Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
feos, that picture is rather hilarious given the fact that probably about 95 to 99% of TASes published on the site focus solely on completing the game as fast as possible (sometimes with side goals, which still have to be completed as fast as possible). It's the non-speed-oriented "superplays" that are in the significant minority. Yet the sizes of these two areas are completely reversed in your picture.
I swear I'm not nitpicking in the least when I say this: I honestly and genuinely can't understand why some people seem to be so obsessed in maintaining that these are "superplays", not "speedruns", and seem to pretend like actual speed-oriented playthroughs are simply a small minority of all published runs. What's so shameful in calling this a speedrunning site, which sometimes also publishes non-speed-oriented playthroughs?
The vast majority of people out there know this as a speedrunning site. It looks to me that only a few people here adamantly maintain otherwise, for reasons unknown.
Warp, we know Nach can sometimes take things too far but I believe he's sincere when he says he respects you. Let's set aside the personal relationship conversation and focus on the intent of the discussion instead; I trust the two of you are mature enough to hash out your relationship in a less public forum.
I know what it is to have a stubborn personality that sometimes goes too far, with complete disregard to what the other people on the other side of the screen feel. I know this because I have been like that. Text on a computer screen is so impersonal, and it's oftentimes hard to remember that there's an actual human being behind that text, and thus things are sometimes said that one would never say in person (or at least I wouldn't.) It's a learning and growing experience.
If people want to make fun of me (which I know painfully well is sometimes happening behind the scenes, where I'm not present, eg. at IRC), well, shame on them. I have grown a rather thick skin over the years (in some sense perhaps unfortunately.) I just wish that members of the site staff acted with a bit more professionalism. Criticizing what I say is, of course, completely fine. Making it personal is not. Especially in public.
With this I'm not accusing all members, of course!
Disclaimer: I am posting this fully aware that my official role and weight in TASVideos decision making at this point is akin to nothing but a cheerleader.History time!
The focus of TASVideos, as I established it, was to provide high-quality videos of flabbergasting superhuman performances in videogames. Within that framework, the primary goal was “videos that people would enjoy watching”.
Then, it was Nach, who suggested that I should bring up the community aspect around it — something that I had totally and completely underestimated the value of — and I did. And it has been a core aspect of TASVideos ever since. Both the IRC channel, and the discussion forums. And nowadays, the Discord server.
TASVideos welcomed community submissions since day one. As more submissions poured in, it became evident that we need to define the site focus better. A focus on speedruns — performances that attempt to beat the game in absolute minimal time given particular goals — was inevitable; this is one of the few notions that are clearly quantifiable, that is, strictly comparable — able to be judged unambiguously in a lesser-greater order.
Nonetheless, speedruns is not what TASVideos is. TASVideos is about entertaining videogame videos. The thing that brings people to this site, and the thing that keeps them coming back, is the expectation to find amazing video releases on the front page. This is the primary publications list.
However, there is another factor that emerged at some point. TASVideos is also a one-of-a-kind library. It is the biggest and only website in the world that collects, nurtures and curates tool-assisted speedruns. (This is why I chose an .org domain, or earlier, .info, rather than a .com one.) This brings certain information-preservalist responsibilities. But being a library, and also an entertainment site, means that some of the conflicting responsibilities need clever compromises: We must collect all speedruns, or at least one of each game. We should also collect notable tool-assisted performances that are not speedruns. But we should also keep a high signal-to-noise ratio in terms of entertaining runs. We should also do the best to keep track of history, meaning knowledge of players, knowledge of history of each speedrun and speedrun category, knowledge of game versions that have been played, knowledge of the site itself, and so on. And we should document the findings and research that went into the making of each run, and knowledge that could go into making of future runs. And we should do all this in the highest and most lossless (or near lossless) quality possible. Yet, our files should be most accessible, so as to not exclude people who are behind slow and expensive Internet links or who use old performance-deficient computers: a library is public community service (despite being privately maintained), and it should provide equal access within reasonable limits. Equal access also benefits the entertainment aspect.
All these factors contribute into defining what TASVideos is.
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Warp wrote:
feos, that picture is rather hilarious given the fact that probably about 95 to 99% of TASes published on the site focus solely on completing the game as fast as possible (sometimes with side goals, which still have to be completed as fast as possible). It's the non-speed-oriented "superplays" that are in the significant minority. Yet the sizes of these two areas are completely reversed in your picture.
That's exactly what I predicted as your reply. Nice job.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
However, there is another factor that emerged at some point. TASVideos is also a one-of-a-kind library. It is the biggest and only website in the world that collects, nurtures and curates tool-assisted speedruns. (This is why I chose an .org domain, or earlier, .info, rather than a .com one.) This brings certain information-preservalist responsibilities. But being a library, and also an entertainment site, means that some of the conflicting responsibilities need clever compromises: We must collect all speedruns, or at least one of each game. We should also collect notable tool-assisted performances that are not speedruns. But we should also keep a high signal-to-noise ratio in terms of entertaining runs. We should also do the best to keep track of history, meaning knowledge of players, knowledge of history of each speedrun and speedrun category, knowledge of game versions that have been played, knowledge of the site itself, and so on. And we should document the findings and research that went into the making of each run, and knowledge that could go into making of future runs. And we should do all this in the highest and most lossless (or near lossless) quality possible. Yet, our files should be most accessible, so as to not exclude people who are behind slow and expensive Internet links or who use old performance-deficient computers: a library is public community service (despite being privately maintained), and it should provide equal access within reasonable limits. Equal access also benefits the entertainment aspect.
Although this may unfortunately open a can of worms...
If we are a library, what's the harm in including educational/board game/interactive fiction style runs? These types of titles wouldn't dilute the entertainment value of the site any more than the vault already has.
Just because some (or even most) people may find these titles to be unentertaining, doesn't mean everyone finds them unentertaining.
I understand the triviality argument, including when it's based on a TAS run being indiscernible from human play. But just because a game is trivial or indiscernible from human play doesn't mean it shouldn't be archived as the best known completion. Nor does it mean it's inherently unentertaining (Dragon's Lair is trivial, but some still find TAS runs of it entertaining).
To use an analogy based on libraries: most libraries I've been in have children's books like those written by Dr. Seuss available, even though those books would be considered trivial and simplistic to individuals who are there seeking the works of Dickens, Rand, or Dostoevsky. The libraries still carry all levels of reading knowing that their patrons are all at different levels.
The argument of triviality regarding video games, (to me) is an argument of entertainment. To reject edutainment/board games/interactive stories on this basis of triviality (or intent) suggests that triviality (or education) can't be entertaining to a patron. At some point in our site's history the vault was developed to house speedruns that weren't considered entertaining. Why does triviality matter if we're not concerned with the entertainment value of vault runs? If it's a title that can be speedrun and is TASable, we should consider hosting the result regardless of triviality. Yes, even if this means we have to unfortunately publish Desert Bus.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I felt that Bisqwit's post described exactly why we should consider hosting these types of runs even though it wasn't the original intent of the site creator.
Bisqwit wrote:
Nonetheless, speedruns is not what TASVideos is. TASVideos is about entertaining videogame videos.
If entertainment is all the staff/community wants to be concerned with, then we must consider the proposition to eliminate the vault; though I'm sure this would anger a lot of the community. Many of us produce TASes knowing before we ever start working on them that they are doomed for a vault publication. It doesn't change the fact that we enjoy the process.
I anticipate rebuttal claiming that adding in trivial/edutainment/board games/interactive titles would create a greater amount of work for staff, encoders, and publishers. While I don't disagree with this statement; my simple response is this: no one claimed archival was easy.
IMO, a simple solution to publishing these style runs would be to add the following movie classes: Edutainment, Board Game, Interactive Fiction. Then simply have the option to filter--based on these classes--what publications show up when someone browses the site. We already filter browsing of NES runs based on Vault vs. Moon/Star by default. Similarly we could default the filter to not include these movie classes in the entertainment based sections of the site.
For what it's worth, I'm willing to help with whatever I'm able based on my knowledge, time, and my computer's capabilities.
That's exactly what I predicted as your reply. Nice job.
Since you didn't even try to defend yourself, I'll take that as a concession that you chose those two areas in the picture deliberately to be misleading (most probably to elicit such a response from me). In other words, there was no honesty in you making that picture.
Btw, I also love how a member of the site staff is taunting/mocking me, right in the thread where I criticize some members of the site staff for doing exactly that.
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Wow. Your whole life has less honesty than my picture.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I understand the triviality argument, including when it's based on a TAS run being indiscernible from human play.
Being indiscernible from human play cannot in itself be any sort of grounds for disqualification, given that some TASes are extremely close to their unassisted counterparts. Sometimes even pretty high-profile ones, such as Super Mario Bros (with the unassisted world record being a mere 2 seconds slower than the TAS, using the same timing system).
The triviality argument make sense for "games" that aren't actually games. At least not ones where completion isn't really a well-defined concept, or there simply aren't really anything that could be considered gameplay mechanics. (For example a trivia game that consists merely of multiple-choice questions isn't really a "game" per se, as it contains nothing that could be considered gameplay mechanics. Of course with some games this distinction can become blurry and ambiguous.)
Where this whole thing starts becoming a bit ridiculous is when rules of thumb, guiding principles, examples, are being taken as hard rules. For instance, the notion that edutainment games are usually the kind of games that aren't "real" games (at least in the sense that it's reasonable to create a TAS of them). Sure, that may be a good general rule of thumb, but when it's taken as a hard rule, it allows for no exceptions. It becomes especially ridiculous if, as was the famous case, "edutainment game" is taken as anything where the player has to answer some math questions, completely regardless of whatever other gameplay mechanics there might be in the game. This whole thing is kind of like not seeing the forest for the trees.
If entertainment is all the staff/community wants to be concerned with, then we must consider the proposition to eliminate the vault; though I'm sure this would anger a lot of the community.
The Vault tier was an excellent addition to the site (which I wholeheartedly supported and promoted). Prior to it, there was what essentially was a slightly loosened "Moons tier" only. In other words, TASes of games were only accepted if they were "entertaining enough" (with, possibly, slightly lower standards of qualification than the current Moons).
Vault was created to allow any game to have a TAS, completely regardless of entertainment value. I have always said that entertainment is subjective, and the TAS of any game can be interesting and entertaining to somebody. (Very typically somebody could have played a particular, perhaps more obscure game as a kid, and would now be interested in seeing a TAS of it. If TASes of ZX Spectrum games were reasonably feasible, I certainly would be interested in seeing TASes of many games I played as a kid, even if they would be "boring" to most other people who have never played nor seen those games.)
Many of us produce TASes knowing before we ever start working on them that they are doomed for a vault publication. It doesn't change the fact that we enjoy the process.
I have been trying for long to promote the idea of elevating the status of Vault. For it not to be considered a sort of "garbage dump" for all the "boring" runs. A fame that I don't think those runs deserve. I think getting to Vault should be an honor, a privilege (similar to how getting to the top of the list at speedrun.com is), not a "punishment". But while there have been some further ideas thrown around (eg. by feos), it has never gained any further traction, sadly.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
interactive fiction style runs
Most of these cannot be published for legal reasons.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
'll take that as a concession that you chose those two areas in the picture deliberately to be misleading
As I wrote on IRC when feos first posted it, there is no way to draw it with size realism:
<Nach> there's no way to guage the true size of anything because it's up to what people make which can change at any time
<Nach> so you're just describing the idea, and the ratios are not important
Also, bear in mind his image it not limited to TASVideos. I doubt superplay is such a large subset of play in reality, but there's no actual way to know what people are doing behind closed doors.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Most of these cannot be published for legal reasons.
That makes sense.
Some would argue that a lot of what we do publish is in a legal grey area. Interactive fiction would definitely be more B/W regarding copyright.
As I wrote on IRC when feos first posted it, there is no way to draw it with size realism
Maybe. It just felt like the "tool-assisted speedrun" section was deliberately drawn very small.
Anyway, it's just a petty thing. Let's move on to something more constructive.
On that context, I wish it could be possible to submit a movie with it being automatically attributed a time everywhere on the site, it makes all scoring TASes very weird.
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Okay let's go.
feos posts a picture of a Venn diagram describing how some kinds of play relate to each other.
The post has a subject:
I have no idea how to draw such stuff properly, but...
The diagram shows subsets of play relevant to the prior discussion: superplay, tool-assisted play, and speedrunning.
There is a Wikipedia article about Venn diagrams. It says:
A Venn diagram (also called primary diagram, set diagram or logic diagram) is a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets.
A Venn diagram in which the area of each shape is proportional to the number of elements it contains is called an area-proportional or scaled Venn diagram.
Venn diagrams normally comprise overlapping circles. The interior of the circle symbolically represents the elements of the set, while the exterior represents elements that are not members of the set. For instance, in a two-set Venn diagram, one circle may represent the group of all wooden objects, while another circle may represent the set of all tables. The overlapping region or intersection would then represent the set of all wooden tables. Shapes other than circles can be employed as shown below by Venn's own higher set diagrams. Venn diagrams do not generally contain information on the relative or absolute sizes (cardinality) of sets; i.e. they are schematic diagrams.
The image shows us that tool-assisted speedrunning is a subset of tool-assisted superplay.
Warp says:
feos, that picture is rather hilarious given the fact that probably about 95 to 99% of TASes published on the site focus solely on completing the game as fast as possible (sometimes with side goals, which still have to be completed as fast as possible). It's the non-speed-oriented "superplays" that are in the significant minority. Yet the sizes of these two areas are completely reversed in your picture.
By replying in this manner, Warp shows that he has hallucinated a set called "the site" on that diagram, as well as some "focus" of that hallucinated site.
By replaying in this manner, Warp also shows that he believes that right after "having no idea how to draw such stuff properly", the author of the diagram managed to draw a scaled Venn diagram instead of the more common one.
By believing in that, Warp shows that for him it is theoretically possible to measure:
a) all play in the universe,
b) all superplay in the universe,
c) all tool-assisted play in the universe,
d) all speedrunning in the universe,
e) all cheated play in the universe,
f) all tool-assisted superplay in the universe,
g) all tool-assisted speedrunning in the universe, and
h) all real-time speedrunning in the universe
all at once, despite the fact that they are all abstractuncountable entities. As in, he uses to say "my brother recorded 7 speedrunnings yesterday".
Maybe it's not obvious that they are uncountable nouns, and "speedrunning" doesn't even exist in OxfordDictionaries or Dictionary.Cambridge. But to a sensible human being it is obvious that the word "speedrunning" is derived from the word "running". And both OxfordDictionaries and Dictionary.Cambridgeclearly define it as uncountable.
Warp resumes with this:
I swear I'm not nitpicking in the least when I say this: I honestly and genuinely can't understand why some people seem to be so obsessed in maintaining that these are "superplays", not "speedruns", and seem to pretend like actual speed-oriented playthroughs are simply a small minority of all published runs. What's so shameful in calling this a speedrunning site, which sometimes also publishes non-speed-oriented playthroughs?
Now, in addition to the hallucinated "the site" he has seen on the picture, he visualizes "published runs" on it.
By saying the above he admits that he has never seen sets being used to describe something. Because from the picture he so criticizes it is obvious, that "speedrun" is a subset of "superplay", therefore it is possible to refer to something as "superplay, not speedrun", or, "superplay, speedrun", but it's impossible to refer to something "speedrun, not superplay", because there's no set where that would be true on that picture.
Another hallucinated entity now is "shame", which clearly has no relation with reality described by the picture in question.
Warp proceeds with this:
The vast majority of people out there know this as a speedrunning site. It looks to me that only a few people here adamantly maintain otherwise, for reasons unknown.
Zero relation to the picture found, can be ignored.
feos says:
That's exactly what I predicted as your reply. Nice job.
That prediction has been made on IRC to express expectation that Warp will not pay any attention to the actual argument behind the picture, but will instead nitpick about the incorrect proportions of perfect circles and their fractions produced by overlaps. The message behind the picture happens to match what Nach independently said while that picture was being made:
The key point in why this is important: Speedruns are a subset of Superplays, and we want to keep publishing the entire superset.
The fact that such predictions happen to be accurate means that Warp is predictable, lacks common sense, lacks understanding of the English language, lacks understanding of the topic at hand, and uses to cheat in arguments where logic is supposed to be used.
After seeing that he is fully predictable, Warp decided to post a reply:
Warp wrote:
Since you didn't even try to defend yourself
This shows that topics are not being discussed when Warp participates in a thread; the only thing that is being discussed is personalities of his opponents. feos didn't need to defend himself, because he has not been attacked, and even if he was, that would hold zero value in a discussion, where logic and objective facts are supposed to be used.
Warp proceeds with this:
I'll take that as a concession that you chose those two areas in the picture deliberately to be misleading (most probably to elicit such a response from me).
As discussed above, it is completely impossible to measure appropriate sizes of perfect circles representing how uncountable abstract entities overlap. This impossibility leads Warp to the conclusion that this impossibility was deliberately crafted in the real world by feos, only "to be misleading", and also probably to provoke a specific kind of illogical and absurd reply from Warp.
By posting such a conclusion Warp admits that he believes that feos is capable of manipulating the objective reality of the universe in order to influence Warp's way of making posts.
Warp resumes:
In other words, there was no honesty in you making that picture.
feos's honesty has been shown in finest details on the same page as that picture. Driving principles behind his contribution to TASVideos can be understood from that post. Those principles are absolutely incompatible with dishonesty.
Visualizing feos's dishonesty in things directly connected to TASing, Warp attacks value feos sees in TASVideos and TASing in general. By choosing to attack things that feos values in TASVideos and TASing, Warp admits that he is incapable of having a discussion that's free from personal accusations and filled with objective facts and logic, neither is he interested in having such a discussion.
Warp concludes:
Btw, I also love how a member of the site staff is taunting/mocking me, right in the thread where I criticize some members of the site staff for doing exactly that.
By stating things like this Warp once again demonstrates that he believes that objective reality is under heavy manipulative pressure from feos, with a simple goal of "taunting/mocking" Warp. If one can be "taunted/mocked" by a Venn diagram that describes objective reality and has zero relation to personal issues, then it is a dangerous situation where one can also be mocked by a table or taunted by a pudding.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Dacicus wrote:
Nach wrote:
DrD2k9 wrote:
interactive fiction style runs
Most of these cannot be published for legal reasons.
What's different, legally, for interactive fiction versus other games?
Simple - the entirety of the work is shown essentially unchanged and thus it is not a transformative work, as Nach describes in Wiki: Nach/FairUse in great detail.
Hi Warp - I'm on staff and I do not believe I have taunted you in the course of this conversation but I'd like to note that you've been rather aggressively presuming you are the subject of taunts or attacks even when people are simply trying to express that they don't agree with you using neutral wording. Now, there *have* been some comments in this thread against you that I think have been over the line and I'm not about to defend those people, but I'd like to reinforce that you have the power to choose where (and if) you will respond. I care a lot about the subject being discussed here and I would like this personal disagreement to move out of this thread as I noted earlier. Thank you for bringing the topic back to the subject of the origins of the TASVideos name in your later responses.
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feos wrote:
By believing in that, Warp shows that for him it is theoretically possible to measure:
...
I'm not disagreeing with your overall premise, but I think that this remark is a bit too harsh. To me it was clear looking at your graphic which includes many things not published here that it doesn't focus on what's published here. However, it's possible when focusing on some part of it to miss the big picture. Obviously what you're suggesting is ridiculous, but I don't think you need to spell it out to this extent. For this part of your post, I'd understand why Warp would get defensive, since the response is overly pedantic and protracted.
feos wrote:
The fact that such predictions happen to be accurate means that Warp is predictable, lacks common sense, lacks understanding of the English language, lacks understanding of the topic at hand, and uses to cheat in arguments where logic is supposed to be used.
As dwangoAC said earlier, let's not assume why someone said something they did, and attribute bad faith. We're not mind readers.feos wrote:
By posting such a conclusion Warp admits that he believes that feos is capable of manipulating the objective reality of the universe in order to influence Warp's way of making posts.
I think Warp is rather suggesting that people are deliberately posting things to trip him up. His conclusion to me isn't saying you're manipulating the "reality of the universe" but rather a kind of cruel psychology crafted specifically to annoy him.
However, let us keep in mind what dwangoAC said earlier which I just mentioned a moment ago.
feos wrote:
By stating things like this Warp once again demonstrates that he believes that objective reality is under heavy manipulative pressure from feos, with a simple goal of "taunting/mocking" Warp. If one can be "taunted/mocked" by a Venn diagram that describes objective reality and has zero relation to personal issues, then it is a dangerous situation where one can also be mocked by a table or taunted by a pudding.
Again while not disagreeing with your premise, since we unfortunately live in a world today where people are getting offended by math and other things. I still think this post went a bit too overboard, and if he complained about this post in particular, I'd agree with him. Let's try to reign it in a bit.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Warp says:
By replying in this manner, Warp shows that he has hallucinated a set
By replaying in this manner, Warp also shows that
By believing in that, Warp shows that
Warp resumes with this:
Warp proceeds with this:
After seeing that he is fully predictable, Warp decided to post a reply:
Warp proceeds with this:
probably to provoke a specific kind of illogical and absurd reply from Warp.
By posting such a conclusion Warp admits that
in order to influence Warp's way of making posts.
Warp resumes:
Warp admits that he is incapable of having a discussion
Warp concludes:
By stating things like this Warp once again demonstrates that
with a simple goal of "taunting/mocking" Warp.
You are deliberately doing this, aren't you?
Nobody writes like this, with the person being present, unless they are mocking, condescending, or deliberately taunting. Especially not in this context. This is not a style of writing that's intended to be a discussion. It's a style that's intended to be either condescending or mocking, or both.
dwangoAC wrote:
Hi Warp - I'm on staff and I do not believe I have taunted you in the course of this conversation
I have emphasized several times that I have experienced this from some of the members of the site staff, but obviously not all of them. I would like to repeat that.
dwangoAC wrote:
I'd like to note that you've been rather aggressively presuming you are the subject of taunts or attacks even when people are simply trying to express that they don't agree with you using neutral wording.
In this particular case, I don't think the above is "neutral wording". It's written exactly as condescending and mocking.
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Warp wrote:
Nobody writes like this, with the person being present, unless they are mocking, condescending, or deliberately taunting.
That's a false trichotomy, based on the assumption of malicious intent.
Take a moment to see things from feos' perspective. He posted a neutral venn diagram to show the relationship between various sets. You immediately jumped on it nitpicking assuming malicious intent, which the rest of our members are also reading. The style he wrote in is common to those trying to defends themselves to the larger audience.
He rightly pointed out that you rushed to blast his diagram without taking a moment to reflect on what it was depicting, and said he posted it maliciously. You're correct that the style of his large post there is not the kind normally used in one on one discussion, however it would be the style that would be used if feos is trying to defend his actions to the larger audience.
Now I do agree that his rigorous defense went a bit overboard, and I asked him both here and privately to reign it in a bit. Please however stop assuming people are out to get you. I cannot speak for feos, but I'm not out to get you. I like you very much.
I'd like it if we can move on without anyone trying to play the victim or persecution card. We're all here because we love TASs whatever that may mean to you personally. I believe we all want what's best for the site. Please, let us try to put aside our differences and focus on what we do agree on.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Someone suggested we call it TASVideos if we define it as Tool-Assisted Superplays
Warp wrote:
Reminds me how a few people went to absolutely ridiculous extents to maintain that these were "timeattacks", not "speedruns"
I think that both of these quotes refer to me.
Bisqwit and I independently started our sites in Nov/Dec 2003 after being inspired by Morimoto's SMB3 movie.
Fortunately my old site is archived.
As of 25 Dec 2003, I had only real-time runs (except Morimoto's) and called them "speed runs." Bisqwit and I made contact with each other in Jan 2004.
As of 4 Feb 2004, I had the different types mixed together, calling them "speed runs (aka time attacks)." I called them "time attacks" because that is what the original mario3.wmv called Morimoto's movie.
As of 21 Mar 2004, to avoid confusion, I changed the title of the page to "NES Superplays." The movies were distinctly separated into "three kinds of superplay videos." A "speed run" was a real-time movie, a "time attack" was aimed at theoretical perfection (timewise), and an "aesthetic form" was an entertaining playaround (not time-focused).
As of 25 Jul 2004, I changed "time attack" to "timeattack" and added this sentence to the end of the definition: "Sometimes called tool-assisted speedruns."
As of 7 Mar 2005, I redesigned the site as "Arc's Superplay Temple" and added some writing, specifically about the naming and so-called cheating issue. In the expanded definition of "timeattack," I wrote, "I don't use the phrase 'tool-assisted' because it's a euphemism and it's a definition rather than a term. Even worse is 'tool-assisted speedrun,' which improperly categorizes timeattacks as a type of speedrun (which implies that the two are directly comparable) instead of as a type of superplay."
In May 2005, we discussed "tool-assisted speedrun" vs "timeattack" in this thread.
As of 29 Jul 2005, I considered my site "obsoleted" and jokingly added the category "Uses the term timeattack" to indicate that I was the only one still supporting the use of the term by that time.
The earliest available archive of Bisqwit's site is 29 Dec 2004. This is what the top left corner looked like then:
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Some archives:
— https://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/backup-nesvideos.php February 2004 (this is roughly when I began to realize the site is a thing. At this point, the “site” was just one PHP file that included some general-purpose headers from my personal site.)
— https://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesv-old/ June 2004 (shortly before the wiki rewrite. I had begun adding support for SNES & Genesis movies, but I realized the site is quickly becoming an unmaintainable mess if I continue using its then-current code, so I had to rewrite it. I also wanted to shift weight off my email box.)
— https://bisqwit.iki.fi/wikisites/tasvideos-aural/ April 1st 2008 (Added aural entertainment)
Aside from that April Fools prank, I never did live archives of the site after I converted it into a wiki. This is because there were too many components that would all have to be installed and configured; especially the databases. It was not as simple as just copying a directory. I did make backups of both databases individually, and also of the source code. For the source code, every single one of those backups still exist and are available in my Git repository (the oldest one is 2004-06-05). If the current admins have maintained good repository discipline, they have them too. The initial backups did not contain a copy of the forum software, as it was a stock phpBB2 and I did not think it would be worth it to backup separately. The first commit where I included the forum files was in February 2007.
However, as for the databases, I have maintained a different backup policy. I use a rotation system for backups, where I maintain three latest backups, and always delete the oldest one. Because of that, I only have recent backups, not old ones. Nevertheless, the oldest archived database dump for TASVideos that I have, is from August 6 2012, separate from the primary backup system. This is several years after the site was no longer hosted on my server. There is a high likelihood that the database would be incompatible with the earlier source code in more than one way.
EDIT: I found more backups.
— https://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesv-old2/site2/ (This is a never-seen-before backup from the wiki site when I was still developing it, before I made it public. Because it pulls data from the 2012 database, there are lots of missing module errors.)
There is also a backup of the initial wiki files, from the time before I had built an editing interface for them. I have put them here: http://tasvideos.org/Bisqwit/InitialWikiPages.html
