Games with the same name - policy change

[Hungry eyes 6]

It has been suggested that there be a change in policy with regards to handling two games with the same name on the wiki. Andy and I thought it best to open this for discussion.

Current policy can be demonstrated using the example of Sid Meier's Pirates! (original) and Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004 remake).

At the moment, searching the wiki for "Sid Meier's Pirates!" will redirect you to the original game's page. This can be seen as a problem because most traffic is likely destined for the 2004 remake. The same issue can be seen with games like Need For Speed: Most Wanted and others.

It seems to me that there are three options for policy on this issue:

1) Keep linking to the original games from searches and place a line at the top along the lines of "For the remake, see Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)." linking to the other game. This seems to be the policy of Wikipedia, and makes sense from a chronological point of view.

2) Reverse link order, so searching for the name always redirects to the latest game with that name. This would require adding years to the end of all games of that name e.g. "Sid Meier's Pirates (1987)". This way the latest game is always the easiest to find. Links to the other games of the same name can be placed at the top as with option 1. This could however cause problems if the newer game is a poor or unpopular remake.

3) Link to the series page and allow users to select which game they want from the list. This way we do not discriminate between each game, but it could be confusing for the casual user if they are unsure what to pick.

What do you guys think is the best option moving forward? If a consensus is agreed upon in this thread and edits to pages are required, then link to this thread in your edit description to show other users why the change has been made.

[Andytizer 269]

From the traffic point of view, I think the third option is, possibly not the best, but at least the least biased and doesn't require any additional judgement from us regarding what's more popular, while maybe causing the least confusion.

 

I'm not too fond of the second one, since this requires continuous changes with each new release, which may be little, but still can be forgotten.

 

Or, if this is preferred by most, I do like us sticking to the current policy and the Wikipedia policy. But it makes more sense from the encyclopædic point of view than ours, so it might not precisely fit with what we're trying to achieve.

 

I thought that Option (2) was the natural choice, but I can see some disadvantages raised now by hungry_eyes. It is better for us to remain impartial where possible.

 

Option (3) is not ideal in my opinion, as our 'Series' page is not an ideal place for a user to land on as it looks like an empty page, people might miss the right navigation.

 

Perhaps sticking to Option (1) is the simplest for us, as we also follow Wikipedia's policy, and it is chronological and impartial. It also means that we don't change the names of a game article once it's created - this stops problems with people hotlinking to the wrong pages e.g. [[Tomb Raider]] will always take you to the same page. If we start swapping article names like [[Tomb Raider]], [[Tomb Raider (1998)]] and [[Tomb Raider (2013)]] people are gonna get confused if they come from external links. If they reboot again to create [[Tomb Raider (2020)]] we don't want to be in a position to have to rename again.

[Hungry eyes 6]

The problem is if someone is coming to the wiki today and types in "Tomb Raider", it will take them to the page for the original game, which 99.9% of traffic is not interested in. It just makes it more difficult and time consuming to get at the content they want.

[Garrett 214]

I'm in favour of option 2 for the visitor reasons Hungry eyes outlined.

 

Additional page name changes will be very uncommon; even if Tomb Raider or whatever gets rebooted yet again in a very short time that would probably involve a subtitle or other changes to differentiate it from its recent predecessor.

 

Popularity isn't going to be a problem most of the time either since the original game is generally old enough that those searching for that title will still be expecting the newer game and those wanting the older game will at least be aware that a newer game exists by that name.

[Newmansan 30]

Option 4, which is similar to option 3, is to post up a disambiguation page listing the two games, but this may clog up the wiki. But it is an alternative option.

[Garrett 214]

Options 3 and 4 have similar limitations: with options 1 and 2 a search for Tomb Raider will go to the expected game at least some of the time but with disambiguation or series pages those searches will never end up at the correct game. Wikipedia often does this anyway because the base name contains a series overview but this wiki doesn't have that sort of content.

[Hungry eyes 6]

Damn everyone and the lack of consensus! Not sure what conclusion we've arrived at so far to be honest :3

[Pendragon 6]

I think we should stick with 1.  Just make sure the link to the later versions is noticable.  Also with how it's worded, people may not know it's a remake.  Like Sid Meier's Pirates, for example, the original game is very old and they may not realize it exists. 

 

Of course, I realize this is a bit of an old discussion now...haven't checked the board in awhile.

[Andytizer 269]

Let's put this to a (non-binding) poll and look at the numbers. Can you edit your post hungry_eyes and list the 4 options presented.

[Hungry eyes 6]

Done

[TheFroggynator 2]

First option is better in my view. After all, we have to pay our respects to the original, which, in most cases, is the better game.

[Quaix 1]

I think it makes sense for the user to reach the most popular game first, which most of the time will be the newer one. Option 2 is the closest approximation to this.

 

If a new game like Tomb Raider comes out and users consistently end up on the page for the 1996 version, it would detract from the user experience as that's not the game they were looking for.

[Pridit 39]

[Automated] This discussion has concluded and a verdict has been reached. If this is not the case and there are still matters left undiscussed please contact a member of staff to get the topic reinstated.