Moderator Guidelines and Contributor Rules

[MITUB3R]

17 minutes ago, Thanatos_Prime said:

Primary name should be the North American one, other names as Alt names. Though, be careful. Some of the Fan Art boxes look really convincing, which causes some people to upload them as actual Box Fronts instead of correctly uploading them as Fan Art Box Fronts. Ignore Fan Art for game naming. If I'm unsure, I skip it and let someone who knows the platform better do the voting. While we are on the subject, remember that release date is based on whatever was the very first release date without regard to the region where that happened. So you will often get a game with a NA primary name and a release date over a year before that was released in North America because it is using the Japanese or European release date.  

Also, we try to avoid using Kanji in primary name but instead use the phonetic translation (there is probably a better phrase for this, someone help me out) so instead of using 絶対に本当！

 ...we would use, Zettai ni hontō!

 

Though again, kanji in alt game names is acceptable.

Also you can use tools which allow you to take pictures or download the art to verify game names in other languages. I mostly use my cell phone and Google Translate, but I'm looking forward to trying this out: https://ian-nai.github.io/In-Browser-OCR/

Thanks a lot! Just like I thought. The first release date I had in mind, yes. How wonderful about OCR in the browser! Thanks, it will be very helpful

Edited August 4, 2021 by MITUB3R

[AdamJT]

There has been a vast number of submissions lately relating to region tagging in screenshots, clear logos etc. There seems to be a war going on between at least a couple of individuals, with one removing region tagging from these images and another adding them back on! The argument seems to be that if a game was only released in Japan for instance, then region tagging is not required for screenshots etc, with the counter-argument being that region tagging of Japan for all pictures of a Japanese game helps to sort media content into the appropriate folders. Can we hash this out here in the forums rather than over in the database? If a game is Japanese and it has Japanese text, and it was only released in Japan- then what's the big deal in having all images region labelled as such? Or should we be trying to keep these images "clean" by having no region tagging where it's deemed unnecessary due to the fact that it was only ever released in one region? Thoughts?

Edited August 7, 2021 by AdamJT

[kurzih]

2 hours ago, AdamJT said:

There has been a vast number of submissions lately relating to region tagging in screenshots, clear logos etc. There seems to be a war going on between at least a couple of individuals, with one removing region tagging from these images and another adding them back on! The argument seems to be that if a game was only released in Japan for instance, then region tagging is not required for screenshots etc, with the counter-argument being that region tagging of Japan for all pictures of a Japanese game helps to sort media content into the appropriate folders. Can we hash this out here in the forums rather than over in the database? If a game is Japanese and it has Japanese text, and it was only released in Japan- then what's the big deal in having all images region labelled as such? Or should we be trying to keep these games "clean" by having no region tagging where it's deemed unnecessary due to the fact that it was only ever released in one region? Thoughts?

I'm glad I haven't been moderating lately ? I think the keyword here is consistency. Whatever solution you use in the end, it's good to know that Launchbox in most cases will and depending on your region priorities:

A) only scrape the images that have the region tag and will ignore the ones that do not, especially if the game has a region ID (in the image type in question, like screenshots) .

or

B) scrape all images if none of them have a region tag (in the image type in question, like screenshots) .

So the problem is that in a game entry there cannot be a mix of some image types with region tags and some without, like screenshots. It has to be one or the other for all images from the image type in question to make this work as it should.

So whoever decides to put region tags on Japanese only screenshots for example, should add the tag to all of them or the rest will not scrape. Right now I would say the majority of single region screenshots are without a region tag. There are some exceptions like fan-translated screenshots/logos. 

In my opinion the most important thing here is that if someone wants to upload/change an image with a region tag they should check what is there already - too many times in the past I've seen for example Spanish logos being uploaded and the submitter hasn't bothered to add region tags to the English logo that was already there without a region tag and that has resulted in everyone getting the Spanish logo even if the game is by default in English/NA.

And the secondary thing is, please decide what you want to do on the database so we can avoid one of the things that has made me more or less stopped moderating: going back and forth with the same things and doing it all over again...

I agree that the forum is way better for discussion than the database comment field where only a limited amount of moderators can even see them.

Edited August 7, 2021 by kurzih

[Thanatos_Prime]

I can see this argument from both sides. On the one hand, people use regions when it simply isn't necessary and often in ways that cause problems. On the other hand if it truly is a single region game (leaving out ALL the ones where we later see that it isn't truly a single region release) then having it set for the correct region has no real impact. 

My vote is to set it once and leave it alone. Back and forth is a waste of everyone's precious and limited time. If it is already set to the correct region on a single region, let it stay that way. 

And I would like to reiterate the earlier point about the all caps reasons\explanations. Remember that many submitters do not moderate, so telling the same 3-5 moderators who already *know* the rules gets under the skin pretty quickly. You are preaching to the choir.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Thanatos_Prime
needed a comma for clarity

[MJF]

Just don't use IGN as a source for screenshots, since they pretty much watermark them all. There should be a list of sites to avoid for media images in general. VGM also watermarks all their images. Atarimania is also a site to very cautious of when looking for media images (their screenshots are OK) but they do watermark a LOT of their boxarts and advertisement scans.

[AdamJT]

Thanks to kurzih and Thanatos for the clarying the region issue slightly for me.

I'm wondering if the database could automatically take into account these apparent scraping issues, where if there is "unregioned" images mixed with region specific ones, I'm told there is an issue for the end-user? (I usually have every Box cover downloaded for the sake of historical interest, but I suppose some aren't as cosmopolitan...) What I mean is, the average layman LB DB submitter can't be expected to know this complicated info about region tagging and scraping- I'm still struggling to understand it fully as a moderator. Is there anything that can be done as far as the coding of the DB web interface? If it's is a program breaking issue it probably shouldn't be up to the community to moderate potentially hundreds of thousands of DB entries

Also, and I'm probably being a pain here but it would be great if there was a Retract/Edit option on DB submissions, for when people make a mistake or a typo, etc. If that's a possibility to code, it could save the moderators and submitters many headaches having to go through the same things twice.

Sorry if this has been covered already, it's late and I'm in stuck in lockdown in Sydney with a 6-pack of beer for company

Edited August 10, 2021 by AdamJT

[Thanatos_Prime]

There are likely things that could be done with the web interface to help. Only accepting JPGs for fanart backgrounds springs immediately to mind, as does the ability to retract a DB addition you made yourself and realize is incorrect in some way. However, there are limited funds and bodies to do the work. The roadmap for the next wave of work was voted on and prioritized and none of those items are in the current plan. We can submit requests, if you do it let us know so we can vote for them on the submissions\error reporting site. I believe this is the place. https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues?status=new&status=open

Someone please correct me if this isn't the right place for such things.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Thanatos_Prime
incorrect plural

[Thanatos_Prime]

Anyone want to talk about the fact that lots of formats shipped games in magazines with tapes\disks attached to the magazine. Someone is trying to delete a bunch of the C64 games with magazine covers marked as box art that came packaged that way. I know we have MSX and Playstation media that came packaged similarly, not to mention all the plastic bag with a xerox inside for Apple, Atari and Commodore products. I think they should be marked as box art, but would love to hear a rational argument against it that doesn't start with "....it ain't box shaped".

 

[Firefairy]

4 hours ago, Thanatos_Prime said:

Anyone want to talk about the fact that lots of formats shipped games in magazines with tapes\disks attached to the magazine. Someone is trying to delete a bunch of the C64 games with magazine covers marked as box art that came packaged that way. I know we have MSX and Playstation media that came packaged similarly, not to mention all the plastic bag with a xerox inside for Apple, Atari and Commodore products. I think they should be marked as box art, but would love to hear a rational argument against it that doesn't start with "....it ain't box shaped".

 

I am actually fine with this, but I am good at Devil's Advocate. The most valid counterargument I can think of is that the cover is for the magazine in general, not the disk, let alone the specific game. If it is available, the header or blurb for the disk or that specific game, from where it is described in the magazine, would be closer to box art. That's unlikely to be available unless the person has the physical magazine, though.

[viritys]

4 hours ago, Firefairy said:

I am actually fine with this, but I am good at Devil's Advocate. The most valid counterargument I can think of is that the cover is for the magazine in general, not the disk, let alone the specific game. If it is available, the header or blurb for the disk or that specific game, from where it is described in the magazine, would be closer to box art. That's unlikely to be available unless the person has the physical magazine, though.

”Type-in game enters the chat” ? With those, the blurb would usually be a snippet of the source code of the said game, maybe a few lines of text if you’re lucky.

Anyway, that’s actually a pretty good idea! Quite a few of the old gaming magazines are available as pdfs on archive.org or elsewhere so many have not been lost forever. Fanart maybe though? It would probably be more visually pleasing but I still consider the magazine cover the ”proper” box art for those.

[Firefairy]

1 hour ago, viritys said:

”Type-in game enters the chat” ? With those, the blurb would usually be a snippet of the source code of the said game, maybe a few lines of text if you’re lucky.

Anyway, that’s actually a pretty good idea! Quite a few of the old gaming magazines are available as pdfs on archive.org or elsewhere so many have not been lost forever. Fanart maybe though? It would probably be more visually pleasing but I still consider the magazine cover the ”proper” box art for those.

I missed out on that era mostly; I only remember a couple of game CDs coming with gaming magazines, and those were mostly demos. For those, there was usually both a callout on the cover and a chunk of text (usually short) in the magazine somewhere explaining the contents of the CD.

After my original post, it occurred to me that that text more closely resembled the content from a box back than the front. So, no longer Devil's Advocate, but my actual opinion: maybe the magazine cover is "box front" and if the description of disk or game is available, that would be "box back"? It provides the same type of information, and at least in my own collection, I wouod like that rather than having to  manually grab something to be the box art in my collection.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Firefairy
correcting a phone-keyboard typo

[kurzih]

On my part I was quite the gaming mag subscriber back in the 90's ?

I actually have a lot of custom-made "platforms" for Magazines. Like Commodore 64 Mags, Commodore Amiga Mags. Nintendo Power, PlayStation Official etc. Most of them have the actual Magazine readable as a "Manual" and if it has a coverdisk/tape/cd demo it's also playable as a "game" and multiple disc entries are added as alternative apps.

I've chosen to use "Flyer Front" for Magazine covers, since that's what they physically are (like the flyers on the Arcade section) and if there's a disc (ie. Amiga coverdisk) then simply "disc - front" for that. But sometimes, especially on the C64 side there are covertapes, for those I choose "box-front" instead of cart (cassette) IF it has a sleeve in the plastic casing, simply because it's the equivalent of a full game case. If there's only a cassette image (without the plastic box)  then I choose "cart -front".

You can then choose what kind of image you want to display first in the image priority settings. To be honest I don't really mind how they are tagged on the database as long as it's consistent and there's no destructive behaviour.

If anyone's interested here's what those looks like in BigBox - I've got clear logos, background, "platform" videos on all of them and most screenshots for the demos - it's crazy what you can customize with BigBox/LB:

Commodore Mags

Spoiler

Amiga magz

Spoiler

Spoiler

PS mags

Spoiler

Nintendo Power

Spoiler

Great fun!

[retroNUC]

Hey folks, happy to be contributing to the database and helping to work through the mod queue. Could I get Mod/Admin clarification on a few issues that seem to currently be on the queue?

• Currently a fight between two people across Fanart entries for all the games in the Need for Speed series - Person #1 is deleting all Fanart that contains logos/texts because they want to use it as a background to combine with Clear Logos, while Person #2 is getting a bit heated in the comments and adding them all back in. I assume Person #1 is in the wrong with the deletions? No rules for Fanart regarding text/logos, and if Person#1 wants to have clear logos for a particular Clear Logo / Theme combo they're using, they should just manually remove/audit any fanart on their local machine.
  
   
• 'Homebrew' vs 'Unlicensed' clarification - I'm presuming if a homebrew game ever got a physical release, no matter how small or limited the quantity, it should be then classified as Unlicensed instead? Or are we only classing Unlicensed as non-authorized retail games that were released during the lifespan of the console?
   
• Someone was adding some altnames for NeoGeo games that were actually two regional titles rolled into one, a-la "Fatal Fury 2 / Garou Densetsu 2". My assumption is that this shouldn't be allowed? As long as singular altnames exist for each region, it'll show up in search/filter results through a person's collection.

Thanks!

[Thanatos_Prime]

I've seen Unlicensed used in relation to Nintendo/Superfamicom games that were not officially recognized by the platform rightsholder. Homebrew can be for games not officially published or for games that came out after the "natural life" of the platform. So if someone made a Nintendo game for sale now, the art wouldn't necessarily be fan art, but the game would be classified as a homebrew. 

 Alt names should be used for each individual name. 

On the Fan Art Background vs Clear Logo issue. At one time it was stated that text in Fan Art backgrounds that interfered with reading the clear logos should not be used, but that is very subjective and logo sizes change all the time. Some have taken this to mean no text whatsoever, no matter how small, which seems like overkill.

[Suhrvivor]

5 hours ago, retroNUC said:

Hey folks, happy to be contributing to the database and helping to work through the mod queue. Could I get Mod/Admin clarification on a few issues that seem to currently be on the queue?

• Currently a fight between two people across Fanart entries for all the games in the Need for Speed series - Person #1 is deleting all Fanart that contains logos/texts because they want to use it as a background to combine with Clear Logos, while Person #2 is getting a bit heated in the comments and adding them all back in. I assume Person #1 is in the wrong with the deletions? No rules for Fanart regarding text/logos, and if Person#1 wants to have clear logos for a particular Clear Logo / Theme combo they're using, they should just manually remove/audit any fanart on their local machine.
  

Fanart - Backgrounds are used as backgrounds for several Launchbox, Bigbox, startup and pause screen themes, having text or logos in the background plus the text and logos in the foreground of the themes makes it hard to read the foreground text and makes for an overall (and in my opinion) "bootlegged" feeling experience.

[Thanatos_Prime]

To whomever is giving the person who is deleting C64 covers\box fronts an education I really appreciate it. They obviously didn't read the notes given to them with the last set they tried to delete, such as checking with GameBase64 before they tried to delete or make changes, so I'm not holding out much hope that this isn't the same person who submits the fake Wii games every week or so or the one that is obsessed with changing random game screenshots to things they obviously aren't like Control Panel info or Box fronts. However, it was nice to feel like someone is looking out for the platform. Thank you for addressing it quickly and knowledgeably. You made my day.

[sundogak]

On 8/24/2021 at 11:31 AM, retroNUC said:

Hey folks, happy to be contributing to the database and helping to work through the mod queue. Could I get Mod/Admin clarification on a few issues that seem to currently be on the queue?

• Currently a fight between two people across Fanart entries for all the games in the Need for Speed series - Person #1 is deleting all Fanart that contains logos/texts because they want to use it as a background to combine with Clear Logos, while Person #2 is getting a bit heated in the comments and adding them all back in. I assume Person #1 is in the wrong with the deletions? No rules for Fanart regarding text/logos, and if Person#1 wants to have clear logos for a particular Clear Logo / Theme combo they're using, they should just manually remove/audit any fanart on their local machine.
  
   
• 'Homebrew' vs 'Unlicensed' clarification - I'm presuming if a homebrew game ever got a physical release, no matter how small or limited the quantity, it should be then classified as Unlicensed instead? Or are we only classing Unlicensed as non-authorized retail games that were released during the lifespan of the console?
   
• Someone was adding some altnames for NeoGeo games that were actually two regional titles rolled into one, a-la "Fatal Fury 2 / Garou Densetsu 2". My assumption is that this shouldn't be allowed? As long as singular altnames exist for each region, it'll show up in search/filter results through a person's collection.

Thanks!

On the last bullet there is logic to why those are added that way in that is how the MAME names the rom titles with dual names (or more in some cases separated by /), so with that as alt name it picks up the match readily.  Many of those alt name changes were made around time that the MAME fullset import feature was added to LB.  Ideally there would be different way to do it but such is the limitation now in that the way MAME names some things isn’t ideal.  But short version, I wouldn’t delete the alt name like that.  

[MJF]

There is this guy that tries to change the release dates of NES games to the North American release date on a lot of games, even though these games were first released in Japan and other areas. I'll chop it up to the guy being a noob, but aren't you supposed to use the earliest release dates at all times?

[kurzih]

1 hour ago, LordEvyl said:

There is this guy that tries to change the release dates of NES games to the North American release date on a lot of games, even though these games were first released in Japan and other areas. I'll chop it up to the guy being a noob, but aren't you supposed to use the earliest release dates at all times?

Yeah, it's actually quite clear in the rules and there's no regional date categories yet (just checked, see screencap below):

And noob or no noob there's absolutely no point in contributing if the person has an agenda of their own and wants it to look the way they want it even if it would be against the database rules. Everyone have their own preferences and taste, that's one of the reasons there is a list of rules on the first page so we have proper guidelines and no solo "I think this should be like this" adventures on the database. I'd vote for a more restricted contribution system, where you'd at least have to tick some boxes that you've read and understood the rules and a efficient troll report system. Could be more interesting going back to moderating after seeing so (too) much back and forth cases.

But to be honest I'd be more interested to contribute for systems STILL missing on the database that are already very well emulated - surprisingly PS5 was recently added to the database platform list "skipping the line" over some older systems that can be emulated. disappointing...

1. A game's release date must require at least a release year. If the game has documentation for the release day and month then please provide.
   • Older games may not have accurate data on release dates.
   • In case of no year, leave blank until that information can be found.
   • The release date should be the first date the game was released on.
   • Regional Date categories are going to be implemented, which will then require each game to have the proper date for the proper region.

[MJF]

4 minutes ago, kurzih said:

Yeah, it's actually quite clear in the rules and there's no regional date categories yet (just checked, see screencap below):

And noob or no noob there's absolutely no point in contributing if the person has an agenda of their own and wants it to look the way they want it even if it would be against the database rules. Everyone have their own preferences and taste, that's one of the reasons there is a list of rules on the first page so we have proper guidelines and no solo "I think this should be like this" adventures on the database. I'd vote for a more restricted contribution system, where you'd at least have to tick some boxes that you've read and understood the rules and a efficient troll report system. Could be more interesting going back to moderating after seeing so (too) much back and forth cases.

But to be honest I'd be more interested to contribute for systems STILL missing on the database that are already very well emulated - surprisingly PS5 was recently added to the database platform list "skipping the line" over some older systems that can be emulated. disappointing...

1. A game's release date must require at least a release year. If the game has documentation for the release day and month then please provide.
   • Older games may not have accurate data on release dates.
   • In case of no year, leave blank until that information can be found.
   • The release date should be the first date the game was released on.
   • Regional Date categories are going to be implemented, which will then require each game to have the proper date for the proper region.

My issue with adding the PS5, is that when they did it they never added the newest XBox as well. Which I don't see the point, if you're going to add one of the modern consoles, you might as well add them both