TASvideos has evolved greatly over the past years. We've gotten a new site, new administration, new rules and systems for our content, and we even managed to add an S onto that ol' HTTP. With the amount of positive change and additions we've made lately, it's only natural that we need to reach out to people to help us with the increased workflow.
Therefore, from now on,
TASvideos will be permanently calling for contributors, including staff positions!
While I say "applications" are always open, there is no actual formal application other than just letting the right person know you're interested in helping out. Also, "applications" will always be accepted even if we are not currently actively seeking people, so don't hesitate to reach out at any time! We'll be keeping track of everyone who's interested and will contact them if spots become available. Qualifications and points of contact will be maintained both in this thread and on the
Contributions wiki page, which is like this thread but formatted differently!
As much as I'd love to say otherwise, all positions, staff included, are unpaid volunteer positions. We do this for fun, and because we love this hobby, this site, and the community, but we all have lives outside of the site, and those lives always take precedence over the ones we can sacrifice to save six seconds on that boss fight.
Open Positions
Judges
Reviewers
Publishers
Encoders
Contributions
Site Developers
Editors
Senior Staff
Site Admins:
Memory,
feos, and
Samsara
Site Owner/Lead Developer:
adelikat
Senior Judge:
Samsara
Senior Publisher:
fsvgm777
Senior Ambassador:
dwangoAC
Senior Moderator:
moozooh
Staff Positions and Qualifications
Staff members all represent TASvideos. As such, they are expected to be active, friendly, and helpful members of the community above all else.
Reviewing and Judging
Judges are members of the site experienced with the process of creating tool-assisted speedruns that have been entrusted with the responsibility of approving or rejecting movies that have been submitted. Judges lead the community in setting the rules and standards that submissions must meet and follow.
Reviewers make up a trusted panel of experienced members that analyze and provide feedback on submissions when necessary. They operate similarly to Judges, and are expected to have similar qualifications in turn. While they are not directly able to process submissions, they are able to
review them on behalf of Judges, and Judges can subsequently sign off on those reviews as official judgements.
All Judges and Reviewers are expected to follow the
Judge Guidelines.
1. Judges and Reviewers need experience with high-level TASing and a keen understanding of optimization.
TASing experience allows Judges and Reviewers to distinguish between suboptimal and optimal play without demanding unreasonable efforts on behalf of the authors. High-level knowledge of the workflow gives Judges and Reviewers a keen eye for recognizing where improvements can and should be made in submissions, as well as how to implement those improvements. You are not required to have published runs to become a Judge or Reviewer, though having them is recommended as an easy way to prove your experience.
2. Judges and Reviewers must be nice, active, and helpful members of the community.
Judges and Reviewers should be prepared to work with not just the rest of the staff team, but the whole TASVideos community at large. You must be able to communicate with people in a friendly manner, ask and answer questions, clarify anything people are confused about, and collect a variety of opinions, coming to the conclusion that best serves the community. TASers make our site exist, so the main goal of a Judge or Reviewer is to understand and support their best interests by respecting their work, encouraging them to do more cool things, and satisfying their needs through staff activity.
If you are not already in our
Discord server, joining it is a requirement in order to engage with the community and keep up with staff discussions.
3. Judges and Reviewers must have a proper understanding of the rules, guidelines, and approaches that are applied to the movies being judged.
There will be submissions that challenge the rules and guidelines we have created, so understanding them is a must for a Judge or a Reviewer. However, a proper understanding of our rules does not mean they must be followed in all cases. Nothing in the rules should feel unclear or unreasonable to a Judge or Reviewer, so they are expected to speak up in those cases. Always consider how a rule could change to better reflect the needs of the TASers.
4. Judges should be ready and able to set up and run emulators of variety of systems.
As the time goes by, more and more systems become TASable. It is important to know how to deal with their emulators, because more and more submissions of their games will hit the queue. Some emulators have not been designed with user friendliness in mind, and some effort is required to replay movies on them. We do not want such exotic emulators to be neglected.
While this isn't a strict requirement, having Judges and Reviewers that can work with exotic emulators is a huge benefit to the rest of the team.
If you are interested in becoming a Judge, contact
Samsara, the current Senior Judge. You can also find her at Literally This Post That You Are Reading.
Encoding and Publishing
The Encoder role denotes one who has permission to add their own encodes to current and obsolete publications. They adhere to the
Encoder Guidelines without oversight. Encoders are not considered staff, though the position often leads to becoming a Publisher.
To be assigned the Encoder role, an encoder must demonstrate the following:
- An ability to consistently produce encodes that meet the encoding standards (around 3-4 to begin with is usually sufficient).
- A thorough understanding of the Encoder Guidelines and familiarity with the Encoding Guide, in particular the sections in the publication manual related to encoding and the encode filenames, as well as uploading to Archive and YouTube (on TASVideosChannel)
- An approved movie logo (Logo approval is at the discretion of the senior publisher or admin-level staff; for approval, a logo must meet requirements listed in the Encoder Guidelines - the logo history has some examples of approved logos)
Once a run has been accepted, Publishers are responsible for assembling the materials necessary for the run to be widely accessible. In particular, they are responsible for approval of the high-quality video files that accompany any new publication; they also select screenshots and write movie descriptions for new movies.
Publishers start off as Encoders, and as such are expected to have met those qualifications, as well as the following:
- Encodes made for at least 3 publications from the Workbench
- The ability to select and compress movie screenshots and to write a basic movie description (or recruit assistance from editors to do so)
- The desire and willingness to publish movies at a consistent pace: it is not required to publish a large quantity of publications but they should happen somewhat regularly
- Good relations with the TASVideos community - as staff members, Publishers are expected to be well-behaved and significant contributors to the community in general
In essence, a publisher must not only be able to make quality encodes but also put together a quality publication, including a nice screenshot, movie description, and streaming media uploads. The image of TASVideos should be that a new publication is of a certain standard and is presented and promoted well.
If you are interested in encoding or publishing for the site, contact
fsvgm777, the current Senior Publisher.
Contributor Support Roles
These roles are not explicitly staff, though they may be given extra privileges that elevate them above normal users. Contributors are expected to be active and helpful members of the community, not misusing their privileges.
Site Developers
Site Developers contibute code to the site through
the site's Github. Anyone can contribute code at any time, and those with C# development experience are encouraged to help out in any way they can.
If you are interested in a more active and constant development role for the site, contact
adelikat, the Site Owner and lead Site Developer.
Editors
Editors help maintain the site wiki, cleaning up and updating game information, fixing formatting errors and typos, and whatever else they can find. Creating
game pages for
submissions with no game listing and adding rom hashes to
game listings currently without are currently high priorities. There are no requirements to become an Editor, simply ask and you'll get the role.
If you are interested in becoming an Editor, contact
Memory,
feos, or
Samsara, the Site Admins.
