rlm82x

Some really great points there kurzih, thanks for adding your voice. I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments about appropriateness (and aspect ratio). I noticed the previous discussion which made some excellent points. I raised this as a new post in the hope that the person may see it. Without the ability to see who is making the changes (and just as importantly, leaving the "Reason" messages - whilst not all rude, some most certainly are...almost verging on [passive] aggressive with the excessive capitalisation and use of "SMH"), I couldn't see any way to get in touch. Misinformation and rudeness have no place in a community resource such as this; it's not just the quality of the content available but perhaps the willingness of community members to continue contributing. Thanks for your thoughts - and directly linking that other post here. Hopefully the good points made there will help more people understand the differences and benefits, free from asserted assumptions and personal bias.

In the hope that a particular contributor who is being heavy handed and somewhat rude in their changing of images and the "Reason" provided reads this. I have seen a lot of covers replaced in the moderation queue of late, from PNG to JPG versions. I wholeheartedly agree that a lot of the changes have been for the better (no tangible reduction in quality, smaller file size). However, JPG as a format is not a magic solution for all images. Please note that the two file formats are different in how that store colour information. This means that in some cases, as we've seen with your own submissions, an image may be smaller as a PNG, or, the quality reduction is too significant as a JPG. Please remember some users make use of Big Box on large screens; the artefacts you see in compressed JPG images on blocks of colour are horrendous in this situation. A case in point is on the Nintendo Switch logo (top left). The developer (and owner) of Launchbox [GamesDB] chose to allow both formats; if the site want's to change to a 'file size only' method then it is up to them to implement that change in the Guidelines and Rules. For now, I urge you to please consider that the format used should be what is appropriate in that particular circumstance; please don't just spam replace on the assumption that a particular format is best in all cases (indeed, some of your submissions increased the file size or reduced the quality significantly). As I said, the "Reason" submitted is often rather rude, with factually incorrect information (statements such as "JPG's scale better" - which is incorrect again because it's completely subject to the individual image). I'd like to urge all of us to remember that someone has gone to great effort in submitting information here (particularly in the case of reconstructions and personal fanart). I'm sure most of us have gone through a learning curve. Let's not put members of our own community off by developing "moderation brutality".

I've verified that as I thought, no cover displays for the game in DB if it is marked as Fanart - Cover - Front. This could well result in people mislabelling (with good intentions), just to make sure a cover shows in the DB. Game: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/96154 Search Results: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/results?id=Deathmaster The Dungeons of Death

+1 A great idea. IIRC, TVDB (and possibly TMDB) use a rating system to achieve a similar outcome - most highly rated is the one displayed (or in the case of Plex, scraped). A little different as it's not subject to official/fanart differentiation (IIRC), but the same context. I noticed a while back, someone suggested a 'locking' system similar to other online DB's so that 'database' mods could lock verified data in place - I know Jason has a lot on and is [very] busy so I'm sure it isn't a high priority; out of curiosity, was this ever considered?

Soooo. Admission, I added a couple yesterday as 'reconstructed' instead of 'fanart' (I got myself in a kerfuffle as I essentially used the official console cover/poster and reconstructed it with a PC based header). Afterwards, I realised the mistake (and noted them to change after the inevitable acceptance - which happened 3-1). It's possible I have this wrong - but I think if there is a fanart cover, but no official one, the game shows up with no cover in the database. If so, this may be influencing people to choose the wrong option for what they perceive to be the benefit of the database - I'll check on one I've just submitted for change now (https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/images/94958 - Candleman: The Complete Journey). Other than that potential, do you think it would be worth requesting a label change (and grouping in the options list) to make it easier for people who think they're doing right to actually do so? Perhaps something like: Box - Front (Official) Box - Front (Reconstructed from Official) Box - Front (Custom Fanart)

Thanks Eternal Man ? Sorry for going off on a tangent then! Cheers

Agreed on the title/alternative title. I'm obviously confused about this GamesDB. When you hover over the question mark for release date when adding a new game, it states that it should be the earliest date it was released; I had thought the guidelines used to make a point that this wouldn't necessarily be the US release date and should be the earliest. The closest to a country bias the database had (regardless of where unbroken software is based) was when selecting the main title of the game if different in every region - this, to my recollection, was the only time a bias towards a US dataset was in effect. I also thought that we weren't to add as different games for international releases, rather add them as title variations? From what you've said, has this changed (or have I always misunderstood)? Does this mean I am accepting/rejecting incorrectly (as these data-points aren't subjective)? Would appreciate guidance as I've made a lot of changes over the last few years in complete contrast to what you say and will happily go back through my history and reset them all to the US release data points, remove alternative Jap/EU titles I added and add them again as separate games if that is where the database is now heading. Sorry if I've been doing this wrong all this time.

Thanks Neil9000, that was my gut feeling too. Having a Mod agree makes me happy to do that. Do you know if the Moderators Guidelines are going to be re-added? I've seen a few instances of things I've rejected [based on the 'add new game' hint guidance] still get through (eg, changing [Genesis] Madden NFL 96 to Madden 96, or changing an earlier release date to the NTSC-U date); this is why I took a few weeks off last time (those few weeks turned into a year though). I bookmarked them all and checked later, reversing the changes (giving explanations in my change submission for other moderators to make their decision on), but it does seem that there are more people (on average) approving database changes without verification ?

Question about images - it's been almost a year since I last participated so am a little rusty. Unfortunately the guidelines document (Google Drive link) seems to have been deleted so can only ask for guidance here . My moderation queue has a lot of Spectrum cassettes that someone has obviously spent time creating. I don't know whether it's right to approve them regardless of the effort put into them, they are definitely out of proportion (squashed in horizontally - I'd say about 25%). I have 'skipped for 24hrs' three times so can only assume others are doing the same as they are still in the moderation queue. Here's an example and I appreciate a view on this (respect the creators efforts and approve, or respect quality and accuracy and reject):

Hi all, Launchbox is my preferred solution to the growing number of PC digital stores with their own launchers. I was thinking that I'd like to know, at a glance, which 'digital platform' I own the game on, whilst having a single 'PC' platform in Launchbox. A simple solution seems to be fanart covers with a header by platform. I have an example below (before anyone says, I know that Cuphead isn't available on all these 'platforms', it's meant ONLY as an example). I've tried to keep the logo's from being obnoxious and maintain consistency in design; all use the latest logos I could find - if the logo consists of an image and word, these are slightly split and resized, if the name of the 'platform' is the logo then it isn't repeated. Before I added any variations, I wanted to see what people thought here rather than spam moderation queues. Would people want these variations to choose from? Should this be of interest, I can share my PSD - it makes creating alternative's as easy as checking two boxes (because, well, that's all you do).