Congratsio 3.0 Information

Since the start of Congratsio I have been focused on two things: saying good job to people and making something simple and easy to use. Moving forward and as more complicated features are added, I don't want to lose the personalization of the "good jobs" and the simplicity of the submission process. So, how will I find balance as Congratsio increases in scope? Here is my plan:

-Games will be stored in their own database. This will allow for "game pages" to be created where you can view records for a specific game. These pages will also have links to relevant sources for information in the community (e.g. Super Mario World will link to the Super Mario World wiki).
-Categories will be stored in their own database. This will allow for guidelines/rules and standardization to take place (notes on how categories will work below).
-All personal bests (including older ones) will be allowed. Only current (e.g. within the last week) will be tweeted on the Twitter account to avoid spam. Older personal bests will only be displayed on the "game pages" whereas current PBs can be seen on a newly redesigned home page.
-The newly redesigned home page will be similar to Facebook's "Wall," only it'd be for the entire speedrunning community. It would not only show the latest personal bests, but also include news feeds from the various sites in the community (SpeedRunsLive, SpeedDemosArchive, TASVideos, The Sunday Sequence Break, SourceRuns, ZeldaSpeedRuns, etc.). There will also be quick links to the most popular game pages as well as some "statistic widgets" including fun lil' facts that people of the community will appreciate :)
-Goal tracking and progress charts will be added on "runner pages." Runners will be able to set their desired times for various categories and people can see how close they are getting to their eventual goal time based on all the PBs they have submitted.
-PB Badges will be automatically generated for posting on Twitch profiles. With code, it's possible to pull personal best information from a database and display it in a nice looking little Badge that will integrate well with the newly updated Twitch profiles.
-An API will be created for other website admins to securely and easily access all personal best information from Congratsio.com. This will allow for leaderboard information to be shown natively on sites like SpeedRunsLive, SpeedDemosArchive, or wherever else.

These features will be part of "Congratsio 3.0," so to speak.

Now, on the subject of the approval process and categories, I have spoken with a lot of key members in the community to get their thoughts. Here is what we have come up with:

-Each game will have a "game admin." This person will be responsible for setting up the categories and appointing moderators who will approve times.
-There will be no login or registration process required to submit times. Administration and moderation will be done through Twitter accounts.
-Categories can have whatever label their respective communities desire. There can be as many "Any%" categories as needed. However, there will be hidden variables in the database called "category types":
--Each game will have exactly one category typed as the "Any%" category. This will not affect the label of the category. For example, the label for the "Any% typed" Super Mario 64 category will most likely be "70 Star."
--Each game can optionally have one category typed as the "100%" category. This, too, will not affect the label of the category. For example, this might be labelled "96 Exit," "120 Star," or "120%" for Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and Spyro the Dragon.
--Each game can have a run typed as "Low%" if it is sufficiently different than the run typed as "Any%." Low% will not be a category for a game such as Ocarina of Time since the only notable difference is using a stick instead of a sword.
--There will also be "Special" typed categories. These will be the special goals in games, like Any% with certain restrictions or completing all of the dungeons. Examples include "No Cape No Starworld," "MST," "16 Star," and "Glitched" for Super Mario World, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, and Link to the Past respectively.

Why will there be category types? On Congratsio.com, these will be for ordering purposes only and will not affect the approval process. There are other practical reasons for typing/weighting the categories. Some creative uses that might be implemented in the future include a page for asking "What is the World Record for such-and-such game?" or even a 3rd party Twitch Bot that lets stream viewers access the data remotely.

The last thing I'd like to mention is the timeline for implementing all of these features. First, I will seperate a few things in the database so there can be "game pages" that will show all past records for each game. After that, categories will be the main focus. "Game admins" for popular series have already been selected. We are going to begin a "category collection" process in the coming days and weeks to get the basic ground work done. Once we have that part of the database set up, Congratsio will be opened up to all personal bests and essentially be a functional "Universal Leaderboard." My goal is to have everything ready for you guys by mid to late February with some new features being added before than.

Thanks for reading all of this and let me know if you have any feedback!