Just got 3 of my WR runs rejected in Sliding Puzzle category:

• Easy

• Normal

• Hard

• Video in question

The moderator @AidanB gave the following reason: "Difficulty selection screen needs to be shown"

First of all, why? How is that necessary for the verification process? Run does not start until all pieces are shuffled according to the rules. My run clearly shows the shuffling process, I even edited my video, so it includes the frame-accurate timer, and managed to do so without any issue with the timings.

I understand that some of the games may require difficulty selection screen to, well, proof the matching difficulty of the level, but in Sliding Puzzle category specifically, it is Irrelevant, since Easy is 3x3, Medium is 4x4, and Hard id 5x5, without any other changes. Also, I have included all of the difficulties in one video, so it should have been even more obvious in that aspect.

Second of all, rules. There is no such requirement in the rules of the category. And there is no such requirement in the rules of the game.

So how is that a valid reason for run's rejection, If such specific requirement is not mention in the rules?

And lastly, this requirement is not satisfied by other runners of the category:

• Current Medium sliding puzzle #1 run - Does not include difficulty selection screen
• Current Hard sliding puzzle #1 run - Does not include difficulty selection screen

As for other categories of this game:

• Colour Cards Medium by AidanB (the moderator) - Does not include difficulty selection screen
• Colour Cards Hard by AidanB (the moderator) - Does not include difficulty selection screen

A bunch of others examples by different runners and different categories: https://pastebin.com/raw/faUWywhk

So what do we have?

• There are no problems with the timings of my runs, or defining the difficulty of the level during the verification;
• My runs do follow all of the specific category rules and the overall rules of the game;
• My runs show full completion of the game, as required by the rules;
• Rules of the game don't mention the requirement, of showing the difficulty selection screen;
• Rules of the category don't mention the requirement, of showing the difficulty selection screen;
• Other runners, of the same category, don't include the difficulty selection screen in their runs;
• Other runners, of other categories of the game, did not include the difficulty selection screens, (including the moderator himself).

My solutions:

• Restore my runs, as there is no valid reason for them to be rejected;
• Modify the rules, so they clearly include the requirement, but in that case, please make sure to remove all of the runs from leaderboards, that did not satisfy this requirement, otherwise this moderation process in unfair.

Final notes:

In any case, this is very frustrating, doing WR level speedrun attempts requires a lot of time and effort, I will try matching my performance in future attempts, but I'm not sure if I can get same level of luck in a short amount of time, as before. Editing the video into a nice format also took some effort, I did not expect at all for it to just go to waste.

I strongly believe, that runs should not be rejected, unless they are not following the rules of the game, or there are really strong reason to believe, that the runs were done illegitimately.

I also believe, that rules are same for everyone, it should not be possible, that some runs follow the requirement, and other runs don't, including the staff members of the moderation team.

As far as I'm aware showing the difficulty selection is only required if the game difficulty can't be determined another way, so I'm not sure what the problem here was.

OK, I improved my records, and also recorded them on camera, uploading soon.

But all my points here are still valid.

Resubmit them and I'll verify them for you

The reason I rejected them was that there are very few runs that don't require level selection screens, and this was the first time I'd verified a sliding puzzle run in a while. Yes it was an oversight on my part but all you needed to do was send me a message informing me of my mistake and for you to resubmit the runs, not to make a whole multi-paragraph response to what was very clearly a one time human error

Also in response to all the runs that don't include difficulty selection:

Fruit Merge - Has the difficulty in the top left

Minesweeper - Size of the board makes it obvious

I will accept responsibility for my Hangman and Colour Cards runs but neither of them are WRs and both of them can be assumed difficulty

As for the runs by ThatRaisinTho he attaches a long form video to prove the difficulty he's on, which is removed after verification. If you're really that concerned about this issue I'm sure he'd happily add those videos back to his runs. I would also happily delete those runs where I don't show the difficulty screen if you really want a fair environment

If you are expecting this to be moderated professionally with not a single ounce of human error ever showing, I suggest you find a bigger game to run

Yeah, feel free to resubmit if you think we just made a mistake. Just include a note in the run description and we'll look over it again.