CliveBarker

@Jason Carr I have already translated the files, however; there are some files missing an es.resx version: -ConnectForm -SplashForm -SyncForm If this is intended to be, just let me know and I will send you the translated files.

DOS76 said One thing I'm confused with this discussion is if the MS-DOS version came out in 1990 why would the Atari ST version even be mentioned in the DOS section wouldn't the game have its own entry under the Atari ST platform and then the 1991 would be used as the release date for that version. I could see for using the earliest date though for games that are re-released on the platform Oh, I thought every game will have their own page, and in that page all the platforms where its available will be displayed. For example if I look for Zelda II i get this result: http://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/2605 The game page for Zelda II and its list of details. So if this game were multiplatform, those should be listed there. I thought this is the way the DB was going to manage the entries. But if you say that this is a per platform basis, I am very lost... hehe

Very good read, Cebion. I like your suggestions a lot. I want to comment on some of them. If a game is released in multiple platforms in different dates, I think the oldest date should be the one with top priority. I do not know if Jason wants the website aesthetics to be minimalistic, but the more metadata we are allowed to put in a game, the more info must be placed and shown at the game DB page. This can result in some web design issues. One suggestion for this specific topic: is to show only the oldest one in the "Date" field and the other dates can appear while hovering X platform. So, for example: Monkey Island first release was 1990. This is the one that will be at the Date field. The game was released for Atari at 1991. So, the user can hover the platform with the mouse and the "1991" will appear as a little text box. For moderation purposes, other approach can be used. Like showing all the dates and platforms next to each other, to facilitate the job. I like all the things you propose as "extra" metadata. Like Trivia and such. The problem is, the more info, the more dedication and time will take to a moderator to ensure every bit of data is correct. So, if these things get added (I would like them to be), maybe we should put some metadata priorities at the Moderation guidelines. Example: Top priority (must be correct always): Game Title Image Description Release Date Platforms Publisher Developer Genre Single Player/Multiplayer ... The other metadata can be "free" of moderation while submitting, but a moderator can check and edit the info whenever they need or want. This, to ensure that the most relevant metadata gets curated in a more efficient way and the DB gets rolling more quickly with a lot of moderated game submissions. And then, a moderator can spend their time adding or editing other, less relevant fields. This is all I wanted to say. Nice eye btw, kinda creeps me out :p

I want to propose a change in the rejection process. Something like this: Review submitted change->Doing research to see if the metadata is correct->If its not, then reject the change and submit the correct info (without having to open a new tab and search for the game to change it) This could save some time to the moderators and make it more fluid. ENTIRELY OPTIONAL: Having a button to make a new discussion thread to explain the changes. Why is this necessary? Well, while doing research I have found many contradictory info about X game metadata. Like, a website says it was released X year, and other says another date. I don't think this is feasible since threads can take precious server resources. But it would be nice to have a way to interact and discuss between the original submitter and the moderation team. And as a bonus, having a profile page at the database could help making people more involved and committed with the DB. Lets be honest here, who doesn't like to have stats?(like, how many games you have submitted and such, and showing your collection in your profile). And don't get me wrong, I know the site is in beta. I just want to put my suggestions here since I don't know if DB suggestions should be put at the bitbucket.

DOS76 said I was just doing some moderating and boy it the game Arctic: Active Rail Playing Game popular on there. I know we are to verify info before accepting but I've seen a few name changes where the box is being displayed and you can plainly see the title so I've been accepting them off of the strength of the box alone I hope that is acceptable. Also I would like to discuss if we the moderators would like to agree on a standard for certain things like games with secondary titles should have colons ie The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or in another case what are your feeling on say Disney games or Pixar where some games have Disney's or Pixar in the title and on the box while some have it on the box but the meta doesn't have the Disney part in the title. I personally like the title to be what is written on the box but would be willing to bend for group consensus. Hehehehehe I was moderating that game too

SentaiBrad said As of now Clive, no there isn't, that is a great idea though. Hi Brad. It also would be nice to add some things to the moderation interface. For example: I am moderating X game. I find out that one of the submitted fields is incorrect by doing previous research. Since I already have the "correct answer" it would be nice for moderators to submit the change directly in the moderation page. Of course that change should be subject of further moderation by the same process.

Jason Carr said Alright, I've opened up moderation for the following people: @donarumo, @SentaiBrad, @CADScott, @FistyDollars, @DOS76, @CliveBarker, @Freestate, @DonkeyKongsVet, @DudeManL57, @Hexxxer @CriticalCid, @XxvondutchxX, @wkLeon, I tried to open it up for you guys but I couldn't find your accounts. Go ahead and register and give me your gamer tags and I'll get you access. To moderate, sign in and then click the "My Account" link at the top of the site. Then you should see a "Moderation" link if you have access. Hi Jason, I am doing my first moderation and I have a question: Is there a way to put a note as to why X element is being rejected?

Done!

The only issue about having a strict quality control about the box art quality is that it could lead to have a lot of games without box art (since a lot of box art are awful at TGDB). So here is my question: Do you people prefer to have something bad or nothing at all? Like if there is a submission(OF A GAME THAT IS NOT ALREADY IN THE DATABASE) with a low resolution box art, is the whole entry going to be rejected? Or only the box art will be? My solution to this issue is the following: Accepting the submission but labeling the entry with a special tag "Could be improved" (The text can be different) Making a special filter in order to be able to browse through games with this tag so users can improve the entry. Or alternatively; accepting good quality custom made(non official) box art. I have made some high resolution box art for games that I can't simply find the official box art. The problem with this approach is that it could lead to problems between the ones whom approve or disapprove the entry and the ones that submit it. Since "good quality" could be a very subjective term specially in creative areas; the user can argue against the final decision leading to possible forum threads and rants.

Sign me up as beta tester my homie Brad. If the site ever needs a spanish moderator (I don't really think it will be needed) I can help, I also can read Italian pretty well.

I just realized you are an official Moderator now, congrats! Hehehehe if this forum grows I just hope it doesn't become like Steam forums/discussions because you will have a hard time moderating shitposts, ASCII obscenities and memes...

DOS76 said Hey Clive. We've already seen that message in another post but thanks for sharing it anyway. I tried the link provided but it requested me to fill a captcha and login to facebook to read it, I thought some people didn't want to login just to read it so I pasted the message from reddit. I hate Facebook to ask me to login just to read a post. Don't want to sound rude, I just got angry with Zuckerberg.

Jason Carr said TheGamesDB.net (at least up until now) has been run on a virtualized (low-power) server because they don't have the revenue for a server that can truly handle the load. Didn't know that...I imagined they had some sick server because they were very well known and big. Maybe they could try to use Patreon, GoFundMe or something like that. Looking forward to start contributing to our database! Have a nice day Jason.

GatoSoft said That would be really awesome! :D It sounds a little troublesome because of moderation and such but it would be a great feature that would put a flag on LaunchBox that others frontends still doesn't have. ;) EDIT: I almost forgot: what about metadata from GameFAQs? It have a lot of artwork and info of even rare and obscure games. Could be possible to add support for GameFAQs in LaunchBox? o_o? I have investigated that, because I was interested in seeing GameFaqs support in LaunchBox, but sadly, it seems that GF owners are not interested in making an API.

For those who don't have Facebook: theGamesDB.net wrote: Hi guys, we are sorry that there has not been much information about the downtime that we are currently experiencing, so I wanted to write a post to update you all on the current situation. We started off nearly a decade ago as a small site used mostly by a few groups of retro gamers and HTPC enthusiasts. Since then our user base has grown, along with the ever growing community of API users and developers that have integrated our service into their apps and site. Serving so many users obviously requires quite a lot of computing resources, and over the years we have taken steps to keep the resource usage low, whist still trying to maintain great performance. This has included putting our service behind the Cloudflare Content deliver Network, along with optimising the database server for the many, many thousands of requests we get every day. This has proven to be a losing battle. We have regularly had to put more and more financial resources into upgrading our hosting. We currently pay a large, well known hosting company named 1and1 for the highest specification Virtual Private Server that they offer. This seems to not be enough. A few days ago, 1and1 shut off our service without any warning. After two days of contacting them several times a day, they were finally able to tell us that our service had been shut off for excessive resource usage. It seems that we will no longer be able to host our service with this company. Our most likely option to get the site back up would be to purchase some dedicated server hardware, and place it in a data centre. This obviously requires a large amount of time and effort, and also financial resources. We have always made our service available to all of our users at no financial cost to them, and we hope to continue in this manner. We thank you for your continued support, and we understand how inconvenient it is to many of you that our service is currently offline. Unfortunately at this point in time, the situation is out of our control. We need to plan and investigate new hosting options. Thank you again, Flexage TheGamesDB I will be happy to contribute to the community database as long as I have Internet connection. I just have a question: can the same thing happen to our database if the community grows a lot and the hosting costs become unaffordable?

Congrats to Jason and the community for constantly improving LaunchBox. If Jason can develop LaunchBox full time, this can only get better.

SentaiBrad said Fan-fic designs of Jason and myself will be denied upon entry, but reviewed heavily........... http://i.imgur.com/40PfVwr.png

I tried to add a .wmv video just as a test and it threw me this error: http://i.imgur.com/7XapJki.png

@Jason Carr Hey, I am seeing a lot of new users with very very cryptic names...I mean no offense for anyone of them but their naming are somewhat similar to the recent person who posted crap hours ago. I hope this isn't a wave of attacks coming in.

DOS76 said There are 25 new posts on here and none of them are readable Bots are invading us.

Hahahaha the boob thumbnails still plague youtube everywhere. It seems weird to me that they did a change that actually sounds fair and helps everyone. But it is good they did that.

Oh, I underestimated YouTube then hehe. I know there are some websites dedicated to search the most weird YouTube videos, those are obscure indeed.

Thanks for the clarification. It occurs to me that many times youtube video names are a mess, so what if we as a community open a Youtube channel to upload trailers and videos with proper naming. I know that sounds super crazy, I can't imagine someone uploading 1000 trailer videos. But maybe if everyone had access to the channel. Don't know if google lets you share your channel access though. Also, is probably for someone to call for copyrights infractions and mess with the channel, so not a really doable idea.

Could the YouTube API data brings privacy issues? I don't want to sound paranoid tho. I mean, are you going to need to log in to your account in order to use the API inside LB? However, I do like what you suggest, that way I can also save storage space.

SentaiBrad said The Steam of Retro Gaming. Linux and Mac support would be awesome. Personally the thought of media integration doesn't sound appealing to me at all in LB, and I've held my tongue on that long enough. There are enough programs doing that well enough (Kodi and Plex). I understand you, honestly when I speak about media integration I talk about native support for complete game soundtracks with the possibility to browse trough them, A game trailer/video gameplay sub-library where you can add multiple videos for each game, native comic/manga reading support and some other crazy stuff. My thoughts are more focused on gaming media but of course it is just a fantasy. I never used Kodi or Plex before, but I will check them!