Rejected edits and site advancement

[pzeke]

The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine instead of using GameFAQs and Wikipedia as references.

Honestly, this website needs competition.

[dhaabi]

The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine instead of using GameFAQs and Wikipedia as references.

We've moved past this issue as a community. It becomes more of a problem for items in Non-English languages where many members aren't versed in such as Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, which is why we've used GameFAQs as our common name source.

[tripredacus]

Actually the common name rule came to a vote in the first place because games were renamed to match their covers. There are just some instances where a game is known widely by a name other than what is on their covers, such as .hack series.

[pzeke]

The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine instead of using GameFAQs and Wikipedia as references.

We've moved past this issue as a community. It becomes more of a problem for items in Non-English languages where many members aren't versed in such as Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, which is why we've used GameFAQs as our common name source.

Yes, I know that topic was left in the ditch a long while ago, but it's still contentious in my opinion; I reckon I should've kept at it back when we were having the discussion, but my mind was somewhere else at the time. But hey, what the hell? Let me yell into the void a little bit, no harm in saying what was then and still is on my mind, it's not like it's going to make a difference anyway.

Firstly, I believe if there's a game, or whatever else on the database from another region and someone that's knowledgeable and speaks the language comes in and explains in proper detail why the current name is wrong, I think we should take them at their word, especially if it's someone that has been part of the community and has contributed accurate information in the past; after all, there are free tools online that we can use to verify the validity of their claim. Secondly, as I already stated, I think the cover/spine is what should be used, it's the best referential point and it's an accurate representation of the item. The genesis of this whole discussion seems to have been instigated due to the favoring of data integrity over data accuracy, wherein the former you'd want to keep things consistent with current changes, like choosing "Mega Man X4" over "Megaman X4" whereas with the latter there would be no change in order to maintain fidelity, which is what I believe these type of databases are meant to do. If integrity is what matters to some, then I think that's what the alt-name field is there for in the first place; I'm sure a feature could be put in place so that users could choose to have the alt-name of whatever game they have in their collection to show instead. Now, let me be crystal clear here because this distinction is very important, and, I guess this would be my third point: when I say "accuracy" I don't mean a literal transcription of what's on the cover/spine, as I explained here and here in that thread. Obviously, there is a multitude of games with rather unique stylistic choices whose titles, I want to believe, a smart individual would understand not to use, because as I often belabor in that particular thread, I think it's common sense*—Chu♥lip, THE iDOLM@STER, Black★Rock Shooter, 4 Resident Evil, Mega Man X³, and Disney's Donald Duck: Goin' "Qu@c!<e*r!s" are some examples given that I believe quite perfectly demonstrate when not to use the cover/spine as reference, all of which could very well be included in the alt-name field. And yes, in that same thread Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII was discussed, but I didn't include it as an example because it's an outlier given both 'IV' and 'IIII' happen to be correct, as not only was it a number that would see use in Rome back in the day, coinage and the Colosseum being two examples, but it's also still used in Roman numeral clocks (and there's also the theory that using 'IV' was impious against Jupiter, which happens to be spelled "IVPPITER" in Latin, so 'IIII' was used as a substitute). Fourth and last, pie because cake is a lie.

Overall, this whole endeavor isn't as intricate as some would lead to believe, there's truly no need to overcomplicate what a well-written set of rules can adequately and thoroughly explain—simply put: it's not rocket science. The rules set for this shouldn't be an intimidating block of text like this trudge of a post, especially when the Style Guide already does a good job delineating most of the specifics, simply needing an addendum outlining the dos and don'ts when transcribing what's on the cover/spine: like keeping the name in title case, with names based on an acronym (DefCom 5, SOCOM, ArmA), as well as those using camel case (AirForce Delta, NanoBreaker, inFamous) being exempt; omitting special characters/symbols (Street Fighter II′, kill•switch, E·O·Ǝ: Eve of Extinction, Stoŀen) detailing specific exceptions (.hack//); elaborating on certain naming conventions like possessives (Disney's Aladdin, Disney·Pixar Brave, Marvel's Spider-Man, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater); noting which name to use whenever a game happens to have differing names on the front cover and the spine (Deathtrap Dungeon, MechWarrior 2, BRAHMA Force, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, God of War II, James Bond 007 in Agent Under Fire); expounding on the omission of descriptors/identifiers/labels that simply serve as a form of caption (Metal Gear Solid, Panzer Front, Driver, Blood Omen 2, Lifeline, Blast Works); etcetera. All of this is very much doable and maintainable, but I'm of course just venting, I'm not expecting anything here. Not to sound derisive, but, while I'm certain people are using the website, the forums aren't particularly the most active to properly gauge interest in revisiting this topic, so this was just me yelling into the void as I prefaced. If you read this far, then my apologies.

Addendum (12/22/23): It turns out that "NanoBreaker" never had a hump; it's essentially a remnant from past magazine and online articles that spelled the game that way—it's always been Nanobreaker.

*I understand this is an international website, but common sense applies to every denizen of the world, and while I'm sure that makes me sound quite pretentious and perhaps somewhat dismissive, percipience comes from experience, so lack of it easily translates to low insight. We're not born all-knowing, not every person that decides to become a member here will be readily aware of how the website works, especially a newbie, which is why they'd be directed to the rules, specifically the Style Guide on this matter so that they can understand and comprehend how the database operates. The subset of rules for this in particular don't need to be a mile-long list of bullet points, they just need to be clear in properly and accurately explaining how one would go about transcribing what's on the cover/spine—no muss, no fuss. If any doubts should arise, then that's why we have the forums.

[sworddude]

So from my understanding you have an issue that some games allow for the stylistic choice on the cover in the alt name department.

Like Mega Man X³  While others with stylistic choices are normal as usual. and you want everything to just ignore the style since you'd otherwise have to do it for all. There is no reason why games such as Mega Man X3 should be an exception in your eyes.

I think in the case of X3 it's done cause it's quite an ez one to do withouth actually altering the name, on top of it looking nice/fun. It doesn't seem that deep. If it's ez enough withouth butchering the true name it can't hurt I'd say. It will stay the exact same while adding a bit of flair, I can see why it was an exception to the rule.

Let's be real aside from it looking nice X³ to X3 changes literally nothing. The number just looks a tad different but it's still the same number at the very end of the day, hence why they probably did it. This isn't some alternate symbol to replace a letter/number it's the exact same thing. If you can make a stylistic choice for the alt name and it literally changes nothing It's fine I'd say. X3 fits the criteria for this.

[pzeke]

I... What...?

Games with stylized titles will have their names on the database in standard title case, while the stylized title would in turn be included in the alt-name field, when appropriate, of course. Nowhere in the wall of text I wrote did I mention having any sort of issue with that, and in fact, is what should be done to maintain accuracy. Mega Man X3 would remain as-is, while Mega Man X³ would be housed in the alt-name field, as would possibly any other game whose title happens to be stylized, like the few I mentioned.

In other words, and for the sake of repetition, I'm not advocating for the use of X³ instead of X3, it's literally the opposite: I'm stating that the cover/spine is the ideal referential point but that there are instances where it clearly isn't.

[telly]

The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine instead of using GameFAQs and Wikipedia as references.

We've moved past this issue as a community. It becomes more of a problem for items in Non-English languages where many members aren't versed in such as Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, which is why we've used GameFAQs as our common name source.

...

First, I strongly disagree that this process isn't very intricate or complicated. In my opinion it is VERY complicated, and no matter which option is used, we're going to create a list of exceptions because neither system covers every single game title out there with perfect accuracy. We just have to accept that it's an intricate process and try to select the option that causes the least amount of confusion.

Second, we've had our current naming guidelines in place for almost 5 years now, which has been plenty of time for it to be tested. Our style guide has exactly four common name exceptions since July of this year, and they essentially boil down to
- Franchises that are not consistently named over GameFaqs
- Franchises that are not correctly translated because of course GameFaqs is an English site and folks have limited skills with that kind of stuff

There are also our own special rules for games that take priority (like hyphens, multiple games), which applies to both systems regardless

To me, that's a way better track record than relying on a long list of exceptions and a detailed instruction post for all of the 30+ franchises listed in your post (and there are certainly more). I simply cannot buy that a cover-based naming system would be less complicated than GameFaqs (or even equally complicated), and I already made a long ass post back in the day of all the examples of franchises where the cover isn't clear and people's "common sense" led them to picking different names and as such they were being changed all the time.

Third, I disagree that the "obvious title conventions" with symbols, etc. are obvious. They all require additional rules. As mentioned, I was putting the @ in Idolmaster because I thought that's what it was before we had a rule for it at the time. People just don't think the same way about this kind of thing and that's totally to be expected.

Games with stylized titles will have their names on the database in standard title case, while the stylized title would in turn be included in the alt-name field, when appropriate, of course.

You'll also have to define what you mean, because I personally don't know what stylization is appropriate to retain or not. These are blanket examples of common naming conventions with required of rules and exceptions to these rules of what elements we keep from the box and what we ignore. Just goes on and on.
- Symbols
- Colons
- Whether we add colons when the color/font of the title text changes
- Subtitles, when do we add them or leave them off?
- Words on the box that are not a part of the title
- Placement of letters and numbers
- Capitalization of words
- Spacing of words
- Games with other games or companies listed on the box
- Possessives
- Logos (like the James Bond gun)
- Prioritization of titles on the box vs. on the spine vs. on the back
- Exceptions that are their own beast altogether like the .hack games

I feel like this is the exact same argument that we had two years ago, where the complaint was "The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine" to which I gave examples where that doesn't work, then the argument was changed to "use the name on the cover, but detail all the specifics of what's not allowed when using a cover as the source for naming an entry" to which I argued that this is a very complicated process and that relying on common sense just doesn't work in practice. Again, why would we rely on users to follow all of this when they can just go to GameFaqs and it will mostly provide them with the correct title?

[tripredacus]

It doesn't matter which way we do it, people aren't going to agree. That is a given. Also some people can't separate between what a website does and what they do. You don't have to reorganize your life based on a website. I also did not vote for the common name rule either, so I do not like it myself. But I do not use it personally, it is just what is used on this website.

[Cartagia]

It doesn't matter which way we do it, people aren't going to agree. That is a given. Also some people can't separate between what a website does and what they do. You don't have to reorganize your life based on a website. I also did not vote for the common name rule either, so I do not like it myself. But I do not use it personally, it is just what is used on this website.

This is where I'm at.  The ultimate results of the poll were very close, not a blowout.  Neither is a perfect solution, so we just work with what's available and what the majority prefers.

[pzeke]

There's a shit-ton to unpack here...

And yeah, this is a big post. Sorry, I guess.

[...] I feel like this is the exact same argument that we had two years ago, where the complaint was "The games themselves provide their actual names, so let's use what's on the cover or spine" to which I gave examples where that doesn't work, then the argument was changed to "use the name on the cover, but detail all the specifics of what's not allowed when using a cover as the source for naming an entry" to which I argued that this is a very complicated process and that relying on common sense just doesn't work in practice. Again, why would we rely on users to follow all of this when they can just go to GameFaqs and it will mostly provide them with the correct title?

Because it isn't that hard. Because when it comes to data entry accuracy is the cardinal rule. Because users don't have to exclusively rely on websites that "mostly provide them with the correct title" when they usually have the games a couple of steps or even mere feet away from where they're probably sitting and can simply look up the information from them; after all, GameFAQs and Wikipedia, just like this website, are user-maintained, a volunteer effort prone to hosting erroneous information. And because the way I see it, this website has been drifting in cyberspace for a decade languishing when it damn well has the potential of being nonpareil. Don't get all that twisted, though, I'm not saying using GameFAQs and Wikipedia is wrong and shouldn't be done anymore, their information is valuable and they serve their purpose, but a database of this kind should be held to a higher standard than relying on websites similar to it and other secondary sources when the games themselves serve as the primary source of information. Also, there are users that I'm certain come to the website, type in the name they see on the cover, like say, "StarFox" instead of "Star Fox" and end up coming up with scant or unrelated results for the game they're actually looking for. I recall this happening years ago a few times when people seemingly searched for a game typing the title as they saw it on the cover and ended up submitting a new entry thinking that game wasn't on the database, as well as some instances of people posting on the forums if the website had X game because they couldn't find it the way they typed it, which was how it was written on the cover.

Moreover, the two instances where I said, "the games provide the names themselves, so let's use that" were mainly coming from a place of frustration, and I believe that is relatively easy to see given the way I expressed myself. When I said it the first time I didn't expect it to be taken verbatim, then on the second time I admit I could've made the effort of not repeating myself word for word, but again, 'twas frustration. I believe you're using that particular snippet as a "gotcha" and disparaging my attempts at expounding on what I meant, taking that particular sentence to the letter when one of the main caveats was a clear and emphatic, "it shouldn't be a literal transcription" from the day I inserted myself in the discussion, which by that I am meaning to say that the only aspect of the cover that would be transcribed is the name of the game, as in the title alone. You've given me examples and I in turn have given you them as well, which you seemingly keep ignoring based on the lists you keep producing, which is bratty if I may be honest. I mean, you're seriously making the '007' logomark—THE GUN—an argument? How exactly would someone go about transcribing that in the first place? More importantly, whose acumen is lower than an ostrich to believe that a gun needs to be included as part of the title? I reckon George Carlin said it best, so yes, I know the world is riddled with dumb people, but you're making it out to be as if the moment the rule were to be put in effect the website would suddenly get an influx of brain-dead hooligans vying to change the title of every game on the database back to how they're exactly seen on the cover. Honestly, going over your list gives me a chuckle because, for once, you're ignoring examples I've given that fall under some of those points, and second, you're acting as if these games get released without any sort of supplemental information on the side that would invariably serve as an aid, like manuals, press kits, websites, merchandise, and any other type of official sources, even the games themselves (e.g. the copyright notice on the face of PS2 discs). In fact, I think I've rambled for too long, so let me go through your list...

- Symbols

Yes, symbols, they'd be omitted; I don't think this needs much explanation. Symbols would mean graphical fonts (e.g. dingbats, wingdings, webdings), emojis, and anything else that isn't a letter, number, or punctuation mark. This would also include subscript and superscript typography. I do believe, however, that there could be an exception or two for innocuous symbols like '=' or '_', but as a whole symbols would be omitted with the original title present on the cover/spine eligible for inclusion in the alt-name field when appropriate. This isn't hard to grasp, I want to believe a capable person can infer when looking at the cover of Battalion Wars 2 for Wii that that's exactly what should go in the title field when submitting the entry and not "✰BWii=BATTALION WARS 2™", or that Balloon Kid shouldn't be "Balln Kid", that Power Stone isn't "Pwer St✹ne", and that it's Bomberman and not "Bmberman". You follow? All these, specifically the very first example, shouldn't be included in the alt-name field for sensible and practical reasons.

- Colons

What about them? The rule of using a colon to separate the main title and the subtitle(s) would remain the same. Or are you implying people who might not know when to place a colon? I mean, this is usually Grade 5 material...

Colons are often used to amplify the title, so something like "Advance Wars Days of Ruin" would require a colon given "Days of Ruin" serves as a descriptor and therefore amplifies the title, the same being true for, say, "Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem" and "Diablo III Reaper of Souls". A rule of thumb I think could help is a colon usually is used when a title ends with a number and has a phrase that follows it, "Burnout 2 Point of Impact"; and another rule would be that colons and question/exclamation marks are like oil and water. For titles like Dynasty Warriors Advance, Star Fox Adventures, and Baten Kaitos Origins the colon is unnecessary because there's nothing to describe per se, and were they to use a colon it would break coherency. Take the latter title as an example, were it to have a colon, "Baten Kaitos: Origins", the colon makes it seem like something else is missing—Origins of what? You could think of the colon in a title as a way of silently saying "in", "the", "and the" or "in the", all of which may not always be true to every title, but are still helpful in most cases. There's plenty of more outliers, like those that contain a tagline, like Chibi-Robo for GCN, or something like Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West which officially don't use a colon, but it's on instances like these the reason supplemental information is necessary.

- Whether we add colons when the color/font of the title text changes

Come on now, are you serious?

So Blast Works becomes "Blast: Works"; Nightmare Creatures turns into "Nightmare: Creatures"; Blender Bros. into "Blender: Bros."; Big Bang Mini duds into "Big Bang: Mini"; AMF Bowling 2004 gutterballs into "AMF: Bowling: 2004"; Conker's Bad Fur Day gets shat on in "Conker's: Bad Fur Day"; Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise now with amusia tries to "Beat: The Beat: Rhythm Paradise"; Contra III: The Alien Wars mutates into "C:ontra III: The Alien Wars"; ClayFigher loses the fight in "C:l:a:y:F:i:g:h:t:e:r"; Blazing Chrome and Burning Force instantaneously combust into "Blazing: C:h:r:o:m:e" and "B:u:r:n:i:n:g: F:o:r:c:e, respectively.

An absurd number of examples for an equally absurd argument. Why in Odin's name would the text of the title being a different color or changing font mean the placement of a colon? Who's this argument even supposed to be made for—William Shatner? Dolts roam free, sure, but you seem to have little faith in the capacity of others. My thought process for your argument on symbols is the same for this one; I want to think that some random stranger that wanders here and decides to join and contribute would know how colons are used and infer that, for example, it's Finny the Fish & the Seven Waters and not "Finny the Fish: & the Seven Waters", or that it's Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and not "Hyrule: Warriors: Age of Calamity", or heck, let's up the ante, that it's Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure and not "Henry: Hatsworth: in the: P:u:z:z:l:i:n:g: Adventure". If somehow someone weren't able to tell where and if a title needs a colon, which I explained as simply as possible above, there's sufficient information available that can solve that quandary, like the manual for instance would surely have the title written properly, even on the top layer of disc-based games in the copyright notice, or just cross-referencing with a secondary source (i.e. GameFAQs, Wikipedia)—simple.

- Subtitles, when do we add them or leave them off?

Well, that would depend on whether the subtitle present is in effect a subtitle and not a tagline/label. For example, the majority knows it as "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction", but both the spine and manual actually say it's "Mercenaries", even the website back in the day, I believe, meaning that "Playground of Destruction" is essentially a tagline. Another slightly different example would be an NES game that for a while was known by many as just "Base Wars", and then one day it reclaimed its surtitle now going by "Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars", which the back of the box and manual both confirm, although separating each title with an em dash instead. Come to think of it, it seems that GameFAQs and Wikipedia are[is] catching up to this because I've seen some pages with names changed like some of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider games for example, and over at Wikipedia the page for Base Wars was changed to "Cyber Stadium Series—Base Wars".

Addendum (12/6/23): Scratch that, GameFAQs remains clueless; the titles for the Lara Croft Tomb Raider games are still wrong.

All in all, when the front has a subtitle but the spine doesn't, the rule of thumb would be to check the back and/or the manual, both if possible, to make sure what appears to be a subtitle isn't actually a tagline. If the title correlates with the front and the spine, then the subtitle must always be included just as the rules already state, even if it has more than one—Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch King, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars, Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, etcetera, etcetera.

Before I continue, I'm well aware that I keep mentioning manuals in an age where they've gone near extinct, but I'm sure you're smart enough to understand I'm simply trying to illustrate a point and that there are other ways to corroborate this kind of information.

- Words on the box that are not a part of the title

I mean, now you're just being fastidious in all honesty, but sure I'll bat. Let's take the Sega Master System for example, many of the games for that console have a bunch of crap written on the cover like, "The Mega Cartridge", "Shooting", "Action", "Arcade Hit!", coupled with the name of the company and console itself—that crud obviously stays out. Or here's another Sega-related example, the 6-Pak compilation, or is it "6-Pak: Golden Axe / Sonic The Hedgehog / Columns / Revenge of Shinobi / Streets of Rage / Super Hang-On: All 6 Games on One Cartridge"?

I also gave you some examples of which most prominently is Metal Gear Solid; it's not "Tactical Espionage Action: Metal Gear Solid" or the reverse, and the spine clearly attests to this. The same is the case for Panzer Front vs. 3D Tank Warfare Simulator: Panzer Front, Driver vs. Driver: You Are the Wheelman, Blood Omen 2 vs. The Legacy of Kain series: Blood Omen 2, and Blast Works vs. Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy. Those phrases are more akin to descriptors, labels or taglines, basically a caption of sorts, with "Tactical Espionage Action" for example essentially meaning and describing the genre of the game, which in this case is stealth. Now, I'll dutifully point out that Lifeline happens to deviate from these, as not only does it have its quote-unquote title "Lifeline: Voice Action Adventure" on both the cover and spine, but the word "lifeline" is two words instead, "Life Line". After staring at the cover for a while and going over it in my head for longer than I should've, it was clear to me that "Life Line: Voice Action Adventure" was the proper title of the game, but then I did what I mentioned earlier and sourced the game's manual for additional information and found out that on pages 02 and 03 the name happens to be spelled as just "LifeLine" in camel case format, but then starting from page 06 it's just one word, "Lifeline", which can also be found on the back and on the top layer of the disc in their respective copyright notices. Ergo, this particularity is one of those case-by-case basis where the community would come together to look over all the relevant info in order to take a vote on what would be the best course of action to follow. Another similar example are both Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater where the cover and spine have the same title complete with the "Tactical Espionage Action" tagline, but the manual explicitly refers to the games as just "Metal Gear Solid #: Subtitle"; and there's also the aforementioned Mercenaries vs. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Instances like these warrant looking at supplemental information for assistance, which at the end of the day is the process one must follow whenever providing information to a database.

Here's one final example that I think is the perfect précis in image form:



Whoever was to make an entry for that game and submit it with the entirety of that word salad transcribed as its title is, in the nicest of terms that I can muster, a fucking numbskull.

- Placement of letters and numbers

Do you mean something like the infamous title design used for the 2015 "Fantastic Four" movie, "Fant4stic"?

So in other words, Armored Core 2 would become "Armored2Core"; God of War II and Dead to Rights II would more or less get transcribed as "GodIofIWar" and "DeadItoIRights", respectively; Gradius III would be something like "GrIaIDIIUS"; Super Mario Kart would look like "MarioˢᵘᵖᵉʳKart"; and of course the ubiquitous "4 Resident Evil" for Resident Evil 4?

I'm sorry, I know you keep misprizing it and I reckon I'm probably squawking like a parrot to you by now, but this is common sense, which like I said in my original post, does come from experience, but it's still common sense. If you're not sure how something in particular is done on the website, then the obvious thing to do is read the rules or just ask, which in and of itself some would argue is also "common sense". In all honesty, though, this seems like something a really low percentage of people would do because it's obvious the game is named God of War II and not "GodIofIWar". You must have a malfunctioning dome if you can't discern this type of information—no joke.

- Capitalization of words

This is a non-issue, the rules clearly state names have to be in Title Case, and any game with a name in the form of an acronym or in CamelCase should be exempt from said rule.

- Spacing of words

Since Mega Man tends to be the de facto example for this, I'm going to continue using it as one, especially taking into consideration the franchise has gone from "Mega Man" to "MegaMan" and "Megaman" throughout the years. Particularly, "Mega Man", two words, has been used for the most part by the Classic series with notable exceptions like the most recent entries, and I'd surmise this started sometime around the 15th anniversary; "MegaMan", in camel case, was exclusively used by both the Legends and Star Force series, and it's similar in style to the logo used for the PSP remakes; and "Megaman", one word, has mainly been used by the Zero, ZX, and Battle Network series with the X series also making use of it with the most notable exceptions being the first three games for the SNES that happen to follow the style of the Classic series. Fun stuff! The crux here is that throughout the franchise's history all those changes to the titles, or rather, logos, have been purely stylistic given the franchise has been officially known as "Mega Man" since its inception, and at the risk of sounding trite since I'm going to repeat the same dialog, but the spine for most games confirms this, and any supplemental information from any official source will as well. In situations like these either the community takes a vote once all pertinent information has been scrutinized or the decision is unilaterally made if and when a franchise is universally known by a specific name like Mega Man, Transformers, or even .hack. I will not fault you for this one because I can see some users scratching their heads over it, but it isn't as complex as it seems all things considered.

And before you make the argument for "spacing of letters", it's spelled Diablo, not "D I A B L O".

- Games with other games or companies listed on the box

I'll take "Words on the box that are not a part of the title" for $500, Alex.

[pzeke]

Cont'd.

- Possessives

Possessives, as in the literal definition—Disney's, Cabela's—should always be included given they usually lend themselves to be understood as part of the title. And I'm going to sound like a broken record, par for the cause, I guess, but whenever games have possessive nouns as part of their title the information the cover, spine, even the back and manual provide would be more than enough. Just to name an example, the title for Cabela's Dangerous Hunts can be found on the cover, spine, and within the pages of the manual, which is enough information to conclude that that is the game's title. This would carry over for games with names of companies that aren't in possessive form, like with the two games I listed as examples in my original post: Disney·Pixar Brave and Marvel Spider-Man. While the former has a manual to further corroborate if the "possessive" is part of the title, the latter doesn't with the spine and back being of no assistance, plus, the "possessive" doesn't even have the apostrophe 's' combo; however, if you turn on your PS4/PS5 and select the game you'll see that it is titled "Marvel's Spider-Man". I mean, I keep mentioning things like the back of the cover and the manual, even outside sources like official websites, but modern consoles tend to conveniently display the name of the game on-screen when the game disc is inserted, an extra step that would cost a minute or two at most. There is a multitude of ways to authenticate the title of a game whenever the cover/spine doesn't seem reliable enough.

Personally, I can do without having them on the titles, specifically the ones that aren't in the possessive form, like EA Sports or Madden, but if the official sources, even the games themselves state otherwise, then that very much trumps whatever my predilections are.

- Logos (like the James Bond gun)

This is the same as symbols but with a different coat of paint, I really don't see what the issue here is. I'm sure there have to be other samples of this out there, but other than 007 the only ones that I know of are those Formula One games for PlayStation 2, all of which as far as I've checked happen to have "Formula 1" on the cover itself under "F1", and not only that but also have their proper titles spelled out on the spine. If some game were to exist with a logo of some kind, especially textless as a title, then I'm sure the name would be written somewhere on the spine, or the back, and if not then chances are the manual will have the name of the game spelled out somewhere within its pages, and if none of those worked, then the next best thing is a reliable secondary source—all of these four options being the effective course of action to follow when submitting such a game to the database.

The fact this had to be included in the Style Guide dumbfounds me.

- Prioritization of titles on the box vs. on the spine vs. on the back

The spine is what should be used as a single point of reference because, for once, most everyone stores their games vertically on their shelves making the spines the only part of the game that's visible, even if stored horizontally; and second, aside from an item number or two and a company logo maybe, the name of the game is the only written element that's front and center on the spine, most often being the logo or a simplified version of it. However, as I stated in my previous post, there are times when there's conflicting information given the spine will have a name that contradicts the front, like the various examples that I gave: Deathtrap Dungeon vs. Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon; MechWarrior 2 vs. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat - Arcade Combat Edition; BRAHMA Force vs. BRAHMA Force: The Assault on Beltlogger 9; Ecco the Dolphin vs. Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future; God of War vs. God of War II (1200 dpi); James Bond 007 in Agent Under Fire vs. 007: Agent Under Fire, and I'll throw TomorrowNeverDies vs. 007: TomorrowNeverDies for good measure. When these contradictions occur, then I think is a matter of sticking to using the front, specifically whenever a game has a name that's preceded by a possessive noun, contains a subtitle or happens to be a sequel and the name on the spine doesn't clearly reflect this. When the title present on the spine correlates with the one on the front, then it's a sure fit. The back isn't without its merits, though, as it can be used supplementally when needed.

- Exceptions that are their own beast altogether like the .hack games

Exceptions will always be a necessity regardless of the type of system that is chosen, and it usually tends to be on a case-by-case basis, which the website has seen its share of. For example, circling back to the Sega Master System, Black Belt¹ has² three³ releases on the database and seemingly they're all identical with the peculiarity that to identify each, exceptions to the aforementioned had to be made, that is using "words on the box that are not part of the title" and "symbols"...although the last two examples could very well use the "Made in..." wording instead, but that's beside the point.

I don't see a problem with the .hack games. Punctuation marks and title formatting are its main faults, but that's about it, the former aren't even intrusive or impractical special characters, especially considering what the games are about. Given the circumstance, the way to settle the debate is by checking out the back and/or manual for confirmation on whether it's ".hack" or "dot hack" (and please note that "dot.hack" is an abomination); however, I've seen the manuals for each game before and recall—or at least I'm hoping I'm remembering right—that the registration cards for each have the names printed as they're commonly known/referred to, which is ".hack//TITLE Part #", which is exactly how they're currently listed on the database. Also, and as hackneyed of a counterargument as it may be, the series has always been officially known as ".hack", at least as far as my sleuthing got me.

As I said, this is doable and maintainable, it's really not that "intricate or complicated"; users don't have to look at anything else other than the cover or spine with maybe a side dish of ancillary info on very specific occasions. My main overall point with this is that as long as it's done per the rules, using the cover of the game as a point of reference should be an equally viable option with the utmost definitive caveat that it cannot be a literal transcription of the title on the cover/spine. Users that come here intent on helping out be it by submitting or sprucing up existing entries will get what that means, not everyone was dropped on their head. Using the cover/spine can live in harmony with the current system of using GameFAQs or Wikipedia in a supportive role as I've mentioned throughout this essay of a post. But like I also said, I'm not expecting anything here; however, if it stirs up the pot and creates discussion, then perfect, I was confident you'd made your presence known, and in all honesty was looking forward to. The truth is I lost my chance 5 years ago to properly voice my opinion and vote, so I can only accept what we have and move on, but that doesn't mean I can't voice it now regardless.

TL;DR: You took what I said way too literally.

It doesn't matter which way we do it, people aren't going to agree. That is a given. Also some people can't separate between what a website does and what they do. You don't have to reorganize your life based on a website. I also did not vote for the common name rule either, so I do not like it myself. But I do not use it personally, it is just what is used on this website.

My preferences don't comingle with how things are done here, I don't use the database for reference, as I have my own system to keep track of everything I own. For games and movies, for instance, I happen to go by what's on the spine making exceptions where needed, and so far so good.

Based on the date this was initially discussed I wasn't around, so I unfortunately couldn't participate and cast my vote. Granted, seeing how things went, it wouldn't have made a difference, but at the very least my dog in this fight would be official, so to speak.

[telly]

The reason why I didn't reply to the majority of your examples is that like you, I don't think the majority of your examples will be a problem either. I have to commend you for all that research and typing those long posts however haha. My point is that people do think differently about this (though probably not to the extreme) and they do make these changes, as much as you like to bash on them and say they're stupid or not educated. And the proposed rules list, while possible, is not worth replacing what we already have which has been well vetted by this point.

I've tried to give you reasonable examples without resorting to extreme distortions. There were some examples that you didn't seem to believe could be a problem, so let me clarify a few of my points.

~

Colons - There are no definitive guidelines for when a game gets a colon and when it doesn't. We've had large conversations about this in the past. The reason why I talked about text/font changes is because tripredacus and I had a discussion about that years ago and even for games that don't have colons now like Metroid Prime should get colons and be named Metroid: Prime because the style on the box changes.

So without going into silly examples, here are a few practical examples of games that do not traditionally have colons but would need to be specified as either yes they have colons now or no they don't. You'll see that this is an entirely arbitrary process, so our rules have to capture that arbitrariness unless we specify another source.

Donkey Kong Country
Metroid Prime
Super Mario Sunshine/Galaxy

I don't think "the colon has to signify a phrase/describe something/be coherent" works as simply in practice. I'll give you words like "advance" or "adventures", but here are some examples where some titles have colons after words and some titles don't, which is where this rule needs lots of stipulations.

Elder Scrolls: Online vs. Phantasy Star Online
Silent Hill: Origins vs. Baten Kaitos Origins
Tomb Raider: Chronicles vs. Final Fantasy Chronicles

There are also games that don't have colons that arguably should have them but they don't.

Mega Man Battle Network
Fire Emblem Awakening

- Words on the box that are not a part of the title

Again, here are some examples of games that have words on the box that were not part of the title.  Why is this game not called Caution: Seaman? https://vgcollect.com/item/8330. And why don't we put Tactical Espionage Action in the title? Seems pretty reasonable to me. How do we make those decisions? That's what I'm getting at. We'd have to make rules about it.

~

At the end of the day, my argument has never been that these rules can't be used, my argument is that additional rules complicate the site, and for user engagement the less complicated the better. Regardless of whether you feel that these are simple rules or complicated rules, they are still way more rules than we have currently and I would argue that they all require stipulations. So even if we adopted the most barest of bare rulesets that are reasonable, I believe that any alternative remains by default more cumbersome for our users and staff to navigate than using GameFaqs and is therefore inferior. If you can convince me that GameFaqs provides a less adequate solution, then I'm all ears, but I'm still not convinced.

I certainly don't think changing naming rules is going to claw VGC out of decline and make it prosperous again because most of our users that have had trouble with using the site in the past was based on our old search algorithm, not with game title formatting. For example, in the past people searching for SoulCalibur would search for "Soul Calibur" and get no results and then they would add the game with a space and we'd have a duplicate to scrub out.

If we really care about user experience, we should stick with GameFaqs for naming because we have enough sprawl with our rules as is. Our current naming scheme adds a touch of needed simplicity to what is already a very cumbersome style guide.

[dhaabi]

There's a shit-ton to unpack here...

And yeah, this is a big post. Sorry, I guess.

Obviously, there is a lot of debate about how to best address entry name formatting. While I personally agree with some of what you're arguing, I also can't ignore how it over-complicates the Name field and makes it difficult for those who don't actually own the items being represented to supply and confirm that data. Perhaps some of what you're suggesting would work greater had we a dedicated field for spine art, but that's not the case right now.

Instead, the easiest and most user-friendly approach to this dilemma is to simply grant the ability for member to either select an alternative name for an item that's in their collection from the Alt-Name field or to customize entry names altogether. Then, whatever custom changes they make only appears for that member viewing their own specific collection.

This topic from last year will be a beneficial read.