*This most refers to the new rule of "short/trivial flash games"

Firstly, a common answer regurgitated to silence critics of these new rules is "go somewhere else and build another community blah blah blah". I'm sorry, but this website is now the community standard. Speedrun.com has virtually a monopoly now as a speed-running hub for games, letting people find potential games they would want to run. I do not believe this is a good argument for said reason.

Secondly, the argument of something being described as "trivial" is pretty asinine. The definition of trivial is "of little value or importance". That is completely up to interpretation. There are games on this website made by actual game companies that are far less trivial than certain meme category games that have become popular and speedran. Here is an example of a "real" game that I would describe as trivial, yet I could still see it being approved due to your approval process: https://www.speedrun.com/nl_twister_race Here is a "short web game" that would probably not be accepted under your current rules but has done well on it's own right and is still pretty competitive: https://www.speedrun.com/apfa

Along with this, runs often get rejected for "little notoriety", but that is meh as well. If you look at APFA, it does not have a wikipedia article(which is what often times mods will reject if you do not have one) yet it has done well for itself and it has a speedrunning scene. Certain games that are good even though not initially notable can become speedran once certain users see the speedrun and decide to try the game. They may even get involved and like it.

Thirdly, runs being rejected because they are "too short" I believe is a bad reason. That is TOTALLY up to interpretation. What about Super Mario 64 0 star, which has currently 36 runners on the leader board, yet the top 12 times are under 7 minutes? Having a short time does not mean a game is going to be "solved". The top 3 time there is from 3 days ago!

It is good and all to have guidelines, but having bad guidelines is also a headache. I feel like if you wanted to actually remove clutter, having a better(or at least more transparent) set of guidelines would be beneficial. Feel free to disagree, but these are just my thoughts.

EDIT: I know many posts have been made on the topic, but I feel a bunch of the same answers are thrown around with little dialogue looking at it from different angles. That is my reason for the post.

Another issue is it seems each mod has their own criteria. I find that kind of ridiculous. I read a post somewhere that there was a long list. If there is a list, why can't there be a link to a full list of things that will get rejected? If you look at the forums, it is very obvious that the confusion is there.

That Doraemon game was added before the rulechange, so you can't really take that as an example. the other 2 seem to be just shortly before the change? idk but afaik they've been very thorough since the rulechange.

[Quote]If you look at APFA, it does not have a wikipedia article(which is what often times mods will reject if you do not have one).[/quote] Games shouldn't really be getting rejected for lack of data if the submitter is providing info on their submitted game in the author comments / additional info section. If the game has no real data online then it's the submitter's job, I feel, to use that section to best explain the run, how they're going to setup the boards and what their approach will be in doing so. It's what that section in the submission form is there for. From what I've seen so far, it is massively underutilized.

[quote]Thirdly, runs being rejected because they are "too short" I believe is a bad reason. That is TOTALLY up to interpretation. What about Super Mario 64 0 star, which has currently 36 runners on the leader board, yet the top 12 times are under 7 minutes? Having a short time does not mean a game is going to be "solved". The top 3 time there is from 3 days ago![/quote] SM64 can be completed in 7 minutes but that isn't the full extent of the games content. There's a large difference, I feel, between SM64 and a flash game submitted thats entire length is 2 minutes with nothing else possible being drawn from it because its entire span of content has been displayed in that 2 minute run.

"Flash"/Web Games are just submitted in quite high numbers. There's a lot of them, and for the most part they all play very similarly to each other. A lot of them also happen to very short, as in, less than a couple minutes for a full game run.

The guidelines could probably be explained in greater length, but I feel like setting these specifics in stone would just create additional problems overall. Mostly because I do believe there is a large difference between a short run that is short because it's been optimized/broken to such an insane degree, and a short run that is short because the game just has an lack of content held within it. You can't really hammer a "required length" into stone and then judge all runs/games submitted based off of that predetermined length, for reasons mentioned prior. Some kind of assessment of the games qualities and so forth has to be done.

More transparency might be for the best, though. Such as what qualities a submitted game is judged on.

@ResolutionSSB Since your 2nd post might be referencing my post in https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/3avn5 I'll try to clear up what you might be misunderstanding.

First of all, I do agree that the game request rules do need an overhaul to better reflect the current standards. However, that overhaul might not be what you seem to be expecting. The "long list" you're referring to is not an actual existing list of bullet points. In my post I was merely giving a few examples of what I had encountered in the game request queue on that day.

However, and that is something that you criticized, each submission will still be looked at on a per case basis and different people will handle them according to their individual interpretation. If they think the game would not be a good addition to the site, then they will reject it and provide a reason why they did. That is after trying to look at the bigger picture and trying to make an educated judgment. It is not after looking at only a few seconds of a video and going through a checklist of fixed denial reasons! (unless there are obvious issues with form data or the user's account) And different individuals may have different interpretations or simply see/miss something that another staff member would not have seen/missed. If needed, difficult cases are discussed with other staff members. I think the system and workflow we have in place right now is working reasonably well.

The variety of games out there, as well as the variety of game requests (user info, game footage, provided game info, provided outlook what the speedrun(s) will look like, ...) make it not feasible to put up hard rules. There would always be edge cases and exceptions. Users are encouraged to use their own judgment on what would be a good addition to the site when it comes to submitting a game request and they are encouraged to use the whole request form to make their case of why their game is a good addition to the site. But more often than not, that is not how things are. There will always be people who just submit anything they play, or those who deliberately submit bad content to troll staff or simply for the memes, or people whose submissions strongly indicate that they are not fit to moderate a board on this site, etc. There has to be some quality control. Using it retroactively, however, is difficult, so while bringing up examples from the past does help for showcasing certain standards, it cannot be used to justify or dispute current decisions.

All that said, there will always be those who feel treated unfairly. I don't think that can be avoided. However, by discussing those cases openly and in a calm way, I'm hoping we can spread a better understanding of what it means to have quality standards on this site.

I like that rule personally, and nothing stopping people submiting flash games they enjoy and seeing if they get added :)

This site would be hell if everyone could just add their flash games and iOS apps. Jesus imagine the homepage section.

I never said accept every game. SM64 was an example explaining that time requirements shouldn't 'actually be a problem imo. The issue here is that everyone in this thread is arguing their own opinions. Without actually knowing ALL of the reasons a game might get submitted/not having a ruleset to help a more unified acceptance/rejection of speedruns, the criteria will get changed, modified and misinterpreted for each moderator. I word it this way because I do not even KNOW if there is a huge list of actual rules (and if that's the case then the mods are extremely just interpreting them in whatever way the like) and if there isn't there should be, because otherwise what one mod could reject another could accept. If you look at the forums, many people are left in the dark. What makes a "meme" game acceptable? A lot of meme games that I've seen have a flourishing community wouldn't get accepted today. Without a more public knowledge of this criteria/it getting better defined and the mods following it more closely instead of what seems to be completely using their judgement(see the posts above about "trivial" and "short speedruns"), it will continue to be somewhat asinine.

Here is an example of what someone could interpret as a "poopy flash game", but I believe it is very technical and is a great speedrun. https://www.speedrun.com/Dogurai#Beat_the_Game_Version_2.0.2 However, I believe it would be rejected today due to what I've received for some of my rejection messages. I only agree with one out of two I've submitted being rejected.

Furthermore, I do appreciate you having dialogue with me back, Oh_DeeR, but I still don't agree with you. The system isn't working reasonably well because a lot of people do not know why their game run submissions have been rejected, and think that what the submit would still follow the criteria. It is easy to see while looking at the forum.

Super Mario 64 was an example. The point was, if SM64 was just the 0 star run, it could be rejected despite how technical it is.

I think that someone should be able to request a repeal at least once with a different mod reviewing if it gets rejected, as long as they make an argument for it(instead of just redirecting back to the website).

I've had a run rejected because "webgames" are not allowed. It wasn't a web game, and they also said that "the quality of the game and speedrun potential are questionable". I can't make my case unless I want to post on the forums, because there is no way to appeal, even though the game has several characters and options, and I can see people running it. That just boils down to my opinion against theirs. I've had another run rejected because a game "didn't seem notable". I also believes there needs to be a criteria from staff explaining why runs get rejected, as this would actual cut down the confusion.

By the way, I do request that someone look at "Super Mario Kart Racers" that I submitted. I do believe that it was good enough to submit, as it would have several categories, and most of them would not too short. It was also very popular for it's time. Though I agree with the other one getting rejected(it was some bad Mario game), the reasoning of "not notable" I do not think is enough to suffice when explaining the reasons to someone submitting their game.

I understand where you're coming from, @ResolutionSSB. I think I had already addressed most points from your recent 2 posts. Let's stay factual though: there are currently not many forum posts with people complaining about rejections. Game requests are also handled in a more timely manner than used to be the case when there was a staff shortage. Whenever I reject a request, I try to give a reasonable explanation. "Reasonable" is highly subjective though and depends on context. If someone submits a downloadable browser game with 7 downloads or if a Google search brings up a single hit, then "not notable" would also be perfectly reasonable. You (general you) have the forum as a means of appeal and you have the request form to point out why you think your game is worth adding.

I didn't see your submission of SMKR so I can't really comment on that part.

(Edit: I just downloaded and played the game. Seems decent for a fan game. Let's wait for more opinions.)

Here is a link of several forums within the past 4 months that deal with the confusion/debate/unhappiness of the criteria: https://www.speedrun.com/Speedrunning/thread/2r3oh https://www.speedrun.com/Speedrunning/thread/gz1iw https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/i457g https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/4oedn https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/2g2jc https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/xrkim https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/3avn5 https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/qbsvn

What I was saying was factual. It is a problem. Though it is obvious to see why some of them got rejected in the above forums, the ambiguity/inconsistent rigidness of the criteria makes it where there is the confusion in the first place. I believe a lot of people don't understand, because not everyone who has an issue posts on the forum. Given time, I bet more posts like this will start to appear. The others most likely just give up and feel defeated. It is fine to update your criteria of what may or may not be acceptable, but it is annoying due to all of the reasons I've stated in this thread.

Another thing is the "notable" reason can reject a lot of games that may have been notable for their time. A lot of older games have been archived, but a lot of the older websites they were hosted on faded. This means a simple Google search may not show their relevancy (waybackmachine exists for a reason).

The introduction of new staff (myself included) happened 1 month ago. Only one of the threads you linked falls into that time span. The issue in that one thread has been resolved. EVEN IF... you dug up 8 threads over 4 months. Let's go with a carefully low number of 5 rejected games a day (that's a really low number, trust me!), that's 5 times 120 days equals 600 rejected game requests and 8 complaints/appeals. I'd say the system is already working well and I already ensured you that there will be further improvement of the process. Not sure what else I can say. Don't try to make this bigger than it is.

Sorry, I didn't see where you said there would be improvements in the process. My bad. I hope you guys clear up the confusion. It isn't about the rejections, it is about the ambiguity. Feel free to lock this post now.

Also, please let me know about the status of Mario Kart Racers when you get the chance. I actually really enjoyed that game and I feel it has good speedrun potential.

Well you pretty much answered your own question there.

I mean, like I said earlier, if (in this example) a particular fangame or romhack isn't too well known, it's the user's job to then sell the game to us in the comments section of the submission form. Explain the game to us, tell us why that particular game is worth putting on the site.

Fangames / Romhacks / Webgames are still going to have stuff like length and substance taken into account moreso than most other submissions, but if a user gives us a reason to put the game onto the site then we will be more inclined to do so. Obviously, there's quite a bit of subjective decision making that goes into the submission approval process. There has to be. We can't set a guideline of, for example, "runs must be at least 5 minutes, any runs below 5 minutes will be rejected" -- that will not work.

As DeeR said, there are also quite a few 'meme' submissions that get sent through fairly regularly, or just an utter lack of effort put into the game submission process. People submitting a 30 second tutorial / intro to a game and using that as the example run for their introduction of their game to the site is, in my opinion, quite a poor idea.

The others articulated this pretty well, but I'll add my thoughts. I agree that the game request guidelines could be improved to articulate things more accurately, but I think quality standards are difficult to define in an exact manner. I don't dispute that the gray areas are gray, and could be less gray, but I think making it perfectly clear is an impossibility.

The fundamental issue is that webgames, mobile games, and indie freeware downloads are very high in quantity compared to other platforms, and can sometimes be absurdly low quality. A webgame can be a thing a 15 year old made in 3 hours that 5 people have played ever, and is also provided as a downloadable executable. Consoles can have awful games, but they're typically less in quantity, still reasonably widely played, and/or commercially notable.

If we say that webgames need quality control, the question is "What are the specifics of the quality control?" Other users have expressed a dissenting opinion that webgames shouldn't have quality control, but I haven't heard that view from enough users to believe that it's a majority opinion of the users of the site.

I think Oh_DeeR's description is a relatively accurate description of the current expectation: "Browser, mobile and fan games will be judged under higher scrutiny due to their abundance. That includes production quality, extent of game/run content, speedrun relevance, originality, impact among other criteria."

Responding to the points in the original post in particular:

I believe the words "short/trivial flash games" were added to the game request form when the text was rewritten around 1 year ago by my memory. For the sake of the discussion, it's not exactly new. We could find a better synonym for the word "trivial" to speak a little more nicely about things. I don't find the argument about Super Mario 64 to be a realistic comparison; Super Mario 64 is a commercial release that sold 11 million copies. Additionally, the criteria is more about game content than category content.

User feedback on this topic can help us better understand the varying viewpoints on the topic. I think discussing gray cases is useful.

@Liv You bring up a very good point about the submitter's responsibility to "sell" the game in question.

To submitters- the site's admin's have no obligation to accept any game. It is important to understand that the submission is called a "request" for a reason. They don't owe you anything. This is how the real world works, from convincing employers to hire you to getting someone to buy a product you're selling. If your game has value, then it is your responsibility to convey that value to the person who is accepting or denying your request.

If a game is denied, don't blame the admins. Communication is a two-way street. If you truly feel that a game deserves to be on this site, a game request denial is just as much your fault for not properly communicating the game's value. Most games don't require much, so this step is generally fairly easy, but the closer your game is to the line drawn in the sand, the more effort you'll have to put into your argument. How much do you want it?

The admins are people too; normal, rational people. They don't wake up in the morning thinking "oh boy! I can't wait to reject a bunch of games!" On the same note, the rules are there for a reason. We don't have a distinct list of what is and what isn't allowed because there will always be exceptions to that rule. It's just not that simple.

Linking a Wikipedia page isn't a necessity; it is a tool that works well for determining notability. If a game doesn't have a Wikipedia page, consider creating one. Yes, you can do that (though Wikipedia has a VERY clear definition of what is "notable" and what is not*) but that's why this site uses the presence of a Wikipedia page to help determine whether or not to include the game. It's not a requirement- it's just a very good tool.

The complaint that the SR site has a monopoly on the community mirrors the old fable of the ant and the grasshopper. Insisting that your game should be included is akin to the grasshopper- who has done none of the work- complaining that it is unfair that the ant has so much food and he must share with everyone else who did none of the work.

The response "create your own community" may sound like a regurgitated answer, but to be fair, it is only because it is a very regurgitated question. The askers always seem to want a quick, easy solution, and the answer given- though correct and helpful- is not the answer they want to hear. I think one of the problems is entitlement- nobody seems to want to do the work to get the reward. If you put in the work to create an established community, you can use this to help sell your game's notability. Problem solved.

• Wikipedia's rules for Video Game Notability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(video_games)

The issue with "selling the game" is that doing that isn't too clear. You just have an "additional notes" page, which to my knowledge before this discussion, wasn't exactly used for that. I feel like the submission page could be reworked a little, as already discussed, to lessen the confusion. Maybe add a section about why the game should be added/why it would be a good speedrun game? That way you can do some quality control while also having more of an opportunity to sell theg ame.

@oddtom

Length should definitely NOT be a factor. Although I agree that "hold right and win" games should not be accepted, look at super mario bros for example. Minus World Ending is less than three minutes. My run of 2:43 was done after like 3 days. That does not mean at all that it is a trivial speedrun.