Hello,

I have a few questions about Game Character adding and Franchise adding. I am sure everyone has a slightly different view of how the Game Characters should be organized and filled out, but…..

1.    Is there a thread or a guide somewhere on how we should be filling out added characters or what constitutes a franchise?
Some of it seems all over the place and there are multiples of characters that I am not sure how it should be. For example, there might be a single character such as Mario, but he is used across countless number of games. Should there be 1 character named Mario with multiple games in the square brackets or should there be several instances of Mario each with 1 unique game that he occurs in. It is confusing because there are lots of empty franchises but sometimes the characters are already added in the no franchise section.

2.    Also, are Trusted+ members only allowed to add franchises?
The only way I can see to add a franchise is to click the link in the Game Characters section which private messages the staff. That is fine since I don’t really care how the franchises get there, but just from the perspective of the Tdv it would almost be as if the non-staff members are helping the Staff members. It is not a big deal to me, but I figured I might note it.

3.    The same goes for reporting a game that doesn't belong in the Ebay listings. Is the only way to report a listing to click the "Report link" to PM a staff member?
This is similar to adding franchises.


I don’t really mind that some of these things are this way, I just found it out of place when I noticed it. (Damn OCD) I wouldn’t be surprised if they are there for important reasons like someone made a new account and deleted all the EBay listing for a game or added a bunch of inappropriate franchises. I am simply looking for input on the matter.

Thanks in advance.

Since I am a price guide manager and have done a lot of character managing now during the TdV I hope I can help out with these questions.

1. There is no thread, on the topic besides for those who are staff + but generally if it's the same mario then it should still be added to games that aren't a part of it's original franchise if it's in those as well though you should set it's franchise as the one it mainly part of and the first appearance as obviously the first game he ever appeared in. You can still include info about it appearing in games outside of it's franchise as well but you shouldn't create a separate instance as far as I'm aware if it is still the same character, and if it's another character entirely but is called Mario you can create a separate instance for it of course.

Everyone can add characters, but anyone that is elite or below will have to wait to get their characters approved by someone who is staff or above.

2. Everyone can add a franchise or characters but generally you'll have to wait for someone staff + to approve it first, before you actually earn the cp and Viz for it. I'm not sure if there is a different link for non staff since I didn't start character managing until after I became staff but try using this, to add a franchise (though we've already added a lot so there's probably not that many left to add).


https://www.vizzed.com/videogames/franchisemanager.php

3. Yes, only staff and up are able to actually remove it, so pming staff is mostly to help out staff and make their work easier while at the same time showing that you're willing to do so which may be helpful incase you ever end up applying for that particular position in the future.

It is of course to prevent someone who doesn't have the proper knowledge (even if some people who are not staff may) required to do the position delete a bunch of listings, same goes for characters having to be approved since otherwise it may just make create more work and make the feature much harder to use defeating the purpose of it in the first place.

Hope this answered your questions.

Well I guess that answers my questions:

1. I think I understand that, but I am not sure that all characters are set up that way.

2. Yeah, both the franchise and character list seems fairly extensive the way you describe it to be. Although I have requested a franchise and it was added, but I have never received CP or Viz for Franchise Adding which is part of why I was confused.

That is the same link that is available on the Franchise List page.

3. I understand. When I see the wrong game while searching through the price guides I report them. The whole idea behind completing all these actions at least for me is to help the site and make a better experience and knowledge base for other gamers (The CP and Viz are nice extras), so I have no issues helping out, it just seemed like they were all similar actions yet the report link worked differently than I imagined.

Great, thanks for the support, you can probably close this thread since my questions are answered.

Ultimatone :

1. That's more or less how it is set up unless I've missed something, at least that's from what I've seen. If there's duplicates of the same character it's likely it should be removed.

2. If you did it through the franchise adding page and the franchise was in fact approved then you should get it, but I can't say for sure since like I said I started doing it after I became staff.

3. Yeah the core concept is that it's for helping the site, and the cp and Viz are supposed to be like small rewards, that basically goes for the whole system, unfortunately not all people see it that way, and some abuse the system when they find a way. And I think it's mostly if someone moves a listing to the wrong place on accident you can just move it back to the right place but if it's removed you have to re add the whole listing which is a whole lot more complicated.

Anyways glad I could help, if you have any more questions about this in particular I'd be happy to help if I can.

Ultimatone : Let me add, no offense to Zlinx, but all the characters aren't set up that way. Some of them should be though and are duplicates. It's not been a perfect system since I started as staff. Partly because so many people have access I think. Sometimes it happens I think because someone will accidentally tag the wrong character in a photo. (happens a lot) Or at times a person will create a character or franchise even that either already exists or doesn't need to be because it's part of something else. In short, your OCD might get stressed a bit. When I see a franchise that has been added but not approved I (time permitting) investigate it and either make sure all the boxes are filled out at least somewhat and then approve it , ignore it, or get rid of it.  Leaning towards the first two options. As far as you getting credit for adding it? I have no idea either if you didn't get it right away. I never dealt with that.

Ferdinand : Awesome, I am simply trying to understand how it all works. Your response opens up more questions though since the link provided just sends me to a blank PM to the RGR staff, there are no fields to fill out. I assume non-staff does not have the ability to add franchises but it seems to apply to non-staff per the actions list. Either way, not a big deal, again just trying to make sense of it all.

Maybe I can make a separate thread as a suggestion, but it may make the staff's lives easier if someone put together a little how to. Zlinqx said there is a thread in the staff area about character adding, but if there is no information for the newer non-staff that don't know how things work the staff will likely have a lot more non-participation or incorrect use of the system by naive users.

Same goes for some of the other actions as well, like what constitutes a Loose vs Complete vs New rating on the EBay listings since there are some gray areas.

Maybe a YouTube video or something to explain all the actions to the newbies so that they are less likely to be used incorrectly or abused. Just some food for thought.

If you're talking about a video that talks about everything that you need to know, and not just franchises and stuff, I believe that someone did that already. When I missed the web splurge forum I came across a video that someone did that served as a guide, but it would take a while to find it

Ultimatone : That is a good question. I know staff does get pms about franchises that need to be added. I also know that I often see franchises that have been added but not approved yet. I'm not sure at all now either. I kind of brought it up a while back but was pretty much met with indifference so I just let it go.

zanderlex : Yea, I was referring to a How To video on how to do things on the site in general. Specifically related to actions for new users. It might be helpful if it the video was found at some point. I looked on the Vizzed Youtube page, but no luck.

Ferdinand : Got it, not trying to open a can of worms, but maybe even more reason to have a How To so everyone is on the same page.

At least you guys (and Zlinqx) got some more words/posts in for Tdv right!

Ultimatone : Don't feel bad at all. I'm really the same way in that regard. When I see something like that that's unorganized, I feel a strong compulsion to correct it. But, if I had my way, I'd probably delete a lot of it and start over in an orderly manner from the get-go. (Oddly my profile page looks like a mess, but I've always been that way too. ) As it is, it's been kind of cobbled together I think as games got added and people come and go. When the site first got PS1 games about a year ago there were a few mistakes made I'm certain for instance. All those games all at once. Plenty of them still don't even have screenshots I don't think. It is my role, but I like to stay on the MAME side more than anything. I find plenty to do there. And as far as a how-to, that would be cool. You know what mine was? Let's try this...oops. Delete.

It wouldn't have been on the Vizzed YouTube page since it wasn't made by Vizzed.