Forum:Should we list release dates?

Basically for the purpose of being able to sort the list by release date. Say a person hasn't been following the scene recently and they want to be able to quickly catch up on the newest games in the list. Yay/nay? My main concern is that due to wikia's suckness taking up a third of the page for ads and shit, they might take up too much space.

No. I've been over this before with somebody else. I know I sound like a shitbag in the discussion, but it really is a bad idea. http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Nintendo_DS#Adding_a_Year.2FDate_Released_Column.3F

To summarize:

1) As for "newest on the list", that's what we have the page changes for. It sounds lame, but that's what it's for.

2) As for what's "newest on release", that varies per region. We could stick with NA ones, but there's enough people who come here from other places that it's kinda cheap to. Plus, there are enough sites that do that (GameFAQs, Wikipedia, etc.)

3) It really does take up more space. Especially if you consider everything else on the pages already (and that's without regarding ads).

--Dejiko 14:37, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

The page history really doesn't help much, especially when most people don't even use the edit summary feature to say what they added. How about a separate, shrunken list that has only the games' titles and the release dates for the three main regions, so they are custom-sortable? It could be its own separate (text-only) page. It would be a simple reference list so people could look through the titles by release date for their region and then refer to the "main" list for the recommendation info. It would ONLY include the games that are in the rec lists - which is exactly why this list is needed over using something like GF/IGN, which includes the entire universe of video games. To be fair, if someone is only using this wiki as their sole source for gaming recommendations, they're doing it horribly wrong, but it would be a huge pain to look through a massive, comprehensive release list like Wikipedia's or GF's library and then have to keep coming back here to see if it's listed as a rec.

On an only slightly related note, is it possible to anchor-link to individual entries in the lists?

Let me just say that I don't mean to sound like a dick in the following paragraph. I mean, yeah, I'm kinda dickish in it, but I've already been through this ordeal, so I'm somewhat at a loss for patience at it.

Why wouldn't you just Ctrl+F a specific game here and see when it came out elsewhere or vice-versa? As I said before, game is a game. It doesn't really matter when it came out, unless you're so obsessed about something like that to make it a necessity to know. For everything except PC (and that's only related to generational OS reasons), it doesn't add anything to know when it came out for the use that you or Silverwilver are supporting so adamantly. It'd be different if you were trying to compare one game's feature as coming before or after another, but that's what those other sites are for. If you're going to do it yourself in a separate page that won't squish up the main entry, then go ahead, it won't hurt anyone either way. I'm just saying there's little reason outside of a fabricated one to do so, and the audience who would use it as such is so minimal (as far as I can tell, only you two are most concerned about it) that it may as well be non-existant. If you really want you though, I won't stop you.

Again, sorry if I sound like a dick. I mean, compared to Silverwilver, you're alright with me. At the very least you considered alternatives instead of just pushing for a half-baked idea. Again though, if you feel it's a decent idea, give it a shot. If you find it unsatisfactory, just give it the axe. I don't want this to make this sound like a "hurr see I told you so" tone, but I do admit that I feel this may not work as well as you hope. Still, neither of us will know until you try, so you may as well just see where it goes from its inception.

>On an only slightly related note, is it possible to anchor-link to individual entries in the lists? I don't know what that is. Is there an example or alternate name you can show/tell me? It might be a command or code I don't know or don't know the proper name for. --Dejiko 17:42, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

When you click a header in the contents block, you're sent to that section via an anchor (the # in the URL), but each game obviously doesn't show up in the contents block because it's all in cells in a table, rather than individual sections (like it ought to be). Say you wanted to link someone directly to a specific game in the list - it would be url.derp/wiki/Console#Game_Title, at least in theory. That's what I'm wanting.

Something like http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Quest#Dragon_Quest_II ?

Then yeah, we have it (in my head I call it a sub-category, but I never realized the actual name in practice). I believe you just have to use a 1 or 2 ='s like so "=Example=" but all on it's own line. Kinda like: =Example= And then you will out stuff here. And for sub-anchors, you do like

And so on
Which should give you decimilated numbers and sub-categories

Hope that helps, it took me a bit to figure out as well, so I'm not sure how well I can explain it. --Dejiko 23:37, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

That's not what I'm talking about; well, it sort of is, but that's standard wiki mechanics. I'm talking about in the actual main lists of recs. In the page you linked to, they're in actual headers, not in a table like in the main lists. I need to be able to anchor to a specific game in one of those lists.

Hmmm, I'm not sure then.

According to this http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Glossary

>lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page.

Maybe not with wikia. I remember what you mean though I did it before with a different webpage format (i.e. not wikia), but if that's all it says about it, then you might be limited solely to sections. Sorry about that, seems to be the code itself. --Dejiko 23:44, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

Update: Oh, okay. It seems you CAN link to a specific table item, however, it requires the usage of "class"-type tables and sorting. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that works. --Dejiko 04:30, April 16, 2012 (UTC)