So I have a question... if someone gets 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on a game... Should it be required for them to have a video. No matter how bad it is I think this should be required. Regardless if they have a picture of their splits or not. As my teacher always said "No work no credit"

I'm just saying that I'd love to watch some of these world records... but they don't have videos, so I can't.

That depends on the type of game. Some mods will allow a picture to be enough proof, while others require video proof from EVERYONE. If you want a video to see how they got that world record, and they don't have one, and it is allowed to NOT have one, then the best thing to do would be to message that person and ask them what they did.

Video proof is always the best, but runs can still be valid with other forms of proof on case/game basis. This mostly depends on the community and the way the moderate runs, and what kinds or categories or the way they accept them. Providing more proof for runs via including splits with pictures of the finial times and or will a validated vouches can also be enough for some runs. In a more recent case that I dealt with a person submitted a video of the run, but there was no visible timer on the video nor did they submit any splits, Simply Re-timing the video myself carefully to avoid buffers I was able to verify it, for the future I asked that they also submit splits since they were recording straight from console. This addition of proof further validates his times when he submits them because variance does happen due to human errors. But thats just a case I dealt with and was easily remedied just with simple addition of splits to cross check with.

If the event that you are only interested in see videos of the runs, if they don't have one AlphaCreeps suggestion of contacting the runner to ask what he did during the run is also good, I've done that for games I was interested in and they were more then glad to discuss things about it. An alternative is to watch the other runs that do have videos and analyze what they do and what the differences are and take that into mind. Generally once you have analyzed enough runs or enough of the game you can start to see what can be done to save time or lose time through the runs based on what other did or did not do.

Ultimately just because someone has a run without video proof for top3 of a particular category for a game, does not make it now valid, nor does it say that they did not do any work. Some people cannot capture video footage but can do other means to provide some creditable proof, but it comes down to the people who verify the runs based on community guidelines.

So well I agree with the philosophy of "No work, No credit." that is not entirely true in this case because we do not have a valid example at which to apply it to. If there was a run submitted with absolutely no proof, Video,splits, vouches, or even screens or save saves to confirm it then yes that statement would be correct.