Poll: Should No-Intro split unlicensed ROMs into separate DATs from licensed ROMs?

[Gary_Oak]

While we're discussing this topic, should we do the same with prototypes/betas? As an example, the Mega Drive/Genesis DAT is overwhelmed with these (tons of betas for games like "Adventures of Batman & Robin", "Berestein Bears", "Streets of Rage 3" and much more).

[Flashfire42]

We really don't need a split. its just creating more work for dumpers because people can't customize their own dats

[dreimer]

This whole discussion and vote should no have been made in public I fear. It was to be expected what the result with all the torrent hoarders included will be then. If you want a subset of the DB, then USE THE WEBSITE. Must be very difficult to choose something different than default... But I already gave you my optinion and some even agreed with me. Now it's up to you...

[Flashfire42]

This whole discussion and vote should no have been made in public I fear. It was to be expected what the result with all the torrent hoarders included will be then. If you want a subset of the DB, then USE THE WEBSITE. Must be very difficult to choose something different than default... But I already gave you my optinion and some even agreed with me. Now it's up to you...

Yep the ROM hoarders will get their way again

[Arctic Circle System]

While we're discussing this topic, should we do the same with prototypes/betas? As an example, the Mega Drive/Genesis DAT is overwhelmed with these (tons of betas for games like "Adventures of Batman & Robin", "Berestein Bears", "Streets of Rage 3" and much more).

What's wrong with having them in the main dat? As mentioned, there are already easy ways to filter them out, so that's not a problem. If the issue is that searching for final ROMs on the DAT-o-Matic website is difficult for games with a lot of betas, then the problem is not the betas being in the dats, but the lack of filtering options in the DoM search. And if the problem is there being a lot of betas and unlicensed games in torrents containing No-Intro full sets, those are not run by No-Intro as an organization. If you have a problem with them, it should be brought up with whoever created the torrent. I can't think of any other reasons to split betas/prototypes and unlicensed ROMs from the main dats, though I might be missing something. If I am, feel free to bring it up. ~Cherri

[Hiccup]

I think we should have a good experience for people who don't use the dat customisation options (which are unwieldy, as surely anyone who has tried them would know). Most people will only experience the default ROM sets.

[BigFred]

If this is the problem why don't we simply set the default for several types of ROMs to excluded? And the people who actually want more can use DoM to manually include all other stuff by themselves. I mean - If you know what's the deal and what you really want you are also capable of customizing your own dat.

If we start with this I see no real limit. We could probably split Betas/Protos for the same reason. But we could easily satisfy everyone: If we want to do it this way I would vote for an option to merge chosen dats in DoM. You have several dats for one system - for instance presented as an explorer like tree - and you can select multiple of these at once. The you can either download them individually or optionally combine them into one dat. This would be a replacement for the dat customization options that would probably be simpler to use and understand.

[Hiccup]

I think the default daily pack should really have all the data represented in DoM - stuff shouldn't be hidden by default, otherwise most people won't know its there. I don't think there will be a need for many splits. Tbh its probably just a few retro sets that need homebrew stuff to be separated (NES, Game Boy and Genesis come to mind).

[BigFred]

Are we talking about homebrew stuff only or unlicensed in general?

Maybe I'm missing the point, but honestly I don't really see the urge to please people who are just leeching stuff. This project was born from the idea of sorting and verifying data of historic games for preservation purposes and there is a reason why it was started. People should at least show some interest in this topic and understand what it means, why we think it's necessary and then choose what they like. I mean it's not like there are customers who pay you for this project and look how much time and money you sacrificed to support this community. Why waste more energy on poeple who obviously don't care?

[Flashfire42]

I can understand excluding the unlicensed stuff by default from the downloads of dats. but also we dont need a split. Unless they are in different formats we dont need them split. If you are actually using the dats like you should then you can deal with mild inconveniences. Its the people who are torrenting a giant pack of "NO-INTRO ROMS" and then complaining that they got some stuff from itch.io. We need to stop Pandering to these people

[sCZther]

I think this is a question about what the end goal is for No-Intro. Who is it serving? Like MAME prides itself on being mostly a documentation project, so they go out of their way to fix minor mistakes and push people towards keeping up even if it is not user friendly. But it is in line with their goal.
i can see an influx of new directions with new dats and active members. But I think to solve questions like this, we need to know what we are trying to do.
My opinion is that there should not be a split and if the filtering is unwieldy, the effort should be spent on making filtering better. We have no lack of dats that need upkeep, so let's not splinter our workload even further. If the main goal is 1) getting metadata plublicly available and 2) preservation, then including homebrew is a no brainer for the main goals. Homebrew games are the ones that are gonna be much less available in twenty years then any licensed release (it's already happening with early homebrew releases). And there is no easy way to do a split, the only reason Wisdom Tree and Sachen are accepted is some list in the 90's that collectors made which became passed on as canon.

[Flashfire42]

I think this is a question about what the end goal is for No-Intro. Who is it serving? Like MAME prides itself on being mostly a documentation project, so they go out of their way to fix minor mistakes and push people towards keeping up even if it is not user friendly. But it is in line with their goal.
i can see an influx of new directions with new dats and active members. But I think to solve questions like this, we need to know what we are trying to do.
My opinion is that there should not be a split and if the filtering is unwieldy, the effort should be spent on making filtering better. We have no lack of dats that need upkeep, so let's not splinter our workload even further. If the main goal is 1) getting metadata plublicly available and 2) preservation, then including homebrew is a no brainer for the main goals. Homebrew games are the ones that are gonna be much less available in twenty years then any licensed release (it's already happening with early homebrew releases). And there is no easy way to do a split, the only reason Wisdom Tree and Sachen are accepted is some list in the 90's that collectors made which became passed on as canon.

This is exactly it. We have enough shit to deal with without splintering further

[Hiccup]

I think it might be a bit unfair to say that everyone who use the romsets are not interested in preservation, and I think there may be some preservation benefits to having them separate. The commercial NES games all share a serial/versioning system that makes comparison/cataloguing easier, so having them separate from the "free-for-all" of unlicensed stuff makes sense to me. Also, I think we want people to have a positive experience of No-Intro, at the very least because that'll make people more interested in the project.

[sCZther]

Then you would need a strict licensed/unlicensed split. And for example for famicom there was no licensing programe as strict as in the West. Or you would have Tengen releases in both if they were sold as both. It just brings questions you need to answer before the split.

[Hiccup]

Then you would need a strict licensed/unlicensed split. And for example for famicom there was no licensing programe as strict as in the West. Or you would have Tengen releases in both if they were sold as both. It just brings questions you need to answer before the split.

Hm, interesting, so Tengen used to sell unlicensed Famicom games, then they got a license later?