Merging items proposal

I write a function so you can delete items with no people listing them and delete images as well.

Thanks Tom

and check list again.
www.listal.com/search/games/1/?query=duplicate

getting it ready for merge. Once those items will be merged, i'll rename the (duplicate) as well, as it won't really matter what the checkbox will say.

Here is an example of a merged item :

www.listal.com/game/quake-iii-arena-pc

Looks reasonable. Three comments would be:

1) Move the editions up the page. It's very well hidden in the bottom corner
2) Instead of/as well as the Amazon ID, show the EAN for editions.
3) It would be nice if as well as changing the display picture for the item when you click on the "switch to this edition" link, the release info at the top changed to reflect that - number of discs, EAN manufacturer and release date in this case.

ALL grand theft auto titles have been 'merged'. search and see for yourselves. Its so much nicer now, such a better accurate # of people listing it, more ratings, more reviews and images. Will do some of the big titles of other games later tonight.

Just come back to this thread and re-read my post last post.

Number 3 is a must have rather than "nice to have" IMHO - Listal should respect my edition of the item, and not insist on showing info about another one even though I've said I don't own that. If that's likely to happen, I suspect I'll be exporting my info and disappearing elsewhere with it in the not to distant future - I've spent too long making sure I add the right editions of albums, singles, DVDs and Games for the site to start giving me info about US releases instead of UK ones.

I can change the info for you but for anonymous visitors it would always display the main item.

Yeah, main item is fine if you've not selected an edition, it's when you've said you own/want something and have said which version you want.

I've just noticed something that suggests to me that the editions need highlighting further up the page. For Zelda:TP on the Wii (www.listal.com/game/legend-zelda-twilight-princess-nintendo-wii) the main item has the details for the PAL version. Either as part of the merge, or because someone's seen that the main image isn't the NTSC packshot, it was switched to another copy. This needs to be avoided if possible by highlighting that the other editions are available.

It'd also be handy if you could edit at least the title and image for each version once merged (this may already be possible for moderators) so you can give the info about the differences. Again on the same link, the second item doesn't have a (NTSC) note to make it clear to people which edition it actually is. Alternatively, a new "version description" field would do the job just as well.

Finally, if at some point, the info from merged items is made visible as that user's default once selected, it would be nice to be able to edit that too. (again, no longer possible)

let's just get the merging done and we can fine tune the details of PAL and NTSC later.

Besides, its not like the database is perfect, right?
www.listal.com/game/command-conquer-red-alert-playstation-20771/pictures

(notice a 'Phil' uploaded the PAL cover to this NTSC version of the game? *cough cough*

and for that Twilight Princess in general, if nobody took time to key in correct covers before the merge, there won't be correct covers after the merge. I set the PAL image for that game as primary because its the only high quality one. And half the database entries have majority PAL, and other half have majority NTSC, which is why you get sometime the .co.uk link with PAL release dates, and sometimes .com with NTSC release dates.

Tom, anyway to change title/description/primary cover of editions AFTER the merge? It can't be done yet and its not a real priority, but in a few weeks, it would be nice to go back thru merged items and clean up their editions infos. Only way now would be to add NTSC to title before the merge which would be a million more steps than I want to do. I want to concentrate on merging all the big titles asap.

Red Alert's covers gone :o)

I'm guessing I saw that that version had no cover while searching for the PC release a while back and so added *something* to visually differentiate from the boxed PC version. If you spot any others where I've done that, let me know and I'll remove them :)

With TP - The PAL version that has ended up as the "main" version is the one that I've had listed as my primary one, and I ensured it had the right cover. Post merge, it'd changed, whether as a bug in the merge, or a user doing it in the last 24 hours (there's no way of knowing since they're not logged, and I don't want to accuse anyone of anything). I changed it back an hour ago to the PAL one that I uploaded simply because that's the right cover for that particular item. It's something to keep an eye on and be aware of though.

On the other bit, I think you've slightly misunderstood what I've been sayding. It doesn't matter much whether the "main" item is PAL/NTSC or whatever. Consistency towards one or the other would be nice, but isn't necessary. However, once you've selected an edition, that version's info should be displayed to you rather than the main info (in the same way that the image changes). However, there's no way of editing that info post merge except for on the main item, which could quite easily get us back to the edit wars that we used to have in the games section in the past before making PAL clear in titles.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that this is a good first step, but there's more that I'd like to see in the near future so my item info doesn't all disappear down the tube after I've put effort into ensuring that images/EANs/release dates are right on a number of the items that I own.

what Tom wrote to us mods:

You cannot edit edition data yet - Images for different editions and titles are currently stuck.

Keyword is 'yet'. Whatever the primary image and title for an edition is at time of merge, that's what it stays --- for now. Yes, it would be nice to have whichever editon you have properly displayed, correct dates, info, etc, and title. But for now what you see is what you get. That's why i'm concentrated mostly on items that have been added to custom game series lists, as they are most likely to have correct info and images and titles.

No, I realise. As I've stated before several times, what we've got now is nice and a very good start (I know what I've posted sounds critical, but I've been careful a number of times to say that this is generally a decent start with a few things that still need addressing). Without the rest, it's going to deteriorate in a different way relatively soon though.

I don't see why you keep pointing out the same thing to me over and over when I've made exactly the same points myself a number of times in this thread!

Because we both like to keep this thread alive by repeating same points :)

One thing though, the more I use this merge, the more I realize it should be just a few people that can do this. Mods, but also maybe assign certain users for each group. Game mergers, Music mergers, DVD mergers, etc... I can think of a few people that would be great help for the massive games section, but right now I'm more or less doing it myself. GemLil and Voxy did the few titles they are familiar with (and the bastard I am I stole Sims from voxy. sorry :P) but they're hesitant to do anymore since they dont know what's what except for the obvious PAL/NTSC and US/UK ones.

There's a few that would be great for games if they wanted to do this, such as Uber, Thil, Phil, LM, Moz, and anyone else that shows they want to help out in this. maybe wait til a proper undo and edit of editions is put in place, but the games database is quite massive. I've done most of the big series, and will work my way from most popular to lease popular titles, but many i'm holding off doing until they have proper covers.

Grand Assult - because sometimes those items have been added for people to use on lists or they may be valid.

For example, I've done a Blur Discography that contains links to each format for each release. In line with keeping it comprehensive, I've linked to items that exist in the database that no-one actually owns. Not added the item to the list (else I'd have several hundred items), but added a hyperlink.

For example, the Modern Life is Rubbish cassette version is added for that particular album, yet no-one owns or wants it. If that goes, my list is linking to something that suddenly no longer exists.

I'm up for actual garbage items/items in the wrong section being removed by Mods, but anything else should be merged and allowed to continue to exist. IMHO.

GA, I really don't agree with that. Sure, much of such items are junk and / or duplicates, but we'll take care of them either by renaming them to (junk) so they dissappear from search, or we'll get a 'delete' button soon enough, but what about items such as this?

www.listal.com/game/command-conquer-3-limited-pc

no one has it, and maybe no one will in 5 days times, but it still belongs in our database. New releases, sometimes posted to amazon 6+ months ahead, may not get a single list until closer to release, but it would still be nice to list it.

Why should we make the exception for people who put duplicates in their lists?

Sorry... just ruined your example by saying I want that item :o)

Maybe only delete items which dont have a photo uploaded and have no ratings or owns. If people like Phil want to keep onto the odd obscure thing; Im sure they wont mind uploading a photo for it.

My area of expertise is definately music; I'm gonna merge the hell out of music, then go home and merge it's father! But for the record I'm well versed in map-builders and strategy games. I merged all of the Sonic games yesterday aswell and that was mean feat and I can tell you.

But I do agree a crack team of 'experts' are required; I cringe to think what will happen if some of the bottom dwellers get this power. 10 or so in each area with a good deal of OCD between them will be enough I'm sure.

sorry, i strongly disagree on any sort of 'automated' purging of database. Yes, there is a lot of dupes (can't automate that process, so we'll clean it up manually) and as for duplicates of duplicates of crap that nobody is listing, or all those t-shirt, stickers, socks, and underwear that Amazon has given us into our database, if its coming up in your search results, rename it to (junk) or maybe rename platform to 'delete', and it will disappear from your results, and then mods or Tom will once a while purge everything labelled as such. But no way we could ever automate what is and isnt delete-worthy, just like no way to automate what should and shouldnt be merged.

Or Why don't we wipe the DB clean and start from scratch?

The "Elite Squad" doing the merging is fine as long as you are only looking at US / UK users with US / UK editions. Who would be able to correctly merge German or Italian language items, though? And I am sure I am not the only non-Angloamerican user. I'd rather have a points limit at, I don't know, maybe 10.000 points. Even if that would mean I would have to wait quite a while until I could start on my collection.

Will there be a combination feature that allows me to link my manual entry of e.g. Much Ado About nothing (www.listal.com/dvd/viel-larm-um-nichts) with the US and UK editions instead of merging? At the moment I am seemingly the only one owning this film, which is not true: There are 61 people owning that item, all in all (4 different editions; 58 US, 2 UK and 1 German).