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Andrea Rovenski

Demo comments in threads vs other platforms

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Discord is not an archive, and will eventually go away. We can hope doomworld won't, or hope that people would take it over if one day the owners retire, but I think to myself whenever browsing threads in this forum from the aughts, "wow, so many people left so many non-demo-submission-posts saying things about demos!" and then remind myself that people do this in discord, but it's just lost. It's impossible to see in the retrospective. Here and now, and if you miss it, it's gone.

 

Another aspect is people use the "like" feature to indicate a similar vibe on the website, but it feels impersonal sometimes, and I do think everyone would benefit with more discussion and feedback within demo threads themselves. 

 

Anyway, there's no rules that prevent leaving comments about demos in threads, and it's just natural to use IM software more to do this, however I think there's a huge loss in terms of how history is recorded. I'd like to present an advocacy to leave comments in demo threads if you watch a demo and have anything to say. 

 

Let me know what you think.

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As a newbie to demo making, I wouldn't mind constructive feedback about the demos I make; routing wise or even for certain mechanical skills and runner tricks. I would wager it would provide a slightly more traceable story for how runs evolve as well. Personally I got into making Demos as a means to get better at Doom overall, and I think feedback to that end would be great! Obviously if your contribution is gonna be "wow shit demo" then rather take a short walk off a tall cliff, but if you see something that could be optimized like " oh try an sr 50 at this moment to save some time" that's cool, and personally I'd appreciate that kind of feedback. 

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Aside from Discord, a lot of comments happen on YouTube too. It makes sense since people are going there anyway to watch the demos (even more so if you subscribe to people's channels), and it puts the comments for a particular demo together as opposed to mixing them with other demos in a forum thread, but as you said it is problematic for archiving (people sometimes delete their videos or channels).

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In the past I have wanted to make comments or ask questions about a run but posting on the threads never feels appropriate. Some of them are followed by large amounts of people and it seems misleading to post something that isn't a demo lol. I do agree private Discord discussion and YouTube comments are likely to rot within a few years but it feels more like a personal message to the runner and less like a publicly broadcasted message... 

 

But then I don't mind seeing people's comments/reactions on demo threads, so maybe I worry too much :P

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Chiming in from a moderation standpoint: no posts primarily commenting on a run will be removed or anything like that. Not really much we can do to encourage it, but you'll never get in trouble for it, so it would be nice to see it a bit more (I say this while being guilty of not commenting very often :P).

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It's somewhat weird to leave comments because usually runners don't ask for inputs. Besides, it seems it's weird to "give some comments" without being asked, which may sound a bit rude? I don't know.

 

The other weird thing is that, sometimes I can spot some "improvements" while I'm watching it, but they can be imaginary improvements... Sometimes I tried some of these and I can't actually beat the run posted etc., so don't really want to comment on somebody's run without actually trying hard on it, or I may say something misleading...

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I love getting feedback on runs, especially when I throw thousands of attempts at them. If someone sees a route improvement, I am likely to rerun it if it's a good enough time save. As long as things stay constructive and not petty I don't see why that would be a problem. I used to comment on runs in threads more but as I didn't see more people doing it I kind of stopped. So I think that if comments are warranted you should post them. 

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I agree it would be great to see more comments, I think I leave some but not enough for similar reasons to everyone else (mainly that no one else is doing it :P). The main other reason I really wouldn't is there are so many runs being posted that it's really difficult to even get around to watching a small percentage of them. :D Viddumping your runs and linking that on the posts definitely helps a lot in making it easy for people to watch the run, but of course, then you're most likely going to receive comments on the video only. I also agree with Garrett's perspective; it's quite challenging to leave a meaningful comment on a run unless I've at least played the wad, but preferably did it myself. Without that perspective, it can be tricky to understand the details of a run from just the final successful attempt, since you get a very biased perspective on the RNG and skill elements of the run.

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I agree with Billa generally, besides the fact that a precedent has now been set that the doomworld demo threads are "where you post your demos for DSDA" and to make demos "officlal", commenting in these threads feels more like a public announcement, and definitely has a more formal atmosphere than somewhere like discord, it just feels a lot more comfortable and casual to discuss strategies and tactics in discord servers with other players. That being said, I totally understand the perspective of preserving the history of demo discussion, and the enjoyment in looking back and seeing what people were talking about what things in certain demos and runs at the time. I think fleshing out the posting of demos to more than just the zip file basically would spark more discussion and comments in demo threads about the demos someone posts, like kinda dumping thoughts you have about the run and the experience with the zip you posted (not in the txt, in the the DW post itself). I know people already do this, but a lot of times myself I just figure it's better to post the demo and make some meme joke or comment than actually more seriously elaborate on my experience with the run and how I think it could be done better. Putting more info in your post for people to work with conversationally, can increase comments and chatter in the threads themselves. Yea, it can be hard to give meaningful comments to demos posted when you haven't done the run yourself, but I mean even someone who's just seen the level before can comment about it, not every comment has to be very meaningful with an in-depth knowledge of the run, a comment in and of itself is nice (unless it is bad, we know what bad comments look like :D).

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On 11/29/2022 at 6:56 PM, GarrettChan said:

Besides, it seems it's weird to "give some comments" without being asked, which may sound a bit rude? I don't know.

Face to face or in an unprompted DM? Definitely douchebag behavior(and yet it happens, the former especially). On a public web page however, I'd say it's fair game as long as there is some kind of substance behind the commenting.

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9 minutes ago, Budoka said:

Face to face or in an unprompted DM? Definitely douchebag behavior(and yet it happens, the former especially). On a public web page however, I'd say it's fair game as long as there is some kind of substance behind the commenting.

 

I mean, even I want to give comments, I would say something like "oh, I wonder whether X will work" etc., instead of "do X" or a rhetorical question "why don't you do X?". Those ways of giving suggestion is really annoying. At least, I do have general hate towards people knowing nothing but saying "do X" to me all the time.

 

Speedrun is kinda weird because some of the habits you need to gradually form them and become muscle memory. For example, activate the lift before killing the last 2 enemies, or something like these. It's obvious when you're used to it, but for a newer speedrunner, it's easily missed. When I'm watching a run from a newer speedrunner, I can definitely spot a lot of potential improvement without actually trying myself, yet in the meantime, I guess it's good to leave some space for them to experience stuff, heh.

 

I guess the other problem is that Doom speedrun is still niche and you have so many things to run. Unless you want to run IWAD or whatever, maybe other people won't comment because they are not going to do the same map.

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