Note: Please don't make any radical changes to the layout until we get this sorted out.

Reason for this discussion: Skull asked via the appropriate channel to make him a moderator because he wants to track mirror mode and the game's moderators shot him down. I was a little quick in making the decision to add him to let him implement the changes, so let's chat.

I added the series moderators to this game and we'll consider any changes to the way moderation currently sits after some general consensus.

[quote]I am also concerned, although to a lesser degree, by how kirkq handled this request. From the information available to me in this thread, it doesn’t seem that kirkq was aware of the thread in the MKDD forum, and, as far as I can tell, made no attempt at finding any information about this situation other than what was provided by Skull64’s posts. Please correct me if I am mistaken. [/quote]

I handle a fair amount of these requests in a given week, so I probably did not give this issue the level of attention necessary.

I do not commonly check the game forums, as most of the time people aren't using them, so I have not developed a habit of doing so. In reviewing moderation requests I commonly reference whether or not the moderators have a run in the game. None of the previous moderators for this game currently have a run for this game. The person requesting moderator status actively runs this game.

Due to the way things are oriented in series on the site, many times users get control of a game they don't play because it happens to be in a series with a game they do play, and they do not give it the level of attention necessary.

I am not saying these things apply directly here, but it's the general thought process I go through when people request changes.

[quote]I think it’s necessary for me to bring this up here, because this is the second time that an admin grants MKDD moderator status with seemingly minimal thought to someone whose immediate response is to rescind series moderators’ access to MKDD in order to impose their vision of an improved leaderboard (said vision was different in the first case). [/quote]

I am either unaware of or do not recall the first time this happened.

Relevant things Lafungo said in the other thread:

[quote] There's no reason to do a speedrun in 50Hz, unless you're going for IGT (which ties in with the leaderboard using RTA). [/quote]

[quote] Before these leaderboards were made, a few top MKDD players did All-Cup Tour runs, notably Andreas Rudmarker (Druvan7) and Richard Karlsson (LyftarN). Even though they are mainly Time Trialers, where 50Hz is used, their All-Cup Tour runs have always been in 60Hz. Adopting RTA on the leaderboards ensures that everyone does runs in 60Hz. [/quote]

[quote] That being said, you could argue stopping people from using 50Hz isn't a good enough reason to ditch IGT. However, even aside from 60/50Hz issues, IGT has its problems. For example, what's to stop someone from taking a breather between tracks? If track transitions don't factor into your time, then it doesn't matter how long you take to move on to the next one. You could attempt to restrict this by imposing some kind of time limit to track transitions, but then you enter the realm of subjective criteria, when the issue is avoided entirely through RTA.

Just because more categories can be added doesn't mean they should. The current system allows for all players to directly compare their times without unnecessarily fragmenting competition into categories with no substantial differences between them. [/quote]

Discussion in the other thread didn't really resolve.

King said this to me in a PM:

[quote] I can definitely understand wanting to add as many categories via parameters as possible, but with Mario Kart it's difficult. Maybe it's just me, but (in most cases) if you add a Mirror Mode category for one MK game, then that means you have to do it for the 7 others, and only because a couple of people wanted it for one game. It just kind of makes a mess of things. Plus, people might not even run the category. For another example, there was a pretty large demand to add 40 Tracks as a category, which I did. To this day, only two runs of it have been submitted. [/quote]

This discussion basically boils down to "If I was a user and I want to track Mirror Mode, should I be able to do it on this site?" There are a couple other topics for discussion as well.

The site has one Mario Kart Double Dash board. The board generally needs to serve both public and community concerns.

This post contains some of my opinions. For context I have played time trial in this game quite a bit in the past, so I'm a speedrunner, no? :)

In Game Time vs Real Time: 1: A user can currently choose to sort by in game time or real time, moderators only choose the default. It's a discretionary choice about which one you think is the better representation. 2: I have zero preference over which is default, because users can still get to the information they want to see.

In Game Time (break restriction): 1: Regardless of which time you choose for the default, it is still an issue that people could take breaks to optimize the in-game time. It's simply a perception change when you change the default, but the problem still exists. A rule preventing unreasonable breaks between tracks might be reasonable. (Also would braking to last place during a bad time let you retry and reset the in game time? I can't remember the specifics.)

Whether or not to require both in game time and real time is a discretionary choice. They are both discernible from a video.

Regarding 50 vs 60 Hz: 1: A user can easily play in 50 Hz and have a bad real time and a reasonably in game time that will be shown when the user sorts by IGT. Shifting the layout to shift perception to encourage one over the other doesn't make any sense. (I'm not sure if that actually was a thought at any point)

I tend to think that arbitrary restriction of how people run for the sole purpose of narrowing category differences is not necessarily a good thing. This game has an extremely narrow scope of how people could want to run it.

Emu/Console 4 Cups and All Cup (Category) 50 vs 60 Hz (Variable) 50cc/100cc/150cc/Mirror (Variable)

In my opinion allowing tracking of all of these isn't going to suddenly make everyone play 50cc. It would look a little weird in the same table, but if we had the ability to add a default filter search criteria for the page I think it would make much more sense.

People will play what they want to play, and I think being able to utilize a difference between what is "tracked" and what is "featured" would address many of the community concerns. Tracking more information provides better information to viewers who want to see alternative styles of play and users who want to play alternative styles of play.

It is my opinion that the site currently has some limitations that may lead people to rule out very reasonable and viable options. One of my long term ideas with a leaderboards site was to simply track things with tags and let users get to the information they want to see with filters and let moderators feature information they want to feature. Unfortunately the ideas of featured and tracked are tied together a bit more closely and seem to give the perception that everything listed is featured, and I hope we can improve the layout and options to help mitigate that over time.

Is the goal of this board to force a narrow competition spectrum, or to track the reasonable ways people may want to play this game?

If we can add features to the site to help mitigate these issues, let us know.

(I may edit this for clarity later but I think I got most of my thoughts down.)

Please keep it civil.

I don't think anyone has said anything particularly out of line, but I think everyone will have a better day if we aren't sour with each other.

We also need to discuss moderators. I think it would be good to get a couple people who have runs of this game added as moderators in addition to the series moderators.

I'm going to bed and have work in the morning, I'll be around more after Friday night.

• Kirk

First of all, I appreciate the time you're taking to rectify this situation. Thank you as well for the clarifications relative to your thought process in making Skull64 a MKDD moderator.

[quote=kirkq] I am either unaware of or do not recall the first time this happened.[/quote] If you would like me to expand on this, I can. For now I’ll concentrate on the current situation.

To address the points in your third post:

IGT vs RTA: My understanding of this topic is that if IGT is chosen, RTA would not be tracked at all. From your points, it seems like you think that both times would be displayed regardless. I think the choice of which is default is actually relevant, because it implicitly promotes that timer as the one to be considered foremost.

IGT (breaks): While breaks for optimizing IGT will always be an issue, if RTA is made default, any time with breaks will be penalized by default. As I mentioned in the previous thread, making a rule relative to breaks dives into subjective territory that I would rather avoid, especially when promoting RTA is an efficient solution. (You can’t restart a track during a GP in MKDD.)

50Hz vs 60Hz: As you say, your hypothetical user’s reasonable IGT will be displayed “when the user sorts by IGT”. I think the distinction here is relevant, because the requirement of user action to view this reasonable IGT makes it appear less important. I think that discouraging 50Hz is something that should be done (be it implicitly or explicitly), because historically there has always been a (Time Trials-centric) debate on the legitimacy of 50Hz, and this can be avoided completely in a reasonable manner here.

Based on the rest of your post, it seems that we have different perceptions of what the purpose of this leaderboard is (or should be). For example, based on how you formulate “Is the goal of this board to force a narrow competition spectrum, or to track the reasonable ways people may want to play this game?”, it would appear that you think the second option is preferable, which in this case would mean adding all the variables you mentioned. However, my personal opinion is that the first option is preferable based on how you present them. I specify “based on how you present them”, because I think that the “narrow competition spectrum” that you mention encompasses the “reasonable ways people may want to [speedrun] this game”. I believe that one of the roles of a speedrun leaderboard (be it on this site or elsewhere) is to provide information on which categories are considered “legitimate” by the community. While each individual is free to speedrun however they want, I think it’s important for a leaderboard to establish what is worthy of recognition. In this particular case, I don’t think that the MKDD leaderboard (or any of the Mario Kart leaderboards for that matter) should legitimize runs done in 50cc, 100cc, or even Mirror, because they either fulfill the same objective with the same conditions as 150cc but slower, or they are only distinguished from 150cc through a superficial modification of the game’s mechanics.

As for your last post, if your only issue with the series moderators is that none of us have runs on the MKDD leaderboard, I can amend that. I think that the series moderators have been handling all games rather well for the past few months, and I believe that each game in the series has a moderator who is reasonably well-acquainted with it and its community.

Personally I don't really care either way whether mirror/50/100 gets added or not, to me it'll seem more like a gimmick and pretty much be useless. If people want to do a run of 50cc or mirror, go ahead, but I doubt that there'll be any competition in these categories. But as long as they don't clutter up the leaderboards then I'm fine with having them.

As for IGT vs RTA: To me RTA would make more sense because players won't be able to take a break during a run. pressing A is part of the run and shouldn't be skipped.

Because NTSC already plays with 60hz, why not force PAL players to play on 60 too? To me it seems more fair to everyone.

And as for mods: I can volunteer :^)

Responding here since you linked this to me so you know I'm around. I just run the MK64 stuff and we're all good there. I'll leave the double dash and other MK game discussion up to everyone else. :)

I mostly mod MK8 and MKW, along with series things.

Game:

[ http://prntscr.com/6s6wi2] :: I agree with this for the most part. Any category can be ran, but a leaderboard for things like 50cc (with how the site works + how Mario Kart works) is inefficient in my opinion.

[ http://prntscr.com/6s6yy4 ] :: This was definitely the biggest reason (personally, not speaking for anyone else) why I didn't think adding Mirror was a good idea. Yes, it could be added to miscellaneous, but adding 50cc this, 50cc that, 100cc this, 100cc that would clutter the board, along with the fact that you mentioned, there isn't a big distinction between featured and tracked. I'm having similar problems with Mario Kart 8, as a few people have requested 200cc categories and some more DLC categories, but miscellaneous is cluttered and there's no more room.

Moderation:

I'm definitely in favor of adding more moderators. You brought up some good points about series moderators that don't run a game but run different ones. That's probably been my biggest annoyance with running the MK series. I'm a series mod, so it's reasonably assumed that I moderate all of the games. However, that is not the case. Abney mods MK64, I mod MK8 and MKW, and Lafungo mods the rest. It does get frustrating at times receiving minor complaints about a game I don't run, but it makes sense that I'm being contacted since I'm a series mod. I doing something like the Super Mario leaderboard does would be a great idea if we brought some new mods on board. [ http://prntscr.com/6s749l , http://prntscr.com/6s74z4 ] I think Goomba would be a nice addition to MKDD since he's provided a lot of input. As for the games I run, I can contact some players that I think could do a good job. I think having at least 2 mods for each game is the best way to go for the sake of allowing more than just one person to have control of an entire game.

Thanks everyone for your input, it's always nice to hear what everyone has to say :)

So I'll start by apologizing for the way I went about trying to effect change to the leaderboards. I guess I'd be angry too if some guy I'd never heard of before just showed up and told me how I should be moderating and then complained to an admin behind my back. I probably should have gone about that in a different way.

I apologize in advance for the wall of text as well.

Moderators:

I'd be perfectly fine with adding more moderators. Goomba seems like a great choice.

I don't think the Mario Kart community is big enough to do away with series moderators. It makes sense for Zelda and Super Mario since those series have many more games and many more players. Even a series as large as Metroid still has series moderators. I think it's fine the way it is.

Mirror Mode:

This is the least important debate yet it's also the one which has the easiest solution, which I have already implemented: allowing users to choose 150cc or Mirror mode as a separate game variable. This way the default leaderboard looks the same as before but people are still able to toggle between different modes. I'm not under the impression that Mirror Mode is by any means a popular category, but I don't think my solution does any harm either. I'd be fine with 50cc and 100cc options as well but I'd assume there'd be even less competition for those as there are for Mirror Mode.

IGT vs. RTA:

The IGT vs. RTA issue has been argued to death for numerous games over the years. Since most games don't even have an in-game timer, it's an easy decision to use RTA. It's also an easy decision to use RTA when there are significant issues with the in-game timer, such as only showing hours and minutes or allowing routes which waste RTA to save IGT or allowing long pauses without penalty. (Well, it's usually an easy decision. Metroid Prime, which I also mod, has all three of these issues yet there is near-universal support within the community for the continued use of IGT. But I digress.)

I've come up with four different reasons why anyone would choose one over the other for MKDD.

Timing accuracy:

MKDD is in the peculiar position of not only having an in-game timer, but having an in-game timer that is accurate to thousandths of a second. Most players only report RTA down to the seconds place, but even frame analysis could only determine accuracy to 60 parts per second (and I believe nobody has ever done that for this game.) That being said, the level of competition in this game is not really high enough where this would become an issue.

Pause abuse:

An "issue" with the in-game timer that it allows pausing, either during or between courses. I don't really think that it would ever be advantageous to pause during the middle of a race since it would interrupt your tech. The argument could be made that it would be advantageous to spend extra time between stages to calm down or something but I don't know how much of an advantage that would actually be. I'd probably err on the side of "negligible."

However the thing I didn't really think about before was that it would allow for ridiculously long breaks between courses. Someone could, say, do one course every day for 16 days and call it a speedrun and put it on the site and if IGT were used, nobody would ever know. (Then again the same thing is true of time trials... anybody could pause during the middle of a course and finish it the next day and it wouldn't be penalized on the time trials leaderboards. This is also true of Metroid Prime, where I actually know of a case where a guy started a run one day, paused, and finished it the next day and everyone in the community treated it as legitimate. It's actually on the site right now, but nobody would know just from looking.)

50Hz vs. 60Hz:

I'm not really familiar with the debate over 50Hz vs. 60Hz in time trials. All I know is that 29 of the 32 times listed as the "world records" on the site are done in 50Hz, and the other 3 were done by an American player who ostensibly doesn't have a PAL cart. This is yet another instance of the "should players be required to obtain the fastest version if they want to have competitive times" debate. In time trials the answer seems to be "yes."

In Grand Prix it depends on how many categories there are. It seems to me that the vast majority of players do Grand Prix in 60Hz, so having a separate leaderboard for 50Hz wouldn't seem to make a lot of sense. However, as far as I know, the fastest recorded IGT is 27:47.790 done by Kouider on 50Hz. If we go by RTA and don't include a separate category for 50Hz, then the run with the absolute fastest IGT wouldn't even be eligible to appear. It would be disingenuous to put that run on an RTA leaderboard with 60Hz times since it's arguably the most skillful run yet it would appear near the bottom of the list.

Tradition:

MKDD has a decade-long history of using the in-game timer for time trials. Andreas lists in his twitch profile that his best all-cup-tour 150cc is 27:55 IGT. Kouider's 50Hz WR video lists itself as 27:47.790 IGT. I personally (and I assume most other people would agree) don't care at all about "cutting the 36" in RTA, but I cared quite a lot when I cut the 30 in IGT.

Timing methods recap:

This is how I feel the methods stack up in my four categories.

Advantage RTA: Pause abuse Advantage IGT: 50Hz vs. 60Hz, Tradition Wash: Timing accuracy

For whatever reason, writing all this out made the pause abuse really resonate with me a lot more than it did before, so I'm inclined to believe it's the most important debate. I guess it could go either way. If the other moderators are adamant about using RTA, then I think I'd be okay with that.

Moderation:

Would it be helpful if we created an option for the board that would allow the moderator listing to say "and series moderators" instead of naming them individually? In this way the series moderators can have control and help with boards and category discussions when necessary, but then primary people for games are listed as game moderators and show up by name on the game itself. It might give a better understanding of how things are working. It wouldn't be too hard to implement, but priority for the coders would be to be determined.

Are you guys helping approve runs for the other games in the series or just not involved at all? It's not a problem, I just want to think if there's other ways to clarify that.

[quote] if your only issue with the series moderators is that none of us have runs on the MKDD leaderboard, I can amend that [/quote]

I'm not saying it's a major concern to me. I was saying that I used it to rush to judgement, and users can easily go through that same thought process. In that sense, you and I know it isn't inherently a problem, but it can be a perception issue to users as we've already seen.

Category Stuff:

I might be repeating myself a bit, sorry in advance.

[quote] IGT vs RTA: My understanding of this topic is that if IGT is chosen, RTA would not be tracked at all. From your points, it seems like you think that both times would be displayed regardless.[/quote]

The choices are "RTA only", "IGT only", and "IGT default and RTA" and "RTA default and ITG"

I tend to think that tracking both is good because it lets users get to the information they want. Along this line of thought there's really no need for a requirement for a run to have both times listed. (I think the site correctly handles lack of a primary timer now? Let me know if I'm wrong.)

[quote]I think the choice of which is default is actually relevant, because it implicitly promotes that timer as the one to be considered foremost. [/quote]

The default timer is the one you're "recommending" as foremost. Moderators essentially pick which timing scheme will be used to show top placings by default. Users still get the option to sort by IGT assuming it is there. (I guess I'm just saying this to lead into the next section.)

[quote] IGT (breaks): While breaks for optimizing IGT will always be an issue, if RTA is made default, any time with breaks will be penalized by default. As I mentioned in the previous thread, making a rule relative to breaks dives into subjective territory that I would rather avoid, especially when promoting RTA is an efficient solution. [/quote]

I think that sorting by RTA by default does not mitigate the concern that someone could do this and their run could be sorted to the top when sorted by IGT. Promoting RTA lessens the concern, but it's still a concern in my opinion assuming both are tracked. I agree with subjectivity being a valid concern.

[quote]50Hz vs 60Hz: I think that discouraging 50Hz is something that should be done (be it implicitly or explicitly), because historically there has always been a (Time Trials-centric) debate on the legitimacy of 50Hz, and this can be avoided completely in a reasonable manner here. [/quote]

Just adding this here for context to lead into my next thought.

Thought:

If we could give you guys the ability to set default search parameters for all fields (variables), would this help address your concerns while allowing to track more modes. (Ideally if you had sorted by one mode it wouldn't expand the table with that column, but I'm not sure how realistic super smart searches are in the short term.) Default search assignment is likely not a huge hurdle for the coders and helps with these perception issues.

My impression is the point of our disagreement is primarily that I think things should be "tracked" and you (mostly talking towards Lafungo) don't want everything "featured", and I think additional site functionality could help get the best of both worlds.

Like I already said, I do not mind if extra variables get added, as long as they don't clutter up the existing leaderboards. Having a default for the variables would help for adding 50cc 100cc and mirror, but I don't know about 50hz and 60hz. Should we really split 50hz and 60hz?

As for IGT vs RTA: The IGT has been used for time trials because you don't have to do any menuing and it's more accurate. In GP however you have to press A to advance. RTA as default and IGT makes the most sense to me personally. Although pausing or taking a break can't have a drastic effect on the run itself, I still see it as a 'speedrun', so without breaks.

As for moderation: I like the idea of adding 'and series moderators'. People will know who they can contact if they have any questions about the game. One question though, if one of the series mods focuses on let's say MKDD, will they be added to the 'normal mods' and also be listed as a series mod, or just as a series mod? Also I'll gladly accept to be a MKDD mod!

" Would it be helpful if we created an option for the board that would allow the moderator listing to say "and series moderators" instead of naming them individually? In this way the series moderators can have control and help with boards and category discussions when necessary, but then primary people for games are listed as game moderators and show up by name on the game itself. It might give a better understanding of how things are working. It wouldn't be too hard to implement, but priority for the coders would be to be determined. "

i dont know how to quote lol :P

I'm kind of confused based on how this is worded, but if it's something along the lines of displaying information such as "this mod runs these games only, but is also a series moderator," then i'm all for it.

[ quote ] [ /quote ]

http://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/4tvn8#ch4Text_blocks

The series mod idea is:

1: Series moderators have control of all boards where series moderation is not disabled 2: Add series moderators individually on each of the boards they actively moderate. 3: Select this theoretical "and series moderators" option to not list the series moderators on games unless they are also a game moderator. It's a way of being more clear about who is actively doing things.

[quote] It would be disingenuous to put that run on an RTA leaderboard with 60Hz times [/quote]

I think this just comes down to perception. If you sorted to 60 Hz by default it wouldn't show up. If people switched to "50 Hz" or "50 and 60 Hz" it would show up. In the "50 and 60 Hz" case it isn't an even competition spectrum, but the difference is noted. Many games already do this with platform/emulator: http://www.speedrun.com/oot The platforms and emulators aren't precisely on the same competition spectrum, that's why they are sortable.

I think in order to use the sort mechanisms efficiently you have to assume people can do some level of discernment on the circumstances of the data instead of doing things purely to make sure they don't perceive it wrong.

Again that's all my opinion, at least everyone seems to be getting along. FrankerZ

[quote=kirkq]The series mod idea is:

1: Series moderators have control of all boards where series moderation is not disabled 2: Add series moderators individually on each of the boards they actively moderate. 3: Select this theoretical "and series moderators" option to not list the series moderators on games unless they are also a game moderator. It's a way of being more clear about who is actively doing things.[/quote]

Nice idea (y)

Also, what are the differences between a normal and super mod?

[quote=Skull64]Mirror Mode: […][/quote] While having Mirror as a run variable “doesn’t do any harm”, I don’t think it contributes anything to the leaderboard. If anything, as I’ve mentioned several times now, it detracts from the competitive value of the main 150cc category, and legitimizes a type of run that has no reason to be.

[quote=Skull64]50Hz vs. 60Hz: […][/quote] For Time Trials, each Combined WR set in 60Hz is considered a feat, because it is generally accepted that although 50Hz is not intrinsically faster (by IGT), it is easier (because you’re essentially playing the game at 5/6 of “normal” speed). For speedruns, where the objective is to go as fast as possible rather than optimize a value stored by the game, it seems counter-intuitive to allow 50Hz, because it is visibly slower. For example, using Kouider’s run that you mentioned, although his IGT is a bit more than 30 seconds faster than Andreas’ time listed here, his RTA is over 41 minutes, or almost 7 minutes slower than Andreas’. I don’t think it’s reasonable to credit Kouider’s run as the fastest speedrun of MKDD under these circumstances. As an added “bonus”, restricting all runs to 60Hz means that everyone can compete on a level playing field, since all regions have access to 60Hz, whereas only PAL can play in 50Hz.

[quote=kirkq]Moderation: […][/quote] The “and series moderators” seems like a reasonable addition for users to be able to more readily identify which specific moderators are familiar with a given game in the series.

[quote=kirkq] Thought: […][/quote] While this is certainly a possibility, I would only be comfortable with it if there were a clear separation between what is “tracked” and what is “featured” (where “featured” is what I consider the role of a leaderboard to be, as per my last post). I’m not sure how speedrun.com would accomplish this (I don’t think that the current “misc categories” is sufficient).

Super mod can add other mods, normal mod cannot. I think that's the only difference right now.

Anyway I guess this discussion isn't really going anywhere else. I'll probably push the team to integrate some "tracked vs featured" changes at some point to add more options, but it may not be in the near future. Misc categories aren't an ideal solution I agree, and I have some ideas to move those around a bit too eventually.

Lafungo,

We're essentially talking in circles.

You've mentioned multiple times that you don't think Mirror Mode should be tracked because you don't think it contributes anything, and I've mentioned multiple times that I think it should be tracked because it doesn't hurt anything. Clearly your opinion is that there is only one "correct" way to play the game and the leaderboards should not serve to lend credulence to any other ways of playing the game. The problem is that why should you be allowed to be the person who gets to decide the "correct" way to play the game? As a player of MKDD, I've clearly come to a different opinion than you on what constitutes a "correct" way to play the game.

I don't think that the mentality of "you should only ever play 60Hz 150cc aiming for RTA and it's my way or the highway" is a good one. My opinion is that it is always better to err on the side of allowing more play styles than fewer as long as it doesn't add clutter. I'd contend that adding extra game variables doesn't constitute clutter.

While allowing for more play styles is definitely something to encourage in general, the distinction between said play styles should be justified. Whereas many other games have significantly distinct play styles, such as the classic Any% vs. 100%, or, more concretely, No Skips vs. Skips in MK64 or MKW, MKDD only has one overarching play style (for speedrunning). Within a given play style, it's important to establish rules for competition to function properly, and in this case they're given by RTA, 60Hz, 150cc restrictions.

As an aside on leaderboard moderation, I think it's preferable to keep RTA values with no decimals. With the inherent level of inaccuracy of self-timed runs and the lack of re-timing being done for MKDD, it doesn't seem worthwhile to keep track of decimals. (It also makes the leaderboard look neater.)