RF Generation Message Board

I noticed that some games have no content descriptor, and that demos almost always have no UPC or part #. To make the db more complete, could we get a N/A field added? Because leaving things blank feels weird to me...

Thanks!!

If we did that, would it be fair to reward credits and submission stats to those who would edit the game pages just to put a N/A in an input field?

I agree with Logical, to me a blank field looks bad, it makes the page look incomplete. If someone can confirm that a game does not have something for a field, then N/A is better than nothing. Especially for something like the game rating because a N/A would show people that that game never had a rating and not that it hasn't been added to the page yet.
I would say that it would be fair to credit people who do that because by putting N/A in a field they're letting people know that that game does not have anything for that field. In other words, is there a difference in saying that a game has a UPC of 123456789 or that a game does not have a UPC.
Besides, I don't think there are many (if any) people out there just trying to get their name in the credits of a page.
Hopefully, anyone adding N/A to field is adding other info as well.

I'm all for crediting work and rewarding contributions, but adding N/A isn't really info for a game page, nor should it be a source of submissions for anyone either. Specifically things like submission contests and community projects. Think of all those thousands of games that have no UPCs. Just about every system pre-NES has no UPCs. Also just about every game from 1972-1994 has no ratings. Besides that, who's to say variations of some will have them and others won't, so we can't go about assuming because our copy of a game doesn't, nobody's does.

Perhaps in the distant future game pages or sections could be made to hide info that doesn't exist. But for now I don't think we need to worry about making the pages slightly more aesthetically pleasing by adding non-info.

Add N/A if it applies, just don't make that the sole piece of info for your submissions and make sure your 100% sure if you use it. ;)

N/A is a valid piece of information.  The entries that are on all gamepages are there because they're supposed to be common among games.  If some games do not have a UPC, then that is still information.  N/A does not mean that the value is unknown, it means it is known to not exist.  Having said that, if we added it to the dropdown list, we'd have to have some way of letting users know to only select that field if they are 100% sure that it does not exist.  I forsee a lot of people selecting that if they don't know what the value is.

And I think if it does not exist because of the time it was published, that it does not need to get filled out.  If it was before such and such a date, it is common knowledge that games didn't have UPCs.  So there is no need to enter in information that is not specific to that game.  It would only be relevant information if a UPC was non-existant once the UPC system was in place.  Same for ratings.

In terms of content descriptors for games, many are quite current, yet don't have a descriptor. What would you do then? I can understand your concern though Tan, that people would get credit by just putting n/a's everywhere. That wouldn't necessarily be fair, now would it?

My concern like Eddie said, was for the huge chunk of the database that was published prior to UPC's or ratings. I can foresee a lot of confusion to whether those games should get the same treatment or not. With the exception of homebrews, just about everything post 1994 has a rating of some kind regardless of region. On top of that, the only ratings that don't have content descriptors in many cases are "E" or "K-A" or any one of the "RP" ones. If we placed something like N/A after a rating, would it not look contradictory and confusing?

E (ESRB): N/A

Since the rating and it's descriptors share the same space and having no descriptors leaves no blank spaces, let me ask you this: Is it just the ":" after the rating when no descriptors are present that you are referring to?

Yes, it is. Maybe removing that if we designate that there is no content descriptor, that would look 'better'. You guys probably thing I have ocd or something, right?  ;)

Well the colon does not appear now if there's no descriptor.  Hopefully that cleans it up a bit.

Putting N/A's everywhere seems a bit overkill to me. Maybe filling in gaps that haven't been filled in in so many games should be done first.