Opinions of WR's with no Videos
3 years ago
United States

I was curious the community's opinion of this. Should WRs with no video evidence still be kept on the ranking boards? I ran into this in a game I was running (very, very small, inactive community, ran it for lols) and got a second place time on the boards using the strats I could find through my playthroughs. Seeing the WR was ahead of me by a minute, I was curious as to what strategies they utilized that I wasn't, and could implement them into my runs. When I went to check the video, it was either made private or deleted by the runner (link has given me both responses) and I was wondering what the community thought about this subject?

I am not making this post to try and force my way into the #1 spot, as the run was validated at some point in time, and it was faster than mine, so they deserve the spot, but it is a bit of an interesting situation and was curious as to what the community thought on the matter. Thanks!

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Daldameht likes this
Vatican City

Its a mater of patterns. If some places a WR run out of the blue, from no prior PB's or playing around in the community, it probably shouldn't be kept on the boards. If there is a understandable progression by the runner to eventually land a WR, then it could be allowed or left to the game's community. This can also look back to enforcing submission standards. Video proof w/reset, VOD backup, controller preview, splits present, and so on.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Ivory, Symystery, and Megalan7 like this
United States

That seems pretty reasonable. A runner coming outta the blue with a WR with no prior interaction with anyone does seem suspect if the video disappears. It does also make sense that if you can see a progression it likely was legitimate, but somehow the video got deleted either by an expired twitch vod or something happening to the owners YT channel.

One of my other concerns is it does make it hard to also double-check to make sure that the original run wasn't cheated or had some advantage (say emulator vs. original hardware).

There's a lot to consider, so I'm glad to see your input! I'm not trying to enact any sweeping changes, this has just been something I've been curious about since the situation came up.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Daldameht likes this
United States

This is a question which has an answer that varies by each community. There's good arguments for each, it's really just up to preference. If you prefer having a record of all runs, despite some not being accessible after time, keep all runs. If you want the transparency of anyone being able to look at and inspect runs, toss out removed runs. Personally, I like to follow the wise words of @Pac: "no vid no did."

Ivory, Pixiuchu and 6 others like this
Antarctica

Personally I believe that all runs should stay if proven legitimate. However, removing run videos on purpose is unsportsmanlike.

I also believe that game mods should back up WRs or otherwise important runs, in case they get taken down. The problem is that under current SRC rules, they are prohibited from reuploading them.

Now here comes the elephant in the room: text is king when it comes to long term data storage. Video archives cost a lot of money to maintain online, and big companies may decide to take down that service at any time. Twitch is already flaky when it comes to VODs. Who knows how long YouTube will last? Sure, a near future without YouTube is hard to see, but they could for example decide to purge inactive users, or unpopular vids if they feel the cost cutting measures are worth the backlash. This is why I'm a bit skeptical of the "no vid no did" mentality, it may sound wise when it comes to rejecting frivolous runs, but not so much when it comes to maintaining a reliable database to the 2030s and beyond.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
UbuntuJackson likes this
Canada

[quote=Moorea]removing run videos on purpose is unsportsmanlike[/quote]

Ehhhhhh maybe in some specific cases, but I can't get behind this as a broad generalization. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why one might choose to take down their videos (or possibly even their entire channel).

[quote=Moorea]The problem is that under current SRC rules, they are prohibited from reuploading them[/quote]

Just so we're all on the same page here, the exact rule is: "Do not copy or reupload a player's video without permission from the user".

Reuploading somebody's content, under any circumstances, without their permission is legally and ethically problematic at best, so the site absolutely cannot allow or encourage this. Historical preservation is a noble goal, but there are reasonable limits to this.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
New Jersey, USA

no vid no did

KomradeKontroll, ChadDCan and 7 others like this
Sweden

As moorea says, who knows what youtube does. I've never thought about actually backing up runs. Another idea is that videos could be reuploaded on archive channels like the MK8DX WR channel. And this could be done on multiple sites in case one goes down. However as long as there's a good site to upload the runs, I am pro- no vid no did.

Antarctica

If there is no interest in preserving videos and if a strict "no vid no did" stance is the majority opinion we're looking at very wonky leaderboards in just a few years time. Which maybe most people are fine with, I don't know - the internet in itself is a very transient place in nature. It kind of defeats the purpose of having leaderboards to me, though.

I get that SRC wants to cover their asses when it comes to data protection but to me backing up gameplay footage ranks pretty low when it comes to ethical issues, especially since legally speaking, who exactly owns gameplay recordings is a grey area in itself.

Vatican City

@UbuntuJackson One simply method i used was just uploading the VOD on to Youtube and linking a timestamp to it in the run submission.

Jönköping, Sweden

@Moorea Let's say sure, WR's need to have backups: maybe backups of the backups, on USB, external drive, cloud, email and what have you. It still falls upon the individual to preserve it. If a runner cares enough, they take it upon themselves to make sure their runs cannot easily be lost. By no means should it be put on the mods to do the work for you in preserving runs.

No vid, no did!

Canada

[quote=Moorea]if a strict "no vid no did" stance is the majority opinion we're looking at very wonky leaderboards in just a few years time[/quote]

I wouldn't call like 3 people in this random thread a "majority opinion", I think most larger communities understand this and tend to keep runs with missing video (especially long-standing communities with tons of history before it was reasonable to expect everyone to have video in the first place), although a current world record disappearing is a bit more problematic and might be handled differently.

[quote=xenkaroshi]It still falls upon the individual to preserve it. If a runner cares enough, they take it upon themselves to make sure their runs cannot easily be lost[/quote]

This is incredibly idealistic and only works in the short term (if at all). You don't have to care about historical preservation (or leaderboards in general) to get a historically relevant run, and even if we assume you do, people move on from speedrunning, they stop caring, they need to clear some hard drive space, they die (I know that's not something anyone wants to think about, but we're looking at the long-game here), goodbye old and possibly historically relevant runs.

You can't honestly expect individuals to be both willing and able to preserve their run videos forever.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
GFM and Quivico like this
United States

Another aspect I think is worth thinking about is it can very game by game (community by community) as how big / active it is can play a role. If someone set a record in say....OoT in 2013 and by the 2015 it's been removed from youtube or wherever, the community is large and likely many people saw it and can vouch for it.

In another case, let's take the game that got me curious about this in the first place, Tonka: Rescue Patrol on gamecube. Very small community, pretty inactive. Shoot, I only really decide to try to run it and go for WR just cus I thought it may be a silly enjoyable thing to do for a little bit. In cases like this where the game doesn't have a big scene in terms of speed runs, other than when it was first verified, there are likely few people who can come out to say "Yea, it was there, run was legit etc." The run being verified in the first place does hold a decent amount of weight, but sketchy runs have made it into boards in the past, and honestly likely still do until someone notices something odd.

I think from what I've seen in the thread so far, there is some merit to the "No Vid, No Did" mentality. Not having a video does make it hard to prove the record is legit to people who may come into the game later, people can't watch the video to see what strats the runner used or that they themselves could use in a run, and so on. I also see how just saying anything that loses a video should be removed can be problematic, cus runs that were legit could be removed if youtube or twitch decides it is having a bad day. It seems there is no easy answer to this, and I didn't expect there to be, but it is interesting to see the thought process behind the thinking.

Edit: I do want to be clear that by no means do I think the run that currently holds WR in the Tonka game was cheated or anything like that. I only bring up cheating as it is something that someone potentially could get away with if they hid it in their run well enough (via splicing or some other method) and if the video is removed later, no one would have any way to notice the cheat in the future. It is the main danger I see of keeping records that no longer have video evidence.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Quivico likes this
United States

That's my main concern with no video. When a run disappears it does make it seem somewhat shady, in that you are may be trying to hide something. I think what may be best in situations like this, is maybe set some kind of community rules within each game that say like "Hey, if your proof goes missing, you have X amount of time to re-upload or something before it is removed. Mods will notify you a two weeks before removal from leaderboards." This way it is clear and upfront when you submit your time, but also give runners (even ones who may have left the scene only to find youtube decided to delete their video) a chance to fix the record and keep their spot on the boards.

Pat_Speedruns likes this
New York, USA

I'd argue against the "I don't believe a board mod should upload videos for records of runners who are not on the speedrun.com site." point. Being on the site shouldn't be a requirement for being recognized by the community. Now I do believe that the mod should ask before adding the run, and need not actively be searching for runs by people not on the site, but if they should find one, it is reasonable to add it.

Kentucky, USA

I kind of like the text-only tradition of older communities

Even today, when picking up a 2000s era game, I find it fun to route around beating their claimed times (despite having no video guide), since it makes me feel like I push the game a lot harder than what I would judge to be "fast" on my own.

I also feel like the tightness of the communities made trust-in-words work fine... much better than something infamous like a In-Game- time trial scoreboard or an XBOX live leaderboard.

Jönköping, Sweden

On this day, a great speedrunner decided to get rid of his SRC profile and all times with it. Various WR vods gone for games I had plans to run in the future. It's interesting coming back to this topic just a few days since last time I contributed to the discussion. Speedrunning becomes very fragile when you realize that people can for whatever reason just decide to take everything down at their convenience.

These were games I cared about personally so it will greatly effect me later down the road once I get to those projects. The lesson I take from this is that I cannot trust the general individual to care enough to keep runs up for others. I still don't believe it is on the mods to preserve runs of WR's, I do however as a runner, feel like I will preserve wr's of games for my interest, as a means to preserve study material for when I get to learning x games.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I think if you actually care about a game, why not running it yourself? I know it's hard to see a game you care about lose a WR video, but it would not be right to force someone to keep videos of his/her creation on the site against his/her will.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Finland

no vid no did

Canada

[quote=VideoGameVeteran]Think of the positive, those WR's are now up for grabs or in some cases, attainable now[/quote]

Are they really though

Like sure first place on the leaderboard is, but if you know there was a much better time back in the day and the video is gone, it's a bit of a hollow victory. "Best known time *with working video" just isn't as satisfying as "best known time".

Edited by the author 3 years ago
WanderAgro and Quivico like this