Spazzo

The board needs a lot more than judges, let me tell you ... ... ...

Frankly, judging community WADs based on standards constructed by a private minority of individuals is a completely asinine method of quality assurance, given the lack of feedback from a more central and active portion of this community for which these WADs are targeted towards to begin with. You wanna expedite the process? Remove the oddly coveted "Judges" group and let the users decide for themselves which WADs pass quality control or not with the ratings system already implemented in the damn forums.

JEV3

Considering that most of the activity on behalf of the judges is basically checking to make sure its not a sprite rip, music wad, and not broken... you might say that the alternative is to go through and lock topics after the fact just for breaking the rules of the releases. This seems a tad more efficient to me. Also, as stated before, SpiritCrusher's just the only judge that doesn't have any other position on the forum.

Torgo

I don't think the srb2 forum should go back to having all submissions go through. Wads that absolutely don't work (like you can't finish if you get stuck in a certain spot, or flat out crashing the game) should not go through.

I remember being pretty lenient on judging maps as I got more into judging, even allowing wads that were thought by some of the public to be a waste of time. It was hard for me on certain wads to even get the motivation to make sure that the wad didn't break, because I thought that it would not be fun wad for me to test. I do wish I was a bit better in letting my feelings about the map or even the map creator at times not interfere with the time it took me to actually test the wad.

On the ones that DID break I wanted to not only make sure that the error was corrected, but I wanted to give some general advice on how to make the map better. That process takes quite a while to show what specific areas of the map could use more help.

I do wish I was a bit more lenient on SOCs. I didn't really know enough about SOCs to the minimum required to have "merit". Maybe now it could just be if the SOC works, then let it in and let the public decide on how good or bad it is.

Maybe the judging team could be more lenient to the point of the only rule being if the modification breaks then don't accept, but they are probably more like that already.

Autosaver

And why can't the users test it out to see if it isn't broken? The amount of users could even fine spots that crash/get stuck much faster.

There are many users on these boards that could also do this. If there is a broken wad, any user could tell what the problem is and resolve the issue. Judges should have the ability to move/lock/delete in an open forum too. If a user claims a wad is broken, a judge won't even have to download the file. They can easily just lock the thread.

Jeck

Honestly, I feel that most, if not anyone else given a "position" on the form, would abuse it. I don't even trust myself. On top of finding someone who wouldn't abuse power, we need someone fair, has a great knowledge of the game, and Knows what the players like.

Spazzo

You represent the private minority involved in this argument. Opinion invalidated.

One must learn through their mistakes. How else will they better themselves? The broken submissions will be 1-starred and sent to the bottom of the pile in releases anyways, so why go out of your way and delete it yourself? Sounds like non-essential work to me.

Why must he wait for your opinion before the world gets to see his creation? Why not have the general community -- which vastly outnumber both you and the staff at large -- make that call for themselves and give him constructive feedback? Instead, we're making the opinions of those with a coloured username seem more important and valuable than those of other people. Way to self-serve.

Just throw the judging team out the window. If it doesn't work, someone is bound to let the user know and they'll fix it themselves with the right suggestions. You guys in power really must have no value for the opinion of your community peers if you honestly can't rely on them for this kind of basic feedback.

I'm absolutely sure that everyone who has or once had a position on this forum abused it on a frequent basis. I know I did. This is coming from someone who has spent years on both sides of the fence and deliberately sabotaged his own position to return to one side. Just saying.

Mystic

You represent a worse, vocal minority of "people who claim to have left this community but come back to bitch about things they don't agree with every month or two". Opinion invalidated.

Instead of point-by-point, I'll just summarize. Judges are here to prevent the following long-term problems the releases section has traditionally had:

1. An overabundance of non-working or useless files that have no use to anyone, frequently not even the original creator. This includes both unfinished material (which should go in editing) and garbage releases that have no use (a recent example would be someone who submitted a WAD that was simply a replacement for one of the crosshair graphics). Most files rejected for quality reasons are things that the author probably took an hour or less to make.
2. To ensure that proper procedures are being used when creating topics. A huge number of submissions are replied to a judge with "upload your file as an attachment" or another similar problem and then approved after the problem with the submission has been resolved. This helps everyone long term by making sure that links don't die and categories are being used correctly to make things easier to search for.
3. To ensure a basic level of plagiarism protection. A HUGE number of submitted files are simply people taking someone else's work and reuploading it without permission, especially with old 1.X files. While I don't like that many authors aren't around to update their files, we don't need people releasing their old work without permission either.

As an example, I'll list the problems with the last ten things in rejected submissions, as well as when for reference so you can see the actual frequency things are being killed off:

1. Single graphic change for crosshair. Doesn't really work because it's intended to be a local change and the host would have to change it for everyone. (Yesterday)
2. Character WAD port from 1.X without permission (Last week)
3. Ridiculously overpowered SOC that breaks the game entirely (3 weeks ago)
4. Character WAD port from 1.X without permission, as well as a broken link (4 weeks ago)
5. Map pack with blatant plagiarism of other people's content. (1/11/2011)
6. Map pack recolor, as hard as that may be to believe. Again, without permission from the original author. (12/25/2010)
7. Only file in this list rejected for quality reasons. This was HMS, and was rejected in favor of having a release in #srb2fun where it isn't breaking quality rules and where people actually will get the joke. I'm still not sure whether or not we should have let this through, but this is the only thing where an actual decision based on opinion was made after a discussion about it. (12/13/2010)
8. Sound rip pack with no original content. There was a discussion about this as well, and it was rejected under the logic that it was essentially an audio version of a sprite rip. (12/4/2010)
9. Blatant plagiarism of another's map without even giving credit to the original author, never mind getting permission. (11/23/2010)
10. Map port from 1.X without permission, not to mention the port itself was completely broken. (11/22/2010)

So about 40 things a year are being rejected at this rate, with over half of them being simple plagiarism. I don't see your "abuse of power" or any other problem going on here. I simply see a system working properly (if a bit slowly) to weed out useless and stolen files.

Prime 2.0

I'm sorry, what? I thought you were above this kind of bigotry, Spazzo. If your response to someone is to say that anything they say is invalid simply because they belong to the group you are arguing against as you and only you define it, that your statement bigoted by definition.

Then you have completely and utterly missed the point of submissions. We, as judges, provide detailed feedback to rejected submissions, and reject them so that you don't have to wade through utter crap to find something enjoyable. Have you ever considered that some people might not want to be the ones to filter stuff out? That there would be scores of people who refuse to play anything new because it might be irredeemable crap that hadn't gotten any reviews yet? I'd be really surprised if that hadn't occurred to you, because that was precisely the state of affairs before the submissions system went live.

Basic effort, rule abidance, and bare-bones basic merit are the criteria for going through submissions. If it doesn't go through, that means it is either breaking a rule, or the creator didn't try. People who have earnestly tried and had their submission not quite meet the mark are the corner case here, and it's the corner cases that spend the most time in submissions because the active judges, myself included, are weighing the options and ramifications to everyone, on the MB, IRC, and even in random netgames of what it would mean to show that submission to the light of day in the most trafficked distribution platform for SRB2 wads, or to leave it be.

Sometimes, this even means talking with the person who made the submission so that it can be improved, and touched up, and then released when there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with it that would force someone to scrap it. Some people accept that help when I give it, and some of them will instead tell me to fuck off and go away, in similarly strong language. But I keep trying, I keep offering help in those borderline cases, and I keep offering as detailed criticism as I can to failed submissions that I deal with because I genuinely want people to improve and put something out there under their own name without sacrificing the minimal standards of quality that we happen to enforce around here.

This hurts. And I mean it really hurts, that after all the time I've spent questioning my every action for whether or not it fits my position and the rules that I enforce, questioning my every decision for what it would mean to use it as a precedent elsewhere, that you would come up and say something like this. Maybe you made frequent abuses with what positions you had, you're certainly qualified to say so. But you are not qualified to speak for anyone else. So I respectfully request that you drop the ad hominem attacks.

Spazzo

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the very person making every single shot here! Clearly he doesn't want me around here much longer.

Didn't we used to ban certain WADs from the master server for being for a gametype that we thought was illogical, unsupported, immature, and "rule-breaking", so to speak? You're mirroring that mindset quite nicely.

Valid point, but what does it matter where they put it? They just want some feedback, either way.

I see a use for that! It replaces one of the crosshair graphics. You have a new crosshair. Who knows, I could be wrong, it may not be useful at all. Why are you the one in charge of deciding that again? Can't we decide for ourselves?

My first proper content submission took around an hour to make. It got modest reviews. What does time have to do with this?

Valid point. Nothing's stopping you from just locking a topic in releases -- hell, just informing the guy in a post response -- for that same reason and requesting said fix.

Right, because WADs are copywritten and someone modifying them is a sin. Isn't this an open-source project? So long as they give credit where credit is due (or at least mention that they edited a file that was not theirs), where's the issue? Creativity requires a spark or inspiration, why are you refusing to let people mess with what's been created? I am very welcome to the idea of anyone taking Twisted Terminal and doing whatever the hell they want with it.

Who are you to say that the attributes of an SOC determine its worth? So it's overpowered; so maybe you didn't design the game with those attributes in mind. You have advertised this game as being completely customizable so players can create their own works. You are actively stunting their creativity by serving as a middle-man and ruling their creation as invalid because "we think it's too powerful". If that sentence really determined quality, then let it pass releases and let your userbase disregard it on your behalf.


You can't honestly let this through without letting the above case through, unless you're alright with maintaining a double standard (see: abuse of position to benefit oneself). Personally, I'd have let them both pass.

Sorry to hear that someone wanted to play the game with a different sound set. As long as they credit the source, why again are you preventing this from entering? Because you don't see any worth? Do you even actively play any WADs in here anymore?


Wow, map ports aren't even allowed? So any good content from old releases gets the shaft? Forcing creativity by banning old work is simultaneously stunting creativity!

I wasn't expecting you to.

Mystic

Clearly you don't want to be around any longer either. I'll gladly oblige.

And with that troll out of the way, anything else this topic needs to discuss or shall we lock it?

Prime 2.0

I'd just like to point out for Spazzo's benefit that SRB2 itself, that is the code that it runs on, is open source and GPL. Wads made for it are not, and are copyrighted works of their creator by implication, with all the legal rights to those works associated with it. We aren't Activision Blizzard, we don't make you sign a terms of service that gives us the rights to your work, you keep that. All we do is determine what wads are allowed to be distributed on the SRB2MB... and that includes respecting the rights of authors, even in their absence.

Ozzaps

At risk of jeopardizing the ability to ever return, I'd like to formally note that even if I *was* trolling and this infraction was based on legitimate grounds, I received TWO demerit points insteadof the single one, for the sole reason of ensuring that I remain banned. There is absolutely no documentation or mention of this administrative process on either the Rules Page, the Wiki, or anywhere else. I can only be led to believe that the rules were intentionally stretched to shut me out one demerit point ahead of time.

Or, if you're thick, abusing administrative ability to get what they want.


See you when the ban expires.

Mystic

Since this is split off, relevant AIM log added for reference for the rest of you:

(8:11:01 PM) Spazzo: You'd be awfully screwed right now if I ever harnessed the ability to be vindictive.
(8:11:09 PM) Spazzo: I haven't, so you can spare yourself a sweatdrop
(8:11:17 PM) Spazzo: Fucking hell, though, that last post deletion was dirty
(8:11:23 PM) 私: I didn't even do it
(8:11:37 PM) Spazzo: I mean, really, I was willing to spend howlever long away
(8:11:46 PM) Spazzo: You had to go ahead and delete my post to further my point?
(8:11:53 PM) Spazzo: Or whoever did
(8:11:55 PM) 私: Grow the fuck up. That's all I have to say. If this is how you act after leaving a community, I don't want to see you again
(8:12:09 PM) Spazzo: You're telling me to grow the fuck up.
(8:12:11 PM) Spazzo: Look at you, Mystic.
(8:12:12 PM) 私: Yes, I am
(8:12:14 PM) Spazzo: I worry about you.
(8:12:18 PM) Spazzo: I honest to fuck worry about you.
(8:12:21 PM) 私: I find it INCREDIBLY sad that I'm having to say that to you
(8:12:29 PM) Spazzo: You're 26 and you have a life consisting of sitting on the internet berating idiots and watching anime.
(8:12:33 PM) Spazzo: I pity you.
(8:12:34 PM) 私: Well I don't worry about you anymore, because you're a troll and a complete asshole
(8:12:36 PM) Spazzo: I'd throw my pennies at you.
(8:12:47 PM) Spazzo: I wish I could help you. I gave it my al.
(8:12:47 PM) 私: You post flamebait over and over for no fucking reason, and I've had it
(8:12:49 PM) 私: Go away
(8:12:56 PM) Spazzo: At risk of jeopardizing the ability to ever return, I'd like to formally note that even if I *was* trolling and this infraction was based on legitimate grounds, I received TWO demerit points insteadof the single one, for the sole reason of ensuring that I remain banned. There is absolutely no documentation or mention of this administrative process on either the Rules Page, the Wiki, or anywhere else. I can only be led to believe that the rules were intentionally stretched to shut me out one demerit point ahead of time.

Or, if you're thick, abusing administrative ability to get what they want.

See you when the ban expires.
(8:12:59 PM) Spazzo: Just so you know what the deleted post said.
(8:13:02 PM) 私: I see it
(8:13:03 PM) Spazzo: I hope to never see your face again.
(8:13:05 PM) 私: It displays on my end
(8:13:10 PM) 私: Just not publicly
(8:13:52 PM) 私: I can easily ensure that, Spazzo. It was nice knowing you before you lost your mind.
(8:14:11 PM) ***私 removes you from the access list.