Template talk:Browser

Determine how to split the Other section

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Split by decade 3-6-0
So, uh, we don't know if you've noticed, but there's a lot of Browser games in the Super Mario franchise. And right now, our coverage of these is... A bit scattershot? Not helped by the fact many of these exist primarily to be advertisements for the console games, rather than as standalone games. Recently, as part of a growing discussion about how best to organize these promotional tidbits, the navbox for Computer games was split in two, between actual computer programs, and these browser-based games. This much, we approve of! Most of them are divided by a per-website basis, so stuff like the Welcome to Greedville games get grouped up on one row, Camp Hyrule gets another, so-on and so-on.

...But then, look at that Other section, which is currently for any game not part of a game-specific website. On a 720p display or similar (with 1280px width), it's literally over twice the height as the rest of the navbox. It's one of the single largest sections of a navbox relative to the rest of it we've ever seen. This thing needs to be divided up for readability, as soon as possible. We've got two ideas for this:

• Split by engine: The top rows remain grouped by website and are given a column labeled "Websites" but, Other is split into a column labeled "By engine" by using the game's underlying engine as the baseline for sorting these one-off browser games. So, Flash Games like Mini-Mario Factory Game! get one row, HTML games like Poochy's Mix-Up get row, Shockwave games like Crazy Counting get another, so-on and so-on. Games with a one-of-a-kind engine, such as Game Boy Camera Memory (the only strictly Java game) or Smash Mail (which was play-by-email), are sorted as "Miscellaneous", while games with an unknown or unclear engine such as Yoshi, the Web Pet or Wario Land 3 (poll) should be sorted accordingly in an "Unkown" section. (Game engine is admittedly a bit loose as a metric, but it's very defining for these browser titles; archival platforms such as Flashpoint actually tend to use engine as one of the defining traits of a title.)
• Split by decade: Self-explanatory. The top rows remain grouped by website and are given a column labeled "Websites", and the "Other" games are all sorted by decade with a column labeled "By decade". Games in the 1990s are listed in a "1990s" row, games from the 2000s are listed in a "2000s" row, 2010s get a "2010s" row, etc. and etc.
• Status quo: Keep the Other row all one huge mass. This... Is an option, but Nelsonic (the one responsible for the template) mentioned he was unhappy with the state of it, and wanted to go back and split it himself. (We then mentioned our personal uncertainty with how best to split it, so, this proposal happened!)

P.S.: Elephant in the room, each of these options ignore the Play Nintendo games for a reason... We're honestly unsure of what to do about those. Nelsonic left those out for a reason, and we agree that adding them to the template would probably double the template's size altogether. (Seriously, there are so many Play Nintendo quizzes.) What we'll do about those should be determined another time, unrelated to this proposal's machinations.

Proposer: Camwoodstock (talk)
Deadline: March 14, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Split by Engine (Flash, Shockwave, HTML...)

1. Rykitu (talk) Per Camwoodstock.
2. Nelsonic.swf (talk) Secondary opinion. Per proposal, though I would like to delineate within the template between game-games, polls (which includes Famicom Kokumin Tōhyō), e-cards, and those mail-in things like Le Courrier des Kongs, since those are different from games.
3. SuperGamer18.html (talk) Per Camwoodstock, if Flashpoint does it, why wouldn't we?

#Camwoodstock (talk) Our personal preference. If it's good enough for Flashpoint, it's good enough for us. While there are a lot of Flash games, HTML games are slowly but surely rising up to meet them, forming a pretty clear "band" with what period of time they released in, in terms of "before Flash took off, while Flash was actively used, and after Flash died". Normally, that sort of wishy-washy "Internet Time" would be a pretty horrible metric, but these are about things that were on the internet, so we think it's fair in this case.

Split by Decade (1990s, 2000s, 2010s...)

1. Template talk:Altendo Personally, I see what engine these games run on as not that important, especially since a lot of the Adobe Flash games were also shown in HTML format, and whether they were in Flash or Shockwave format doesn't really matter, because both of these formats are deprecated and aren't getting any more games, but HTML is still getting games. This will just eventually cause the amount of HTML games to eventually inevitably overtake both deprecated formats, because it is the only format still being supported. And what happens when the amount of HTML games inevitably does reach that number where it once again becomes a jumbled mess, as it is now? Citing this proposal, "(splitting by medium) simply mitigated the problem, and only for the short-term." In other words, the first option doesn't solve the problem; it simply mitigates it, because the amount of HTML games will inevitably take over the other two categories again, basically bringing us back to this "scattershot" problem that we started with. Not to mention that when a decade ends, said section will not require any more adding, keeping things neatly organized and consistent, compared to consistently adding new HTML games. Because decades also deprecate at the same rate as each other compared to mediums, this also ensures that no section in this template would be more dominant than each other, as the amount of games made per decade is very likely going to be very similar to each other compared to the amount of games made per medium, especially since mediums can be deprecated at non-consistent intervals, leading to section size inconsistencies if the HTML category takes over.
2. EvieMaybe (talk) per Altendo. this seems more sustainable long-term
3. Yoshi Browser (talk) Per all, particularly Altendo.
4. Camwoodstock (talk) Secondary option. We do understand the appeal of sorting by decade (especially in terms of its scaleability long-term), and frankly, we'd just like to see these split at all, we don't care much how it gets done.
5. Keegster2.html (talk) While I would personally prefer organizing by engine, Altendo makes a very good argument. Unless something like "The Great Adobe Flash Revival of 2030" or whatever happens, every browser game or activity that comes out in the future will likely be HTML. Splitting by decade of release will prevent this template's organization from lapsing back to its current state (barring the unlikely event of 50+ games or so being released in a given future decade).
6. Nelsonic (talk) Primary opinion.

Comments (Enter Java's Crypt...)

On the subject of better organization, I can see a few groups of games, such as Crazy Counting and the Mario Party 2 site's games, Mugging it Up and the lost Mario Party 3 Flash games, and extra toxic's advent calendar games, that are from the same website and could be given their own sections. Considering this proposal could go either way (or even end up with a no-quorum result), though, I want other people's opinions before making any big changes. Keegster2 (talk)