GG to mods that verify
5 years ago
Oklahoma, USA

Literally every mod I've interacted with I like. You Ethan goofy kosmic Wes SS Roy roopert - without exception. And yes, arguably I was too aggressive or mean. And yes arguably I was unfair. But the general point stands. We have a lack of manpower.... Broken record time but <3 to those that contribute... Now add more or change something.

Jack_R, youtubeman06 and 3 others like this
New Hampshire, USA

Why. WutFace

Minnesota, USA

I think that we should add mods that actually verify. Like for example Somewes is a good runner, but he never seems to verify runs. It should be if there not going to verify that they shouldn't be mod at all. I hope this doesn't come out rude or anything, but it's just so weird that this has more mods than many other leaderboard but still has a verification problem.

Minnesota, USA

I think that we should add mods that actually verify. Like for example Somewes is a good runner, but he never seems to verify runs. It should be if there not going to verify that they shouldn't be mod at all. I hope this doesn't come out rude or anything, but it's just so weird that this has more mods than many other leaderboard but still has a verification problem.

New Hampshire, USA

There's more to being a mod than just viewing submitted runs. They make the categories, the rules, can help someone in the forums if needed, and other stuff. Just because a mod doesn't verify runs doesn't mean they have to be removed from the mod list.

Minnesota, USA

I know that. I meant like we should get more to do the verifications. I don’t think they should be removed.

MinecraftGaming likes this
New Hampshire, USA

"It should be if there not going to verify that they shouldn't be mod at all." <- I copied and pasted that from your post from 20 minutes ago.

Otterstone_Gamer likes this
Victoria, Australia

"I understand it's frustrating for a lot of people waiting on their runs to be verified, but also you need to understand that this site isn't that great. Have any of you seen that "under pressure" message? Whenever any of us mods try to go in the queue to verify runs, it takes a long time to load, or flatout gives us an error message. To be honest, it's very frustrating because we know we have a lot of runs in the queue and we try to get to them. If the site ran smoother, we wouldn't have this issue"

This is such a shitty excuse, I experience problems with this site probably less that 1/50 times I visit it. It's nowhere near as bad as people say it is. I'm well aware that mods do stuff behind the scenes but I seriously doubt all the time they have for mod stuff is going towards discussing rule changes for the 5 categories on this leaderboard or discussing different methods of verification.

Nevada, USA

I beg to differ. Just because I can view forum posts or the leaderboards, doesn't mean I can time the runs.

here's 8bit_Ethan's tutorial on the verification process (it's meant as a humorous -- but accurate -- view of the verification process. He recorded it two weeks ago, well before this thread was even posted): ... it was timing out for him constantly too. That was actually the second version of the video he recorded.

And here's an example of me trying to get there from earlier today:

And me taking 15 minutes to verify a 5 minute run because the "runs awaiting verificaiton" kept timing out for over 3 and half minutes ... which is on the short side for me!: (and I cut some corners I wouldn't be able to with a lot of other runs, so I probably would have taken closer to 20 minutes to verify this run)

I've had the "runs awaiting verification" time out for over half an hour straight and I gave up, despite being able to access forum posts and leaderboards. Loading the runs awaiting verification just breaks a lot of the time.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Lul_ecks_dee, Thelxinoe and 2 others like this
California, USA

@cros107 Notice the keyword I. It means you rarely get those issues, you cant compare your experience with the site to others because people have different internet speeds and such. You also have to take into account that most of the mods are also LL mods and they are verify those runs for that category too especially since its gotten more popular

Lul_ecks_dee likes this
Nevada, USA

By the way, congratulations if you sat there between the three videos and watched over six minutes combined of us just waiting for the site to load runs. That's longer than most any% runs we verify.

Think about it. We can sit there for just as long or longer than an any% run just waiting to load the any% run we're trying to verify.

And I've sat for over a whole warpless length of time just waiting for the runs awaiting verification to load before giving up and doing something else. I have a life outside of waiting 30 minutes for the runs awaiting verification to load.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Thelxinoe and warpedclip like this
Nevada, USA

@cros107 if you're in australia as it says in your profile, then you're also on the side of the world where the site works far more frequently. If I verify runs late at night, USA time, I have fewer problems. But for most of the working day in the USA, the site gives horrendous problems in the "runs awaiting verification" department, probably because it's overloaded more.

I have a very good computer, with a very strong internet connection. I'm guessing it's just that the site is more used during the day USA time, between it being evening europe and work day USA.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Thelxinoe likes this
Oklahoma, USA

"And me taking 15 minutes to verify a 5 minute run "

I was thinking the average time to verify an any% run would be much longer than this

But all those arguments - that the site times out a lot - that it takes a long time to verify

Can be fixed with adding people that have time to verify. If you add two people that have 30 minutes free every day to work on verification, it sounds like you could get the queue down to zero very quickly.

Oklahoma, USA

A sincere thank you to the mods that do any form of semi-regular work for this community, both verifying and otherwise.

The only people on the mod list that I have a problem with - and I DO have a problem with these people, is the ones that have been resisting adding mods. It took forever to get the first round of mods added. And then some got taken away, because of political bs in the mod community. Then another round was added a long time ago (and that round included a person that has literally done nothing in his whole time as mod toward verification, while people that have time to verify aren't added).

It's such a simple problem to solve. You add mods until the workload is manageable. You don't even have to take away mods. Keep them all, it doesn't matter.

How many times have we seen this thread - "It's been X days/weeks and my run isn't verified yet"

And what's the response to those? (1) be patient (2) the mods have lives, and they volunteer their time - then the person is criticized for having the audacity to question the mods. This has happened countless times between these forums and the smb1 discord.

Maybe something more aggressive was warranted.

Ultimately. just add mods - whoever in the mod group is being difficult with the process and resisting (because that's been happening for year(s), stop it.

Then we can all forget about this thread, and we can go back to smb1, and have runs verified quickly. Everyone is happy :)

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Lul_ecks_dee, kcaj and 5 others like this
Dolnośląskie, Poland

There are a lot of people that are active and after some time they gained quite a lot of respect. Why don't make them verifiers? Verifier is a mod rank that only allow you to verify and reject runs. That would be a good way to determine who is competent enough to be a normal mod, it's something like a probation - you are doing good job as a mod, you stay. You don't - you are kicked.

Second thing - many people STILL don't know how to retime runs, how to spot a fake run etc. I'm not talking about mods, because they know how to do it, of course. IMO mods should work on a little "how to be a good verifier" tutorial. That would help a lot of people, even if some of them don't want to be mods.

Lul_ecks_dee, B1GEY3DPYTH0N and 6 others like this
Nevada, USA

Other than two runs we're discussing, all runs are now two weeks old or less in the queue.

Generally speaking -- and just like another popular game, Tetris -- you should expect a 1-3 week wait time for such a popular game. Here is the message from the submission page of tetris:

"Before your run appears on the leaderboard, it will be submitted for verification by our moderators. Run approval may take 1-3 weeks in some cases. You will be notified shortly."

Expect the same from SMB1/1CE/2J/2JCE. It's rare we let runs go over three weeks, so if we do, POLITELY message one of the moderators and ask if anything can be done to speed up the queue.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Jack_R, Gaster319 and 2 others like this

key word politely

Tecate likes this

"Look at the tetris guys, they are equally incompetent. So our work is by extension ok"

Oklahoma, USA

@fatal1

^ Not the message at all

The mods are not incompetent. In fact, they are very accurate and thorough in what they do. There are periods where they do lots of work, and periods where it is less (on an individual basis). It's not a question of quality, it's a question of volume. The point (which I failed to show in the original post) was that there needs to be more manpower in the mod arsenal. At the time of writing, I didn't see the slant which was laced into the post. In looking back, it definitely came out the wrong way, and for that I apologize to the mods.

Incompetent is completely the wrong word to use.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Jack_R likes this
Oklahoma, USA

The point should have been that with the limited mod numbers that we have - and the fact that mods go through cycles of activity and inactivity - of course the queue is going to grow. Which is where the emphasis should have been in the first place - increasing the number of people that are able to verify runs.

I will say - to @fatal1 and @Tecate points, we should not be shooting for 1-3 weeks turnaround just because Tetris does it that way. There have been times in the past when the turnaround was a couple of days and there's no reason it needs to be longer. With the obvious exception of runs that need to be discussed or get a second look through first.

Waiting for upwards of 3 weeks to have a run verified is especially bad for new players entering smb1 speedrunning, and it's just not necessary. Many of the more well-known players get their runs almost immediately approved anyway - in fact, it's rare that they even go 2 days for approval, usually it's same-day verification.

With adding a relatively small number of qualified verifiers who are willing to devote regular time, there is no reason that verifications for this game - one of the more difficult to verify, and unquestionably one of the games with the highest volume of submissions - could not have a fast turnaround in the days range, rather than week(s) range, barring abnormalities

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Lul_ecks_dee and Jack_R like this
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Requirements for High-Level Any% Runs

Any% (NTSC) runs below 4:57.000 must now fulfill additional requirements in order to be verified.

  • The run's full session must be included in the submission description.
  • For emulator runs below 4:57.000, some form of input display must be visible for the duration of the run. A hand-cam or input
3 months ago