>>872067
Good. Then I can get back to theorycrafting how this type of thing should be organized. Of course, whoever puts in the effort to make and administrate it would have more say, but crowdsourcing ideas in this thread might be useful. Here are ideas I was thinking of to put forward. Feel free to say they're stupid.
>Every game gets its own page
Even if a game doesn't have multiple versions, or improvement mods, a page existing is still good, because at least people can look it up and confirm that they aren't missing anything.
>Different versions of games that are clearly meant to actually be the same game get one shared page, even if the different versions have different names
As far as I can tell, Super Smash TV is not intended to be some sort of sequel, it's just Smash TV on Super Nintendo. Mega Man 64 and Mega Man Legends are the same game, one's just on 64.
>Different games with the same name, even with the same cover, are sometimes actually different games, and should be on separate pages. There can be sections on each of the games' pages for "related games." Having little drop down menus at the bottoms of pages for "series" would probably be a related helpful thing. Sonic Unleashed on PS3 and 360 are the same game, but they're a different game than Sonic Unleashed on Wii and PS2. There are tons of examples of games like this. Games with the same name should have links at the top of the page. "Not to be confused with (name of other page of same/similarly titled game." Perhaps a section at the end of each of the pages can then be dedicated to explaining the differences between them, though since the differences are larger, these sections might not need to be long, though that depends on a case by case basis.
"Differences from Sonic Unleashed (Wii/PS2): Though sharing the same title, cover, story, and FMVs, the level design is entirely different between the two games. Boss fights in Sonic Unleashed (Wii/PS2) seem to take place before boss fights in Sonic Unleashed (360/PS3), as bosses in the latter seem to show damage taken in the former."
>On a page for a single game, open with a brief intro for what the game is, then a chart listing the different versions and key version differences, then sections for each version, discussing that particular version's differences more in depth
Make clear that the pages should focus on the differences, not on general game info. General game info can be found by looking up the actual game, and including it here would distract from the vital info that the site is about.
>List improvement patches
But make clear that "improvement" should be defined somewhat objectively. It should either be straight technical improvements, or amount of content. Porting content that was exclusive to one version into another version counts, creating original content does not. That's a different type of mod that is more subjective, and doesn't count for this. We're looking for "definitive versions," not your favorite mods.
>The chart that lists the different versions counts a version + all available improvement mods for it as a different version
Since the improvement mods listed should be relatively objective, all available ones would presumably be used at once, so there is "NES version," and then "NES version + hacks." If there are different improvement hacks that don't work together, then list each as different versions of the games, but if there are different ones that do work together, count them all together.
>Sort the chart into objective order of best to worst
This needs to be kept as objective as possible to be useful, so I would say you shouldn't even rank which improvements are better than others. A version only gets a higher spot if it has literally everything the versions below it also have. This will frequently result in many versions that are equal to each other, so a tier system is needed, maybe color coded for convenience. You'll probably also end up with a lot of games where most versions are all just equal, but then you have a few that are objectively worse, so there are just two tiers. That's fine. The point is you can ignore the lower tiers if you want. It narrows things down. But they should still be listed in case, for whatever reason, a particular user wants to compare that one in particular, or doesn't want to bother with the ones in the higher tiers.
This is why it's important to have a chart listing the differences between the versions, and not just a tier list plainly listing the versions. Maybe one version is best, but a user doesn't have access to it. Maybe many versions have different mutually exclusive benefits, so we should make it easy for the user to decide which they care about. Maybe one version has a higher resolution or framerate, while another has an extra level. It's subjective which of those things is more important, so they'd go in the same tier, but the chart should make it easy for the user to see the differences and quickly pick for themselves. They can scroll down to the sections about each version for more detailed info.
>Edge cases can be decided on the talk page
Some of these cases probably get complicated. That's why the info needs to be crowdsourced. That's also why it's important to put down the strict rules about objectivity, such as "you might prioritize extra level as higher than framerate, but that's a subjective decision, so they go in the same tier." But for those times when a real edge case appears, it goes to the talk page and the users of the page can decide it. (Admin reserves the right to make the final decision in such disputes.)
>Versions are sorted by tier>release date>alphabetically by platform
Higher tier versions go first, so they're easiest to find. After that, we want versions to be listed in relatively bias-free order, so release date would be the next way to sort, so as to avoid the bias of sorting alphabetically by platform (and thus always putting PS before Xbox, for example). But after that I can't think of another good way to sort objectively versions that are equal tier and released on the same date, so those versions get sorted alphabetically by platform. That leaves the lists with slight alphabetical bias, but it's minimized, and I think it's better than organizing them randomly, or up to editor whims. Yes, this is autistic.