Hello,
Tonight we have changed the manner in which we identify and display Project Dates (aka Design Dates) and Manufacturer Dates on the IPDB. We believe this is an overdue improvement over the way we had been doing it since inception.
A little background:
In the past, when a listing had only one date, either a Project Date or a Manufacture Date, not both, we displayed the date only in the listing header and not in the body of the listing, such as how you see it in this header:
Alligator / IPD No. 59 / June, 1969 / 4 Players
Because we did not list this date in the body of the listing, we did not identify for our users if this header date was a Project Date or a Manufacture Date. Users could not know when they were looking at a Project Date and likely assumed they were looking at a Manufacturer Date.
Only if we had BOTH dates for a listing did any dates appear in the body of the listing, and we would then show both dates there, identifying each. Still, in the header we would always show only the Project Date, never the Manufacture Date. This became problematic when comparing dates between games.
Bally is one manufacturer for which we have both a Project Date and a Manufacture Date for many, but not all, of their games. This would mean that, as per the explanation above, our listing headers could show either one date or the other, without telling our users which, and then any comparative list of Bally games would present them not purely in the sequence of Manufacture Date, but in the sequence of the header dates, mixing Project Dates with Manufacture Dates, ignoring Manufacture Dates whenever Project dates were present. For instance, a Bally game manufactured in 1978 but with a Project Date of 1976 would appear with games manufactured in 1976. This database inconsistency has been pointed out to us in times past but, basically, it is my understanding that in the very early days there apparently was a feeling from the seed data contributors that the Project Date was to be displayed in the header. If true, no doubt it made more sense way back when no one person had the volume of manufacturer date data that we have now.
Here are the changes we have now made:
1) For listings that have ONLY a Project Date, this date will appear in the listing header as before but will now ALSO be presented in the body of the listing, clearly identified as Project Date. Example:
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1930
2) For listings that have ONLY a Manufacture Date, this date will appear in the listing header as before but will now ALSO be presented in the body of the listing, clearly identified as Manufacture Date. Example:
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=17
3) For listings that have BOTH dates, both dates will continue to be presented in the body of the listing as before, but now the Manufacture Date will ALWAYS be the date presented in the listing header. Example:
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=987
4) With those new rules in place, we felt it important to also identify what dates our users are looking at when they are presented with the date matrix of an Advanced Search. Look at this example of the Bally games on a date matrix:
http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?mfgid=412&sortby=date&searchtype=advanced
As you scroll down the page, you will notice that some dates in the left-most column now have an asterisk after them. These dates are Project Dates because the listing does not have a Manufacturer Date associated with it. Starting now when you look at this matrix, you will be able to tell apart the Project Dates from the Manufacture Dates. We hope this will help users better understand the matrix dates at a glance. Right now, the asterisk is presented there without explanation but soon we will have a small explanatory banner appear any time the cursor is hovered over one of those asterisked dates.
We are happy to finally make this "corrective" change to the way we present our Dates and we hope you appreciate the better consistency it provides. For some users, it may not be a big deal while for others it would help answer some long-standing questions. It may only be noticeable to regular users of our Bally data. I think it may help historians and others understand if a date found, say, in a Billboard or Cash Box ad for a game really conflicts with the IPDB date, or now supports it.
Thank you,
Jay
IPDB
