tl;dr: just ask what makes a game notable/deserving of a leaderboard on the request page and be done with it
Here's a screenshot of the page when you request a new game:
Notice how it doesn't mention the word notable or notability and I highlighted the "Not accepting.." "..trivial flash games" line. Even when you pick single game and scroll down it won't mention it.
Apparently no one's willing to give a definition of what notable is(I can tell you, most of the games accepted even after the rules change aren't what I'd ever consider "notable"). That's fine, for the same reason people have different thoughts on what's "good music".
"explain why the game is notable" - @NihilistComedyHour at https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/p4s90
Just add this to the request page and you might just motivate people enough to do this, before they learn that they should have somehow known to check the forums to learn about this being a relatively new requirement. Like everyone else naturally does, of course :)
It's left open to interpretation for a reason @Jellyd0ts. It allows the Mods to decline troll/irrelevant games without needing a concrete reason. While I do think it should be more clearly stated that "more detailed notes=better chance at being accepted", I also believe those chosen to oversee the site should be able to just say "No, this isn't good enough" with no other reason.
Yeah, and to be fair, I think "No, this isn't good enough" would be better. It comes off as more honest. "Not notable" just comes off as silly.
I get the point of the "not notable" reason, but unless a game is tied to a movie/show, big franchise or became a big hit, you can probably guess that it's not notable. But there's plenty of games who don't fit any of those three and will pass. Games that very few people have heard of will pass. So "not notable" is not the reason other games get rejected, otherwise the mods are being contradictory. Even something like "Nah, this looks like a silly run" is better than "this game isn't notable".
Example: I never requested a leaderboard for this indie game called On Tario, because it just seemed silly.
Is the game notable? Well I've never played another game where you progress through the story by just moving some buildings up and down, so a rather notable feature. Do I think it's good enough for a leaderboard? No. The game can be argued to be notable, but even if it isn't, that's not the real reason I didn't request a leaderboard for it. (At the time I didn't even know that "not notable" was a reason to reject games here)
This seems kinda pointless. This is really just arguing about the semantics of the word "notable" in this particular context, which is just... like who cares. Honestly I think it's clear enough what it's supposed to mean, but even if you can't figure it out, you can ask for clarification, it'll get clarified and that'll be that. I don't think there needs to be a whole discussion about using different words to say the same thing.
Remind me again why the lack of "notability" of a game should have any reflection on the site staff or speedrunning as a whole. I thought this site was built to serve the needs of speedrun communities. However, the staff can tell any community, "no, this game is not good enough for us"? Why should that matter? Why should anyone care what games are on the site? If anything, people should be getting the opportunity to judge the quality of a game by the quality of its leaderboards, but several games don't even get that opportunity.
I mean "does not appear to be notable" is just dogwhistle for "I'm making a judgment call this game is trash and doesn't meet the subjective quality threshold" let's not pretend there's some kind of objective standard barometer for quality of a speedgame right guys like come on you can't really think this isn't what's really going on it's not like there's a rigorous algorithm the games go through remember the staff are humans who don't actually speedrun the games they're judging and we don't know if they're paid much if at all so "notability" just means "nah" and if we can all remember that then we won't have these great debates on how high-profile your garbage game is every other day either that or the staff can change their wording and say something like "this doesn't meet the expectation of quality and we've chosen not to have it on the site you can resubmit it in six weeks with a stronger argument if you want but in the meantime go track the leaderboard yourself" or something what do you guys think?
The only people complaining about this are the people whose speedgame was rejected because the game is terrible/can't really be ran fast, and the people on the outside looking in that are confused as to why games are being rejected.
Pretty sure the only games being rejected are terrible games and games that are terrible to speedrun (points based games, etc)
See, from my point of view, you're not even disagreeing with me.
"I get the point of the "not notable" reason.." "..But there's plenty of games who don't fit any of those three and will pass.." "..So "not notable" is not the reason other games get rejected.." "..Even something like "Nah, this looks like a silly run" is better than "this game isn't notable"."
^ this isn't something any of you are disagreeing with.
"speedgame was rejected because the game is terrible/can't really be ran fast" - @Komrade AKA "Not notable" is not the reason. "I'm making a judgment call this game is trash and doesn't meet the subjective quality threshold" let's not pretend there's some kind of objective standard barometer for quality of a speedgame" - @6oliath AKA "Not notable" is not the reason.
My point isn't to discuss the meaning of "notable", it's to outright say it's not even close, in any way or shape, to the reason a game is being rejected. I get WHY it's used(I even give an example and mention the terrible/irrelevant flashgames line), but that has nothing to do with "notability".
In fact, @6oliath pretty much agrees with me, because the entirety of half his reply is about how it doesn't mean "not notable" but rather just "Nah" or "this doesn't mean the quality we've chosen..".
Most of the topic you guys seem to try to be fighting against, is another topic entirely, which is what @CardsOfTheHeart brought up, about whether quality of a game (at least as a speedrun) should matter. And that is a topic that can always continue, but I think all of you are so far not disagreeing with me.
So let me repeat my point in a different way: I'm fine with mods saying "Nah, game's not good enough for the site", but again, that has NOTHING to do with a game being notable or not. So simply stop using the word, and we can partially bury that discussion.
IMO, it could be clearer. Otherwise I just suspect the same issue will come up at a similar pace.
If a game is shitty, points-based, point-and-click based, not notable, trivial or of a low quality, but has nothing to do with being a visual novel, non-game activity or use flash, or being a webgame, and that's the basis for the a game's rejection, it's confusing. It could be clarified. It could also be noted that it helps content mods to provide as much information about a game, the run, and what not outside the given fields.
I dunno, it's not killing me either way, tbh, just seems like it could clear some of Site forum of this repeating topic a bit.
Yeah, after some thought I do agree that it's perhaps idealistic to assume less threats will come up. Also agree with that it's not truly hurting anyone.
I just don't think "not notable" is ever the reason of rejection, though. A game being trivial, or low quality certainly can come into play, but lack of notability isn't even being used to reject games, so I feel it's somewhat the most dishonest of all the reasons mentioned.
One of the full mods noted in the feedback thread that they're looking at rewriting the game request page (as well as a lot of improvements to game requests in general), so this will probably get taken into consideration.