Just wondering/thinking...

[disgaeniac]

...About the whole thing with the style guide -and- how some people seem to have trouble knowing *exactly* how to enter titles, sub-titles, etc.

Obviously - this problem/misunderstanding has (I'm sure) created many dupes = more work for those here who have to deal with, correct, and fix such things.

So...what I was thinking, is this:

NOW - keep in mind that I don't know a thing about the logistics/possibility of doing this...if it's even possible and/or how much time, work, and effort it would take, and, lastly & most importantly; if it would be worth doing -

How about...instead of even using 'titles' (read: words/strings of words + proper punctuation)...we simply do away with using the words/titles.

In its place, I had 2 thoughts.

The 1st, and, I think, the better one would be to simply use the UPC -AKA- Bar codes in the place of the letters, words, and titles...and to use those #'s *instead* of letters for 'Searching'.

The other 2nd part/idea would be to, maybe, also use the product #; as a sort of cross reference.

Pros/cons?

Thoughts?

[foxhack]

There are hundreds of games that never had a barcode. Stuff from the earliest game generations, for example. Atari and Intellivision games didn't have UPC codes. And then there's pack-in items like Super Mario / Duck Hunt.

And a lot of these items never had product codes either.

An interesting idea which would work for a single platform. But not here. >_>

[desocietas]

Yah, this would also cause issues with the downloadable games.

[burningdoom]

It would also be an issue for games that no longer have their original cases; which quite common for NES, SNES, N64, and Game Boy titles with the cheap cardboard boxes.

I think it would be a lot easier if the search system instead used keywords instead of exact titles.

[scott]

I think it would be a lot easier if the search system instead used keywords instead of exact titles.

Agreed. Though I could see searching by item number or barcode being useful. Especially with games like Ys, where you can't search for 2 letter strings.

[insektmute]

I find barcodes useful for helping to differentiate between releases of a particular game, and do wish we had the ability to search by barcode, but it'd be a disaster to replace standard titling schemes and search options.

I think what's mainly needed is just a more organized, available style guide, and enforcement of it. The one we have isn't bad, but I've even run into cases where there's a bit of a ?, and some people really just don't pay any attention and input whatever.

[desocietas]

I agree that maybe a more robust search engine will help, but that might just make members more lax about the style guide.  Searching by barcode will certainly be useful as we've already discussed the future option of scanning in barcodes for adding items to our collections.  *crosses fingers, gets teary eyed*... "one day"...

[foxhack]

I find barcodes useful for helping to differentiate between releases of a particular game, and do wish we had the ability to search by barcode, but it'd be a disaster to replace standard titling schemes and search options.

I think what's mainly needed is just a more organized, available style guide, and enforcement of it. The one we have isn't bad, but I've even run into cases where there's a bit of a ?, and some people really just don't pay any attention and input whatever.

Problem is a lot of people keep replacing the UPCs for others. Nintendo games from Canada tend to have different UPCs than the US releases. It's kinda annoying.

[disgaeniac]

I find barcodes useful for helping to differentiate between releases of a particular game, and do wish we had the ability to search by barcode, but it'd be a disaster to replace standard titling schemes and search options.

I think what's mainly needed is just a more organized, available style guide, and enforcement of it. The one we have isn't bad, but I've even run into cases where there's a bit of a ?, and some people really just don't pay any attention and input whatever.

(bolded)

True.

I was thinking some more & thought that (since many bar codes/item #'s) are already in the system -that- instead of replacing and/or changing anything...that maybe bar codes/item #'s could be an additional/alternative option for searching.