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I recently started learning how to speedrun Super Metroid. There are lots of YouTube and Twitch videos for specific, well-known strats (e.g. short-charging, Kraid quick-kill, etc.), but I see many strats emerging from currently active speedrunners that don't have tutorials or explanations yet.

Currently, to find out how to do a strat, I either have to wait for a streamer to come online, or hope I run into a well-known strat developer in chat. I don't mind either, but sometimes asking a streamer an involved question mid-speedrun is rude, and sometimes users aren't willing to explain a complicated strat in chat.

So, it'd be great if I could ask here, instead. But (1) I'm not sure something so niche is on-topic, and (2) I worry that I'd look like I'm farming rep, the way I'd like to go about it.

Ultimately what I'd like to do is draw the Super Metroid speedrunning community into Arqade. Without dropping links in their Twitch chat. What I have in mind is...

  1. Asking how to do a well-known strat that isn't so well-known that there are already a hundred resources. (No point in adding a question that won't bring in Google hits.)

  2. Answering the question myself if the answer is complex. This is to seed the site with some useful speedrunning answers.

  3. Leaving the question alone if the answer is easy. This is to leave the question to be discovered by someone in the SM speedrunning community, enticing them to participate.

  4. Asking actual questions I have, because, well, that's ultimate the goal for me.

What do you guys think?

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  • I'd say don't do #3, that's just silly. But, more 'good' users are always welcome?
    – djsmiley2kStaysInside
    Mar 3, 2016 at 20:05
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    Generally, #4 is what you should be doing. Seeding questions for the sake of seeding is somewhat frowned upon.
    – Frank
    Mar 3, 2016 at 20:08
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    Don't ask and self answer for the purpose of seeding. But if you have some information that you think is worth sharing and fits well in the question and answer format, then it's fine to post.
    – murgatroid99
    Mar 3, 2016 at 20:23
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    Also, keep in mind that not all (and sometimes few) users are friendly to "easy" questions that could easily be Googled. One of the reasons to downvote is "This question does not show any research effort", so if you don't post carefully and thoughtfully, some users may feel that the question warrants a downvote.
    – Broots Waymb
    Mar 3, 2016 at 22:24
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    Thanks for the comments, everyone. All points duly noted. I think what I'll do is post questions that I genuinely have or had (and couldn't find answers to on Google), and answer the ones I now know how to do. At first I thought #3 was a good idea, but yeah, maybe it is a little silly.
    – Andrew Cheong
    Mar 4, 2016 at 4:23

2 Answers 2

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Please do share knowledge.

This sort of information is totally on topic here. Having to learn it by watching videos probably works and certainly is entertaining, but doesn't scale well.

I don't know if we host the kind of audience that can really help, but that is a chicken and egg problem rather than site policy.

The kind of question seeding we frown upon the hardest is the systematic one, as in a bunch of largely identical questions that differ slightly (e.g. asking "how can I obtain an X" for every item in an RPG). Either phrase the question more generally, or only ask for values of X that you actually are struggling/have struggled with.

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    And as usual, the community will voice their opinions on the questions (through votes and/or comments) and it will show. If many overly simply or unresearched questions are being posted, they will certainly be noticed and likely downvoted, regardless of how on-topic they are.
    – Broots Waymb
    Mar 3, 2016 at 22:28
  • Thanks @DangerZone and @@badp. I've decided to go ahead and ask any questions that I genuinely had or still have, but leave out any "invented" ones.
    – Andrew Cheong
    Mar 4, 2016 at 4:27
  • @badp - Hope you don't mind me quoting you on a similar question someone happened to ask at meta.beer.se.
    – Andrew Cheong
    Mar 4, 2016 at 4:27
  • @AndrewCheong I don't mind one bit :)
    – badp
    Mar 4, 2016 at 9:27
  • @AndrewCheong I'm disappointed. I was hoping it was a question about speed-beering.
    – Sterno
    Mar 5, 2016 at 17:59
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If a speedrunning question gets closed, it won't be because it's about speedrunning.

Speed-runs are a part of gaming, and are therefore inherently on-topic. These questions will still need to be narrowly scoped, clear, and answerable, of course.

Regardless of the topic, don't seed questions. Ask questions to which you need answers, or ask and answer your own question if it's knowledge you expect to community to appreciate that isn't already easily available.

I'd also like to add that I, for one, would be interested in these types of questions. I do (no-glitch) speed runs quite often in games I enjoy, such as the Fallout games. I'm actually seeing how fast I can beat Fallout 4 on Survival difficulty right now. I've already beat it in about 10 hours on Normal, and expect I could pare that down a few more hours on a future attempt.

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