Are the rules or details of speedrunning specific games on topic?

Question

Today I answered a question regarding why it's impossible to do a 100% kill nightmare speedrun in Doom 2; which to me seemed on topic regarding speedruns, which have been discussed on meta before. Especially because the answer, and the question itself, are really about the inner workings of the game Doom 2, I fail to see why the question was subsequently closed.

My intuition of the on topic rules was that questions regarding mechanics were explicitly allowed, and the details of speedrunning specific games seem to have been accepted as on topic previously when discussed on the meta, if implicitly since the discussions I have found were about tagging them as speedrun.

Why would this question not fall under the limits of these categories?

Alternatively, would relabeling the question as, "What makes it impossible to do a 100% kills speedrun on the Nightmare difficulty?", make the question more directly about the mechanics, and thus on topic? I feel that would make it fit better, but the user asking why a category of speedrun doesn't exist wouldn't be able to phrase it that way without already having the knowledge that it is in fact impossible.

Answer 1

The question was closed because, in it's original form, it was clearly just asking for videos of Doom speedruns:

Is there a video on the internet of someone doing a DOOM 2 speedrun on Nightmare difficulty with 100% monster kill ratio? I saw it on Ultra-violence or saw Nightmare with 100% secrets or just simple speedrun on Nightmare difficulty.

The user isn't asking why there aren't any speedruns like this, they're just asking for a video of someone doing it. A request for a video is just a recommendation question, so it's definitely off-topic.

Your edit definitely changes the askers intent to instead of be asking "Why are there no DOOM 2 Nightmare 100% kill speedruns?". I like this new question, and I also like your answer. I'm firmly of the opinion that this is a great question for the site... but it isn't what the OP asked. Generally, we shouldn't edit a question to change the OPs intent without their consent.

However, I really like your updated question, since it addresses the users real problem of why they can't find those question. So to that effect, I've left the following comment:

Hi Kerk! Your original question as written was off-topic, since it was a "video recommendation" question. @Venoda and I have modified your question to instead be asking why there aren't any speedruns of DOOM 2 Nightmare 100% kill ratio. Are you fine with this change to your question?

Assuming Kerk is fine with this intent change to his question, then I say we reopen it.