2021 Category discussion and process to get community feedback
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:43 pm
Hello everyone,
in the past there were countless discussions about the different categories that records can be completed in.
At the moment, there are 3 categories (more info here in the Record Rules thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2004):
PURE: No tools (except a simple ingame timer) are allowed. No Texmods, no toolbox, no nothing.
Standard: Some tools are allowed, some are not.
TAS: Everything is allowed. That includes blatant cheating and things you can not do without tools.
While the rulesets for the PURE and TAS categories are mostly simple to argue for because they are just binary (nothing allowed versus everything allowed, see some further points about this below), the Standard category has been the subject of a lot of ambiguity and drama.
People opposing the Standard category's existence usually argue by saying that is an arbitrary made-up category that should not exist.
People in favour of the Standard category's existence usually argue by wanting to play with certain convenience features, but not wanting to be forced to use some invasive tools just to compete for the best time.
In the past there has been a vote to collect community feedback (http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2083, viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2081). Some people argue that the community should not have been asked at all, while others argue that the vote was manipulated in some way. Both of those points of view are of course very subjective and even harder to prove wrong. To me, the only reasonable way to settle the issues around the Standard category would be to have another vote, or rather two consecutive votes. This is because we can save ourselves a lot of effort by clarifiying first whether the Standard category should exist at all, and if it does whether records using tools that were accepted in Standard up until now should be punished retroactively or not.
So the first vote would probably be quite short. Some questions that would most likely be included:
1. Should the Standard category exist?
2. If the Standard category exists, should we follow a whitelist (only tools that are explicitely listed are allowed) or a blacklist (everything is allowed that is not explicitely forbidden) approach? At the moment, we are using some middle ground solution with some allowed examples and some forbidden examples which sometimes requires moderators discretion when a new tool is introduced or used in a record. The individual items for whitelist or blacklist would be determined in the following vote.
3. If the Standard category exists, we will have another vote about which specific tools are allowed. Let us a assume a record that is currently classified as Standard used a tool that will be forbidden after the second vote. Should that record be allowed to stay in the Standard category or should it be reevalueted to the TAS category (retroactive punishment)?
4. If the Standard category exists, what should be the process to allow/disallow new tools? Votes every few months / moderators discretion / something else?
4.1 Same question, what about new mechanics that do not require a tool at all (for example a new coindrop/slowload)?
5. Should the TAS category allow everything, even if it is about performing actions not possible in the boundaries of the unmodified version of the game itself (dialogs, targetting minipets)? If no, then this would mean a full video requirement for TAS records needs to be enforced.
There are further questions that we could handle in the first vote:
6. What should happen to records for which all video coverage becomes unavailable?
7. Should we require full video coverage even for TAS records? At the moment this is only necessary for PURE and Standard records, because a TAS record can literally not do anything that is not allowed because by defintion everything is allowed.
If the vote for the Standard category ends with a majority of No, then we would be mostly done. Standard would be merged into TAS and we would only require a second vote if something needs to be clarified about TAS. If the vote for the Standard category ends with a yes, we would set up another vote to clarify the details about individual tools/mechanics.
For the votes themselves I propose to follow a similar approach as last time (13 pages of discussion btw: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2043). To avoid manipulation, I think it is reasonable to limit voting rights to people that meet either of the following criteria (softened version of the original vote): a) be registered for 3 months and have written at least 5 posts in the last 2 years b) participated in a record that was posted to gwscr within the last 3 years // We would then create a google form for the vote, and 1 question would require the link to the GWSCR profile and another question an arbitrary number that the respondent can come up with. Then when the results get released it would be anyonymous, and "your vote" can be referenced by you by just letting everybody know what your number was.
There are of course some issues with this approach, and a lot of them have already be discussed at length in the linked thread(s). Please just keep in mind that it is impossible to achieve a 100% satisfaction about processes or results among an entire community and that the goal should be to find a common middle ground, even if your individual opinion is not exactly matched by the opinions of others or the results of a vote.
Depending on feedback this thread will stay open for at least 1 week, probably closer to 2 weeks.
For my final words I can only recommend that people check out the 2017 threads about the original vote, there is some really juicy drama in there.
More links to the 2017 vote:
Step 1: What is a "valid vote"?: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2031
Step 2: Agreeing on Basic Statements: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2042
Step 3: Who gets to vote + DRAFT: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2043
The vote is live! Justifications, flame and drama! +Info!: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2081
Results: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2083
The tiebreaker vote is live!: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2085
in the past there were countless discussions about the different categories that records can be completed in.
At the moment, there are 3 categories (more info here in the Record Rules thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2004):
PURE: No tools (except a simple ingame timer) are allowed. No Texmods, no toolbox, no nothing.
Standard: Some tools are allowed, some are not.
TAS: Everything is allowed. That includes blatant cheating and things you can not do without tools.
While the rulesets for the PURE and TAS categories are mostly simple to argue for because they are just binary (nothing allowed versus everything allowed, see some further points about this below), the Standard category has been the subject of a lot of ambiguity and drama.
People opposing the Standard category's existence usually argue by saying that is an arbitrary made-up category that should not exist.
People in favour of the Standard category's existence usually argue by wanting to play with certain convenience features, but not wanting to be forced to use some invasive tools just to compete for the best time.
In the past there has been a vote to collect community feedback (http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2083, viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2081). Some people argue that the community should not have been asked at all, while others argue that the vote was manipulated in some way. Both of those points of view are of course very subjective and even harder to prove wrong. To me, the only reasonable way to settle the issues around the Standard category would be to have another vote, or rather two consecutive votes. This is because we can save ourselves a lot of effort by clarifiying first whether the Standard category should exist at all, and if it does whether records using tools that were accepted in Standard up until now should be punished retroactively or not.
So the first vote would probably be quite short. Some questions that would most likely be included:
1. Should the Standard category exist?
2. If the Standard category exists, should we follow a whitelist (only tools that are explicitely listed are allowed) or a blacklist (everything is allowed that is not explicitely forbidden) approach? At the moment, we are using some middle ground solution with some allowed examples and some forbidden examples which sometimes requires moderators discretion when a new tool is introduced or used in a record. The individual items for whitelist or blacklist would be determined in the following vote.
3. If the Standard category exists, we will have another vote about which specific tools are allowed. Let us a assume a record that is currently classified as Standard used a tool that will be forbidden after the second vote. Should that record be allowed to stay in the Standard category or should it be reevalueted to the TAS category (retroactive punishment)?
4. If the Standard category exists, what should be the process to allow/disallow new tools? Votes every few months / moderators discretion / something else?
4.1 Same question, what about new mechanics that do not require a tool at all (for example a new coindrop/slowload)?
5. Should the TAS category allow everything, even if it is about performing actions not possible in the boundaries of the unmodified version of the game itself (dialogs, targetting minipets)? If no, then this would mean a full video requirement for TAS records needs to be enforced.
There are further questions that we could handle in the first vote:
6. What should happen to records for which all video coverage becomes unavailable?
7. Should we require full video coverage even for TAS records? At the moment this is only necessary for PURE and Standard records, because a TAS record can literally not do anything that is not allowed because by defintion everything is allowed.
If the vote for the Standard category ends with a majority of No, then we would be mostly done. Standard would be merged into TAS and we would only require a second vote if something needs to be clarified about TAS. If the vote for the Standard category ends with a yes, we would set up another vote to clarify the details about individual tools/mechanics.
For the votes themselves I propose to follow a similar approach as last time (13 pages of discussion btw: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2043). To avoid manipulation, I think it is reasonable to limit voting rights to people that meet either of the following criteria (softened version of the original vote): a) be registered for 3 months and have written at least 5 posts in the last 2 years b) participated in a record that was posted to gwscr within the last 3 years // We would then create a google form for the vote, and 1 question would require the link to the GWSCR profile and another question an arbitrary number that the respondent can come up with. Then when the results get released it would be anyonymous, and "your vote" can be referenced by you by just letting everybody know what your number was.
There are of course some issues with this approach, and a lot of them have already be discussed at length in the linked thread(s). Please just keep in mind that it is impossible to achieve a 100% satisfaction about processes or results among an entire community and that the goal should be to find a common middle ground, even if your individual opinion is not exactly matched by the opinions of others or the results of a vote.
Depending on feedback this thread will stay open for at least 1 week, probably closer to 2 weeks.
For my final words I can only recommend that people check out the 2017 threads about the original vote, there is some really juicy drama in there.
More links to the 2017 vote:
Step 1: What is a "valid vote"?: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2031
Step 2: Agreeing on Basic Statements: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2042
Step 3: Who gets to vote + DRAFT: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2043
The vote is live! Justifications, flame and drama! +Info!: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2081
Results: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2083
The tiebreaker vote is live!: http://gwscr.fbgmguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2085