Talk about a radical suggestion coming from the least likely of candidates! Read me out, if you will, because this actually has nothing to do with the Rec Wars.
While addressing this question concerning tags besides game names/genre/platform, I started to think about our utility of genre and platform tags. Unlike game names, genre/platform can apply multiples to the same game. With a limit of 5 tags, this makes it difficult to fit them in a way that ties them to the game, while still categorizing what the question is actually about.
An in-engine method to alleviate this is to always include the corresponding genre/platform in the game's tag wiki, and perhaps also list games inside of the platform/genre tags. Genre will generally be more troublesome since it's not concretely defined. But tag wikis are difficult for the community to maintain due to privilege limitations.
So here's what I thought I'd pass by as an idea to the community and get people's feedback on: maintain a Community Wiki list of games we have tags for, sorted by platform, on our Meta site.
The goal of this list is not to be a universal list of games, but to be an aid to maintaining our own data and tag wikis.
- I feel it can fit on the Meta site because it is intended to be about the Gaming site, and nothing else. The scope of being games that are tags helps us restrict the data to being the games the site specifically covers, rather than games which might get off-hand mentions (such as within game recommendations).
- Being on the Meta site will prevent any constant updating from interfering with our parent site's questions.
- The list is not any grounds for either side in the Rec Wars; the Meta site isn't strict Q&A and doesn't follow the same rules as the parent site, and ideally there is no reason to be voting on the answers of this list.
- Ideally, this isn't a slippery slope because of the specificity of the scope and intent of the listing. As it will ideally cover all games we have tags for, there are no further listings that are really necessary to build.
- As a singular question, and considering the frequency of new game tags (which is maybe a few per week), it shouldn't interfere that much with the majority of Meta site activity.
- Community maintained lists about the site are often useful. Things like Recent Updates have been a tried-and-true practice that works in the Meta environment.
- It is a lot more visible as a question, allowing better coordination among the community to the goal of maintaining the tag wikis.
- As Community Wiki, it has an incredibly lower bar of entry than Tag Wikis, allowing more of the community to contribute in the upkeep of the site. Meta participants will be able to update the list, while the people with enough reputation can then update the tag wikis accordingly.
- Platform sort is preferred because platforms are strictly defined - something either is a game for that platform, or it isn't. Comparatively, games can be anywhere from being a strict genre, being primarily a genre, being somewhat like a genre, incorporating parts of a genre... and the list goes on.
- Initial thoughts about actual organization of the list: main question explains the purpose of the list, and also includes links to all of the answers and a link to the timeline (so as to point out new revisions). Each platform tag that we have gets its own answer, beginning with a link to the corresponding tag's wiki (and maybe another link for the edit link that editors can use as a shortcut). One-per-answer here is for organization and anchor purposes, allowing those in charge of maintenance to quickly know which platforms have been modified and quickly zip to the corresponding wiki.
It's a bit of a large undertaking, and possibly not the most agreeable of concepts. But I thought of it, and figured it'd be a good idea to propose it and see what everyone thinks of it. If we do decide to create this thing, the sooner is the better because I think building the initial list will be mighty easier while our tag base is (relatively) small. So, post your thoughts, suggestions, or oppositions!