Speedrun.com Knowledge Base

Moderation Rules

Leaderboard Moderation

Leaderboards should be viewed as owned by the community and curated by the moderators. A user who requests a leaderboard does not own the leaderboard.
Moderators should familiarize themselves with the general site rules.
We suggest users seeking to moderate leaderboards should be at least age 16.
Users moderating games will be held to a higher standard of behavior than normal users for on-site and off-site conduct. If controversy and drama arises frequently from a user's conduct, site staff may remove the user from moderation.
The users moderating a game should represent the consensus of the players of the game. If it is evident that moderators are not representing consensus among runners, site staff may change moderation.
Moderators should typically speedrun the game, or at a minimum be heavily involved with the community.
Leaderboards should aim to have at least 3 active moderators if qualified people are available.
Leaderboards shall not be used for site protests, protests of game developer decisions, or general advocacy on social issues.
Failure to respond to site staff inquiries regarding moderation issues may result in moderation removal.
It is generally observed by site staff that people who cannot get along cannot successfully moderate together.
Moderators must remain impartial in their treatment of community members.
Preferential treatment of any type (moving runs up in the verification queue, verifying runs that do not meet standards, etc) is forbidden, especially if associated with payment or favors. Failure to remain impartial may result in moderator removal.
Although game rules may reference additional community sites and suggest submitting to multiple, game rules cannot require runners to use those sites instead of SR.C, nor require runners to submit to external sites in order to be listed on SR.C
Game rules may include multiple languages, but at the bare minimum must include English.

The following rules will be strictly enforced:

Do not list a player's runs on a leaderboard if they explicitly do not want it listed.
Do not copy or reupload a player's video without permission from the user.
Do not list a player's username on a leaderboard if they explicitly do not want it listed.
If a player does not want their top time listed, it is acceptable to just not list the top time. It is also acceptable to list a top time with the username "Anonymous" and no video linked. An anonymized reuploaded video may be used only with the explicit permission of the player.
It is generally acceptable to document a top time without contacting the player, unless the individual explicitly requests it not be listed, as described above.
Do not copy other online leaderboards without permission from the owners of those leaderboards.
If moderating a board and in need of advice on handling a controversial situation, feel free to reach out to site staff.

Moderator Activity

Moderators are generally given 21 days to process run submissions.
Moderators should make themselves available for feedback from runners for rules, categories, and board organization via the game's forum page, social media, or Discord.
It is not a requirement for moderators to verify all runs every time they visit the site, we understand people have lives.
If you are unable to handle these tasks, please request other runners of the game to help moderate.
Site staff may designate additional moderators due to inactivity or repeated lack of response to feedback.

Category setup

It is highly recommended that category names describe the category in a way that users who have played the game and have a basic understanding of speedrunning can understand what the category means at first glance.
As a loose recommendation, subcategories are intended for things that are for the most part not directly comparable. Variables are intended for things that are mostly comparable but may still wish to be sorted by.
The site discourages usage of a % sign after an arbitrary category name such as Tutorial%. Many users dislike this naming convention. Common uses such as any%, low%, and 100% are acceptable.

Rules

Category rules shall specify Timing Start and Timing End.
Rules do not need to restate expectations that are already listed in the general site rules, but may do so
Rules should specify any additional restrictions on gameplay for the category.
Do not require a timer on a video unless there is a good reason to do so. A good reason might be a game that uses an auto-splitter to track time without loads.
Moderators may or may not choose to require game audio for submissions.
For highly competitive times in highly competitive games, moderators may impose additional proof requirements such as demonstration of skill over a period of time via streaming or a lengthy video showing numerous attempts.
Turbo is by default disallowed for runs unless otherwise specified in the game rules. If a game chooses to allow turbo, it should typically be tracked with a variable for the runs.

Run Requirements

A minimum effort requirement is reasonable. It is recommended to at a minimum accept a first playthrough done in one sitting with an intention of playing the category quickly.
Runs that are clearly not making an effort to beat the game's category quickly may be rejected.
Runs featuring inappropriate video or images on the side or highly offensive/slanderous audio may be rejected.
Run submission comments slandering users or moderators may be rejected.
It is reasonable to expect that the video must be of a reasonable enough viewing quality and stable framerate to clearly see everything going on in the game. It is not recommended to set a strict threshold such as 720p.

Verification

It is generally left to the moderators to determine a necessary level of scrutiny for a run.
For the top time in a category, it is generally expected that the entire run be watched.
For times that are not particularly notable, reviewing small portions of the video may be sufficient.
A run should be added it meets the burden of proof the game's community expects for the legitimacy of the run. It is neither "innocent until proven guilty" nor "guilty until proven innocent" With the information provided, does the community of the game feel that the run is legitimate, or does the community feel they need further proof? A run does not have to be proved to be cheated to not meet the burden of proof.
The time of the run is the time in the video from starting condition to ending condition. It is not the time shown on the timer program, which is started and ended with human error. Be aware that post-processing video can have minor effects on video framerates.
Please do not reject runs just because they are obsoleted by a newer submission. They still go into the database to show history over time.
Moderators may generally self-verify their own runs. Some boards choose to disallow moderators from self-verifying.
It is left to the game moderators to decide whether they want to track runs played by users banned from the site or not.

Consensus

The users moderating a game should represent the consensus by the players of the game for who should be moderating. If it is evident that moderators are not representative of consensus among runners, site staff may change moderation. Site staff will consider involvement of community members with the game when evaluating consensus. A 51-49 vote may not be a clear consensus, and we do not want to change the leaderboard every time community opinion shifts slightly, or someone new runs the game for another vote.

The following topics should be considered when deciding how to handle disputes over how the leaderboard categories, runs, or rules are handled.

General Site Rules
Game Moderator Opinion
Game Runner Opinion Minor consideration should be given to the following:
How would communities of other games in the series handle the issue?
How would communities of other games on this console handle the issue?
How would communities of other games on the site handle the issue?

In a general sense, we want communities to come to their own consensus on how to handle complex game specific issues. Site staff wants game moderators to evaluate the consensus of their community and to handle gray cases for the game's community. In rare cases, smaller boards have deviated substantially from normal site expectations and site staff may step in to keep rules and expectations realistic across the many games on the site.

Page Setup

The short URL used for a game must be clearly relevant to the game's title. In rare cases, site staff may make changes to game URLs to differentiate games and series, or to help ambiguity between existing games. It is highly recommended to use an all lower case URL.
Usage of custom themes and icons is optional.
Pictures and icons must be meaningful to the game. Real-life pictures, Twitch emotes, and memes generally are not appropriate for a game theme and should not be used.
If the logo is changed, it MUST say "speedrun.com"
Failure to follow theme rules may result in the removal of theme privileges from the game or removal of the user from moderation.
Do not post pirated commercially owned games or ROMs or links to those games or ROMs anywhere on the site.

Moderator Permissions

Super Moderators

Designated by a "red sword" icon on game pages.
Can appoint users as verifiers, moderators, and super moderators. They are also capable of editing the moderator status of (or removing the moderator status from) verifiers and moderators. They cannot edit the moderator status of other Super Moderators.
Have full access to Game "Guides".
Have full access to Game "Statistics" as well as "Audit Logs" for the game
Additionally have all permissions of Regular Moderators and Verifiers.

Regular Moderators

Designated by a "green sword" icon on game pages.
Can edit rules, categories, runs for the game.
Can submit runs for other users.
Can edit the information in the Game "Resources".
Can add, change, or remove various links on the sidebar, such as links to a game page or discord.
Can edit posts of other Super Moderators or Moderators in their game's forums. Editing of other user's posts is not possible.
Can self-verify runs
Additionally have all permissions of Verifiers.

Verifiers

Can edit and delete new and existing submissions
Cannot self-verify runs
Can manage donation tracker in marathons. (Read & approve donations, add bidwards, goals etc.) but is unable to edit marathon data.

Users

May submit guides/resources if they have an approved run on the board.
Can edit their own runs. This may require the run to be re-verified by a moderator.

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