SR.C - Setting up and maintaining a leaderboard
Click here for the document

Originally posted by DaravaeAround halfway last year, I started a small project to describe and document the entire process of creating and setting up new leaderboards on speedrun.com. The main reason being that I noticed there isn't a real concrete and rather extensive guide on this whole process, which especially for new users (and therefor new moderators) can be sometimes a bit of a challenge. It's goal being to guide users (moderators) through all the different aspects of setting up and configuring new (or even existing) leaderboards. Though, I'm fairly certain that it will also serve a purpose for moderators who already have a fair amount of past experience with configuring leaderboards at this point.

Now, the document itself is of course still open for more improvement and changes. Site staff has given a fair bit of feedback and since then I have been changing and adjusting things as we go but I'm sure it will be subject to change quite heavily perhaps due to of course new future features or alteration of existing features (take for example the new Main Rules which are not yet included). That's fine. Whether that happens or not, the baseline and current information should be more than sufficient to guide most users/leaderboard moderators.

My idea is to challenge you guys, the leaderboard moderators and users of the document to help me improve and expand upon this document. If you spot certain aspects which are now incorrect or even outright missing, let me know. If you want you can include a short addition as you'd see fit and I'd be happy to review and include or edit this into the document. Regarding spelling and grammar errors: I myself am Dutch so please forgive me those, but in all seriousness, even if its just those, you can point those out too just fine. Every bit helps.

Thank you for reading and I sincerely hope that this might help people.

Great work!
I did learned most of this stuff by myself over the last months, after moderating some games.
The guide sure is helpful and explains everything in a neat way, and it surely could have helped Oreo of the past.

I think the distinction between "Individual levels" and "individual levels categories" should be clarified a bit more,
and also how the rules defined for ILs and IL categories work.

For example, rules for levels are not required and should be added in special cases where something in the level is unique.
I remember at the beginning, setting rules for an IL in one of my games, and then copy-pasting those rules to all 14 other levels instead of setting rules for a category in one place.

@Oreo321Oreo321 Great suggestion, actually. I'll see if I can write a bit on that in the coming weeks.

Haven't given it a thorough look yet, but what about adding info about editing themes?
There's also two places on page 9 where you mention "invidual levels."

From what i'm reading, this is really good.

Great work !

I think there should be a note under Times in milliseconds: that just turning it off after being used doesn't actually remove the milliseconds from runs, only hiding them, causing runs that should now be tied to still be separated in placement

@QuivicoQuivico I've been so-so on adding a section on themes partly because I didn't immediately felt it was necessary since quite a handful of options under Edit Theme might be kind of obvious/self-explanatory. I could though, if there is demand for it.

@Tron_JavoltaTron_Javolta Very sharp, I'll add that. Thanks!

I honestly don't know what else can be suggested. It looks perfect as it is at the moment.

Agreed, unless you feel the need to quickly explain Main Rules. Otherwise, it's a great guide.

I don't know if this is a feature yet, it probably is, and if I so I would like to know how to use it on my leaderboard.

But, can the "Time with loads" and "Time without loads" only affect one category in a leaderboard?

Thanks for reading this, so if this is the wrong thread, please direct me to the right one if this is wrong.

There is the "Show empty time columns" toggle which will make the "Time with loads" and "Time without loads" only show-up for categories where runs have a submitted time for them. But anyone submitting a run to your game will always have the option to complete these fields regardless of category, so you as a moderator will have to edit some runs to make sure they remain blank where you want them to be.

Updated the document with most of the above feedback, and few adjustments:

- Information on Main Rules, their purpose and what sort of rules Main Rules typically contain. Also noted by @QuivicoQuivico
- Further clarification on the workings of IL's, ILC's and subcategories. Thanks @Oreo321Oreo321
- Added a note that flipping off Timing in Milliseconds does not remove milliseconds, but simply hides them. Thanks @Tron_JavoltaTron_Javolta

Not entirely sure if I should include Themes but I might as well, though probably not a lot to explain. I might combine it with a slightly altered version of @ShadowDraftShadowDraft 's guide (very good guide if I may add) (since the formatting also applies on rules and leaderboard elements) or pin that entirely and skip that entirely. We'll see.

Thanks for the guide, Daravae - very helpful. Everything in the Add Theme page is straightforward - a nice addition to the guide in my opinion would just be listing optimal dimensions for all the different images that could be uploaded (e.g. icons, banner, etc.). My use case is that I think the indie devs behind the game I'm moderating would be willing to give me some very good looking assets as opposed to my screenshots, but to not overly bother them, I'd like to give them the exact, required dimensions.

> Milliseconds can be used in submissions by default, but a community can choose to not display milliseconds on the leaderboard itself.

This makes it sound like there's a way for submissions to have milliseconds (by default), but they're hidden on the leaderboard itself. However, the "Times in milliseconds" changes both the submission form and the leaderboard display.

@Ben_eXceLBen_eXceL Good spot. I'll probably rewrite that in the next version. Thanks for your feedback though!

Ok

where the f is it

@derric_youngderric_young You can find most of the info in the knowledge-base section:
https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/editing-a-leaderboard