[game_preservation] Generations standards?

[Martin Goldberg]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah, I think a historiography of how the words have been used historically

> is going to be a good place to start. Where does 'generation' come in and

> why. How is it used over time? Same with bits and eras. This allows us to

> establish the need for new, more useful vocabulary. I find I don't like

> 'generations' but 'periods' or 'eras' might suit it better. I think after we

> get out of the 32/64-bit era, maybe media format becomes a defining factor

> (DVD and HD).


All good points, and some form of word usage and etymology would
certainly be an important first step.



>This really seems the easiest way to me of reconciling. That

> is, until Martin tells me a better way :)

>


Haha, if I wanted do to something without input and consensus, I'd
just stick to myself. ;)


> BTW, I avoid Russell De Maria's High Score now like the plague after finding

> a bunch of errors on one page.


Russell's actually an acquaintance of mine.  He's coming out with
another revision, and I tried to help him out with a few corrections
here and there.  But Russell being Russel, he likes to talk to all
people himself as well rather than just take any references and
material I might provide.


>I can't trust anything in there.


It's nowhere near as bad as Steve Kent's book though.  That book is so
frustrating on so many levels, with some great direct quotes but
extremely in ufactual "filler" (which unfortunately makes up the bulk
of the content).  Steve spent a lot of money traveling around and
interviewing people, but it seems he didn't do much fact checking or
lacked the familiarity with the material to do it to the degree
needed.



>Sad thing

> is, a lot of it is referenced in Wikipedia!


Well, that has to do with Wikipedia's notability and reliability
policies, whereby published references are almost always given more
weight.  That's one area I've tried to help out as well in video game
project there, is providing alternative (and more factual) references
when someone wants to use an obviously incorrect (though published)
source.


Marty