Post by Sir_VG

Posted: 7/17/2009 3:34 PM

Post subject: The debate on un-publication

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mmbossman

Experienced player (829)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

Since the inception of this site, the concept of deleting a publication and effectively removing it from the archive has been brought up several times, with several motives, and it has ultimately been rejected as a viable option. Now that the site is under new management, I would like to hear opinions as to whether this would be a beneficial idea to implement, much in the same way that we brought some movies back from the dead. Note that by making this topic I do not intend to further push for the implementation of this idea unless public opinion approves of it. So, why would we want to delete some movies from our records? Firstly, I believe that a couple movies do not conform to the site standards as they have evolved, specifically runs which do not complete a full game. Secondly, there are several games which may not provide the entertainment that our viewers demand. A short list of possible candidates was selected simply by picking movies currently with <4.5 entertainment rating. I realize there have been complaints in the past about the reliability of ratings, and this list is by no means a condemnation for any individual run, nor a suggestion by myself that they should be obsoleted. This is perhaps the best way to easily showcase which runs are currently "bottom of the barrel". Thirdly, if people do support this idea and it later becomes implemented, any game that is unpublished would by no means be forever "banished"... if another run is submitted that people find entertaining, it would receive equal treatment as a new run, without prejudiced treatment due to a prior run. I realize there are some people here who believe this site should be some sort of "hall of records", where any game is publication worthy. However, when I joined the site, there was an implied feeling of quality surrounding the published movies, that they were chosen for a reason, and that reason was that they are entertaining. But, just like good submissions slip through the cracks to the grue, bad submissions can slip through the cracks and become published. The question is, should they stay there? Anyway, that's my soap box. What do other people think?

Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page

Posted: 7/17/2009 3:56 PM

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arukAdo

Experienced player (961)

Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 939
Location: Castle Keep

I guess the idea is ok, if you un-grue then it feel logic you can un-publish, imo this should be realy strict tought, it would be so easy to abuse it and remove whatever "bore" you and such... Those one track publication might be good exemple, but i think in the low rated movies theres some stuffs to keep Also, if the goal is not to have a "hall of records" , whats the point in pushing forward new plateforms ... 4 in 4 months i think... this forcably gonna push you to accept "middle" games or "low" if you prefer So you should not in a few years say "geez, whe accepted too many emulator, the result is whe have a bunch of shitty games for xxx plateform, lets remove half of it... its just japanesse games anyway" [/tyranic overexagerated exemple]

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Posted: 7/17/2009 4:01 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

I would suggest that instead of unpublishing movies, we should have a section of very entertaining movies, and a section of somewhat entertaining movies. There's several movies on the <4.5 list that I enjoyed watching, which indicates that there's probably others that enjoyed them or would enjoy them as well. However, I will admit that they should not be representative of TASVideos in general. They wouldn't be my first choice as a representative movie to show people new to the site. I'm all for the benefits of increasing "entertainment" density that unpublishing would bring (are there other benefits?) but think that the same benefits could be brought by reorganizing, which would have the added benefit of keeping some potentially entertaining runs for those who seek them out. Also by splitting I think we could be less timid about "getting rid" of movies, since we wouldn't really be completely getting rid of them, which would result in an even more entertaining set of movies :)

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:07 PM

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ccfreak2k

Joined: 11/1/2007
Posts: 100

alden wrote:

However, I will admit that they should not be representative of TASVideos in general. They wouldn't be my first choice as a representative movie to show people new to the site.

Fortunately, there's already a list of such movies.

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:09 PM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3574)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee

At this point, I don't know how I feel about unpublication. In the past I've been against it, mainly because I feel like it could really undermine a judge's decision. I am in support of the site being about the "best of the best" publications. However, I have also always enjoyed the idea of a "hall of records". I also like Alden's idea of multiple categories of publications. So I am not sure which direction is best atm :s IF we were to unpublish movies, I would want some strict requirements and for those requirements to be as non subjective as possible. I would think these requirements: 1) The movie must be older than 1 (maybe 2?) years 2) Must have a rating less than x.x (4.5 sounds fairly reasonable). This one of course can be abused by people ganging up on a movie. 3) Must be done in a topic similar to the unrejections. Where it has to be nominated, debated, and then after a period of time, decided upon by a judge. 4) Unrejecting and Unpublishing should be an annual thing (summer is a good time for this). Keeping it a predictable once a year thing would help keep controversial decisions from being hot topics indenfinatley. Once it is published, there is no need to debate whether it was a bad decision. Save it for the annual unpublishing.

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:18 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

ccfreak2k wrote:

alden wrote:
However, I will admit that they should not be representative of TASVideos in general. They wouldn't be my first choice as a representative movie to show people new to the site.
Fortunately, there's already a list of such movies.

Exactly, but I think it could be expanded, probably significantly.

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:20 PM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1410)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

adelikat wrote:

3) Must be done in a topic similar to the unrejections. Where it has to be nominated, debated, and then after a period of time, decided upon by a judge.

Yeah, I was gonna suggest this. It seems only fair.

adelikat wrote:

I am in support of the site being about the "best of the best" publications. However, I have also always enjoyed the idea of a "hall of records". I also like Alden's idea of multiple categories of publications. So I am not sure which direction is best atm :s

Yeah, this is a hard one. I like the idea that the site is about high quality TASes, but I could see why some people would just want to see a complete library of all games. Two categories would however still pose problems, as some rules could still be considered too arbitrary. Would it for instance mean there will be 16 individual character runs for each street fighter game?

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:20 PM

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adelikat

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3574)

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee

Also, I think it is worth pointing out that the site is unable to unpublish movies at this time. It would require coding it to do so. Also the category thing that Alden brings up would have to be coded as well. Right now there are a number of problems with the site that need to be fixed first. So this situation isn't going to happen right away regardless.

It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects

Posted: 7/17/2009 4:49 PM

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Kuwaga

Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248

I at least feel that the one track publishing should go away. They belong on youtube and in the forums of the respective games imo. I've never got the point of rejecting fastest possible completion of a game that isn't entertaining to watch. If you could just browse through movies by their entertainment ratings those wouldn't get in the way, would they? Having an own category for them would also work.

Posted: 7/17/2009 5:28 PM

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mz

Emulator Coder, Player (79)

Joined: 10/26/2007
Posts: 693

Kuwaga wrote:

I at least feel that the one track publishing should go away.

Agreed, they are completely useless. There are much more entertaining "one-track" movies in YouTube, and lots of them too. I wouldn't like to see the other movies go away (except for those made by Phil which were also automatically accepted by him :P; maybe those should be re-judged now).

You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.

Posted: 7/17/2009 6:45 PM
(Edited: 7/17/2009 6:51 PM)

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Ferret_Warlord

Skilled player (1417)

Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape

Of all the propositions that have been made for this site, this is the one I feel the least comfortable about. I can understand rescuing things from the grue because sometimes the audience's opinion doesn't match up with the judge's, but it's very, very rare for anyone complain to that a run was published; the only time I clearly remember that happening was with one of Phil's runs, and that was simply because of fishy circumstances. Seriously, why is this being brought up? There really hasn't been any clamor for this to happen. Practically the only run that people seriously suggested be unpublished was Guanobowl's Ocarina run for being slower than the current unassisted record. I don't feel there's any need for all this. Edit: The one track racing game runs? Yeah, I'm with Kuwaga on that one. That's like publishing the first level of a platformer.

A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.

Posted: 7/17/2009 6:45 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (829)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

Movie statstics isn't broken anymore, so take a look [URL=http://tasvideos.org/MovieStatistics/LowestEntertainmentRating.html] here.[/URL] 22 movie, or 3.5% of our total movie base, are currently rated under 4 for entertainment. Again, just use this list as idea for possible candidates, this is still just a discussion about the pros and cons. Edit: There are a lot more movies under 4.5 than I thought

Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page

Posted: 7/17/2009 6:48 PM

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arukAdo

Experienced player (961)

Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 939
Location: Castle Keep

Theres lot in there that should not be unpublished, rush'n'attack... actraiser and many others Thats probably a good lead to elaborate a list tought And gratz bringing back the movie search/stats :D

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Posted: 7/17/2009 7:03 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (829)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

I believe that was ShinyDoofy who fixed the ratings page, so all thanks should go to him. And yeah, that list is by no means all enclusive, just a starter, like you said.

Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page

Posted: 7/17/2009 7:05 PM

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Mukki

Skilled player (1099)

Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom

I would have no problem with a movie being unpublished because of it being objectively incompatible with the site's current rules i.e the incomplete runs. However, I don't think that unpublishing movies for lack of entertainment is a good path to take. My main reason for this is that, with a few exceptions, most of the movies listed are over two years old with many being three to four years old. This shows that in recent years the entertainment required to have a movie published in the first place is higher than before. If unpublication was to become an annual thing I don't think that that list would see many new additions from one year to the next and many runs on that list will be obsoleted over time anyway. It is a list that will naturally get smaller over time rather than larger, so why spend time undermining the decision of the judge and the work of the TASer? Of the hundreds of movies we have here I don't think that a few sub-par games harm external perceptions of our standards to such an extent that we should start rewriting the site's history.

http://tasvideos.org/Mukki.html

Posted: 7/17/2009 7:14 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

I'm not in favor of unpublishing runs due to entertainment values and such. However, I do agree that runs that are violating the rules, particularly "submission must complete a game" and "submission must beat all comparable records", might need either rejudging or subjection to quarantine, even if the violation technically happened post factum. The entertainment ratings are heavily influenced by popularity of games. Two different games may both be boring as fuck in their own right, but if one of them was played by a lot of people who remember it fondly (most often only because they do remember them), it will a priori get higher ratings. It's been seen, and it's been expected. So, to answer the "should we unpublish the low-rated movies" question, I guess we should first ask, "do we want only popular content here". I know I don't.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 7/17/2009 7:20 PM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1410)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

Ferret Warlord wrote:

Practically the only run that people seriously suggested be unpublished was Guanobowl's Ocarina run for being slower than the current unassisted record.

What? Were these people serious? That like unpublishing the SMB TAS because a new timesaver has been discovered... Unpublishing a run because it can be improved is way more rediculous than unpublishing something because it's not entertaining. Whether runs should be unpublished because of a lack of entertainment value depends I think, on the direction the site is going as mentioned before. If the same run would clearly be rejected now, then is wouldn't make sense to have it in a site that attempts to provide high quality TASes (with it's main aim entertainment)... if it's to make a full library of games, then it wouldn't make sense to unpublish them.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 7/17/2009 7:28 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (829)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

Ferret: Its being brought up because the idea tends to crop up about three times a year in various submissions, and I wanted a thread to discuss it in the appropriate place, when the talk is not centered around a specific movie. moozooh: There certainly is a relationship between how popular a game is and how highly it gets rated, however I don't think that the inverse in true; very unpopular games don't always get rated extremely poorly. Even if no one has ever heard of a game, if the movie is mildly amusing it tends to attract lots of 5s for entertainment. For a game to get really bad ratings for entertainment, it is usually pretty awful.

Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page

Posted: 7/17/2009 9:44 PM

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Warp

Banned User

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Baxter wrote:

Ferret Warlord wrote:
Practically the only run that people seriously suggested be unpublished was Guanobowl's Ocarina run for being slower than the current unassisted record.
What? Were these people serious? That like unpublishing the SMB TAS because a new timesaver has been discovered... Unpublishing a run because it can be improved is way more rediculous than unpublishing something because it's not entertaining.

It was not being suggested for unpublication because it was not optimal. That had nothing to do with it. It was suggested for unpublication because there was a regular speedrun which was faster. A TAS which aims for maximum speed and does not beat a regular speedrun is not only against the rules, it's also shameful. It's a laughing stock.

Posted: 7/17/2009 11:19 PM
(Edited: 7/17/2009 11:20 PM)

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Nicos

Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893

i'm ok to unpublish tas who don't finish the game ( but we could keep the movie files and simply take the avi) but i'm againt unpublishing completed movies, those movies where accepted once they should stay accepted, it's not because improvements where found or that new tools make them obselete that we should kill the submission... it would be better to just improve them. also if we unpublish the TAS in the selected submision, we should also unpublish all the tas of the same kind, why obseleting the deja vu run and let the other dungeon crawlers ? same goes for Eggerland, isn't it unfair to unpublish this one and let the adventures of lolo stay ? IMO the site should be a gallery on how to complete in a perfect way a maximum of games, even if it's "bad games"... i always tought of nesvideo as a tool assisted SDA (also common' guys we have a tas of Daikatana ! how could we delete something this rare ?) we shouldn't be focused on only "good or known games", we should widden our view but always keep execution quality in mind...

Posted: 7/17/2009 11:20 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

Warp wrote:

A TAS which aims for maximum speed and does not beat a regular speedrun is not only against the rules, it's also shameful. It's a laughing stock.

In response to OoT being suboptimal. At the time when the all temples TAS was submitted I did suggest that it could obselete the current any% because it was superior in comparable aspects. It's likely the current all temples TAS will be obseleted before the any% does, so it could be reconsidered. but it's extremely unlikely there would be a double obseletion. Also, the the current SDA run is not faster than the movie here when comparable timing methods are used. As we all know it's due to new methods which entirely mock the goals which the current any% must do to advance in the game.

Posted: 7/17/2009 11:25 PM

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snorlax

He/Him

Joined: 5/20/2007
Posts: 174
Location: Wisconsin

Here's another vote for unpublishing the two one track racing games. I haven't watched either of them, but I don't think either submission would last more than a few days on the Workbench today. I do disagree with unpublishing movies that are low on the entertainment list. I enjoy many of those movies, and I don't see many good things coming out of a discussion of which ones should be removed. I think a better goal would be to obsolete as many of those movies as possible.

Posted: 7/17/2009 11:57 PM

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gia

Player (109)

Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223

Warp wrote:

Baxter wrote:
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Practically the only run that people seriously suggested be unpublished was Guanobowl's Ocarina run for being slower than the current unassisted record.
What? Were these people serious? That like unpublishing the SMB TAS because a new timesaver has been discovered... Unpublishing a run because it can be improved is way more rediculous than unpublishing something because it's not entertaining.
It was not being suggested for unpublication because it was not optimal. That had nothing to do with it. It was suggested for unpublication because there was a regular speedrun which was faster. A TAS which aims for maximum speed and does not beat a regular speedrun is not only against the rules, it's also shameful. It's a laughing stock.

It's not a laughing stock, it was just beaten by a speedrun, if the speedrunner had tried a tas instead they would have got an even faster time. Usually it's because of a new trick or soemthing like that. However it is true that if a tas gets beaten on its own rules by a speedrun then it has been obsoleted. (but I read the speedrun in case is still slower under same timing rules) Maybe if it gets obsoleted and a link to the speedrun is posted in the description, that would be more fair.

Posted: 7/18/2009 12:07 AM

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Chef_Stef

Editor, Active player (476)

Joined: 5/23/2006
Posts: 361
Location: Washington, United States

I think unpublishing is a tricky thing to do because it removes the "security" people get for their work once their movie is published. It would be really disappointing/frustrating to have a movie published (i.e. judged to be a quality addition to this site) and later removed. I don't think this would happen to very many movies even if it were done, but the threat would be there, especially for movies that are borderline on entertainment. I would be fine with certain runs being unpublished (such as the 1-track runs mentioned earlier), but only as a special case. If unpublishing were to be put in practice in general, I would only agree to it if the four conditions put forward by adelikat were used (great suggestions, by the way). Otherwise, I would be against it.

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