Okay so three things. First of all, setting aside the topic at hand, it's undeniable that this change carries very serious implications for the database. Yet this hasn't been communicated to any of the regular users who do work in the database, and it's STILL not in the style guide whatsoever.
Furthermore, these changes have been only been done by one member of the staff, and no-one else (that I am aware of) is clamoring for these changes or making these edits. It feels like it's one member of the staff deciding "this is how we're going to do things now" and while it certainly could be a consensus on the staff side, that has not been made clear to the rest of us. Even after we've had a big discussion about this two times now, a consensus was never made then, and yet these changes are still being done.
Second, what do I mean when I say serious implications? It's more than just combining some words together here or changing the way a number works there. It literally changes the look of the database for nothing more than an "aesthetic", and I think it's going to harm the way this database is seen to new/other users for a very marginal benefit. Let me give some examples of what would have to change if we accept the rule that we record titles "as they appear" on the box.
- We already talked about colons at length before, but why are they in the title at all? The colons aren't visually "on the box" so you could argue that they shouldn't be in the title. I could list thousands of games that would have to have their title changed
- If we keep colons, we have to add a colon every time the style changes, and it adds in colons where they shouldn't be
This game becomes Metroid: Prime: Hunters: First Hunt
www.vgcollect.com/item/11130This game becomes Donkey Kong: Country: Tropical: Freeze
www.vgcollect.com/item/45607This game becomes Star Wars: Knights: Of the old Republic II: Sith Lords
www.vgcollect.com/item/197- Games with other games or companies listed on the box all have to be included in the title
This game becomes Steamworld Heist Steamworld Collection Steamworld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt
www.vgcollect.com/item/111283This game becomes Pac-Man Pole Position Dig Dug Galaga Namco Museum
www.vgcollect.com/item/815This game becomes Killer 7 Capcom Killer 7
www.vgcollect.com/item/106615- Game titles with spaces or no spaces will be either squished together or separated in really stupid looking ways
This game becomes Trans Formers: Prime
www.vgcollect.com/item/49584This game becomes Digimonstory: Cybersleuth
www.vgcollect.com/item/90977This game becomes Metalgearrising: Revengeance
www.vgcollect.com/item/16792 - Commonly known game names or franchises will be changed at the core which places a lot of unnecessary burden on regular users and staff
Every release of this game becomes 4 Resident Evil
https://vgcollect.com/search/Resident%20evil%204 Every release of this game becomes Super 3 Mario Bros.
https://vgcollect.com/search/Super%20mario%20bros%203 Every Far Cry game becomes FarCry
Every Dragon Ball Z game becomes Dragonball Z
- And lastly, commonly accepted and established rules of the database are thrown away
Every single Japanese game that has katakana on it would have to be changed from a translation to a transliteration. That whole discussion we had on that was for nothing; if the game visually has katakana on it and no English, it should not be translated into English. I would be so bold as to say that it should all be in Japanese by default because there is no English on the box. And the same thing would go for Korean or Russian games too. That causes huge problems for people trying to search for these games if there is no translated name in the alt-name box. And the style guide has said that games should be written with Latin characters as long as I've been on the site. That's easily hundreds more games that would need to be changed and maintained.
And third, it's not only a huge undertaking to just change everything, it's a turnoff for new users on the site, and it's an additional burden for staff. Half of these entries just look straight up like they weren't entered in correctly. And that's how it will be seen by people who are new to the site and to people who haven't been following this argument or who don't get how this site works. It's additional work for the staff and the regular users who submit edits, and for what? A very maladaptive and detrimental rule change. Is this the way a big library would categorize it's books? I don't think so.
