i still think the way PSX serials are handled in .dat is wrong

IMO every progress is a step to hell and every stand is a possible step to heaven.
I think your renaming idea could be another step to arrive to fail to something like tosec naming convenction:

On UG many people wants languages, versions, etc. in the dat.
Here and there other people wants to use no-intro naming.
And so on and so on... mix those suggestions and you'll have a game name with 500-1000 chars.

Take care that your thougths can fit also for other systems, imagine a Saturn disc renamed like this. By the way the problem you want to solve affected only a very liittle minority of games.

I think the best thing will be to have an offline db.

edit:
imo current aiming for single serial only confuse people.
.dat is final product of our effort. it's what the rest of the people will see - not online db.
so it's important for this information to be as descriptive as possible. redundancy is unacceptable.
we should squeeze in there as much differences as possible, not similarities. <| that's how databases work - whole concept.
also maybe ther's currently not that much re-releases in db but it will change as db evolves.
i have quite a lot of 'PlayStation the Best' myself yet unverified so it's not like just few exceptions at all.

btw if you take a look at Akumajou Dracula X - Gekka no Yasoukyoku (J) (v1.2)
http://redump.org/disc/4684/
it's already wrong in db
both 'PlayStation the Best' and 'PSone Books' are listed, but sole serial (not counting exe name) is: SLPM-87328
this can not be right so either ther's too many editions or too few serials - we have to guess, ther's no way to be certain...
wouldn't there be exe name in serial list - such errors would be easy to notice since there would be as many serials as releases.

You should discuss this with Dremora, because he's still the only person who can change anything.

I also think that for v1.1 etc. dumps that perhaps it would be good to have the # or whatever's printed behind it on the disc in the filename (if such characters are possible in filenames)..

For JAP games with different printed serials for a same version maybe it's best to use the internal serial in the filename?

The current logic is that it only uses the first serial that is entered in the db (for easy identification), so if you put a different serial first it will use that one. I'm not sure what's the point of having 4 serials in a filename. It would be the same as having the barcode or publisher or languages or whatever imho. For this information we have the db.

IMHO we should either:

- only use internal serials in filenames and put any other 'external' information in the db.
- switch to the No-Intro naming convention and have new issues (like too long filenames) to keep us busy

thank you for discussion

yes i understand that. and currently serials for Japanese records are arranged in a such way so exe name always comes first.
if by internal serial you meand exe name, then i disagree.
all this stir up is because i believe currently Japanese records are corrupted.
all other regions would get only one serial for a title - initial (and only).
Japan get as much serials as there are exe names. those exe names has nothing to do with releases. they're nothing to do with anything.
if our aim would be to have name<=>serial relation
then we would have to instead of exe names assign initial serials to all releases of same title in Japan
(thus artificially recreating the same pattern that's used in the rest of the regions)
but i honestly do not see a reason for this. in Japan serial identifies release why can't we just go with that?

yes thank's. but wouldn't you agree that ther's certain logic by which Sony assigns serials  to relases.
and everything else - internal serials (exe names? if i understand right) and serials assigned by developers do not belong there
not on the same level. it's additional information the same way ring codes or bar codes are.
and so to keep the same logic we would have to separete those to a different levels.

i agree that if that's the serial printed on covers or cd then it should relate to record not exe name.
but as you can see, i don't think serials are really neccessarry in .dat
compromise could be an additional field assignable by offline manager like Rocknroms suggested.

well ok. i'm not sure what No-Intro naming convention is but i suspect it has nothing to do with releases more like with languges.
well ok so bare minimum for record would be:
Name (Region) (version)
it's understood - the serial it's redundant information, not really needed.
so changing serial to languages it's better from point of view of database structure - it's not redundant it describes record in more detail.
but ther's problem currently - this bare minimum, given above, it is enought to keep unique records
but it's not enought to identify record on it's own without additional information from db.
adding edition or abbreviation of it to .dat would largely solve this.
unfortunatelly ther's no any more means of what i'm aware to identify records further than edition.
would rings work (like on PCE), i'd vote to include those too (or a part of a ring that's different) - but well they do not.
so edition is as far as we can get. and i believe .dat should provide those means - to get as close to original source as it's possible.
so in other word's syntax like:
Name (Region) (version1)
Name (Region) (version2)
Name (Region) (version3)
it separates record's but it's cryptic. it does not identify source of material.
imagine if we would assigne serial to each record and keep only those serials in .dat (about like Sony)
current situation is an extention of that principle.
we have serials for records within same title and region which is version.

This is what I don't like too of no-intro renaming. Until 2 years ago they used abbreviations.

thanks.
in various sets there are some records with 'Special Edition' but sometimes it's after dash, like a part of the title,
sometimes in brackets, after title.
i wonder would Original & Special Edition appear something like (Original, Special Edition), perhaps?

One could go with no-intro naming.

Redump offers a (hidden) no-intro style dat already, except game languages are not added to it (yet?).

For people who are serious with dumping, they should refer to the online database, and not to the dat alone. :-)