I'm in the same boat as KingRedEagle basically and I'm fine with this outcome too as long as it keeps a level of peace and avoids any escalation of conflict and stress. I'm also sorry to anyone who was particularly stressed out over this event.

It was literally cheating. He knew usb loader was faster by a ton, he even admitted it, and he willingly chose to lie to the community about how fast it really is to keep his fake WR safe. It was a huge unfair advantage that went on for years and had the biggest negative impact this community has ever seen that still has lasting affects to this day.

I know a lot of people will question the reasoning behind this choice and I feel this is likely a good way to explain it so here's a copypaste of what I've written to the other mods and I think posting it here will give some more insight behind this choice since we're pretty much of similar mindset as well as a taste of the sort of discussion that takes place among mods for further detail.

"I have some issues with it for a few reasons.

One that it apparently it's being hidden up and covered when what Veman did was extremely bad, and yet Monado's case was blown up to hell and back and that wasn't nearly as bad. Some kid splicing a 15th place run vs. someone purposely cheating for YEARS with a version that's insanely faster, acting like a prick about it and shitting on other runners and then shunning and pushing out one of the top runners (Bonesaw) from the community because he caught onto that mess and tried calling it out then later attempting the same with another top runner (Skozzy) when it was brought into light again. It's a ridiculous suggestion to even consider hiding something that big scale because it shows the person who did it it's all okay and I have a lot against even just that notion.

Two, he never got punishment for it. Tell me, if you got caught cheating for years and were finally exposed on using a version you KNEW was unfairly faster what would you do? Stick around and face the music or drop off the face of the earth to avoid any consequences? Cuz from what I'm seeing Veman did exactly the later and it looks like it's working. He never got consequences for cheating, meanwhile Monado got immediately BANNED from the boards? That's unfair. And yes, I'm gonna bring up Monado a lot cuz it pisses me off how differently these two were treated when Veman did way worse and how, again, he never faced any real consequences for it. I don't care how long ago something is or when the person did it, I really don't like it when people aren't owned up to their shit, let alone allowed to get off free, especially in a situation like this where someone who did less got more.

Three, I heard from Skozzy that apparently Veman is acting like he didn't know he was using a faster version, and I trust Skozzy more than a majority of the community, so I'll take his word on that since I've never watched Veman's streams with audio on. And if that's the case that makes me even angrier because that shows me he was never sorry about what he did, he isn't sorry about it, and he'll never be sorry about it if he can't even own up on the fact it existed. I don't know about all y'all but what Veman did is the worst thing anyone in this community has done and the fact he's allowed to just pretend like he's a victim doesn't sit well with me at all, especially considering how he was welcomed back with open arms, but someone like Monado was very harshly shunned out of the community. And don't tell me he wasn't treated harshly I remember all the nasty things people said to his face."

If you can post a video of it that'd be helpful. It doesn't even need to be good quality, you can just use your phone or computer's webcam to record it.

Ok, I think (key word: think) I got a good understanding of this situation now after re-reading the posts a few times. Like Skozzy said there really is no right answer here, both paths are pretty difficult and will cause problems and from the looks of it the most likely choice will be having to choose the lesser of the evil and now let's see what that lesser evil is.

So first of all here, we have the option to allow USB loading/emulator/etc, which is good because that won't force people to spend a large amount of money and that will bring more attention and life to the PAL categories, but like Death said that clashes against the rest of the leader board, and will make the community look very, very bad. "Hey, LM community what's up? You banned all this stuff for literally half the leader boards but allow it for the other half?? You might as well allow all this stuff throughout the entire leader board!" and I can guarantee you someone will say that or something similar if this path is picked, which could very well cause some problems and drama in and around the community (and no one wants to deal with that mess again). It will also be a sketchy scenario because of lag and loading time reduction, so the playing field will be all over place unless testing (which I see would definitely be a lot of) states otherwise.

Now let's look to the other side and say we ban all those things for PAL. That will cause a bit of difficulty because runners will have to spend quite a large sum of money to be able to run PAL categories and Death made a strong point in saying a lot of runners (myself included) are only interested in trying it out, which is understandable because you never really know if you'll be committed to running something right off the bat. So in this path the PAL categories will likely remain quite dead and inactive, but there will be a definite fair ground for the categories and will eliminate any USB loading/emulator drama that the other path will more than likely create. And going off Death's point again, I have observed that most runners who are only interested in PAL seem very passive about it. Most of them don't seem to have much of an issue not being able to easily run PAL, it seems to be at the furthest point in the back of their minds. So the large costs would definitely intimidate and keep most people from running PAL, that still stands, but by the looks of it this will create very little to possibly no drama or complaints from the people who have expressed interest. Again this is going off the observation that these runners (myself included) are very passive with the idea of running PAL.

With all that in mind it would seem the second choice would be the better alternative. Is it a good one? Of course not, but the chances of any huge headaches coming out of it are less than the first choice and that makes it the better choice I feel.

I'm all for changing the name.

Super Mod.

1. GC - No question here at all. GC is one of the, if not, the best member of this community. He is very open to discussions and the opinions of others, takes charge, is very reasonable and friendly, and he is extremely active. I believe he is the perfect fit for the position and he has earned every bit of it.

Regular Mods.

1. Skozzy - He stands up there with GC with how big of an impact he has made on the community. Very reasonable, fair, up for discussions that involve the entire community and he isn't afraid to speak his mind at all. If he sees something he believes is wrong he WILL say something about it and that is a very good trait. He'll do good things.

2. Death - He's a pretty fair guy, extremely knowledgeable on the game, smart, reasonable and very active within the community and gives his thoughts out well without stepping on anyone else's toes.

We all have lives and I'm in no way asking /anyone/ to drop their time that's devoted to their life for something like this. Which raises the question, why even bother to try to become a supermod when you're already extremely busy with real life? And I'm in no way questioning your love or how much you care for the community either and if I gave the impression then I'm sorry. If you don't have the time then you simply do not have the time and no one in their right mind would hold that against you or anyone in your situation. I just believe someone of such position in basically anything, not just some leaderboard site, should be able to give some time toward it to maintain a stable environment, especially in this community with how quickly things have become a mess before.

In terms of regular mods I believe Veman and Linkus should be removed. As far as supermods go, I don't believe the amount of time someone has been around should affect anything. I personally think that's a very bad way to determine if someone should be supermod. It should be the people who are the most active in the community, have a strong presence and know how to work with the community in an effective manner, with emphasis on the first and third. And as far as I know, BooHead hasn't contributed much to the recent discussions and his presence in the community isn't that strong or at the very least doesn't feel strong. Same with Smoof. Both of those choices feel too distant. And people may disagree with me, and that's fine. This is just how I believe choosing a supermod should go, and I'd like to add I have nothing against these two personally. I'm just strictly observing this situation from an objective perspective. Leaders shouldn't be chosen based only on how long they've been around, but rather on the three reasons I've stated before.

"The game has been ran for 5+ years and we have never done it." So, if we don't already do something that automatically rules it out completely? R-pumping was never done at one point and now look at us. We do it now cuz it saves time and r-pumping is a WAYY bigger impact on the run than this. The point of speedrunning is to seek out times saves, and make the run shorter, not hold onto useless traditions and methods that keep the run from being as fast as it can be. And maybe it woulda been done a long-ass time ago if this community didn't have the bad habit of ignoring stuff.

So far there seems to be absolutely zero legitimate reason for save warp to stay banned and the fact it saves time and is STILL banned is a bit silly tbh. Some people might say it doesn't save enough time and that people shouldn't care, but let's be real here. At this point like 3-5 (around that range?) seconds is the largest amount of time save we're getting. We're not really in a spot to be picky about how much time a thing saves sooooo. If people don't want to do save warp then simply don't do it. The issue here isn't to make everyone do save warp it's to give everyone the /option/ to have optimized runs and do save warp. And I, for one, fully agree in unbanning it.