The game in question is https://www.speedrun.com/pbol Ironically enough, the mods who had been inactive for, in some cases, years, have been back since I was granted modship for pending runs. But I have a bit of a problem.
There's been two pending IL runs since 31 August that I've been desperately hoping one of them would address, and since they haven't, it's about to reach the point where the runner could request involvement above game moderation. Bluntly put, I don't think IL boards should exist. We should be speedrunning games, not tiny portions of games, and "runs" that last only a few seconds have always struck me as kinda BS. I've never implemented IL's on a board I've had since its birth and I never plan to. (Sidenote - the purpose of this thread is not for me to justify that opinion. If you like IL's, great!)
But, this game had IL categories, long before I was ever involved with it. To be honest, these submissions were the first time I ever noticed that. There are very, very few runs in them. Just a couple from some of the old, largely inactive mods. And none of the categories even have rules. Given my paucity of experience with IL runs, am I even the best option to verify them?
I sent a message to the most recently active of the other mods, asking that he (or one of the others) handle this, but he has not been back on the site in a few weeks. If it were 100% up to me (which it is not), I would just delete those categories outright. I do have some sympathy for the runner who's been waiting, though it looks for all the world like they only did these "runs" to score free WR's.
In short, I really don't see a palatable option. I'd like some help on the matter.
I'd say it's still your responsibility to take care of IL boards; you are moderating an entire game leaderboard. It shouldn't take very long at all to learn enough about your game's IL rules to verify the runs. If these ILs aren't optimized, it might even be as simple as fragments of Any% runs. They're still speedruns so the only things you'll have to learn/determine are the start and end points for timing and perhaps any IL-exclusive tricks.
This does sound like a case of bare-minimum ILs, but there isn't much harm besides a slightly less clean leaderboard. For the long term, I'd suggest either putting some rules up and drawing a little attention to them to justify having the ILs, or talking to the community to see if IL removal is preferred.
To be completely honest I don't think it's a great idea to remain mod of a game where you're actively avoiding trying to verify certain runs. Accusing the runner of fishing for free WRs also shouldn't get in the way of reviewing their runs.
You either moderate a board or you don't. No in-betweens. You not liking ILs is not an excuse to not moderate that section. This is not about you.
"runs" that last only a few seconds have always struck me as kinda BS that's not even the case for the game in question
it looks for all the world like they only did these "runs" to score free WR's uh... how else would you fill up a leaderboard and start competition? Personally i like filling up a board, sometimes intentionally with unoptimized runs to encourage others to improve on that. IL's also are a great resource for new any% runners to quickly check for strats without having to search through a full run.
Anyway, I checked the IL boards for that game and as far as i can tell no action has been taken (rules added, runs verified) Would be nice to get a response from @EmeraldAly on how they intend to proceed.
And a Sidenote, "00Svo" seems to have moved all their runs from twitch to youtube so all their runs use a broken twitch link.
[quote]
To be completely honest I don't think it's a great idea to remain mod of a game where you're actively avoiding trying to verify certain runs. Accusing the runner of fishing for free WRs also shouldn't get in the way of reviewing their runs.[/quote]
Oh I've absolutely considered demodding myself. But then there would essentially be no one to verify any runs.
[quote]
"runs" that last only a few seconds have always struck me as kinda BS that's not even the case for the game in question[/quote]
It is for the IL's (and pretty much all IL's out there, hence my distaste of them)
Anyway, the solution I found most agreeable to myself was simply to toggle off "runs require verification." If some BS run gets submitted I can still nuke it, otherwise this very very dead game can just be.
Maybe for a day or something. I still have the ability to remove one.
It seems like you’re trying to shy away from your duty as a mod rather than just....doing it.
How you feel about IL runs is irrelevant to anything and the fact you felt the need to bring up such a passionate distaste for them was odd to begin with. But if you’re just going to ignore the ILs and turn off verification and deal with the BS if it happens, then what’s the point of being a mod? A mod is for the community, and if that game has ILs that people are running, it’s your job to tend to those ILs.
If you have such a great distaste of ILs that you’d rather disable verification than just verify them, then I honestly don’t think you’re a good fit to be a moderator for a game that has ILs. I understand it’s a relatively quiet game, but still, this stance, and thread in general, is just odd to me. Just verify the runs, discuss with the community if the ILs can be reworked or removed, literally anything else seems like a better choice than just pretending the ILs don’t exist unless someone submits fake runs.
If it'll make you guys happier, I'll re-enable verification required and demod myself. Then it might take literal years for a run to get verified if anyone ever does submit one. I was only given mod because my own runs were pending past a month, so verification being disabled is essentially the same net result.
If disabling verification is such an unthinkable course of action, why is it available in the first place?
I figured if the game has people submitting runs (or submitted then a month ago) then there must be some kind of active players to talk with. But if that is not be the case, then so be it.
As for that setting, it has its uses for games where categories are literal memes (Barney’s Hide and Seek I think still has it enabled) or as a way for a very popular/busy game to still show runs - usually with an unverified indicator - until a mod can fully verify the runs. I don’t like it in general, but I can understand where it might be used. In your case, the game is quiet so I don’t see a reason to enable that feature at all.
Keep in mind it’s just my opinion on this whole matter, which is what you asked for in the OP. At the end of the day you can still do whatever you want.
Ya other than this one random IL dude the next most recent run is dated 17 Apr 2019. And the one before that, 30 Aug 2018. There's no Discord and no forum activity. A shame because the game is really cool to run, fun tricks that aren't a pain-in-the-nether-regions to learn.
I'm open to any course of action. I like the game a lot but my time with it as a runner has come and gone.
[quote=EmeraldAly]If disabling verification is such an unthinkable course of action, why is it available in the first place?[/quote]
A few older/larger communities insist on using it (most notably Super Metroid), I assume it was added specifically for them in the early days of the site. Larger communities are (usually) pretty diligent about checking everything that comes in so everything tends to work out okay there, but if there aren't people actively checking new runs very frequently then things can get ugly fast.
IMO, this setting should not exist (or at the very least only be toggleable by site staff) since it tends to cause far more problems than it solves.
Such a "trust-but-verify" setting works great when you have a mod checking the site daily or several times daily. Some communities have API bots that ping mods whenever a new run appears. Especially for short games, mods can check the run the day it's posted and make edits or rejects as necessary. If a bogus run stays on a leaderboard overnight, no one freaks out and it's calmly removed when the mod logs in. The upside is that there is one less barrier for new runners, and the trust you place in your community can help build it. I have modded games in the past where this setting was on and it worked great.
The downsides are pretty bad though, because there's little room for laziness or slip ups, and very few communities have mods who can stay that dedicated over long periods of time.
If you're done with the game and have no interest in modding the ILs, it's not appropriate to just enable self-verification if you intend to largely move on from it.
I just want to add that I think it's good of you to ask for feedback instead of just doing whatever without care and never mentioning it, even if you've opened yourself up to a certain criticism in doing so.
Seconded - if there isn't a game community as such, you did the right thing to discuss it here and shouldn't feel like you are being attacked by our responses. I hope you don't feel attacked at all.
An ideal solution would be.... if more people played the game lol finger's crossed for you.
Ehh, a tiny bit. But not enough to get worked up about :P Like I said, I'm open to any course of action.