VGCollect Forum
VGCollect Site Stuff => Video Game Database Discussion => Topic started by: davifus on October 24, 2014, 11:43:53 pm
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I think we need to find a solution with these duplicate entries. I dont mind pointing out some of them every now and then in the dupe listing. I'm not hating on any New users or Existing Users that happens to add a dupe of Game/Merch/Etc.
This happen with new Users to the website constantly. We can't catch all of them so it stacks up and thus more work for Mods to delete them. I dont necessarily think we need members to have the power to delete entries.
Someway to improve this adding/search for existing entries/ETC function so we can make finding Point A a lot easier rather than making Point A Version 2.
I'm well aware this is a lot work for the Mod because they have a life & etc, but this is a major flaw that should be in the top of our priorities. This is a "Video Game Database and Collection Management System" kind of website but it's flawed if people can't always find the games that are already registered.
This isn't to make my life easy/convenient or anything but to make the website better.
This is not a rant but more so expressing my opinion. I'm thankful for this Website/Forum but I just want it to be perfect and make it the best out of all of them. :)
If something similar to this has been already posted then disregard this post and keep it in the back of your head. Thanks
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I have to agree with Davifus... i find a lot of new users not only love to add duplicate entries... but half the time they don't even post a picture... I mean come on.. take 2 minutes and search the damn web for a picture of your game. Nothing bothers me more than a game entry without a picture >:(
Anyhow... most likely it's because the game their searching for doesn't show up right away in the search results... for instance.. someone just added Batman: Arkham Asylum for Xbox 360 to the database... with no picture of course... this game is most definitely in the database already, I don't even have to check...so, I'm thinking.. why don't we add a system list within the search... so when they type in "batman"... another window pops up with a list of systems to choose from... or something similar to that... maybe someone else can chime in and flesh out my idea.
lets make this site the best damn video game database on the net! ;)
-Retro
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I have to agree with Davifus... i find a lot of new users not only love to add duplicate entries... but half the time they don't even post a picture... I mean come on.. take 2 minutes and search the damn web for a picture of your game. Nothing bothers me more than a game entry without a picture >:(
Anyhow... most likely it's because the game their searching for doesn't show up right away in the search results... for instance.. someone just added Batman: Arkham Asylum for Xbox 360 to the database... with no picture of course... this game is most definitely in the database already, I don't even have to check...so, I'm thinking.. why don't we add a system list within the search... so when they type in "batman"... another window pops up with a list of systems to choose from... or something similar to that... maybe someone else can chime in and flesh out my idea.
lets make this site the best damn video game database on the net! ;)
-Retro
Funny thing is that I saw the Batman entry and I messaged him about it and explained all the fine details and what to do. I dont know if he will ever respond to it.
I went back and look down on the list again and saw like 4-5 different games with dupes. I cringed and thought about Life and cried.
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You actually messaged the kid...awesome! ;D ....It's guys like you and I (and the creators) that make this site so damn groovy...really... we put a lot of time into making this site better than the rest. Sites like RFgen really need a facelift...it's basically a suped up excel sheet. I actually used to use them for years... until they got hacked, and there last backup was 2 months old. I lost months worth of work... totally fucked up my collection to this day....that's when i moved over to VGcollect... and the rest is history.
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If we can find a way to reduce the constant flow of dupe entries, then that would really help in terms of reducing the amount of work needed in that area so we can focus on improving other parts of the site.
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A lot of us have been sifting through these for quite awhile, reporting them as we can, but the admins only have so much time on their hands.
I wouldn't favor giving most or every user the ability to delete entries, though. Plenty of well-meaning people would probably remove listings that had a lot of effort put into them simply because they weren't familiar with some variation or other. Every site I've been on that has complete 100% edit anything winds up with totally jacked up listings - ko1ru and I came here from a site like that, and it didn't take long for it to become totally worthless because of people being careless. Countless hours wasted on both our parts.
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A lot of us have been sifting through these for quite awhile, reporting them as we can, but the admins only have so much time on their hands.
I wouldn't favor giving most or every user the ability to delete entries, though. Plenty of well-meaning people would probably remove listings that had a lot of effort put into them simply because they weren't familiar with some variation or other. Every site I've been on that has complete 100% edit anything winds up with totally jacked up listings - ko1ru and I came here from a site like that, and it didn't take long for it to become totally worthless because of people being careless. Countless hours wasted on both our parts.
I've gotta agree with this.
I've also gotta agree that dupes are an annoying problem that gets out of hand.
3 things - We could (maybe?) set it up so that "add new item" only becomes available AFTER using browse + looking at the correct page, to see if it's already there,
- When you're submitting a new item & enter its name + platform...isn't a check done to see if it already exists?
- Get a group of older members to volunteer to work w/ newer members, and - implement a rotation for taking turns w/ helping newer members...I dunno, maybe have them get their 1st 5 or 10 entries double-checked by their helpers & have the helpers explaining what they are - and are not - doing and why, before giving complete submission freedom to just anyone?
I'd be willing to do this.
Also, as gravy, it'd also get more people to know more people and become more recognized & active community members ;D
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The search was improved recently so that it basically ignores punctuation, which was a HUGE step in the right direction. And I get what you're saying about making people browse first Kenny, but then for those of us that actually know what we're doing that would be an extra pain in the butt. As I see it there are only two solutions really, without completely doing away with the point of the site - for it to be a user maintained database:
1) Allow anyone to delete entries. As already mentioned, this is a horrible idea. Imagine all of the duplicate entries, but in reverse. *shudder*
2) Require new entries to be approved before they appear in the database.
At this point, it becomes a question of which would be more work - approving new entries or deleting all of the duplicates? I would *think* that adding an approval step would be less work in the long run, but I'm not a mod so I can't say for sure - we need some mods to throw in their .02. ;)
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The search was improved recently so that it basically ignores punctuation, which was a HUGE step in the right direction. And I get what you're saying about making people browse first Kenny, but then for those of us that actually know what we're doing that would be an extra pain in the butt. As I see it there are only two solutions really, without completely doing away with the point of the site - for it to be a user maintained database:
1) Allow anyone to delete entries. As already mentioned, this is a horrible idea. Imagine all of the duplicate entries, but in reverse. *shudder*
2) Require new entries to be approved before they appear in the database.
At this point, it becomes a question of which would be more work - approving new entries or deleting all of the duplicates? I would *think* that adding an approval step would be less work in the long run, but I'm not a mod so I can't say for sure - we need some mods to throw in their .02. ;)
Building on your second point here. How about have everyone start off with needing approval for new entries, but have some users who've shown they're familiar with the rules be able to add stuff instantly. I'm sure adding dupes really isn't an issue for most of the regulars here, so getting rid of the approval step for certain users would cut out a lot of work for the mods.
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The search was improved recently so that it basically ignores punctuation, which was a HUGE step in the right direction. And I get what you're saying about making people browse first Kenny, but then for those of us that actually know what we're doing that would be an extra pain in the butt. As I see it there are only two solutions really, without completely doing away with the point of the site - for it to be a user maintained database:
1) Allow anyone to delete entries. As already mentioned, this is a horrible idea. Imagine all of the duplicate entries, but in reverse. *shudder*
2) Require new entries to be approved before they appear in the database.
At this point, it becomes a question of which would be more work - approving new entries or deleting all of the duplicates? I would *think* that adding an approval step would be less work in the long run, but I'm not a mod so I can't say for sure - we need some mods to throw in their .02. ;)
Building on your second point here. How about have everyone start off with needing approval for new entries, but have some users who've shown they're familiar with the rules be able to add stuff instantly. I'm sure adding dupes really isn't an issue for most of the regulars here, so getting rid of the approval step for certain users would cut out a lot of work for the mods.
Why not?
If we can have people who are approved to buy & sell w/ cash (like we do)...in spite of the no cash rule - no reason that the same kind of thing shouldn't apply here, as well.
Another option could be adding a few more mods/admins that strictly work on approving items before they make it to the permanent record :P
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The search was improved recently so that it basically ignores punctuation, which was a HUGE step in the right direction. And I get what you're saying about making people browse first Kenny, but then for those of us that actually know what we're doing that would be an extra pain in the butt. As I see it there are only two solutions really, without completely doing away with the point of the site - for it to be a user maintained database:
1) Allow anyone to delete entries. As already mentioned, this is a horrible idea. Imagine all of the duplicate entries, but in reverse. *shudder*
2) Require new entries to be approved before they appear in the database.
At this point, it becomes a question of which would be more work - approving new entries or deleting all of the duplicates? I would *think* that adding an approval step would be less work in the long run, but I'm not a mod so I can't say for sure - we need some mods to throw in their .02. ;)
Building on your second point here. How about have everyone start off with needing approval for new entries, but have some users who've shown they're familiar with the rules be able to add stuff instantly. I'm sure adding dupes really isn't an issue for most of the regulars here, so getting rid of the approval step for certain users would cut out a lot of work for the mods.
Why not?
If we can have people who are approved to buy & sell w/ cash (like we do)...in spite of the no cash rule - no reason that the same kind of thing shouldn't apply here, as well.
Another option could be adding a few more mods/admins that strictly work on approving items before they make it to the permanent record :P
I like both idea. Veterans get instant approval. Newbies has to wait for approval and gradually earn the right for instant approval.
Or the getting few of the reg. people and let them handel it like a jury I guess?
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The approval idea is good... but for the newbies only. Back in the day when I used to use RGgeneration, they required approval for everyone, and it would take 5-7 days before games got approved. So I'd have stacks of games sitting around in the
"waiting for approval" pile, I hated it! :(. I have enough piles of games as it is. Thats what I like best about VGcollect. I can add game to the database, and then straight into my collection. I add games all the time, sometimes I think I'm the only PC collector on here ;D.
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The search was improved recently so that it basically ignores punctuation, which was a HUGE step in the right direction.
I didn't even notice, thanks for pointing it out! That's indeed a pretty huge step. SO many dupes were just because of this!
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If we can find a way to reduce the constant flow of dupe entries, then that would really help in terms of reducing the amount of work needed in that area so we can focus on improving other parts of the site.
There is a way.
Unfortunately matt doesn't have enough time to implement the changes. If I could code I'd add a TON of stuff to the site to deal with these dupes.
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If we can find a way to reduce the constant flow of dupe entries, then that would really help in terms of reducing the amount of work needed in that area so we can focus on improving other parts of the site.
There is a way.
What is the way?
"I want Yooooouuu to show me the waaa-aaay" :P
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If we can find a way to reduce the constant flow of dupe entries, then that would really help in terms of reducing the amount of work needed in that area so we can focus on improving other parts of the site.
There is a way.
Unfortunately matt doesn't have enough time to implement the changes. If I could code I'd add a TON of stuff to the site to deal with these dupes.
I'm currently having the worst semester ever at school in terms of quantity of work to do, but I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to contribute more to Vgcollect. Maybe I should contact Matt and offer to give him a hand with that when I'm done with the semester!
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If we can find a way to reduce the constant flow of dupe entries, then that would really help in terms of reducing the amount of work needed in that area so we can focus on improving other parts of the site.
There is a way.
Unfortunately matt doesn't have enough time to implement the changes. If I could code I'd add a TON of stuff to the site to deal with these dupes.
I'm currently having the worst semester ever at school in terms of quantity of work to do, but I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to contribute more to Vgcollect. Maybe I should contact Matt and offer to give him a hand with that when I'm done with the semester!
couldn't hurt! ;D
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Chiming in to say that an edit-gate is a great idea. A lot of times, I wonder if the new members have even read the bloody rules. However, there are a lot of users that, when approving edits, I wonder to myself "Why are they not mods or something? They can totally take care of their own edits". And that's what I'm trying to get at more with this ramble. I'm hoping that 2015 will be a really good year for this site to grow, and this is a good way to help with it. I'm sure more of the veteran members will be more likely to edit more, given that their edits would be instant. I'd be all for moderators or some sort of equivalent on this site, as we don't have any. 8 admins, thousands and thousands of members, but 0 mods. I see nothing but positives with this, it could make the community more active with an injection of power to some of the proven vets.
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Chiming in to say that an edit-gate is a great idea. A lot of times, I wonder if the new members have even read the bloody rules. However, there are a lot of users that, when approving edits, I wonder to myself "Why are they not mods or something? They can totally take care of their own edits". And that's what I'm trying to get at more with this ramble. I'm hoping that 2015 will be a really good year for this site to grow, and this is a good way to help with it. I'm sure more of the veteran members will be more likely to edit more, given that their edits would be instant. I'd be all for moderators or some sort of equivalent on this site, as we don't have any. 8 admins, thousands and thousands of members, but 0 mods. I see nothing but positives with this, it could make the community more active with an injection of power to some of the proven vets.
I like to think of myself as someone who can handle his own edits, but on the same token, I know some of us vets and admins disagree on certain practices, too. I could be wrong, but I think current admins can make more broad changes than just editing/deleting entries though, like adding entirely new categories, and that might account for why some of us haven't been bumped up. There's a lot to be said for communication and consistency, even if it's not 100% ideal.
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Chiming in to say that an edit-gate is a great idea. A lot of times, I wonder if the new members have even read the bloody rules. However, there are a lot of users that, when approving edits, I wonder to myself "Why are they not mods or something? They can totally take care of their own edits". And that's what I'm trying to get at more with this ramble. I'm hoping that 2015 will be a really good year for this site to grow, and this is a good way to help with it. I'm sure more of the veteran members will be more likely to edit more, given that their edits would be instant. I'd be all for moderators or some sort of equivalent on this site, as we don't have any. 8 admins, thousands and thousands of members, but 0 mods. I see nothing but positives with this, it could make the community more active with an injection of power to some of the proven vets.
I like to think of myself as someone who can handle his own edits, but on the same token, I know some of us vets and admins disagree on certain practices, too. I could be wrong, but I think current admins can make more broad changes than just editing/deleting entries though, like adding entirely new categories, and that might account for why some of us haven't been bumped up. There's a lot to be said for communication and consistency, even if it's not 100% ideal.
Hell, I'd be glad to have more staff members disagreeing on things, as long as we have more staff members to work through problems. It's really hard to sift through all of the things that go on in the forums sometimes, because it happens so often, and the important stuff isn't brought to attention too often, save reports. Communication among staff members currently is... low, to put it best. It's what made me be so inactive. What with all the busy schedules and ideas getting shelved and such. What I bolded in your quote is what I'm hoping to accomplish in the 2015 year on this site, and I'm hoping that some sort of discussion about this can be spurred. I've been wanting an IRC channel or some form of chat set up for a while.
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this topic needs some Matt, Scott, Foxy, etc too!
maybe another staff member could talk to em and/or link them this way...
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The only way it can be curbed is to make new entries be queued in with edits.
If there were to be DB moderators, perhaps mods could be assigned to different platforms. Ones they are most familiar with.
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The only way it can be curbed is to make new entries be queued in with edits.
If there were to be DB moderators, perhaps mods could be assigned to different platforms. Ones they are most familiar with.
I like this idea in theory, but it's super easy for things to get even more backed up as a result of the assigned mod getting caught up in real life, lesser-known platforms and regions would have difficulty finding a 'specialist' of sorts, etc. Better to keep the workload balanced out and neutral, imo.
Kimimi's probably the resident expert on all the super obscure stuff anyway, but I don't think she'd be into taking on admin duties, so unless someone else has an in-depth knowledge of stuff like Korean and Chinese PC games, oddities like the PC-FX and Hyper Neo, etc... well, you're in the same boat as before, y'know?
I would like to see maybe a system put in place that restricts new adds, though. Like require people to have maybe 25 successfully approved edits, at least 50 games in their collection, and be on the site for more than a month?
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The only way it can be curbed is to make new entries be queued in with edits.
If there were to be DB moderators, perhaps mods could be assigned to different platforms. Ones they are most familiar with.
I'm not against this. Also, things are currently being worked out to make some sort of preventative measure for new members and edits.
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The only way it can be curbed is to make new entries be queued in with edits.
If there were to be DB moderators, perhaps mods could be assigned to different platforms. Ones they are most familiar with.
I'm not against this. Also, things are currently being worked out to make some sort of preventative measure for new members and edits.
Glad to hear it ;D
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If we could get someone else to help with coding, that would be a huge help. Expecting Matt to do everything just isn't realistic anymore. We've grown a ton since starting out and honestly, it's gotten bigger than I ever thought it would, which is great. I feel the same as Exo. We need more communication, and maybe a new new staff members, at least in the short term.
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If we could get someone else to help with coding, that would be a huge help. Expecting Matt to do everything just isn't realistic anymore. We've grown a ton since starting out and honestly, it's gotten bigger than I ever thought it would, which is great. I feel the same as Exo. We need more communication, and maybe a new new staff members, at least in the short term.
Definitely have grown a lot compared to the start. There used to only be a few people active on the forums here and look at them now!
Depending on how I do in my Computer Science classes over the next few years maybe I could help with some of the coding :P
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Love the idea of a Chat channel. I think that would really bring the community together here... this could really help take the site to the next level ;)
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Hey all - we are working a few long short term solutions. Those involve:
- some sort of edit/submission gate, which I think is going to be a forum post count. Even a single post would be sufficient. This way 1.) they'd establish a presence 2.) we'd be able to follow up with a link to the style guide and 3.) It'd allow us mods to shoot them a PM when they screw up.
- updates to the submission search. The main site search received some updates over the last few months, but the submission search hasn't. This is coming real soon.
- new staff. We have a few new staff members joining soon (as soon as I have time to set it up, they know who they are). :)
- chat. I'd love to get an IRC channel going. We've discussed this in the past but no one took the lead. If anyone is familiar with it, feel free to get that ball rolling.
All that being said, what we don't want to do is limit new users from contributing. That is one of the MAIN issues I was trying to solves when building VGC. Every other system had a long, drawn out approval process in place that felt so restrictive. We'll never get rid of dupes 100%, but these updates should drastically reduce them.
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Hey all - we are working a few long short term solutions. Those involve:
- some sort of edit/submission gate, which I think is going to be a forum post count. Even a single post would be sufficient. This way 1.) they'd establish a presence 2.) we'd be able to follow up with a link to the style guide and 3.) It'd allow us mods to shoot them a PM when they screw up.
- updates to the submission search. The main site search received some updates over the last few months, but the submission search hasn't. This is coming real soon.
- new staff. We have a few new staff members joining soon (as soon as I have time to set it up, they know who they are). :)
- chat. I'd love to get an IRC channel going. We've discussed this in the past but no one took the lead. If anyone is familiar with it, feel free to get that ball rolling.
All that being said, what we don't want to do is limit new users from contributing. That is one of the MAIN issues I was trying to solves when building VGC. Every other system had a long, drawn out approval process in place that felt so restrictive. We'll never get rid of dupes 100%, but these updates should drastically reduce them.
Improvements FTW!
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Hey all - we are working a few long short term solutions. Those involve:
- some sort of edit/submission gate, which I think is going to be a forum post count. Even a single post would be sufficient. This way 1.) they'd establish a presence 2.) we'd be able to follow up with a link to the style guide and 3.) It'd allow us mods to shoot them a PM when they screw up.
- updates to the submission search. The main site search received some updates over the last few months, but the submission search hasn't. This is coming real soon.
- new staff. We have a few new staff members joining soon (as soon as I have time to set it up, they know who they are). :)
- chat. I'd love to get an IRC channel going. We've discussed this in the past but no one took the lead. If anyone is familiar with it, feel free to get that ball rolling.
All that being said, what we don't want to do is limit new users from contributing. That is one of the MAIN issues I was trying to solves when building VGC. Every other system had a long, drawn out approval process in place that felt so restrictive. We'll never get rid of dupes 100%, but these updates should drastically reduce them.
Thanks for the Update
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An idea to nip this in the bud:
At ComicCollectorLive.com, there are users that are known as approvers. Anyone can add information to their database, but it has to go through an approval wich the approvers do. I don't know if anyone is willing to take on that role here, but with multiple volunteers it wouldn't have to be put on one person's shoulders (which is how it is at CCL).
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Oh yeah what are the new staff for? New admins or Mod?
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Oh yeah what are the new staff for? New admins or Mod?
Disgaeniac for president!
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Oh yeah what are the new staff for? New admins or Mod?
Well, at CCL they aren't staff, they aren't paid. They're volunteers just like the mods. I'm sure VGCollect doesn't have the money to pay anyone, either, even if they went for my idea. Or else they'd have paid people to add and update the database already, I'm sure.
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Matt thank you for the update!
I believe what Matt said is true. Let's keep the submission processes very simple. Requiring an approval process really slows you down when trying to keep your collection up to date. It's the main reason I joined VGcollect, and moved away from RFgen.
Requiring new users to have a few posts in the forums is a good idea. Also I believe when they update the submission search feature, that should really help the noobs realize their duplicating an entry.