Datfiles and parent/clone relationships

My suggestion:

I would suggest, the <generic name=""> tag should relate to a specific Region order.

For example: USA > Europe > Japan > Spain > France > Germany > Italian etc...

Multi-Disc Games, like Final Fantasy should merge all together to keep it easy and maximal compression.

Editing: Editing should allways be done by some specific users.

I think the editing stuff can be done by two users. One user can allways edit the relationship between Games. Another User can check it and tick if it is okay or not.

An overview would be very nice, where the editors can see, which Games allrdy have a <generic name=""> relation tag and which games haven't one and this overview should show, if the relation was allrdy checked by the other editor.

Yes, I know.

But you will need to tag the <generic name=""/> line with a name.
You could use here numbers too, but I think it's easier just to use a title .

Some Games have in different Region different titles. It wouldn't make a matter, but I think it's easier to maintain this dat, if you decide to use a title of the game. As editor you could get confuse, if somebody edited the relation with a japanese title and you have edited the relation if the US title and wonder, that the datfile manager doesn't find a relationship between them . Just one idea

why not like MAME does ?

for exemple :

<game name="Tekken Tag Tournament (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v2.00)" cloneof="Tekken Tag Tournament (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v1.00)">

<game name="Tekken Tag Tournament (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v1.00)">

I think we should go with jamjam's sugestions, since he allry work longer on this merged Sets and do many experimentations.
He has allry some experience and know where the problems are

MAME uses the most recent USA version as a parent, earlier versions and japanese ones are clones.

I think the solution with the id is a good one
I would just suggest one extra:

In the Database we could use id names.

example:

<game name="Tekken Tag Tournament (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v2.00)">
<group id="00556">

I would suggest to build in a search field.

For example:

You want submit a Game and don't know the group id.
You type in the name: *Tekken

You get all results to "Tekken" and and see which Titles with Tekken have which group id and just take the id that fits to the group.

I know, you can check the Discs manually too
But that's more comfortable. I just don't know, if this will get into high server loads???

GOTY edition is hard to categorise as it could mean many things, in my limited experience it means little more than a re-release with the latest patch, which is what I meant by it. When something gets re-released as game +  major expansion pack/major dlc combo on the same disc , then I think it should be in its own group (ie up to 3 groups: standalone game, expansion pack, combo). Some things will be borderline, it'll have to be discussed on a case by case basis.

It's all subject to opinion, and some of it will be hard to sort out (particularly pc, consoles play much nicer normally). Basically I think the golden rule should be if a disc could go into multiple groups, put it in a new group. If we follow it we wont go far wrong.