Response to Derailing "Is it worth it?"

The only way a 10-7-5-3-1 system (or something similar) would really work is if the scripts automatically rejected anything that would end up in 6th place or lower, and would automatically delete the old 5th place recording in case a new recording on that game got 5th place or higher. Otherwise, submissions of recordings by people going through the alphabet (who, I think, are very unlikely to check before submitting where their score would end up), will still be stored and processed.

Of course, we can still have mass-uploaders, because to beat someone's 10 first places, you "just" have to submit 34 fourth places, but at least the number of recordings on MARP at any given time would be 5 times the number of games, not virtually unlimited like it is now. (And growing every day, especially right after new releases of MAME.)

I don't know what happened to our previous discussion, but I'd still prefer the percentage system, but modified to where everything that would get 5, 10, however many, points or less would be rejected when submitted, and deleted when another submission has reduced it to below that threshold. The only exception in rejecting/deleting a recording would be for recordings that would be/are in the top 3 for that particular game.

And until then, I think nobody would really object if at least the recordings on MARP that have 0 (zero) percentage points were deleted immediately. It's pretty hard to find out how many of those there are (or at least, I haven't found a way), but it should at least help a little in alleviating the load.

And should we go back to a 10-7-5-3-1 or similar system, are ties going to be handled the same way as before? So the first one to upload a number one score gets 10 points, the second one to upload that same score gets only 7, etc.? There are pros and cons to doing it that way:

Pro: Reward for "pioneering". Several games require a lot of time figuring certain things out. For those games, people watching the recording of that pioneer, can simply piggyback off of the pioneer's knowledge and efforts and reach that same score with a lot less invested effort. In a system where the first one to upload a certain score gets the most points, this person actually gets rewarded for his efforts.

Con: On other games, it makes no difference whether you're the first or the tenth to upload that score; the achievement is still as good as the first nine who did it. And not everybody has the time to immediately start playing all new games as soon as a new version of MAME is released. Should someone who has less time than others be punished for that?

Just some thoughts...

Ben Jos.

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