Checkmark for guaranteed SR = WR
5 years ago
Gelderland, Netherlands

So a lot of the times I'll see someone claim WR when it's just the best time on this website. I was wondering if it's a possibility to add a Checkmark as a guarantee that every site record is actually a World Record as well.

I reckon this can be added to most popular games, and would easily clear up which games aren't fully on the site, or if they just have a small community.

To verify the checkmarks it should probably be a request by the mod team of a game, verified by the staff of this website. At least, that's just a guess of how this can be done I suppose

GamerPercent and rusto like this
Valhalla

Wait, what are you asking? If it claims to be WR on this site, you want people to verify that it's WR on the site? Which it already is verified? I'm not sure what you're proposing.

Also, there could be a faster run being done by someone else in the world, they just have no way to record, or nobody knows about it. The best you can do is post a time that claims to be WR and hopefully challengers come along.

xDrHellx likes this
England

Speedrun.com is supposed to be the most comprehensive and authoritative source for known speedruns of the games hosted on the website. The WRs listed on this site should be viewed as the best known times anywhere, and can reliably be viewed as world records for their respective games.

If there are better times elsewhere, then they should be posted on the Speedrun.com leaderboards.

Pear, Hako and 6 others like this
United States

If you see better times, bring them up to the mods of the game in question. Mods can add times to boards even if that user doesn't have an account and doesn't submit them.

Keep in mind that some games have records that are primarily hosted on other sites. The boards here are placeholders or periodically synced.

Pear, eccentrix and 2 others like this
Gelderland, Netherlands

[quote]Wait, what are you asking? If it claims to be WR on this site, you want people to verify that it's WR on the site[/quote] I'm not sure how my post is even misinterpreted but let me try again: There are many times or scores hosted on other sites that are way better by far. Often someone will submit a time to a category, and claim "World Record" when in reality, it's just the first place on this very website (speedrun.com), while other sites have a way better or more competitive ranking.

[quote]post a time that claims to be WR[/quote] This is idiotic as many times people won't bother to look around when there's clearly more available. Sometimes people don't want their times on this very site. You can't just simply claim "WR" to everything just because it's #1 on this site. That's the reason for the checkmark -- So you can confidently do that and anyone checking the leaderboards is guaranteed that this leaderboard is up to date and accurate.

[quote] The WRs listed on this site should be viewed as the best known times anywhere, and can reliably be viewed as world records for their respective games.

If there are better times elsewhere, then they should be posted on the Speedrun.com leaderboards.[/quote] If you truly believe that speedrun.com should be THE ONE site where records actually count, then I don't know what to say. There's the Players' Page for Mario Karts, Cyberscore for a whole lot of other games, game specific leaderboards. And once again, it's not "up to the mods" to add those records. Sure, they can ask people if they're okay with uploading their time to src but they shouldn't have to massively import times from other places and keep them up to date. Even IF that should be on the mod's task, why not add a checkmark whenever that has been done? This way people know there are no non-speedrun.com times missing.

[quote]If you see better times, bring them up to the mods of the game in question. Mods can add times to boards even if that user doesn't have an account and doesn't submit them.

Keep in mind that some games have records that are primarily hosted on other sites. The boards here are placeholders or periodically synced.[/quote] Of course, I know this. I'm a mod myself and the whole problem is that records are hosted on other sites and thus not every record on speedrun.com is a "World Record"

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Valhalla

It's pretty easy to see how it's misinterpreted, and I don't like being called an idiot over your stupid idea. You want a twitter style checkmark next to your runs saying "100% confirmed WR!" but you seem to be aware that it's impossible to know if that's the case or not, as other sites exist. Multiple leaderboards for one game often work in tandem across sites, or just another site is used instead. The community around that game itself knows whether or not a time posted on SRC is WR or not and that's ALL that should matter unless you really want clout. You're literally asking for a second 1st place trophy, and it STILL wouldn't be definitive. So maybe check what you're writing before calling someone an idiot.

Pear, Hako and 8 others like this
Pennsylvania, USA

If the leaderboard doesn't even hold the fastest known time then it's a shit leaderboard, who would even want to have a faux "WR?"

Afaik, there's nothing on this site that states the 1st place run is even WR. I may be misunderstanding, but it's not the sites fault that there's idiots out there claiming shit times as WR, that's absolutely an off site problem.

If there's times missing, pester the mods to submit those times.

Pear, Habreno and 3 others like this
Gelderland, Netherlands

[quote]You want a twitter style checkmark next to your runs saying "100% confirmed WR!"[/quote] I can see you're quite profound at exaggerating but hear me out on this one

[quote]but you seem to be aware that it's impossible to know if that's the case or not, as other sites exist.[/quote] Good to hear you're aware of that as well

[quote]The community around that game itself knows whether or not a time posted on SRC is WR or not[/quote] Unless there's no community or anything close to that in that matter. I'm not saying every specific time should have a checkmark, I'm saying the leaderboards should have a checkmark that represents the validation of an accurate leaderboard. Of course, not every leaderboard is going to have literally all times on there, but when a game's leaderboards are "officially" on speedrun.com, why not add a checkmark? It won't detract from anything lmao

[quote]that's ALL that should matter unless you really want clout.[/quote] The whole thing about the checkmark is that garbage runs won't be able to claim "WR" and try to get clout that way. You're at the complete other end of what a checkmark is supposed to mean.

[quote]You're literally asking for a second 1st place trophy, and it STILL wouldn't be definitive.[/quote] Is verification really that bad of an idea? If I look up a random flash game on src and I see it's verified, then I won't have to go through all of the trouble of looking for a run. It's a way for moderators to DISPLAY that they did in fact check for other times (as much is possible) and that these are the most accurate they can get.

[quote]So maybe check what you're writing before calling someone an idiot.[/quote] I called your idea of "Just claiming WR until someone else proves otherwise" idiotic. The fact that you're so fragile you immediately pose this onto yourself says enough.

[quote]If the leaderboard doesn't even hold the fastest known time then it's a shit leaderboard, who would even want to have a faux "WR?"[/quote] Exactly. So a checkmark would display that it's a good leaderboard. As luckily you all are aware, there are other leaderboard sites, and it'll take a long time before speedrun.com can "guarantee" to be the main ranking. Until then, a checkmark can be a way to guarantee this standard of leaderboard, don't you think?

[quote]Afaik, there's nothing on this site that states the 1st place run is even WR.[/quote] This is correct, and I'm not claiming that it does.

[quote]I may be misunderstanding, but it's not the sites fault that there's idiots out there claiming shit times as WR, that's absolutely an off site problem.[/quote] Of course, but to help those idiots you could add a checkmark indicating whether or not their run is actually the world record or not.

[quote]If there's times missing, pester the mods to submit those times.[/quote] But when would you know if times are missing? What if there was an indicator? :^)

I'd just like to also say that I'm not saying this because I'm interested in "getting world records". I'm saying this for the exact opposite reason -- Too many people claim "World Record" when sometimes that's just not the case. Whether this is the mods' fault or not, having a checkmark displaying that these leaderboards are as accurate as possible would remove a lot of confusion for the people that solely check this site for their competition.

United States

How about this, if you see a 1st place record that's clearly not optimized, then do your own run? A checkmark can be checked as easily as any run can get 1st on an empty board. A checkmark doesn't check for new records after it's been given. All a checkmark will say is that the mod(s) believe the 1st place time is the fastest, which really doesn't add much to a leaderbaord. If you aren't already looking at the rest of the Internet for the fastest time (if that's what you're into), then you have some serious tunnel vision.

This is a nice collection of times, but it isn't the end all be all of leaderboard or speedrun communities. Such a place will never exist.

Pear, Habreno, and Imaproshaman like this
Gelderland, Netherlands

I'm fine with letting just the mods handle the checkmark. I just think the option should be there -- Instead of a forum sticky post saying it. I'd be totally fine with the opposite of the checkmark being added: A way for the mods to tell the people on those leaderboards that they're incomplete.

United States

Y THO...

No seriously, what purpose does this serve?

The vast majority of leader boards here are pretty accurate. You're complaining about communities that manage their boards primarily off site. If anything, a banner should show where the real board is over the leaderboard. And in some cases this exists. Time would be better spent getting that done for all of them.

What the hell is a check mark gonna do?

Imaproshaman likes this
New York, USA

For what it's worth, I didn't think Goomba's original post was unclear in any way. I immediately understood what he was talking about and what he was asking for.

Quivico and Imaproshaman like this
Antarctica

Every time this comes up, the same things are always said and the points are always made. At the end of the day, this checkmark accomplishes nothing. What if you find a faster time on another website, who verifies that is actually WR? Nobody is ever going to know if a 1st place run here is really world record because who knows what exists out there in terms of runs done decades ago when all people had to go on was some stuff shared between friends. You could argue this for literally any WR site. How do we know that any WR in Guinness is really a WR? This rabbit hole goes on forever.

The term WR is meaningless, it always has been an always will be. This site is designed to be the central hub for all of this stuff. If someone wants to bury their time on a random different website, then let them. That person clearly doesn’t care about being a WR so who really cares. Besides, most of the other sites you listed like Cyberscore are mostly for high scores which aren’t really tracked here. Or most other sites like the one for Halo are known to be the main spot instead of here, so everyone knows to go look there.

I can’t imagine this is a widespread issue with this site, I bet a lot of the games are accurate with all times. Or, the community is aware of faster times on other sites and nobody within the community refers to WR incorrectly. This topic is always a lot of noise over an issue that’s not really rampant at all. This suggestion isn’t bad, it’s just unnecessary.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
MASH, TalicZealot and 2 others like this
Valhalla

@CriscoWild I was mostly just checking to make sure he wasn't asking what I thought he was asking, because that would be stupid.

Gelderland, Netherlands

[quote] You're complaining about communities that manage their boards primarily off site. [/quote] Part of it, yes, but mainly where there really isn't a community it would be a sign for mods to show that these leaderboards are accurate instead of garbage

Like I said before, instead of checkmark for all "verified" leaderboards, having an icon for "incomplete" leaderboards that either can be reported by mods, or by the users, would be a decent way to show users browing the site whether or not these are all the runs that can be found.

[quote]This topic is always a lot of noise over an issue that’s not really rampant at all. This suggestion isn’t bad, it’s just unnecessary.[/quote] Thanks for being a voice of reason on this. I agree it's not a pressing issue and it's merely a suggestion which I still think can help improve the site's quality overall.

Edit: I don't think that the term "WR" is meaningless when actually checked constantly. I can for example guarantee that the MKDD WRs are in fact WRs.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Krayzar likes this
United States

This idea reminds me of the Twin Galaxies obsession with Guinness, and not in a good way.

United States

While I agree with the sentiment, if the board is inactive or there is no community and the mods don't care, the feature won't be used to any effect.

The end goal is to denote what needs to be fixed right? I think that's what most have a problem with, you're suggesting something that won't fundamentally solve the problem.

Just denoting the fact that there are runs out there isn't enough if the board moderation doesn't care enough to add them.

You could make a case that maybe the mods aren't being effective and may need replacing or need help. It is sort of demoralizing for potential new community members to see boards in obvious disarray. But I have no idea what the Admin staff's position is on that sort of thing.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
England

It's amazing how the claim "Speedrun.com is meant to be the definitive source for speedrunning content, so should therefore be trusted as reliably tracking the best-known times" is somehow interpreted as wrong.

And to be clear, it is the moderators' responsibility to ensure the boards are updated with the best-known times. That's the purpose of the leaderboard. The question of runners "Not wanting their times here" is a different question, and one without a definitive answer, but I personally lean very heavily towards the "That's not your decision" camp. You're a speedrunner, you do speedruns, it's natural that your speedruns end up on a leaderboard whose purpose is to track the best times. Being adamant that you don't want your time hosted on this site is much more of a dick move than being a moderator who adds times for people who don't 'want' them.

Krayzar likes this
United States

This idea is pointless.

Players can make claims to any speedgame anywhere and I'm sure there will be other leaderboards that will be created to challenge this site in the future. Moderators should attempt to keep their leaderboard as updated as possible, but they do not have to. There should be absolutely zero expectation that moderators will attempt to find all the runs to populate their leaderboard. It should be up to the users of the community to populate the leaderboards with their runs since it's technically a community leaderboard.

If you are the runner and you do not want to have your run on this site, for whatever reason, then the task of legitimatizing your run falls on you. Posting it and having it verified on a popular leaderboard on speedrun.com only makes that task easier, but there are other options like Twin Galaxies. The idea of a world record is only as valid as the support you have that legitimizes it and even then that has problems. If I had a world record that was verified by Guinness World Records, but then speedrun.com says it is cheating, it's quite easy to fool the uninformed on who has the world record (see Todd Rogers).

Also, this sounds like a logistical nightmare. Currently, I have claims to 14 world records. Can I have 14 checkmarks the site staff should verify for me? As a board mod, at what point am I allowed to request checkmarks? Also, if you do not want your run on the speedrun.com leaderboard, do not make the data public. Unlisted and Private exists on YouTube. Also, I am optimistic that speedrun.com is working in the proper direction to become that de facto resource for speedrun leaderboards. There is still much work to do, but I am hopeful.

England

"There should be absolutely zero expectation that moderators will attempt to find all the runs to populate their leaderboard. It should be up to the users of the community to populate the leaderboards with their runs since it's technically a community leaderboard."

I'm curious what leads you to this conclusion. There's nothing about me speedrunning a given game that necessitates that I be part of whatever community exists around the game, or curate the leaderboard for it.

If, however, I'm a moderator for that game, then I have voluntarily taken up the position of being a community figurehead and maintaining/curating the leaderboard for it. It just seems evidently clear that moderators bear a responsibility in this regard that runners do not.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that as a runner you should submit your times to the boards, I just think that "Mods have no responsibility, it's the community's job to populate the boards" is an odd position.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Imaproshaman likes this