It would be nice if we could comment on individual runs, it would make it easier to ask questions and have discussions about the run, tips and tricks stuff like that. I know that youtube is one step away, but i would honestly rather talk here about the runs than there.

That creates a whole mess of moderation issues. No matter how innocently you'd want to use that feature, others would use it to harass.

You could do the same with discord messaging someone or having a channel dedicated to whatever game

Individual games already have their own forums which are often pretty sparse, so i don't see how this would make it a lot worse. The way i was thinking about it would be that when you'd be looking for new games to run or just perusing through runs you could see the discussion people have had about a wr run in one place even if the game would have no more runners. And as useful as discord is, it's still an extra step to finding out the info you need. Though i agree that it would probably be pretty useless on more popular games.

I would agree with you if speedrun.com was an app like discord where you could be pinged about something but since this is a website you'd need to rely on whether or not the person you're trying to talk with is on this site frequently or enough to where it doesn't take a good amount of time to get a response back, plus there is a messages ability coming soon™ so there's always that (whenever it arrives)

I think using the forums to discuss runs seems like a much better solution for this, than expecting to comment on a specific run directly.

Pres and Tron, I know y'all have been here a while so your opinions matter a lot. However, I think that the alternatives you mentioned don't serve the purpose that Bemels is talking about. Discord channels are great within communities, but not for casual observers. The forums are also limiting because it is abnormal to ask run-specific questions or congratulate runners. Plus, messages (Coming Soon) have been delayed for months, as seen here: https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/8o4bm

Look at the big picture. We want more people to watch runs and get inspired to run the game themselves. We want them to ask us questions. Comments, implemented in the right way, would be great for users that want positive feedback and engagement. There are thousands of runners, new and old, that could benefit from this.

Here's a rough sketch of what commenting could look like:

For starters-- Comments should be implemented through the site. Users can delete their own comments and those on their runs. Other users can flag inappropriate comments or spam.

In profile settings: Enable/disable comments on all runs [enable/disable] Enable/disable comments on game-specific runs [enable/disable] Block specific users from commenting on your runs (and delete previous comments)

In followed games default notification settings: New comment on followed run [enable/disable] New comment on your run [enable/disable] Your comment has been deleted ¤followed run = run you’ve commented on ¤¤Notifies user once for all comments on a single run to avoid excessive notifying

On run submissions: Comments enabled on your run [enable/disable] Only allow comments from runners of this game [enable/disable] Allow mods of this game to delete comments [enable/disable] ¤Default values for these can be changed in global settings

Moderator’s game settings: Enable/disable comments on all runs [enable/disable] Block specific users from commenting on runs (and delete previous comments)

imo the biggest problem with allowing comments on runs would be the botspam, we already get enough of those in some game-specific forums, sometimes on the general forums here, and by allowing comments on every run, it would essentially create a mod-free space that could be abused.

I say mod-free space because I can assure you, the boards with higher activity will surely get flooded with comments, I doubt any of these moderators would keep notifications on when they get spammed with stuff they don't have interest in. "userxyz has commented on userxzy's runcategory (time) run of gamenamehere | 5 hours ago"

Comments on runs wouldn't serve that big of a purpose and would mostly likely lead to more irritation as opposed to anything else. If I submit a run, I would be beyond annoyed to get a notification for a comment on my video that just says "nice run". Like, I get that's polite to compliment someone, but it would be terribly annoying to get frequently and disabling them would be obnoxious in case anyone does actually have a legitimate question or something.

There is also the problem of spam like Howdenking just mentioned. I could see spam bots would go ballistic on this if it was a thing, but it's not just spam bots. Imagine a run from a big streamer (50k+ followers) - I could easily see all of the stream monsters from their chat going onto their run and spamming copy pasta or memes and blowing up the comments section. This would be annoying for the runner and the moderators to clean up or control.

Also, Im not sure why you think the forums or discord are bad for this. If you find it abnormal to ask run specific questions in either of those, then you have some very rigid forums for your games because I see questions on runs and strats all the time in some forums for games I follow. Most discord servers have channels dedicated to practice and questions and I see run specific questions there hundreds of times a day as people learn the game. It's not like new runners are left in the wind with no resources to turn to.

All in all, I don't see comments providing anything beneficial since if the purpose of them is to just "get help or ask questions" then they seem useless since discord and forums exist already. If the purpose is to just congratulate a runner on a PB/WR, then I see it as unnecessary since it opens the door for so much more spam and abuse for practically no gain.

HowDenKing you make a good point about the bots. If we can't find a way to stop it from happening, comments should never be a thing.

Timmiluvs, for games with huge followings, comments would lead to a monstrous disaster. We should default games to not include comments, and if the mods want, they can turn them on or off whenever they want. For small-mid sized games though, comments might be a helpful addition.

What I meant by run-specific questions is to ask a question like: "Hey, at 5:32 what were your inputs to clip the wall?" or "Why do you play this game?" The runner could have a more specific way of describing why they take certain actions -- if they don't, then a simple link to the strat will do. If runners personally don't feel like seeing people's comments, keep them default off.

As far as the point of this all, I see what y'all are saying. As of right now, the costs (spam and abuse) outweigh the benefits. But I wouldn't be so quick to say that comments would have 0 gain. Every new visitor to the site (especially around GDQ events) is a potential new runner. The more positive activity and discussion they see, the more likely they are to want to join in and participate.

That's a lot of work when we already have forums, Oxknifer.

Also, people who really want comments on their runs can put them on Youtube.

Something like this has been planned for a while but won't be implemented until a lot of things are added to allow for easy moderation.