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## Wiki Discussion

### On the definition of "glitch" - Page 2

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#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-03 15:16:08
Again, in the "glitches accessible by ACE", the custom code is only used for setup, and the actual glitchy part is entirely intended code doing unintended things. Using Gameshark as an example, it is what can happen in the game after you remove the Gameshark.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-03 15:37:35

> Again, in the "glitches accessible by ACE", the custom code is only used for setup, and the actual glitchy part is entirely intended code doing unintended things. Using Gameshark as an example, it is what can happen in the game after you remove the Gameshark.

Ah, I see what you mean. This is a good point, and is somewhat prevalent here, so i'll explain it like this:
If you're using ACE to set up a situation that otherwise can't be attained, it's definable as a "glitch" due to being something you can't achieve without total control. This may even exclude memory editing through, say, expanded pack as even with EP you'd still have to trigger whatever you wish to accomplish with the proper function and said function would have to not sanitize its workspace first.
nuance is great

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-03 17:51:37

> If you're using ACE to set up a situation that otherwise can't be attained, it's definable as a "glitch" due to being something you can't achieve without total control. This may even exclude memory editing through, say, expanded pack as even with EP you'd still have to trigger whatever you wish to accomplish with the proper function and said function would have to not sanitize its workspace first.

In the end, the question is to what extent can the failure to sanitize a workspace (i.e. input data) be considered a bug. In the map FF case, the programmers (presumably intentionally) decided that the map connection does not need to be sanitized, since the map design shouldn't allow an invalid connection to be taken. However, it is plausible that it could have been done. In other cases, like meta-map script IDs, it might be impractical to sanitize the input (since the meta-map IDs themselves are supposed to be the most reliable indicator of the state of the map).
Also, in the end, it can be argued that many proposals for sanitizing inputs are based on 20/20 hindsight. Sure, this specific glitch could have been avoided by doing this specific sanitization, but how are the developers supposed to know that this kind of malformed input could happen in the first place? (If they had known, they would have been able to just fix the parent glitch/bug.)

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-04 17:01:06

> > If you're using ACE to set up a situation that otherwise can't be attained, it's definable as a "glitch" due to being something you can't achieve without total control. This may even exclude memory editing through, say, expanded pack as even with EP you'd still have to trigger whatever you wish to accomplish with the proper function and said function would have to not sanitize its workspace first.

> In the end, the question is to what extent can the failure to sanitize a workspace (i.e. input data) be considered a bug. In the map FF case, the programmers (presumably intentionally) decided that the map connection does not need to be sanitized, since the map design shouldn't allow an invalid connection to be taken. However, it is plausible that it could have been done. In other cases, like meta-map script IDs, it might be impractical to sanitize the input (since the meta-map IDs themselves are supposed to be the most reliable indicator of the state of the map).
> Also, in the end, it can be argued that many proposals for sanitizing inputs are based on 20/20 hindsight. Sure, this specific glitch could have been avoided by doing this specific sanitization, but how are the developers supposed to know that this kind of malformed input could happen in the first place? (If they had known, they would have been able to just fix the parent glitch/bug.)

isn't Rule 1 of software development literally "assume all user input is hostile and malformed"?

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-04 19:45:39

> isn't Rule 1 of software development literally "assume all user input is hostile and malformed"?

The tricky part is that they are not supposed to be user inputs. Those data are supposed to come from other subroutines in the game's code, and it is only because of an earlier bug that the user gains the ability to manipulate them.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-10-04 20:41:51
Overall I think game state after the fact compared to beforehand should take priority when defining this. Off the top of my head, item underflow is a glitch, the Celadon looping map thing is a trick, Trainer escape is a glitch, Wally defeating Ralts is an oversight, and using Cute Charm for tons of shinies is an exploit.
I hope to articulate this better in addition to what degree it's necessary to delineate them later. Article names should at least be consistent.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-05 01:51:03

> > isn't Rule 1 of software development literally "assume all user input is hostile and malformed"?

> The tricky part is that they are not supposed to be user inputs. Those data are supposed to come from other subroutines in the game's code, and it is only because of an earlier bug that the user gains the ability to manipulate them.

Considering the user is not intended to have direct hardware access, this earlier bug would have to be triggered by user input, wouldn't it?

> Overall I think game state after the fact compared to beforehand should take priority when defining this. Off the top of my head, item underflow is a glitch, the Celadon looping map thing is a trick, Trainer escape is a glitch, Wally defeating Ralts is an oversight, and using Cute Charm for tons of shinies is an exploit.
> I hope to articulate this better in addition to what degree it's necessary to delineate them later. Article names should at least be consistent.

This does help, yes, but again, termage in most other facets of an entire industry mean something too.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-05 01:56:53

> Overall I think game state after the fact compared to beforehand should take priority when defining this. Off the top of my head, item underflow is a glitch, the Celadon looping map thing is a trick, Trainer escape is a glitch, Wally defeating Ralts is an oversight, and using Cute Charm for tons of shinies is an exploit.
> I hope to articulate this better in addition to what degree it's necessary to delineate them later. Article names should at least be consistent.

For article names things are a bit different, because an article can only have one "standard" name, but it is surely related. In particular, it has been noted that "oversight" in the article name usually implies an inconsequential glitch, but we also use "due to an oversight" to describe the causes of glitches (even major ones), where it is the polar opposite of inconsequential.
Anyway, my thoughts on the words themselves:

[li]A trick is something that just makes sense given the context (usually of parent glitches), and happens to be a convenient way to achieve a goal. Ditto trick, Celebi Egg trick and Celadon looping map are typical examples. Old man trick is a less typical example due to the non-intuitive way the game overwrites grass encounter data, but it still feels like one. It is also arguable that event-based item underflow is just a trick after desyncing the item count and the item list, but I believe dry underflow is surely not "just a trick". The fact that combining stacks allow you to have item count = 0 and still have access to the second slot is very much its own weirdness.

[li]Softlocking yourself is not a trick unless you are into that (and there are easier way to softlock yourself with Rival's effect anyway).[/li]

[/li]
[li]An oversight is a case where the developers forgot something, usually a special case. As such, this term should usually only apply to natural glitches, because saying that "the developers forgot that this parent glitch exists" just doesn't make sense (an exception can be made for pieces of code that are obviously intended to be error traps). I don't consider typos in code to be oversights, although it may be arguable that their corresponding glitches are caused by oversights in testing (if the case could reasonably be covered in testing).[/li]
[li]An exploit is something non-obvious that gives the player an advantage. It doesn't need to be "unintended" the way a glitch is, thus the phrase "non-glitch exploit" (in fact, maybe that should be the implication when it occurs in the standard article name). Using X Accuracy to hit OHKO moves might be considered an exploit.[/li]

> Considering the user is not intended to have direct hardware access, this earlier bug would have to be triggered by user input, wouldn't it?

Of course, but the problem is that whether the consequential glitch should be considered another bug. Like you've said, we need to box things into individual items.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-05 09:23:17

> > Considering the user is not intended to have direct hardware access, this earlier bug would have to be triggered by user input, wouldn't it?

> Of course, but the problem is that whether the consequential glitch should be considered another bug. Like you've said, we need to box things into individual items.

I feel unqualified to define these and i'm surprised I made it this far, but anyways, this is true and is in itself hard to classify. How would one classify issues resulting from other issues? Different trigger methods for the same issue may even technically change the classification in rare cases.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-10-05 16:44:02

> I feel unqualified to define these and i'm surprised I made it this far

This after making almost half the posts in the thread? :P However b9a's tone comes across, what he and all of us want is just to help the site and the community surrounding it, in part by opening discussions available for any member to give their two cents to. I don't want this to fall on just a few, especially with how much it's confusing even me where to draw the lines.
Anyway, about the five terms I threw out as a possibility, what I was trying to get at but didn't know the words for was that a "trick" requires a parent glitch, and such an entrypoint is what should formally be regarded as a glitch. I'd put all ways of underflowing the bag or PC under the latter. An "oversight" to me is, in short, an inconsequential glitch. They don't deserve the same degree of intrigue as something like negative HP through Pomeg berries. An exploit is an instance of normal gameplay that doesn't create an invalid game state but seems like something not intended to be done in a particular way. X Accuracy's effect on Gen I OHKOs is the ideal example.
Phrases like "due to an oversight" and "is a glitch" should just be removed from articles in general. I might add this to the manual of style (or just do it, uh, manually :p ).
In terms of categorization, I think glitches and the tricks they allow for should be shown alongside each other, as the average user will be curious about a particular end state ("Mew's on my screen!") rather than which bytes are set to what after flying from a long-range trainer, even if they allow for meta-map script activation as well. Similar to what I said in the other thread, I'm for notability-based categorization.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-06 12:44:16

> > I feel unqualified to define these and i'm surprised I made it this far

> This after making almost half the posts in the thread? :P However b9a's tone comes across, what he and all of us want is just to help the site and the community surrounding it, in part by opening discussions available for any member to give their two cents to. I don't want this to fall on just a few, especially with how much it's confusing even me where to draw the lines.

To be honest, even I myself have no real motivation to participate in this discussion now. I just don't want to leave anyone who does want to discuss in the same position that I have often felt that I am in — finding that nobody else cares. I guess I at least care a little, but I really don't know what is good for this site now.
Maybe I'd just been waiting for you to come back. You are the one who has always been pushing for better categorization, so maybe you have more insight than I do.

> Anyway, about the five terms I threw out as a possibility, what I was trying to get at but didn't know the words for was that a "trick" requires a parent glitch, and such an entrypoint is what should formally be regarded as a glitch. I'd put all ways of underflowing the bag or PC under the latter. An "oversight" to me is, in short, an inconsequential glitch. They don't deserve the same degree of intrigue as something like negative HP through Pomeg berries. An exploit is an instance of normal gameplay that doesn't create an invalid game state but seems like something not intended to be done in a particular way. X Accuracy's effect on Gen I OHKOs is the ideal example.

I largely think those definitions are OK. I would usually want more support before being comfortable implementing them, but it seems that there is no one to support or oppose, so maybe we should just go ahead and deal with the fallout, if any, later.
I do want to note that most ways of underflowing the bag or PC also require a parent glitch (of course game-altering device is another option, and Gen I SRAM glitch might also be able to do it, although I don't really know how Gen I SRAM glitch bypasses the checksum, and it may result in a game so broken as to render the expanded item pack/box irrelevant anyway).

> Phrases like "due to an oversight" and "is a glitch" should just be removed from articles in general. I might add this to the manual of style (or just do it, uh, manually :p ).

I think guessing what the developers were thinking is a necessary thing for a glitch site (after all, the definition of glitches always has "unintended" in it, which requires inferring the intention in the first place), and "due to an oversight" is a good way to communicate that after analyzing the code, it seems likely that the developers just forgot. I recognize that the terminology might be confusing, though, and maybe we don't need to communicate this piece of information after all.

> In terms of categorization, I think glitches and the tricks they allow for should be shown alongside each other, as the average user will be curious about a particular end state ("Mew's on my screen!") rather than which bytes are set to what after flying from a long-range trainer, even if they allow for meta-map script activation as well. Similar to what I said in the other thread, I'm for notability-based categorization.

Well, I guess that surely does not mean putting them in the same category, right? Maybe a table like what is currently in the "major glitches" template would be a good way to do that.
On a page level, though, I understand the need for concrete and comprehensive procedures for a particular trick (having to go through 3~4 pages to understand how to do dry underflow would be too overwhelming for a new glitcher), but I am always worried that those procedures would be perceived as "magic spells" that could never be understood and must be followed exactly. Maybe for some people that's exactly what they want to achieve, but I personally hate that.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-10-11 21:30:23

> To be honest, even I myself have no real motivation to participate in this discussion now. I just don't want to leave anyone who does want to discuss in the same position that I have often felt that I am in — finding that nobody else cares. I guess I at least care a little, but I really don't know what is good for this site now.

Same for me, honestly. Maybe when I next go on Discord I'll push the links to this and related threads to whoever's online. Having been here (and also not here) for a while, though, I'd take the current state of the wiki less as "nobody else cares" and more as "nobody else currently cares". Heck, I could have done a lot more by now than I have, and I was hoping that giving potential editors a clearer direction to go in through these threads would help them do so. Documenting stuff isn't the most motivating task for anyone and I'm not an exception, but I think you've done some real good for the site with your insights and proposals about what its direction should be (not to mention all your articles). It's been a slow process, but it hasn't been in vain. In short, I think it's alright that nobody's in a hurry.

> I do want to note that most ways of underflowing the bag or PC also require a parent glitch

I literally forgot quantities above 99 weren't intended. :P Oh, golly…
I've said all I can think of to add at this point, but I'll sticky it now (you can too, by the way). Clarifying "trick/oversight/glitch/exploit" was the goal here and I'd say it's been done successfully now.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-10-12 21:40:09

> Documenting stuff isn't the most motivating task for anyone and I'm not an exception, but I think you've done some real good…

Well… some people think documenting glitches (especially root causes of glitches) is just killing the fun, and they might have a point. Other people don't want to change how they have been using the words, and that's reasonable too. Maybe I have been misinterpreting lack of support as presence of opposition, but sometimes I do feel actively discouraged from doing what I do.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2019-10-16 03:29:46

> > Documenting stuff isn't the most motivating task for anyone and I'm not an exception, but I think you've done some real good…

> Well… some people think documenting glitches (especially root causes of glitches) is just killing the fun, and they might have a point. Other people don't want to change how they have been using the words, and that's reasonable too. Maybe I have been misinterpreting lack of support as presence of opposition, but sometimes I do feel actively discouraged from doing what I do.

Don't worry, I'm with you I feel technical explanations and knowledge behind the glitches are fascinating (even though I'm not as skilled as you in analysing them so intricately); this and the pursuit of documenting them. I remember a discussion about whether glitches should be 'for fun' or 'for application', by extension whether should they not necessarily be for one or the other. So keep up the good work we need more documentation. :) But also, it may be important to balance the hobby and work dynamic so don't push yourself too hard either if it bugs you. (thumbs up) - at the same time I want to encourage you to do what you enjoy; it seems like your the person who loves the pursuit of knowledge like me.

#### Re: On the definition of "glitch"

Posted by: bbbbbbbbba
Date: 2019-11-26 10:20:35
OK, today I am reminded of why I think this question is important by this page.
The page is a short stub with only three paragraphs, and it is the first two paragraphs that I have a problem with:

> Map script pointer manipulation is a glitch in Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow. It can be abused via the expanded items pack and is the parent glitch of map script arbitrary code execution and map script pointer item ball manipulation.
> The glitch can be activated by modifying the location of the map script pointer by altering item 41 and item 41's quantity.

The logic here is incredibly twisted, and that's because it tries to frame something that is entirely an application of the extended item pack (i.e. a trick) as something that "naturally" exists in the game (i.e. a glitch). "The glitch can be activated by modifying the location of the map script pointer"? What glitch? To be honest, that might be a correct statement under certain definitions of words, but it is not a good way to think about this. The trick is to modify the location of the map script pointer (by altering item 41 and item 41's quantity in the expanded item pack).
My point is that confusing definitions makes it difficult to think about things. As such, they encourage readers not to think, and just to follow instructions. And that is how we keep our readers from becoming future glitch researchers.
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