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In the first example the score was incorrectly entered. In the second example the measurement was changed to metres and centimetres while the submission was in the queue. As this was a change to the track made by TG it was fair to adjust the measurement from centimetres to metres and centimetres. In this case all who voted no were notified, just as when a score is cancelled.

For the first example the score should be cancelled by the player. The requirement to enter a score twice has already seen a reduction in the number of scores that need to be cancelled.

Snowflake liked this post

EDIT: I've removed this comment of my own volition. I see no gain in pursuing this further.

I thought this was going to be more encouragement for TG to add the ability for users to edit their own submissions... which I won't stop supporting because I totally want to see it happen and there's no issue with it that can't be addressed.

Originally Posted by GibGirl

I thought this was going to be more encouragement for TG to add the ability for users to edit their own submissions... which I won't stop supporting because I totally want to see it happen and there's no issue with it that can't be addressed.

That level of editing would be far too dangerous. People removing evidence of them found cheating. People coming back to threads months old to change something that could effect dozens of votes. I stand by canceling and re-subbing and that canceling eventually equals rejected.

Originally Posted by swaggers

That level of editing would be far too dangerous. People removing evidence of them found cheating. People coming back to threads months old to change something that could effect dozens of votes. I stand by canceling and re-subbing and that canceling eventually equals rejected.

There could be some sort of protection built in to protect against that. Like edits can only occur in the first 5 minutes after submitting, or no edits can occur after the first vote has been made.

@sdwyer138 Something similar to this is already in discussion. No promises.

Taking the time to double check everything in a submission before activating is still the best solution.

Originally Posted by swaggers

That level of editing would be far too dangerous. People removing evidence of them found cheating. People coming back to threads months old to change something that could effect dozens of votes. I stand by canceling and re-subbing and that canceling eventually equals rejected.

But those are not insurmountable obstacles. Don't allow people to remove evidence from their submissions, only add. Editing a submission clears all of the votes already cast, with notifications to all voters. And keep a browsable history in the submission for all the edits.

And of course, once accepted/rejected/cancelled, no editing is allowed.

No, openly allowing editing with no other changes would not be a good idea. Code changes would be needed to support it.

even with cancelling some people have already complained they cant keep up on the notifications and get burned on a cancel. now of course, if people were abusing cancel canclling legit submissions (like one now banned member thought was funny to do) i'd see the point, but if people are voting wrong and cant even keep up, when they're told they voted wrong and hand held to the right answer,whatever. fixing a problem submission (or breaking a good one) thats a different story. People who took the time to vote correctly, peole who aleady took the time to study the submission shouldnt have to worry about checking back just to see if the sub was edited. if submisions can be edited then i can guarantee ill never vote before going on vacation when i know i cant keep up, whereas now i feel safe voting before vacation because i know my vote is right.

speedruns i get are often off by a second, i can undersatnd the desire to edit but still feel strongly against for the above reasons. in these cases use your frst sub to discuss it and work out all the kinks, then the second sub submit perfectly. yeah, it sucks using two subs, but two isnt that bad. its better than causing all sorts of confusion where people dont know if there votes gonna be later invalidated through no fault of their own and now we better all log in every singel day to check notifications just in case one of our correct votes are now wrong thx to an edit.

i do think cancels should allow comments though. one of my first fears of cancels is that cheaers, once they realize they didnt cover their tracks, could quickly cover up by cancelling. turns out this fear wasnt my typical theoretical paranoid self but well based in fact, as exactly that shortly happened with a track and field submissions. the person cancelled to end discussion, fortuantely a wall post was opened by the one person who caught the cheating before the cancel. I think comments should be allowed in the cancel for the same amount of time that vote changes are allowed on a cancel. the cancel feature, while i understand it, inadvertedantly provided a powerful tool for cheaters to make it harder to catch -- not imposible, but harder. plenty of people feel file asking questions on a submissions (questions being more polite than accusations), forcing us to go to our wall now and ask/accuse about a cancelled submission, well, the more timied people wont dare do that. thx to cancels, if the cheater is caught by a timid person who would've asked polite questions in the thread, now that wont happen.

Originally Posted by Snowflake

People who took the time to vote correctly, peole who aleady took the time to study the submission shouldnt have to worry about checking back just to see if the sub was edited. if submisions can be edited then i can guarantee ill never vote before going on vacation when i know i cant keep up, whereas now i feel safe voting before vacation because i know my vote is right.

And this is exactly why I'm saying any allowed submission editing should clear all existing votes. That would also help discourage people from editing without good reason - they'd have to start the voting process all over from scratch.

ah, ok that solves my issue but creates a new one. now it means peoples efforts go to waste. so i can put time in adjudicating a submission only to have my work thrown out at the will of a submitter? i guess its good i wont get dinged, but why would I ever watch a long marathon for example if i know all that effort can just be thrown out and force me to start from scratch. shouldnt the people who put their time in and voted correctly get compensated for that time? it doesnt feel fair to negate their efforts

I'd also suggesting putting in the relatively simple / low-budget fix of a preview window. Such as when hit click on the submit button, the pop-up window include a summary of the key information of user inputs. The boiler plate disclaimer can be added to the bottom of the summary window. The key summary information should include:

- Platform
- Game
- Track Description
- Score / Time
- Video(s) Attached [Y or N]

If the user identifies an error, the window will enable a user to suspend the submission, fix the error and click the submit button again. If everything looks good, click the button to confirm submission and then, all information is locked for adjudication review.

sdwyer138, Snowflake liked this post

think of it this way, currently we can start by scratch -- with a new submission. the downside being the submitter, one person, and the person who made the mistake in the first place loses 3 submission points. Your solution also starts from scratch, at no penalty to the one person who messed up, but rather at the price of negating the efforts of dozens of people who acted in good faith.

now maybe i'm just seeing part of the picture here. no solution is perfect, maybe im just focusing on all the negatives of your solution and failing to see the negatives of the current way. What is it about the current way which is so bad that makes you think the issues with editing is the lesser of the two evils?

now a preview i totally agree with. that would catch a lot of honest mistakes.

Originally Posted by Snowflake

think of it this way, currently we can start by scratch -- with a new submission. the downside being the submitter, one person, and the person who made the mistake in the first place loses 3 submission points. Your solution also starts from scratch, at no penalty to the one person who messed up, but rather at the price of negating the efforts of dozens of people who acted in good faith.

now maybe i'm just seeing part of the picture here. no solution is perfect, maybe im just focusing on all the negatives of your solution and failing to see the negatives of the current way. What is it about the current way which is so bad that makes you think the issues with editing is the lesser of the two evils?

The best example I'll give is new users. New users very frequently have their first submission have a problem with it. Their one free submission. Now they have to go and earn some submission points before they can try again, and those are very unlikely to take less than a few days to earn.

This sends a very clear message to new users, that they aren't that important.

Other things include the fact that it does cost submission points, which may not matter that much to anyone who has been here for a while, but newer users tend not to have many, and it won't take much frustration to drive them off.

Then we have the technical issues that crop up with uploads. An upload fails to encode properly. The Twitch import has issues. Things that are out of a submitter's control. Sure, if we pester the admins, we can sometimes get the submission points back. And then try again. What if we could just fix it ourselves?

And then there's just all sorts of little quality of life things. Some, like a vzaar link, could be caught in preview. Others might be forgetting to chance a timestamp in a copy and paste when doing a group of submissions. Things that end up getting included in additional posts that would just be cleaner in the submission text.

It's about improving the user experience - people make mistakes, it's inevitable. Empower people to fix their own mistakes, and don't punish or make people suffer for them.

things are indeed tough on new users. constantly chaning things on them, as well as them voting on things for points only to see their votes cancelled will also be quite unwelcoming them. I'm thinking maybe instead of helping them fix thier mistakes, help make it so they dont make the mistakes in the fist place.

The rules in one place still say there are no rules, all that matters is if adjudciators believe you (meaning photo would be ok). The rules in another place so video is needed. The rules in one place say controllers must be original. The rules in another say as long you're not using rapid fire its fine. Perhaps cleaning up the contradicting rules would do more to help new users not make the mistakes in the first place and give a smooth experience than allowing edits and punishing people who didnt even make the mistake by removing their vote. Also i see zero downsides to removing contradictory rules. I'd love to see those things get cleaned up

Originally Posted by Dave Hawksett

In the first example the score was incorrectly entered. In the second example the measurement was changed to metres and centimetres while the submission was in the queue. As this was a change to the track made by TG it was fair to adjust the measurement from centimetres to metres and centimetres. In this case all who voted no were notified, just as when a score is cancelled. For the first example the score should be cancelled by the player. The requirement to enter a score twice has already seen a reduction in the number of scores that need to be cancelled.

Drawing attention to the following submission... https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/193131

As far as I can tell, the score was entered incorrectly, a request was made for admin to fix it while actively in the submission queue, and that request was granted.

Could I please request the clarity of specific detail which was compelling enough to allow this situation, which not only contradicts Dave's comments above, but also goes against what we've always done in this situation?

So gobsmacked am I by this situation, that I have to assume there is some detail I just don't know about.

I'm not even sure who to tag any more to make sure this gets attention.

bensweeneyonbass thanked this post

Terence I’m sure you recall that you and I disagreed when a score submission on T&F was edited during adjudication. My angle was that the track wasn’t properly setup to accept an appropriate score format.

In this case yes it just looks like the score “typo” was fixed by request of the submitter. And in this case I do NOT disagree with you. This edit should not have taken place. There was nothing wrong with the track. There were no problems prohibiting the submitter from submitting an appropriately formatted score or anything like that.

Having said that I shouldn’t be too appalled by this change since I was in favor of an edit before. It’s a slippery slope I guess but these two situations are markedly different. Again, edits like this to active adjudication should not happen. If that means not editing anything at all - period - I’d much rather have it that way than this way.

terencew thanked this post

I'm still 110% behind allowing submitters the ability to edit their submissions. I don't believe there's a single issue that can come up from allowing that cannot be solved in a relatively-straightforward way. And I'd hope that the admin staff editing submissions like this is an indication that they're realizing the value in doing so.

However, I agree that sort of a pick-and-choose method of admin making these edits in any manner other than strictly helping out new users, especially with no notifications going out to anyone who voted on the submissions, is definitely not the right way to handle this. I worry it sets a bad precedent going forward, leading to submitters getting caught having a submission edited under them without being informed.

Originally Posted by terencew

Drawing attention to the following submission... https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/193131

As far as I can tell, the score was entered incorrectly, a request was made for admin to fix it while actively in the submission queue, and that request was granted.

Could I please request the clarity of specific detail which was compelling enough to allow this situation, which not only contradicts Dave's comments above, but also goes against what we've always done in this situation?

So gobsmacked am I by this situation, that I have to assume there is some detail I just don't know about.

I'm not even sure who to tag any more to make sure this gets attention.

Twin Galaxies is in a transition period of wanting to create a more user friendly experience for new users.

We would like the community to grow and be a place where new people feel welcomed instead of scared away after a simple mistake. We have made that mistake in the past.

This was the user's first "free" submission, and he had made a mistake. He contacted us directly after the error was made, and we honored the edit. He was made aware that this was a ONE TIME situation and if the mistake was made in the future we will not be able to change it.

This will be the same for any new users going forward if they make a mistake on their initial submission - ONLY ON THEIR INITIAL SUBMISSION.

Dave Hawksett, GibGirl thanked this post