How to handle aliases?

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druellan
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Re: How to handle aliases?

Post by druellan »

Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:17 pm Do you mean discussing if the real name should be displayed along the alias in SC? That's a decision for @PeterJ since that's a website related change that doesn't depend on ZXDB...
Oh, yes. I mean at presentation level.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: How to handle aliases?

Post by Einar Saukas »

druellan wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:30 pmAs you can see, can be a lot for some titles, and if you try to display everything on "comments" the section will start to feel bloated, and important comments, like the game running only on a Pentagon, or the need of a lightgun emulation to play it, will become mixed in between.
We have specific fields to indicate Pentagon (min. machine type) and lightgun (groups). This information shouldn't be in comments.

The comments field is intended to store the kind of additional information you consider trivia...

druellan wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:30 pmSo, regarding to the actual comments, I think should be related to the preservation (how to emulate the game, loading screens missing, the only copy is a pirated one, etc), not for historical facts.
I don't see the need to use comments to describe how to emulate the game. It should be obvious from the hardware requirements.

There's already a boolean column in table ENTRIES to indicate games that don't have loading screens, so there's no need to use comments for this information either.

If the only available file is a pirated version, this information is indicated in the file itself, not in the comments section of the game.

druellan wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:30 pmThis are comments, since they are not redacted, just useful information if you want to run the game
Image
The similarity to another game is not relevant for running the game. I think it qualifies as trivia.

druellan wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:30 pm Image
The comment "128K only" is redundant. The same information is clearly visible in "machine type". I will remove this comment in the next ZXDB update. Thanks for pointing this out!

druellan wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 3:30 pmBTW, thank you guys for taking the time and reply to my crazy thinking! :D
Thank you for bringing up this discussion! I appreciate the chance to revaluate ZXDB and look for possible improvements. In particular, displaying real names next to aliases was a good idea, I hope Peter will implement it :)
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druellan
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Re: How to handle aliases?

Post by druellan »

Einar Saukas wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:06 pm We have specific fields to indicate Pentagon (min. machine type) and lightgun (groups). This information shouldn't be in comments.
The comments field is intended to store the kind of additional information you consider trivia...
Oh! interesting! Great! So, the confusion I have is more related to the necessity of a cleanup of the comments that are now redundant, than the need of an extra table to keep posting trivia.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: How to handle aliases?

Post by Einar Saukas »

druellan wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 2:28 pm
Einar Saukas wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:06 pm We have specific fields to indicate Pentagon (min. machine type) and lightgun (groups). This information shouldn't be in comments.
The comments field is intended to store the kind of additional information you consider trivia...
Oh! interesting! Great! So, the confusion I have is more related to the necessity of a cleanup of the comments that are now redundant, than the need of an extra table to keep posting trivia.
I think so :)

I have been doing a lot of cleanup since ZXDB started. But that's not something worth announcing, unlike adding new titles for instance.

If you spot further opportunities for cleanup, please let me know!
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druellan
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Re: How to handle aliases?

Post by druellan »

Yeah, I'm starting to use more and more the database, I want to start pointing this kind of things, details that usually are left for later, and usually "later" never arrives.
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