The validation rules
Every mechanic and every number of community run validation, in one place. This page reads the live settings — what it says is what the database enforces.
1. Who may vote
Any signed-in member in good standing may validate a run, with three exceptions that are checked in the database, not the browser:
- Not your own run. You cannot vote on a run you submitted.
- Not the record you'd defend.If you hold the current record on that board, you do not get a say in whether it's beaten.
- Not while suspended. Suspended accounts cannot vote.
There is also an eligibility gate, built and currently off. When active, voting requires an account at least 7 days old with at least one verified run of its own — the qualification is having been through this process, not having typed a URL. The gate cannot be on at launch (day one, nobody has a verified run), so it arms itself: once 25 accounts qualify (currently 0 do), the gate switches on and stays on.
2. Watch it before you judge it
The vote controls do not exist until you have watched the run. "I will watch it" is not a pledge here — it's a mechanism. On YouTube the player reports your progress, and the controls unlock at 90% watched. The meter tracks your peak progress, so scrubbing back to rewatch a trick never costs you credit.
Where playback can't be measured — Twitch, and any embed we cannot drive — the meter says so honestly and a written affirmation that you watched the run in full stands in its place. A run proven on an unmeasurable host is gated more weakly than one on YouTube; we say that plainly rather than fake a measurement.
3. The agreement you sign
Before your first vote in a category you sign the validation agreement by typing your handle: you will judge the run against that category's published ruleset and nothing else — not how much you like the runner, not how the time compares to your own. You sign once per ruleset version. If the rules change, your old signature stops matching and you are asked to sign the new version before voting again. Every vote records which version it was cast under.
4. Approving and rejecting
An approve is one click. A reject costs a sentence. The asymmetry is deliberate — it slows the cheapest abuse without slowing the honest majority. A reject requires one of the listed reasons plus a written note (at least 10 characters) saying what you saw:
- Video will not play. Private, deleted, region-locked or otherwise unwatchable.
- Does not meet the rules. The run breaks this category's ruleset.
- Timing does not match. The submitted value disagrees with the footage.
- Footage is not whole. Cut, spliced, or missing the start or the finish.
- Wrong hardware. Not the console this board is for -- emulator, or another model.
- Something else. Anything the five above do not cover. The note has to say what.
5. How a run concludes
A run is decided at 5 net votes: approvals minus rejections. +5 verifies it, −5 rejects it, and a reject cancels an approve — the bar is agreement, not turnout. Until then the run sits on the board in a provisional row: tinted, ranked with ≈, excluded from the counts.
If both sides reach 2 votes each, the run is contested: the tally freezes and the game's staff decide it. More votes on top of a genuine split would produce a winner, not an answer.
6. The safety valves
- Undo window — 60 seconds.For the misclick, and only the misclick. Your vote row stays (the audit trail is permanent) and your slot on that run stays used: an undo is taking your vote back, not buying a second one. A vote that already concluded the run cannot be undone — by then it's a decision, and reversing decisions is what staff overrides are for.
- Rate limit — 20 votes per hour. Validation is watching runs, and nobody honestly watches faster than that.
- Every vote is an audit row. Votes are never deleted; an undone vote is marked, not erased.
7. Who sees what
The tally is public — the vote counts show on the run page and in the queue strip above each board. Who voted is not public: voter names are visible to staff only. If your run is rejected, the recorded reason is shown with it; the individual notes behind the votes stay with staff.
8. Where staff fit in
Voting doesn't sideline the people responsible for a game — it changes when they act:
- While a run is open(submitted, under review, or contested), the game's moderators — and on a homebrew game its developer — can decide it directly.
- Once a run has concluded, overturning it takes the higher rung: the developer on their own homebrew game, or a WE-NEO admin anywhere.
- Every override is recorded — who acted, what the tally said at that moment, and whether they decided an open run or overturned a settled one.
On homebrew games, a developer's verification shows as their endorsement — but the community's vote decides homebrew runs the same way it decides everything else.
9. After the verdict
- Verified — the run ranks. Your best verified run on a board stays ranked; your older verified runs step aside as superseded.
- Rejected — the run comes off the board but stays on your public profile, marked, with its reason. Rejected runs are never deleted.
- Appealed — you can appeal a rejection. The run reopens and the votes that rejected it stop counting; it is judged fresh, not resumed at −5.
- Flagged — a verified run whose result is disputed is marked by staff and looked at again. It stays on the board and stays ranked while that happens; a dispute is a question, not a verdict.
The numbers, right now
- Votes to decide a run (net): 5
- Votes each way that freeze a run as contested: 2
- Eligibility gate: off, arms at 25 qualifying accounts — 0 qualify today
- Account age to qualify: 7 days (plus one verified run)
- Watch requirement: 90% of the video
- Undo window: 60 seconds
- Rate limit: 20 votes per hour
These values are live from the same table the database enforces them from. If we tune one, this page already says so.