't see a total rebuilding of the system as a holy grail here, and in any case not as the next step. There are those who might disagree.

I've found out that three different people created three parts of the site: forum, wiki, and backend. I'm going to compile a list of bugs so that at least exists...

2018-03-31 05:50:01 pm

The Great Farming Empire

Any word on this? I hate to sound insistent, but I figured it would be good to try and get the ball rolling at the very least.

2018-04-01 11:08:08 am

Nah, you're not doing anything wrong. You'll have to ask UraniumAnchor directly. He's being busy or something and communication is admittedly not great. I guess if more people ask him about this he'll have to speak out.

I did find out (to remind anyone, I'm the newest staff member here so there's things I don't know) that while UA coded the backend, nate did the forums and gammadragon the wiki. Sadly most of the IFIs are about the backend.

djcj

2019-01-20 09:23:43 am

It's sad to see that the activity on the SDA forums seem to have decreased a lot. It's nice that speedrunning became quite popular these days, so you can easily find videos of even relatively "obscure" games. But all the live streaming and putting your face in the video like a Let's Player, adding these timers on the video which are naturally inaccurate (you can never start and stop the time 100% accurate on the fly) ... I don't really know. I always liked that SDA was the only non-TAS community that tried to keep an eye on a/v quality. I still have nightmares from some of those Perfect Dark runs recorded on VHS and because of some PAL/NTSC crap they were grayscale, stuttered and had pitched sound.

DJGrenola

2019-04-02 04:56:05 am

guffaw

RIP lol

2019-04-02 04:58:04 pm

The Great Farming Empire

Quote from djcj:

It's sad to see that the activity on the SDA forums seem to have decreased a lot. It's nice that speedrunning became quite popular these days, so you can easily find videos of even relatively "obscure" games. But all the live streaming and putting your face in the video like a Let's Player, adding these timers on the video which are naturally inaccurate (you can never start and stop the time 100% accurate on the fly) ... I don't really know. I always liked that SDA was the only non-TAS community that tried to keep an eye on a/v quality. I still have nightmares from some of those Perfect Dark runs recorded on VHS and because of some PAL/NTSC crap they were grayscale, stuttered and had pitched sound.

I mean, If you want things to change feel free to step up. Nobody has really offered to change/improve things so who knows.

2019-05-28 11:39:32 am

>I mean, If you want things to change feel free to step up. Nobody has really offered to change/improve things so who knows.

This keeps getting repeated over and over. You're not hearing the message. People are really trying to say "SDA meant a lot to me, and I want it to be somewhere I want to go and again and be a user. It seems like SDA simply doesn't want me to be part of this site anymore."

And you response is "Well, come on board and improve things."

This is a bit ridiculous. It's like a user leaving a review for a restaurant saying "The steak wasn't very good" and the chef responding "Well come into the kitchen and cook it then." No. The person just never comes back instead.

SDA still has brand recognition and it can be used, but it seems like that's no longer the case. Why not do something with Summoningsalt or mimic his work? Make this website a history on each speedrunning game so people can learn the history of speedrunning. Just telling people "Well, step up and fix the site if you dislike it" is worse than useful.

>I mean, If you want things to change feel free to step up. Nobody has really offered to change/improve things so who knows.

This keeps getting repeated over and over. You're not hearing the message. People are really trying to say "SDA meant a lot to me, and I want it to be somewhere I want to go and again and be a user. It seems like SDA simply doesn't want me to be part of this site anymore."

And you response is "Well, come on board and improve things."

This is a bit ridiculous. It's like a user leaving a review for a restaurant saying "The steak wasn't very good" and the chef responding "Well come into the kitchen and cook it then." No. The person just never comes back instead.

SDA still has brand recognition and it can be used, but it seems like that's no longer the case. Why not do something with Summoningsalt or mimic his work? Make this website a history on each speedrunning game so people can learn the history of speedrunning. Just telling people "Well, step up and fix the site if you dislike it" is worse than useful.

2019-05-28 11:57:06 am

Posting with my actual account so I can continue this conversation if anyone responds.

2019-05-31 01:25:00 pm

As Koston pointed out, where is this free-food restaurant you're talking about?

(sorry Koston, I was slow to get what you were saying so I deleted your post as "off-topic")

Edit history:

Aegisth: 2019-07-01 11:01:39 am

2019-07-01 10:59:59 am

Quote from LotBlind:

As Koston pointed out, where is this free-food restaurant you're talking about?

(sorry Koston, I was slow to get what you were saying so I deleted your post as "off-topic")

Is this in response to what I posted? Because if so, how is that an appropriate response? Essentially I think you're saying "Well we do this for free, so you're not allowed to complain or want anything different or more."

People WANT SDA to be a place they go to. I don't know what you want this site to be, though.

2019-07-02 07:48:26 am

I'm serious about talking about how this site can move to a better place and be relevant again in the speedrunning community, but I don't know if anyone cares to do so.