I’ve noticed that the IFComp policy of archiving the original versions of the competition games has the unfortunate side effect of obscuring post-competition releases. It seems that many people download the comp games straight from the site, or from the competition folders on the archive, and never notice the existence of post-comp versions.
I first noticed this in 2010, when I released a post-comp version of Death off the Cuff a couple of days after the competition ended. Yet, several months later, both ClubFloyd and the SPAG reviewer played the competition release, apparently unaware of the improved version.
This problem is exacerbated in regards to people outside the IF community since the competition page is the most heavily linked interactive fiction page, and competition versions often show up first in google searches, no matter how many updates you release.
If you google “PataNoir” the top hit in my case is the online play option at Ifcomp.org, which runs Release 3. Most of the other hits lead to reviews and discussions also linking this release. This means that someone googling the game is almost certainly going to play the old version, which is annoying, as I have updated the game several times since then, and would prefer that everyone play the latest release.
The idea of storing the original comp entries doesn’t even make much sense now that the comp allow in-comp updates. The only thing that is actually archived in the end is the final in-comp update, which can differ significantly from the original entry. The PataNoir that everyone reviewed back then no longer exists, so why should release 3 in particular be frozen forever, while all other releases are overwritten by new updates?
Given all this, I would like to propose the following changes to the IFComp archival rules:
- The archive location selected for a comp entry, whether this be in a competition folder or in /games/#format, is the final one. All subsequent releases will overwrite this file, regardless of whether they are made during or after the comp.
- For historical purposes, a copy of the original entry, with no updates, is put in a separate folder, which can be named “History” or something. This folder is then placed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard”. This way, dedicated IF historians will still have access to the original entry, while ensuring that no one plays it by accident.
The main point of all this is to ensure that any link made to a comp game during the comp will always point to the latest release in the future. This is easily achieved by making the file linked by the comp page the same one the author is allowed to update afterwards. Original entries can be archived separately, as long as they are not linked from the site.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?