Adding more moderators, verifiers, or other such volunteers is usually more easily said than done. Oftentimes, there are no people willing to do so, or those who do volunteer aren't the most trustworthy individuals. Usually, I'm just checking a few key points, glitch locations, and skimming through the run and not watching the whole thing in depth. Yes, I'm engaging in lazy moderation, and I'll admit that. Find other trustworthy people who want to do the dirty work for free if you expect all the runs to be fully viewed to be on the leaderboards. Or pay me; I can think of worse jobs.
I do in fact encourage that for a long, multi-hour run. If you have a lot of moving from point A to point B you don't need to watch that at single-speed. In fact doing so would be tedious. Part of watching at double-speed is actually watching the run, and knowing when you should slow the video down when necessary (Which I mention doing so in my post, btw).
For something fifteen minutes? Not really necessary. For something six hours? Helps a ton.
You can call me crazy for doing it, but if you actually know what the hell you're doing (which, you're a mod for a game, you kinda should) it's not that outlandish. It's far better than not watching the runs at all, or snipping through them.
Yeah, I'm not particularly interested in trying to goad people into watching every minute of every run, ever. I'll tell you why.
Runners get sensitive to that. New runners don't want to be a burden. If they know that verifying their runs is a significant chore, then they're not going to submit.
That's bad for the community.
So look. The videos are there. The runs are there. Require video. Have the mods ensure that the videos posted are valid, and in the case of Twitch videos, are highlights and not raw stream segments.
Then the white knights of leaderboard purity can go back and watch them themselves, if they're really that worried about catching someone who spliced a 95th place run.
^ That's why I don't sweat it if someone submits an hour long run of a 10 minute game then tries to "expose me" because I verified his run that had a save state in it somewhere.
As long as moderators don't watch the full run it's going to be far easier to pass shit off. As Kirkq said in the OP, fake submissions will cause the account to be banned. The site can't do that if you don't find it, and if you're not watching the full run then it's a hell of a lot easier to miss it.
At the end of the day I think we're just going to go around in a circle on this point. You don't feel you should have to watch the whole run to verify it, I argue that this lets more fake runs through going against the point of this thread, you say that doing so is unreasonable and that it makes moderation a burden discouraging new runners which is bad for the community, I say that if it's unreasonable then you should reconsider being a moderator since I feel that's part of what the duty is, you disagree and feel that you don't have to watch the whole run to verify it, etc...
We're going in circles here and neither you nor I are going to convince each other otherwise.
Dude watching a run at 2x speed and then going to normal speed for key points is no better than skipping parts of the run and stopping to look at key points.
Get over yourself seriously. You’re just as “lazy” as the other mods you and some others have called out. You want to act high and mighty watch a full run without 2x speed which just makes watching those parts of the run pointless.
If you think me watching at double speed is going to mean I miss something in the game I moderate here then you're mistaken.
If you think not watching parts that are "pointless" then someone who wants to cheat is going to take advantage of that and get good parts that matter then splice at the "pointless" parts. And you'd be none the fucking wiser, where I would catch that because I'm still watching the run. Double speed or single speed I will still catch it because I am still watching the run. Unlike you.
Sorry we disagree on if a moderator should watch the whole run or not. I am firmly for it and acknowledge there are tools to make doing so less tedious. I want any run I have verified to stand to people as a sign that that run is very much so legitimate and was not cheated or spliced. I take my online name seriously and want the name Habreno to actually mean something to people. When you verify something that turns out to be illegitimate that is just as much a stain on you as a moderator as it is on the runner. You, the moderator, become less trustworthy, because something you said was good is not. I'm going to do everything I can to keep my name in a good light online, because I take my online name seriously and want it to be a symbol of someone trustworthy and respected. That is why I believe you should watch the run in its entirety, and use the tools at my disposal to do so efficiently.
I am not high and mighty. I believe that lazy moderation (which is to not watch the whole run) is a blight on the site and needs to be cut out as much as possible. If you want to come at me further that's on you. I've said my piece; I'm done here. Good luck.
I'm really just shocked you don't watch runs submitted to you at 10x speed.
I mean really? Step up your submission viewing game.
is joke, was mostly just poking fun at the idea of watching a run in its entirety, but sped up. Sounds funny when you think about it. I mostly agree that it's fine, since really at the end of the day the video proof is there and then run can be taken down anytime if proven to be fake.
edit: i mean if you expect me to treat a 30 minute run of an 11:30 wr time game with the same level of scrutiny you need to guess again
I think the lesson there is that you shouldn't tell other people how they should verify their games. People don't really like that, and it's not how the site works. Also, what works for one game doesn't work for every game. There's no need to get combative here, nor spill it over onto the discord. People disagreed with you, no one was attacking you. Just your absolutist ideas.
"I am not high and mighty. I believe that lazy moderation (which is to not watch the whole run) is a blight on the site and needs to be cut out as much as possible. If you want to come at me further that's on you. I've said my piece; I'm done here. Good luck." This is the kind of rhetoric that entrenches both sides of the issue while also attracting trolls.
Watching a game at 2x speed is fine for games with slow action, if you know what to look for and if you're conscious of the risks you're taking. The same can be said of watching only segments of a long run for a non competitive time on a busy board. This happens, and it happens for a multitude of reasons. It shouldn't surprise you.
(Personally I watch full runs at regular speed with my own timer, and rewatch certain parts after on a slower speed if I can. I can do that since my games are short and I'm still fascinated by the variations people bring. It also helps me find new strats and ideas. And I don't have a high volume of runs to go through.)
Mods can choose to take a runner's credibility into account like Liv suggested. They can also choose to be blind to the user's reputation--plenty of cheaters were reputable competitive runners who got desperate to improve when the diminishing returns of hard work caught up with them.
Mods have to volunteer the time and effort to keeping the leaderboard functioning. That's their role, and that's where the job description begins and ends.
The fact is that right now, there's no single specific practice that everyone must apply. Stop calling other volunteers lazy or a "blight" and maybe you won't have to live life on the defensive. Lighten up :)
Here's another issue that was brought up. Forgive me, it's one of my favourite topics... I'd love to see stricter standards like more proof options, forcing mods to "follow" their games, forcing mods to have valid contact info, something like the "run accepted but not verified" state, automatic inactivity layoffs, a crackdown on leaderboards that have deadweight mods... Speaking of which...
Since you mentioned that you were bothered by runless mods... Did you know that 38% of all moderators do not have a run in a game that they moderate? Did you know that 42% of all game leaderboards have at least one mod with no runs in the game?
ROMaster2 compiled these stats for me a few months ago. They might have changed slightly since then, for better or worse.
@6oliath "I'd love to see stricter standards"
While those ideas are potentially worth discussing, this probably isn't the right place to do that. In fact, this whole thread has gotten pretty off-topic.
I think once we finish cracking down on troll Youtube video creators, this won't be an issue anymore. Communities will police themselves.
@DracaarysHorror, if you think the run is fake, or you know it is, just reject the run?
Don’t reject a run just because you THINK it’s fake. If you can prove it’s fake that’s fine, but just thinking a run is fake is not grounds for rejection.
If you have concerns about the run that make you think that, talk to the runner to let them know your concerns and maybe that have an explanation for whatever doesn’t look right to you. If after that you still have doubts with something or they don’t respond to you, then reject it (just make sure you explain why).
I think Dracaarys was asking if, in addition to rejecting a fake or bad faith submission, there are any other steps to be taken. Like getting the user banned. (That's why this topic exists right?)
A runner ( new account make for that ) test me and another mod on the game "Snake VS Block". He said that is a fake and he stoled a run of another person, he maid a forum to say to me be careful ... ? ? https://www.speedrun.com/snake_vs_block/thread/bywzp