Category Page Guidelines

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If you're about to create a new "official" page with times for a Pokémon game not already listed on the wiki, or want to add a new category to an existing page, please read these guidelines first. They are strictly just guidelines, so if you feel that you have a very good reason to not follow them then go ahead. However, if you don't follow them you should expect increased scrutiny on whatever new page/edit you make.

Speedrun categories documented on the main pages of this wiki should, in general:

  • Be actually competitive amongst the community. This means that there should be multiple people attempting to run the category seriously, and that there should be at least one completed run of it. This does not mean that there need to be multiple people competing for the "World Record", but it should be of interest to more than one person at least. An example of a category (currently) failing this criterion would be Emerald All Gold Symbols. Werster is the only known runner to have made any headway into this category, and he hasn't finished a run. Furthermore, he doesn't even take it seriously as a category - it is just something he does for his own amusement. If multiple people were to start running it seriously and actually complete runs, this situation could change.
  • Not have a known and already-met lowest possible time. This mainly refers to the Generation 1 save corruption & Dokokashira Door glitch categories, where the best possible times (0:00 and 0:03 game time respectively) have already been achieved by multiple people. Keeping times pages for said games is rather pointless, as anyone who decides to run them can achieve the best possible time with sufficient time and luck. This is not really conducive to a competitive speedrun category.
  • Fulfill a major game objective. For Pokémon runs, this means the run should complete a sensible goal clearly defined by the game - the most well-known examples are either beating the Champion of the Elite Four, a stronger Champion post-Elite Four (such as Red in Gold/Silver/Crystal and their remakes), or completing the Pokédex. This means that partial-game runs, such as times to beat Misty or Surge in Generation 1/3, are not likely to be taken seriously.
  • Not just be a different set of rules for an already-tracked category. Generally, the rules for each category currently on the wiki have been agreed upon by the community as a whole, and listing new pages with variations of them (such as Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow with the Poké Doll skip banned) is not a great idea. The idea of the general rules being changed to be more sensible in some way isn't out of the question, but this should be discussed among the community as a whole on a case-by-case basis.
  • Not just be the same game played on a different language. For the time being, the community accepts that whilst Japanese Pokemon games (and possibly other languages) may in fact be faster to complete, the experience is a lot less enjoyable for most runners and runs that are only faster because of playing on a version with faster text should not be acknowledged as competitive with other runs. This is another matter up for debate if the right arguments are presented, but for the time being runs on these pages should use English version only.
  • Play the game in question in an unmodified state. This generally means that randomizer run times and ROM hack runs are not seen as competitive categories for the purpose of these guidelines.

These guidelines only apply to creating new "official" time pages or entries on them, such as Pokémon Red/Blue/Times. If you want to track times in a category which doesn't quite meet them, you can create a page on your own userspace (such as User:Luckless/Spinda%) and it's fine - in the end, speedrunning for you is really just whatever you want it to be.