Here at TASVideos, we always have a lot of activities going on, as we're continually at work maintaining site operations and publishing the latest submissions.
Want to help out? We are always looking for contributors and volunteers - anybody can contribute in their own way!
Table of contents
User contributions
Any sort of activity is always appreciated, even at the most basic level!
- Watching our movies, and giving them a rating - your feedback will let the authors know that their work is appreciated by viewers like you!
- Watching our submissions and writing feedback for them on the workbench - get an early peek on submissions awaiting publication, and help us curate and verify the quality of submissions pending judgment!
- Submit your own TAS! We have various resources on learning how to TAS, and all it takes is a suitable emulator/framework, deep game knowledge research or resources, and a good amount of patience. Without new TAS authors, we wouldn't be able to keep putting out content for our viewers to enjoy.
- Join our live chats and forums to engage with our community!
Volunteering
If you would like to have a more significant impact in the TASVideos community, there are several ways to do so:
Sync Verification and Cataloging
Editors and Reviewers have the ability to sync verify submissions by playing back the input file on their own machine. Sync verification is an incredibly important aspect of submission processing, as a submission cannot be judged or published without it.
The process of marking a submission as sync verified involves cataloging it and providing all information required to get the movie to sync.
If you are interested in helping out with this, you can apply to become an Editor and/or a Reviewer through our Help Application form.
Reviewing
In addition to sync verification, Reviewers can analyze and review submissions in place of a Judge by doing any or all of the following:
- Checking if it is in violation of any of the movie rules
- Evaluating if it is sufficiently optimized, or has visible mistakes
- Letting the author know of any potential improvements
If you are interested in helping out in any of these steps, you can apply to become a Reviewer through our Help Application form.
Encoding
Encoding is the process of taking an input file, and using its associated emulator/framework to record it into a video file (encode), which then can be played back directly or uploaded to YouTube.
When submitting a movie, we encourage submitters to include a YouTube video of their submission, but not everyone is capable of doing that. If you can provide a video for any submission that does not have one included on its own, it would make it much easier for other community members to watch and evaluate the movie. For this, the video can be of any quality, as long as it is watchable. A guide for making casual encodes is available here.
Encoding is also essential in our publication process - the encodes we produce for publication have significantly higher quality standards, and have their own guide here.
If you would like to help us out and spare some computer processing power to produce encodes for our publications, feel free to apply to become an Encoder through our Help Application form.
Writing
All article pages on the site, like this one, are powered by a Wiki engine, allowing volunteers to write or edit articles and maintain information for submissions, publications, games, and game resources. Writers/editors are expected to follow the editor guidelines.
Additionally, if you can write in other languages than English, many of our pages require translations into foreign languages.
To become a wiki editor, apply through our Help Application form.
Programming
Our site and community are founded on tools and websites, which are constantly under development - so for anybody with programming experience (particularly in C/C++ or C#), there are many ways to help out.
Most emulators/frameworks we use are open-source, so it is easy for any external programmer to investigate and submit improvements upon the code. We could also use help with other potential emulators/frameworks that currently aren't supported, so that they may be improved and meet our site requirements. Any sort of TASing framework, or even individual game TAS mod that could be supported by the site in the future is heavily encouraged to be worked on!
This site itself is also open-source, and is always looking for help with fixing bugs and adding new features. The site is built with ASP.NET (mostly C# and HTML/CSS).
Staff
TASVideos staff members are responsible for the daily operations of the site.
There is no formal application process to become staff - prospective staff members are typically selected by our administration from active contributors and volunteers in the roles mentioned above. If you are an active contributor and have interest in a particular staff role, you may reach out to the appropriate senior staff members.
Judging
Judges decide the fate of our submissions, and are responsible for investigating submissions for movie rule issues, and accepting submissions for publication. More information can be found at the Judging pages.
Publishing
Publishers take the submissions that have been accepted by judges, and turn them into publications that are featured on the front page of our site, stored in our movie listings, and include descriptions, tags, video files, and YouTube uploads. See the Publishing page for more details.
Moderating
Our live chats and forums, though generally friendly spaces, require moderators to keep spam in check and maintain a healthy community.
Community engagement
Our Ambassadors hold the responsibilities to arrange various site-related events and also visit game conferences, advertise the site, and otherwise engage with external gaming communities.
Do you think you can help us out in a way that is not covered above? Let us know what you have to offer for us in our Help Application form!