About
Everybody has a number. Nobody has a receipt.
Speedrunning solved this decades ago for video games: strict categories, a public timer, unedited proof, and a community that will happily spend a weekend proving you wrong. This is the same idea applied to the only other thing people constantly claim and never document.
The rules are the product. Public, versioned, downloadable, identical for everyone.
Conflict of interest
The person who operates this site is also running on it. Run #1 is mine. That's a real conflict of interest, so here's how it's handled — in the rules, not in the footer:
- My run carries the
Operatortag everywhere it appears. - My run is not verified by anybody. There is no honest way for me to verify it: I would be picking my own judges. So it is never labelled
verifiedon its own — it readsverified — public evidence, and that phrase means exactly what it says. - Instead, I publish what everyone else submits privately. Every payment the run receives is on The Receipts, and the evidence behind the checkpoints is published too — redacted, with a note on each file saying what came out and why.
- Anybody can object to any of it, in writing. The objection and my answer go on the run page together, in full, whether or not the objection turns out to be right.
- I rule on other runners' evidence, and theirs stays private, exactly as the rules describe. If an external board is ever seated, it takes that over and is listed at /verify.
- I can't change the rules in a way that helps my active run without a published rationale.
If my run is disqualified, it will be displayed as disqualified, exactly like anyone else's.
A leaderboard owned by one of its competitors is worthless. This one has to be neutral to be worth anything — and neutrality you can't check isn't neutrality. That is the whole reason my run gives up its privacy instead of claiming a verdict.