Add “Games released” date to IFWiki’s event database

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Continuing the discussion from Comp/jam/minicomp categorization:

@alyshkalia

Another question… Looking at this list of date classifications for the Events infobox, I wondered if we might add “games released”? I’m not sure how relevant it is to recent events, but some older jam-type events would have everyone send their games to the organizer, and then the organizer would make them public on a certain day. So while there wouldn’t be any voting or results, there would be one more relevant date after “submissions due”. I could use “event ends” for that, but I think it’d be nice to have a specific category for it since all the others are so specific.

Registration begins
Registration ends
Submissions begin
Submissions due
Voting begins
Voting ends
Results announced
Event begins
Event ends

[manonamora (Manon)]

Yeah that’s a good idea.
But Wouldn’t that just repeat Voting begins?

[Jonathan]

How common is it? I’m torn between adding a field to the form vs adding an explanatory note to the event pages.

[Jonathan]

@manonamora

Wouldn’t that just repeat Voting begins?

It probably would for a competition, but these are jams without voting, eg Scott Adams' Ghost Town Redux - IFWiki.

Having two potential fields in the form for every event that more often than not will be the same date might be worse than incomplete accuracy in a handful of events. I don’t know.

[manonamora (Manon)]

@Jonathan

Having two potential fields in the form for every event that more often than not will be the same date might be worse than incomplete accuracy in a handful of events. I don’t know.

The form mainly populates the calendar right?
If so, I’m not sure the field would be necessary, we could just have one line if there is no voting or the game release is the same.

[Jonathan]

The calendar, the infoboxes on the event pages, and a database table that can be queried.

I’m keen to know how common this is

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Here are three I encountered recently:

• SmoochieComp - IFWiki
• Segment Mini-Comp - IFWiki
• Imaginary games from imaginary universes - IFWiki

[bg]

Would it work to replace “Voting begins” with “Games released”? (Does voting always begin the day that games are released, when there is voting?)

[JTN]

No. Counterexample: this year’s Spring Thing (games released 1 April, ribbon nominations open 12 April).

[Jonathan]

Now we have two reasons in favour of adding “games released”. Some jams have it but no “voting begins”, and at least one competition has both with different dates. Spring Thing is a biggie (I wonder whether we overlooked it when deciding the fields, or whether we decided on neatness over completeness).

[bg]

I’m not sure if this would make it better or worse, but another option would be to have three fields:

Games released
Voting begins
Games released; voting begins

So if they were both on the same day, the person only has to enter the date once.

Or you could just have two fields, and you could put a note on the form that if “games released” and “voting begins” are on the same day, to just pick one or the other. Or you could say which one is preferred to choose in that case.

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

@bg

Or you could just have two fields, and you could put a note on the form that if “games released” and “voting begins” are on the same day, to just pick one or the other. Or you could say which one is preferred to choose in that case.

I would do it this way, with “voting begins” preferred if they’re on the same day, since that implies that the games are available to be played.