Uploading crappy scores...??!

[Cicca]

I remember looong time ago, when we already discussed for the first time about what we used to call "mass uploading".... and I don't know if the discussion had ever been brought to somewhere, but I just noticed a few useless (IMHO) uploads, and I wonder, expecially in a moment like this, where uploading is quite impossible, which is the sense of such scores....

A couple of examples: Wonder@jvrm.net (nothing personal !!!) has just submitted a few scores....among them:
hotpinbl - 14th pos (out of 15) - 2pts awarded
hotchase - 11th pos (last one!) - 3pts awarded

My opinion (and maybe a poll could solve the problem), is that the system should block uploads below a certain threshold (we could discuss whether such threshold would be the position, or points awarded, or other, or a combination of those)....
Of course, a score uploaded as #1, or #5, could lower its position in the game ranking being beated by new higher scores uploaded later, until awarding a few points, but that's another story....

Awaiting your comments....I hope it won't turn to war too soon....

Cicca

[LN2]

This has been discussed in the past. There are some teams and leagues etc. that use MARP as a place to get their scores verified and submitted etc. they are actually competing within their own league in some cases.

In other cases it can be an event like a Deca where a person uploads a 14th place score just because they will still earn a few points in the Deca competition.

To play tons of roms and submit scores that earn you only a few points here and there wouldn't be what most do regularly...but a few of course do it. There are a couple that seem to systematically be working through every rom set in alphabetical order. I guess they have a goal of playing every rom set?

The only way to draw a line would be to have a max of 10 places for any rom set. if you can't make the top 10 then you can't submit your score. However, this would prevent certain competitions from using MARP for a place to put their scores and inps.

Also, in other cases like where I play using macmame for example, there aren't many macmame samples here to watch...so some other macmame player might actually take an interest in watching a 12th place score for a game cuz it might be the only one using macmame that they could view in macmame for that particular game.

Also if for games like 1942 and Track-n-Field and Pole Position etc., 11th place still might be a fairly decent score.

If MARP really needs more HD space they can easily start by removing the tons of older submissions they have.

For example, if you upload a score of 50k in mspac...then a week later upload a 75k score...and a week later a 100k score. Even though only the 100k score shows in the scoreboard and counts toward leaderboard points, all 3 of your inp files are still on the MARP site.

This means over the course of the last few years there must be a ton of inps on the server's HD that really aren't needed or wanted anymore.

As far as confirmers trying to confirm those scores, odds are a lot less that a confirmer will actually get around to confirming a 14th place score that's only worth 2 pts. It might get confirmed, but it's not like that's preventing the confirmers from verifying the top scores.

[Buttermaker]

l) Submit only games that you feel are worthy of the notice of other MARPers, owing either to personal effort, or display of skill.

[DRN]

In my opinion, endlessly submitting inps for 1 point here and 2 points there is a waste of time and resources. Nobody's interested and personally I'm sick of seeing them.

Lets face it, if they're trying to get to the top of the board or something then they will be old and grey by the time they achieve it! I couldn't care less about what leaderboard position someone is at! I want to see good competition between good players, and that's not a critisism of Wonder or anyone else who does this, just that I think more interest and effort should be made to what is submitted.

I always try to look and see what the standard is before I submit and if it's out of my league (and most times it is ) then I don't bother or I work on my game till I think it's a better standard.

50,000 recordings on the marp server is pretty ridiculous when you think of the amount of registered active gamers we have here. We don't need pointless inps clogging up the system even more.

I think the 10 place rule is a good idea. If your score isn't competitive, it doesnt get registered. End of story. That way we will have replays that people really want to see.

[Rat]

I agree with LN2, there are some popular games where an 11th place score can still be a very good score and one the player proudly wants to show off.

Maybe the submission process could be changed so it deletes older recordings for a game when the same player submits the new one ?

[Novice]

In my opinion, endlessly submitting inps for 1 point here and 2 points there is a waste of time and resources. Nobody's interested and personally I'm sick of seeing them.

But If you think LB as very important,such style seemed very well.
extreame higher score somtimes call complain and sometimes turn to zero.


I have no against opinion for most of uploads.
but, soldam/emeraldia lower score players does not know even a rule.
just upload with default base score.
(I think less than half of uploaders understand "HOW TO PLAY SOLDAM".)

even if 2M and 3M makes very few difference at LB,
enjoy game AT LEAST until "understand the game". upload should be done after it.
enjoy not LB but games.

....is my opinion.If you hate it, then do your style.



some score seemed "he does not know anything about game."
the game which gives many score with Higher ranks start tend to invite such players.

[zlk]

Let people upload whatever they want. Who is to say what is crappy and what isn't? There are countless first place scores at marp that I would consider crappy. If I don't like them, then I don't download them. No one is forcing anyone to watch any of these inps.

[Weehawk]

Personally, I usually make it a point not to upload for a given game if I can't place in the top three. I might make an exception if it is a completed game and/or is a large percentage of the highest score even if not top three, or if I plan to improve and want to give myself some incentive, or merely want to let other players know I am working on that game.

If I can place in the top three, I'll upload even if it is crappy. Somebody needs to beat it. That's sorta the whole point here.

I don't think the storage space at MARP can be continued to allowed to grow forever. Are we certain that the storage space is not contributing to ZTNet's recent malfunctioning?

My suggestion for starters would be to change the leaderboard point system to take away some of the incentive for people to upload large numbers of unimpressive scores. I think the current system based on percentage of the high score, scaled down 15% per place is good, but how about cutting it off at 5th place? Meaning if you're not in the top five you get no leaderboard points for that game. This way people can still upload lower scores if they are interesting for some reason, if scores get bumped down they will still be there as a history of how scores for that game progressed over time, but there won't be that incentive for someone to upload massive numbers of recording just to rack up points by sheer volume of entries.

[The TJT]

My suggestion for starters would be to change the leaderboard point system to take away some of the incentive for people to upload large numbers of unimpressive scores. I think the current system based on percentage of the high score, scaled down 15% per place is good, but how about cutting it off at 5th place? Meaning if you're not in the top five you get no leaderboard points for that game. This way people can still upload lower scores if they are interesting for some reason, if scores get bumped down they will still be there as a history of how scores for that game progressed over time, but there won't be that incentive for someone to upload massive numbers of recording just to rack up points by sheer volume of entries.

Top 5 scores, agreed.

[LN2]

I don't think the storage space at MARP can be continued to allowed to grow forever. Are we certain that the storage space is not contributing to ZTNet's recent malfunctioning?

pretty sure that's not it. The errors are related to server configuration or corruption issues where it needs to be reset or reconfigured. If the server is running Apache, then it needs resetting and perhaps settings adjustments made.

It seems most of the issues recently are a port not being available or corruption in receiving the data for uploads..or a submitted search etc. a good percentage of the time. This seems like a sign the server has too much activity on it. More sites and visitors than the server can handle.

I think the current system based on percentage of the high score, scaled down 15% per place is good, but how about cutting it off at 5th place? Meaning if you're not in the top five you get no leaderboard points for that game.

That would work for many games but not for others....like track-n-field. The 6th place score is still a very excellent score. They get zero for it?!?

Take a game like circus charlie or a couple of the lode runners. You might have 5 that have max the score....then 6th place be someone just shy of maxing the score. They get zero?

this wouldn't change the file storage etc. people would still submit that 14th place I think even if it wasn't worth 1 LB point.

but there won't be that incentive for someone to upload massive numbers of recording just to rack up points by sheer volume of entries.

is there really an incentive for them now? earning 1-5 points each upload isn't a lot.

Normally I don't submit a score for a game until I think at least at that time that I'm done with it....not playing it anymore...unless of course other competition is involved.

ie. if I had a 14th place score and a friend or teammate from a league submitted a slightly higher score that was 12th place. Then I would likely play it more until I beat that score and submit what still might be a 10th place score. It's not about LB pts in this case..but just friendly competition. That's the incentive.

[Buttermaker]

The scores for the old leader board system (10-3-1) are still there. BBH for example has 3691 points and Phil has 2987 points using the old system.

[dskys]

I don't think that there's really a problem, aside from the bandwidth/storage space needed. Track n field is a good example, I cant hit 90k which means i'm well down, but aside from 2 events im 'good' or above average at the game.. yet a sub90k score means nothing.

Back in the day I could loop Last Duel for ages, scores of 600k, 1mil weren't uncommon in the arcade i frequented. I can't get that now, don't remember the game as well as maybe i once did, but i wanna upload it because it's a game i played and loved years ago.

For me, an upload means i've had a go, without invariably being 'the best'

I don't care about leaderboard points, it's, ironically? the taking part that counts to me.

Whats the problem if a few 'substandard' inps slip through? It's all a bit of fun surely? Playing games we remember for the reasons that we all have inside us. For me the games are more about invoking memories than being particularly good at any one of them... and it's surely a community here? Cmon! have fun that's what mames about to me

[Weehawk]

...the server has too much activity on it. More sites and visitors than the server can handle.

Still then, it seems like reducing unnecessary activity would help.

....like track-n-field. The 6th place score is still a very excellent score. They get zero for it?!?

Hopefully, in the fullness of time, all the 6th place scores on MARP will be excellent. If you want the leaderboard points you just have to improve.

Take a game like circus charlie or a couple of the lode runners. You might have 5 that have max the score....then 6th place be someone just shy of maxing the score. They get zero?

Games where too many people can score the max shouldn't count toward leaderboard points. I thought that was already policy.

is there really an incentive for them now? earning 1-5 points each upload isn't a lot.

If you play a thousand games it adds up. If you don't believe me you haven't looked at the leaderboard very closely.

I don't think that there's really a problem, aside from the bandwidth/storage space needed.

Well, I thought that was what we were talking about. I'm not offended on an emotional level by crappy scores, I'm concerned about the continued viability of MARP.

The founders addressed this in the rules. Rule 1 states "MARP is a self-regulating community". Rule 2.l states: "Submit only games that you feel are worthy of the notice of other MARPers, owing either to personal effort, or display of skill." Some members clearly are not regulating themselves in this regard.

[LN2]

good point about part of rule #1.

I don't think MARP has a big percentage of the CPU, RAM etc. on the server it's on. There could easily be 100+ sites off the server and marp is just one of them.

Yes, MARP uses a lot of HD space in total but not really that much bandwidth. It's not like we get 1000s of visitors here daily. There could easily be another site with some php script running with a big memory leak of infinite loops or opening up many ports etc. that is actually the problem....not MARP, not even really the server...but some other site's crappy code. Notice html pages always load. The failures are always on the scripts(php) running.

It's clear from the speed of the site and uploading that bandwidth isn't an issue. If it was then we would see lagging in downloads/uploads. I have never seen lag at MARP.

The problem is the php engine seems to run out of ram or net ports it can use at any given time.

The site has actually been much better tonight. I have done 4 uploads tonight and all four as well as a few searches all went just fine. For 2 of my uploads it seems even the e-mails were sent out. It's been a while since I have seen e-mails get sent out...so perhaps the server was reset or something adjusted.

I wonder how long it will stay that way though.

[mahlemiut]

The problem is the php engine seems to run out of ram or net ports it can use at any given time.

PHP? All the scripts are written in Python. To me, it seems to be some differences or incompatibility between the two ZTNet servers. If you look at the bottom of a number of scripted pages, you can see that there are two servers running two different versions of Python. The contents of the servers also seem to be a bit different too.