Feedback thread
9 years ago
United States

There is a lot of discussion of bugs on the site both in the thread on this forum and in the discord for speedrun.com . I like the discussion that has been had in both locations, but it is often hard to track what has and hasn't been reported. Having something as simple as a google form could do wonders for bug tracking.

An example I like to point to is the bug tracker Dotsarecool uses for the SMW Practice cart. Here is the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfWDnfrobLrJ5w83F_0VaiGZjWNsvcwesrFnFX2xMs_Z344jA/viewform Here are the responses: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CfIgGdY0Z74KoVm7Y55PqhbpBRxWx8_pPxF2bGoGtRs/edit#gid=1461405420

Obviously it would have to be tweaked to meet the needs of the site, but it'll allow for a bunch of things, such as:

  1. More useful information up front. Having requirements such as browser in the form will allow for conversations to skip the same questions asked for nearly every bug report.
  2. Give users information on whether or not the bug they are experience is experiences by others.
  3. Add extra transparency in showing what the status is of a bug (even if it is just in a queue somewhere, being stored in a readable format is better than ignored and buried under 4 pages of a forum post).
  4. Help keep track of bugs reported on multiple platforms.

Just a thought I had.

Imaproshaman likes this
United States

I'd like the ability to submit additional information on game pages for the moderators to later accept. This includes date corrections, platforms, websites for PC/web games, genre additions, etc. I'd rather not be a moderator for these games, and while I could send a message to the current moderator asking them to add said info, it'd be easier if there was a form to submit through that could be later approved or denied with the click of a button.

Also, to add on to what MD_Pi mentioned, there's similar problem with platform, especially Game Boy games, although not quite as bad. Moderators will list the platform as GB, GBC, SGB, SGB2, GBP, GBA, GBI, and any combination or omission that happens to come to mind at the time of creating the game page. This makes searching for games by platform difficult as GBC and GBA games show up in GB. In the same vein, while it's true all PS1 games can be played on a PS2, I don't want to see PS1 games when I search for PS2 games. I'd like to see platforms separated into "released on" and "playable on" with maybe some auto-fill rules (e.g. all GB are playable on SGB/SGB2/GBP/GBI, and all PS1 are playable on PS2).

Imaproshaman, Quivico and 2 others like this
Michigan, USA

In the interfaces for Edit Game/Edit Layout it's not super clear what everything does. Especially with Edit Layout, I'm still playing a lot of guess-and-check games in order to figure out how to change anything. I still have no idea what adding a favicon does; my guess is that it would change the image that appears on the site tab, but so far I haven't seen any changes with games I've added favicons to (a good example would be https://speedrun.com/The_Hobbit ).

I also really don't like how trying to view all levels under the Individual Levels tab only displays the top time for each category/level. I can't think of a great way to set this up, but I'd definitely like to be able to see more times in here.

Also, under Guides: A lot of users have guides specifically in YouTube videos or on other websites. If that's the case, there could be a way to set up a guide so clicking it directly leads to the actual guide, instead of opening a page with another link you have to click to go to the guide (again, see here: https://www.speedrun.com/The_Hobbit/guides ). That would be similar to the Resources method, where you can choose either file or link, but in this case it'd be either text or link.

Could there potentially be a way to set up an "irrelevant variable"? By this I mean something like the "Verified" variable in Super Mario 64. This is more of a LiveSplit issue, where if you have your settings set to take variables into account, a variable like this can screw over your comparisons. We have a similar variable for The Hobbit ("Frame-counted"), and I've experienced firsthand how trying to display World Record on my timer gets completely screwed up because of these variables.

Could the order of the columns on the leaderboards be set by the mods instead of hard-set? With games that display both loadless time and time with loads but still base the leaderboard off the time with loads, it'd be nice to have the time that actually matters be the leftmost displayed, but the hard-set setting is to have loadless time at the far left.

Under "Edit Game", the option for editing a URL doesn't always work correctly. I've noticed that URLs on this site are case-dependent, but sometimes the URL editor just doesn't care about this and decides that all of the letters should be lowercase. So again, using The Hobbit as an example: We wanted to set the URL for the Category Extensions page (at https://speedrun.com/The_Hobbit_Category_Extensions ) to be /The_Hobbit_CE (this would match the capitalization of the main page) but because the URL editor is screwy it would only update to /the_hobbit_ce.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
diggity, Imaproshaman and 2 others like this
Esperanto

Audit logs are very cool.

Imaproshaman, Habreno and 6 others like this
United States

Favicons should change that image, but haven't worked for years.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Imaproshaman likes this
Germany

[quote]Favicons should change that image, but haven't worked for months years.[/quote] As far as I'm aware browsers often cache favicons for the entire sub-domain and they only update very inconsistently even if you add something like ?v=[timestamp of the last time the file changed] to the url, which usually causes browsers to discard previous cached versions (very useful for external stylesheets, which also often just get read from cache without double checking). Due to that the functionality got removed, likely to avoid confusion. I do however still think that the ui could implement those icons in places like next to the game name on profiles or maybe in the Games menu in the header/navigation of the site, so they aren't completely useless outside of the settings for 'Followed games'.

EDIT: just noticed I forgot to mention that I'm trying to explain why they are disabled, oops.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
European Union

Favicons are disabled, they only add the icon to your profile moderator list.

Seydie and Mitsunee like this
United States

Small optimization, perhaps change the title/hover text for rejected runs on the runs awaiting verification page to display rejection reason instead of run comments? Might save a few clicks.

Canada

Would probably be better if the WR history chart only highlighted one category by default. In games with lots of categories, having to manually disable the display for every single category every single time I want to take a look at the WR progression for one or two categories is super annoying. Could also be helpful to have "Enable All" and "Disable All" buttons.

Texas, USA

Someone suggested I should post my ideas in here so here it is:

I'd like to have custom values other than just time increments. I want to be able to mass select runs and change their category etc. I want to be able to simply click on a run and not be taken to a separate page, but have a drop down of the video and description of the run with the ability to edit the run.

The forum needs a massive revamp and in a series the forums should be intertwined instead of completely different sections. I want to be able to cross-post across multiple forums instead of just 1 game in the series.

The entire 'level runs' and 'full game' don't apply to all games and that should be sorted out some way to fit all games. The way runs and categories are shown now is just a mess. Everything needs to be much more customizable. Even profiles are a bit of a mess and that too needs to be revamped. These are just quick thoughts I've had for a revamp. I have very small insight in coding, but I do know about design. The entire site needs to be flipped upside down for it to be much more user friendly.

Quivico likes this
Massachusetts, USA

I recently tried to report another runner's misreported time using the description box when submitting a run for an IL in Golf Story, but the moderator didn't seem to notice. It would be useful if each run's page had a "Report Issue with Run" button that could be used to alert moderators of a misreported time. This could also be used to report cheating.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Quivico and Alex like this
Antarctica

That could also be abused and spammed excessively. If you need to contact a moderator, use their social links, it’s what they’re there for.

Quivico and ShikenNuggets like this
Australia

Or use the forums.

Can the "Automatically verify run" checkbox be unchecked by default?

HowDenKing, MD_Pi, and Habreno like this
Texas, USA

I agree with Jengajam. As a mod this would be a great idea. It wouldn't be spammed if you put a limit on how many times a person could report.

Antarctica

It’s not the spam (although I could easily see people mass reporting the same run out of boredom) so much as the trolling. Imagine how many people would hit that button “for the memes” or because they were annoyed at being beat. You may not think that would be common, but people have done crazier things on this site.

While it might be used legitimately, it has a lot of potential for abuse. I still think social links are the best way to go about it because it’s direct and easy. Plus, not as many runs are cheated as people might think, so the button would do more harm than the rare case it’s used to report an actually cheated run. More likely than not people will wind up hitting it because “something looks weird” instead of having concrete proof.

It’s kinda the same reason a “report user” button has been iffy - it would be abused and general problems are better reported directly to a full mod.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Texas, USA

Oh trust me I've dealt with a lot of the trolls on this site. I don't think people would mass report, and if they were wanting to troll the mods wouldn't they just spam another feature like submitting runs? I don't think people would abuse it as much as you think they would, but who knows. I just think it could be a great feature. Maybe do a test run of it to see how it goes.

Texas, USA

@ShikenNuggets Nice idea for disabling/enabling all on the WR graph. I posted that idea a year ago: https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/g79jt/42#7xwjd

On the topic of the "report issue with run" idea -- it's a nice idea! However, I don't think it's a great use of the dev's time. They might as well implement a whole messaging system instead. Because, if I'm a mod of a reported run, I may want to respond to the user saying why the current timing is correct. And the user may want to respond to that. So a full messaging system would be the way to go.

Since our site devs aren't implementing that any time soon, I do think it's enough to message a mod in Discord or on a LB forum, and it's up to the mod to be active and respond. Cheers :D

Edit 07/27/2023: WR Graph All Categories Toggle is more or less fixed with the update allowing us to select a single category. Thanks!

Edited by the author 8 months ago
ShikenNuggets likes this
Texas, USA

@Oxknifer maybe intertwine reporting with the messaging system so that you can reply to it. I agree the messaging system needs to be finally setup. It's said coming soon for like 2 or 3 years now lol.

Oxknifer likes this
Australia

Another thing. When a world record is set in a game I moderate, I get a notification about it. If I was the person that verified that run, maybe it would be best to not get that notification (because I am already aware of it).

blueYOSHI, Imaproshaman and 3 others like this
United Kingdom

I'd like to be able to set which platform is the default for my game when people submit runs. Like you can set a specific category or patch to be the default. I can't find anything like this for platform.

Urinstein, blueYOSHI and 2 others like this