Jace Hall's Feed

Jace Hall
04-12-2020 at 04:11 AM

Dear Community,

Hope you are all safe and healthy during these challenging times! For those that celebrate Easter, please have a happy one.

Make sure you keep your social distancing when talking with the Easter Bunny, as insurance companies wont cover rabbits that lay chocolate cream filled eggs. Hospital bills can be quite a burden for a bunny that only works one day a year...

Now, on to TG business -

We have continued to focus on bug fixing and have made a lot of progress. The fixes are too many to list, both on the front-end as well as back-end of the site, but the cumulative effect is that the site continues to improve step by step.

Certainly we are not done with the bug fixing and it will continue as the primary resource expenditure until we have addressed them. Aside from our own list, @admin staff is aware of this list on the wiki as well and will be working through it.

TGSAP STUFF:

You may have noticed that TGSAP adjudications are finally moving through and you can expect a slightly quicker process there on a forward-going basis. This is related to the now present and proven success of the dispute system as a retroactive error-correction function. With that system in place, certain time based restrictive components of the front-end of TGSAP were able to be slightly adjusted for the positive benefit of the community, without having to sacrifice final accuracy.

WALL FEED:

We have modified the Wall Feed to automatically include News articles in the feed. This required the engineering team to do a lot of database work since previously news articles were stored in an entirely different database than user wall posts. The total net effect is a faster wall feed overall.

NEWS CONTRIBUTORS:

Now that we are providing the newsfeed both outside and inside TG, we would like to offer the opportunity to approved members of the community who may be interested in receiving news editorial privileges so that they can place editorial content into our news system.

This would allow an approved contributor to post community related news articles directly into the main site's newsfeed and they would get pushed into the mainstream news via google and etc.

Any contributions would need to be on a voluntary basis, with no financial compensation but an approved contributor could write appropriate articles they deem fit and the world will see them since search engines like google specifically scrape TG for news (as long as it is specifically in the editorial feed.) It would be up to the contributor when they would want to post an article. There would be no expectations or demands on that front (other than the posted content being appropriate), and of course people will receive a proper credit listing for the articles they post as a news contributor.

Many members here do good research and share a lot of great information, so this might be a way for those interested members to get a wider voice than just the wall feed with their articles.

A couple of members have already been approved and given editorial access. You can see one of their articles here:

https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/6107/frank-breneman-steered-pac-man-to-new-heights-pac-man-has-chased-him-ever-since/25

**If you are interested you can PM me here at Twin Galaxies and we can determine if it can make sense at this time for you to be granted news editorial privilege and access.

PROFILES:

The effort to upgrade the profile system is still underway. The goal is to simplify it and allow the profile to list all your Twin Galaxies achievements as well as other achievements on other platforms, such as XBL, PSN, Steam, etc. There will also be an improved social media / channel listing section which will allow you to list all your content locations in one spot so that anyone viewing your profile can quickly find them. Once this is implemented, you will be able to add your twitch channel, which will then be read by our system and display your channel in the active streamers section of the site whenever you are live.

NEXT STEPS:

When all of the bugs are fixed and the new profile system is complete, we will finally take our next step and ADD a new feature/function to the site which will be the ability to quickly and easily set up BOUNTIES. We will set up a very simple and straightforward system, which will then slowly expand its feature set on the basis of user input / request.

A FINAL WORD:

At various times I will read some community commentary suggesting that I perhaps personally take a more "present" and "front facing" role in Twin Galaxies leadership, which may help foster and create a greater sense of community.

I understand this suggestion, but the reason that I have historically resisted this idea is because I have tried very hard to make TG not be about "me."

In my opinion, most of the previous owners of TG operated in this manner and essentially drove TG toward a cult-of-personality type of existence - that seemed to come at a bit of a cost to those that may not have fit well into that kind of atmosphere.

While as TG owner, it is almost impossible to not have some kind of connective tissue to the public perception of the "vibe" of TG, but please understand that I've been quite conscious of TG's past leadership and have been trying to avoid some of those pitfalls.

It has become clear to me that perhaps my approach may have been too distant in that respect because I have seen that there are those who translate this distance into an incorrect assumption of perhaps me not caring about TG.

While we know that TG still has a ways to go, it has certainly come a long way from where it was in early 2014:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140317231944/https://newsle.com/article/0/131068738

When looking at the above article, I think that we have all collectively saved TG, and even have made it more successful as an authentication platform than at any other time in TG history. More scores per year are being adjudicated than in the past - and adjudicated more accurately. Invalid data is being removed, through documented processes - and negative drama has been reduced considerably.

It is my opinion that this was all achieved because we ALL care.

In any case, for Twin Galaxies to continue to grow and succeed, we must all continue to contribute and participate as best we can. Step-by-step things are improving, and I have been personally working on some big things behind the scenes, that if successful, will secure the economic future of TG and allow us to finally put that kind of resources behind classic / retro gaming that I've always envisioned. We shall see.

In the meanwhile, I want to thank the community for its patience, understanding, contributions, and passion. Yes there is more to do, but look how far we all have come!

User comments (15)

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"TGSAP STUFF:

You may have noticed that TGSAP adjudications are finally moving through and you can expect a slightly quicker process there on a forward-going basis. This is related to the now present and proven success of the dispute system as a retroactive error-correction function. With that system in place, certain time based restrictive components of the front-end of TGSAP were able to be slightly adjusted for the positive benefit of the community, without having to sacrifice final accuracy."


Just an observation, I wonder if the TGSAP formula has been "tweaked" a little too much? I could be wrong but I notice that several MAME submissions have gone through without an inp analysis . Seems a bit strange?

In other words, it looks to me that it takes a LOT less votes for submissions to be accepted and I suppose rejected?


john


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my question is similar to lexmarks. it sounds like you're saying you can be a little more lax on adjudication since disputes can catch issues.

i'm fine with that, i'm aware of the trade off with "optimistic protocols" and "pessimistic protocols" and plenty of times it makes more sense to go quick and catch the few mistakes later rather than go extra slow just to avoid a few mistakes. just wanna make sure im clear in my understanding

also, i know i have a way of just focusing on question/arguments and not high fives. its just that i feel thats the most productive area of discussio where theres stuff to learn. the reason i didnt respond to anything else is precisely because there is so much good in there. thanks for your work

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We are down to 182 submissions, according to my counter. Never saw it this low in years.

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This is great news about the update to the adjudication system. I agree that it is better to have scores accepted faster and correct mistakes later with an afficient dispute system, Bravo Jace for that.

About the submissions being accepted without an .inp analysis, I don't think it's all black and white, I believe most submissions could be accepted without the need of an analysis, and since the inp file will always be available in the submission, an analysis could be done later if necesary or if anyone is suspicious of a score.

Right now, almost half of the pending scores are M.A.M.E. records without an analysis and I wouldn't expect Jason, the only person that does them, to do almost 100 of them for other people, he has great gaming to do. I believe as long as there is a shortage of people doing analysis, they should be reserved for important or unclear submissions where the analysis is absolutely needed and the settings cannot be confirmed by observing gameplay.

And my last comment. I would like to ask for editing privileges to be able to help update art box covers for games. I have being helping with that since I joined, at the extent that I can, this being uploading images to games that didn't have one. And the ones that have a wrong image I have asked Franny to help me delete the old one so I could upload the correct one, many times and she has helped a lot and the PSP section looks almost perfect now thanks to her.

I have been a member for almost 3 years, I have never been banned or even had a comment deleted by admin staff, I have tried to help others when it comes to track creation or questions about TG and I have almost 1000 scores accepted on this site and all I want to do is make TG look better. If this is something that you would consider, I'll PM you.

Thanks.

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Quote Originally Posted by datagod

We are down to 182 submissions, according to my counter. Never saw it this low in years.


Supply and demand. I wonder if we are near the bottom of submissions. What do you think @Marcade should we get in?

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Quote Originally Posted by Pixe Sukola

And my last comment. I would like to ask for editing privileges to be able to help update art box covers for games. I have being helping with that since I joined, at the extent that I can, this being uploading images to games that didn't have one. And the ones that have a wrong image I have asked Franny to help me delete the old one so I could upload the correct one, many times and she has helped a lot and the PSP section looks almost perfect now thanks to her.

I have been a member for almost 3 years, I have never been banned or even had a comment deleted by admin staff, I have tried to help others when it comes to track creation or questions about TG and I have almost 1000 scores accepted on this site and all I want to do is make TG look better. If this is something that you would consider, I'll PM you.

Thanks.

We will have to create a special access privilege for this. I will ask @admin staff to do this for you so you will be able to fix any image problems that you may find. Your effort is appreciated by all.


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Quote Originally Posted by Pixe Sukola


About the submissions being accepted without an .inp analysis, I don't think it's all black and white, I believe most submissions could be accepted without the need of an analysis, and since the inp file will always be available in the submission, an analysis could be done later if necesary or if anyone is suspicious of a score.

Right now, almost half of the pending scores are M.A.M.E. records without an analysis and I wouldn't expect Jason, the only person that does them, to do almost 100 of them for other people, he has great gaming to do. I believe as long as there is a shortage of people doing analysis, they should be reserved for important or unclear submissions where the analysis is absolutely needed and the settings cannot be confirmed by observing gameplay.


I agree with most of it with one exception :

For me, all submissions with potential rank #1 should get the full analysis BEFORE they get accepted!

You shouldn't dethrone the leader if you're not completely sure.

Cheers!

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such scores can still later be disputed and removed. of course, thats assuming people are at least insisting inp be attached.

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Quote Originally Posted by Snowflake

such scores can still later be disputed and removed. of course, thats assuming people are at least insisting inp be attached.


I agree with this and I think an .inp should absolutely be attached before a score gets accepted, because otherwise there is no way to do a further, deeper analysis of it. I also think TGSAP submissions accepted without an inp file should be disputed for that reason.

I agree with Doron, like I said, the analysis should be done for important submissions and some 1st places are important, maybe not inaugural runs. And also other scores that aren't 1st places should be considered important, like a top 50 on DonkeyKong for example.

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replace "important" with "more tempting to cheat". all scores are equally important. some games though seem to come with a greater allure to cheaters than others

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Quote Originally Posted by Pixe Sukola
This is great news about the update to the adjudication system. I agree that it is better to have scores accepted faster and correct mistakes later with an afficient dispute system, Bravo Jace for that.

About the submissions being accepted without an .inp analysis, I don't think it's all black and white, I believe most submissions could be accepted without the need of an analysis, and since the inp file will always be available in the submission, an analysis could be done later if necesary or if anyone is suspicious of a score.

Right now, almost half of the pending scores are M.A.M.E. records without an analysis and I wouldn't expect Jason, the only person that does them, to do almost 100 of them for other people, he has great gaming to do. I believe as long as there is a shortage of people doing analysis, they should be reserved for important or unclear submissions where the analysis is absolutely needed and the settings cannot be confirmed by observing gameplay.


I agree.

Especially if people have included the dip settings in the video (or in a screen shot, but preferably in the video), it would generally be fine to me. Often an incorrect dip setting is not intentional and will be spotted this way.

The inp should always be required though, so an analysis can be done, for whatever reason.

After all, for arcade submissions, even just pictures of the dips are accepted as evidence of dip settings.

Checking the gameplay video is at least as important as checking the inp and not every problem can be caught by inp analysis anyway.

I don't think it's realistic to check everything on every submission, at the rate they're coming in.
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For some games, the only required settings are some that can easily be verified by just watching the video, such as lives, bonus lives/points, etc. Everybody can see this in the video, so there's really no reason to wait for an inp analysis, if it's only to check these settings.

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I seen Redelf, OOO and number of other Twin Galaxy members who have shown the Game settings on MAME video game recording just before they started playing.

1. Jace Hall you should make it a Twin Galaxies rule that all MAME video game recording must show game settings on their game recording just before they play their game, for all MAME submissions. Or they can do their own MAME INP analyst Jasonv91, OOO, RTM,Barthax,Terencew have done it before. Teach TG memebrs on how to do them.

#2. Twin Galaxies members that volunteer to do MAME INP analyst should be Rewarded like getting extra Submission Points and not having to pay for a World Record Certificate would be a great incentive.

3. Teach some Twin Galaxy members who are willing to learn how to do proper accurate MAME INP analyst. and what days and times as well as how many MAME INP analyst per Twin Galaxies members 10 to 20 per week, groups taking turns doing MAME INP analyst not to be burned out and be able to be play and

Should be rewarded for their help, like getting a free Twin Galaxies World Record certificate & extra submission points

Whether they are using the right WOLF MAME or using Cheats or NVRAM recording may be a problem. I know that certain Twin Galaxies members will always be consistent in showing the game settings on their MAME video game recordings and using the right Wolf MAME but their are others that may not.

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I agree, on all #1 rank world record score or times should always get a full MAME INP analyst

Here is a suggestion that should be considered but have Twin Galaxies members learn how to do their own MAME INP analyst to show they are using the right Wolf MAME & not using cheats

As well as showing the game setting just before game play on the their WOLF MAME video game recording

I have adjudicated 24,000 plus video game submissions. With a lot experience and learned to play games along the way. Many awesome video players here on Twin Galaxies.

Quote Originally Posted by Doron

I agree with most of it with one exception :

For me, all submissions with potential rank #1 should get the full analysis BEFORE they get accepted!

You shouldn't dethrone the leader if you're not completely sure.

Cheers!

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Thank you, TG team. :D

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