Template talk:Video game release

Should we deprecate INT?
I believe I issued this before. Basically, IMO we should deprecate the INT parameter for a simple reason: "International version" is not a region. What does international says us? E.g. if it was not released in Japan, INT would say that it was released outside it, but where? Europe? China? Korea? Hence, we already put the specific region in most cases. For points where something is made available worldwide after a regional release, e.g. digitally, we use WW. Also implied by INT, other than with WW, it is implied that that digital re-release was not made available in the former exclusive region. We should have [yet another] tracking category and replace INT either with WW or the respective, correct region. Thoughts? Lordtobi ( &#9993; ) 18:12, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * INT isn't a synonym for WW. It stands for an International Version, or at least it did before the instructions stating that it did were removed last year. - X201 (talk) 20:44, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I already note above what the current function of INT is, that being anything outside the original region, which does not make sense, as readeres would not know which region it was actually released in that day, except if we additionally append the same date with the correct region, which clutters it etc. etc. Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 07:16, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed with User:Lordtobi. An international version is simliar as a remake, [][] and we don't write "PS3 version: February 4, 2010" in the infobox. --A Sword in the Wind (talk &#124; changes) 15:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The maint category has been attached to this for a while now. Is there an active effort to remove INT? -- ferret (talk) 12:28, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The category is all cleaned up now (though it took a while). Also the international version article has since been deleted via AfD (not by me), so it's now more urgent than ever to remove it. { Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 10:39, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * INT removed. -- ferret (talk) 14:02, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Unknown WW parameter
In Turkish Wikipedia, when we use WW, it says "unkown WW parameters.." (Module:Video game release) What is the problem? --Hedda Gabler (eski) (talk) 20:40, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you doing it as WW= or WW|? Enwiki's version of the template has depreciated using named parameters, so WW= would cause the error. -- ferret (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, we use WW= --Hedda Gabler (eski) (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Unless you convert, you will not be able to use the module without making changes. The module will populate a category though that will tell you which articles are still using named parameters. You can use the category to update them. Enwiki converted everything before switching to the module, so the module never supported named parameters. -- ferret (talk) 21:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Additions
Can British Isles be added in the module? This region consists of the only countries in Europe that speak English (UK and Ireland). -- Wrath X (talk) 10:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you provide any examples where this will legitimately be needed? The template allows for you to link anything you need for uncommon items. The template's custom abbreviations are there due to their wide usage, and most other abbreviations are supported simply because they are standard ISO codes for those countries. Also, considering that Ireland considers the term British Isles to be offensive as a matter of national pride and position, it's probably best to not use it anyway. -- ferret (talk) 11:51, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This is English Wikipedia and per Template:Video game release "add release dates for English-language regions". There are six countries that primarily speak English. US and Canada are covered by North America (NA), Australia and New Zealand are covered by Australasia/Oceania (AU/OC), UK and Ireland are covered by Europe (EU). However, sometimes the release dates for UK/Ireland and Europe differ. Examples include God of War: Ascension and Bloodborne. In these cases Europe doesn't cover UK/Ireland anymore but British Isles does. Also, I didn't think that the usage of British Isles was controversial on Wikipedia, since Template:English anime licensee and network have no problem using it for UK/Ireland. -- Wrath X (talk) 12:12, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Just use BI in the template where you need to. If there's only a handful of sourcable examples, it'll be fine. -- ferret (talk) 12:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Why not simply use BI? Asia, Southeast Asia, South America are in the module despite their release dates rarely being listed in the infobox. -- Wrath X (talk) 10:00, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Because they were actually used. Editors have put them in dozens of articles, which I found while working on the template conversion. I've never found a case of someone using BI, so it's an atypical usage. I have seen a few cases of UK / IE, but never BI. -- ferret (talk) 13:54, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * There's more reason to include BI than UK and IE since BI is a region as opposed to a specific country; and per WP:VG/DATE it's preferable to list regions in the infobox than countries. Still I see your point. Though, it's not uncommon for the UK/IE to have different release dates than the EU so I assume there's more than just a handful of examples. -- Wrath X (talk) 08:30, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I replaced your BI on Bloodborne with UK/IE. It matches the prose, for one. We shouldn't link the Infobox and Prose differently. Otherwise we need to say in prose "Released in the British Isles", and I hope you understand that is completely atypical. -- ferret (talk) 13:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If we do things that way then all the release dates for AU (Australasia) should be listed under AU/NZ (Australia/New Zealand) since most sources state Australia and New Zealand, not Australasia. Also, all PAL listings should be removed since no sources state PAL, instead they say Europe, Australia and New Zealand. For example, the Bloodborne article states Europe and Australia, not PAL. -- Wrath X (talk) 13:55, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * PAL was, in the past, a release region. In most modern releases of the last decade, it has been replaced with EU and AUS already. PAL is almost never used for current releases, only decades old ones. As for AU versus AUS for Australasia, this is already acknowledged as an issue (See talk archive). However, there's a lot of work to replace AU with AUS, or AUS with AU, as appropriate, and no one has taken on that effort yet. Australasia is generally used and accepted as typical for Aus/NZ, while as I've already noted, I've never once in a decade of editing seen British Isles used for a video game release. -- ferret (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The reason why British Isles is never used is because most editors simply list the UK release date. However, per WP:VG/DATE it's preferable to list regional release dates than country release dates. British Isles is a region while UK is a country. I was thinking we could take a page from Template:English anime licensee, and use British Isles for UK/Ireland the same way it uses Australasia for Australia/New Zealand. -- Wrath X (talk) 07:10, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Adopting BI to mean UK/IE for this template is a large change for WP:VG. This is not typical usage (in fact, a non-existent usage) in video game articles, something I keep saying but I'm not sure you are addressing. You're looking to solve an issue no one else is seeing. If you don't like my responses here though, you are welcome to head over to WT:VG for a wider audience. -- ferret (talk) 12:25, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Good points have been made here, but you can't just go and change it on articles without gaining consensus first. ~ Dissident93  ( talk ) 00:17, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

syntax question
Is stuff like this EU/NA: 1 January 2017 , which outputs: EU/NA: 1 January 2017 permitted? Or should it be avoided? --The1337gamer (talk) 19:38, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I see it a lot. I think the output is desirable, because it takes up less space than listing two regions with the same date separately, but I do think it would be great if the template actually had support for multi-region dates built in.--IDVtalk 19:44, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Code wise, permitted and fine. Guideline wise? While the wikitext is more complicated than it would be to have NA and EU separately, it reduces the number of output dates. I don't have a strong opinion either way and have usually left it like this. I can add multi-region codes but we'll need to make a list of the most common ones. Off the top of my head, "NAEU" would be the most common by far, possibly followed by UKIE (See sections above about "BI" code. I still disagree with BI, as no one uses that language normally in VG articles and IE itself views it as an offensive term). -- ferret (talk) 23:26, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Two questions
In terms of using this for the infobox template and considering wikidata, is this template's usage preferred over bare dates?

If so, is it possible to figure out how we can call this template when there is only one date to include - eg, while one could use "WW|date" to show a worldwide release, but if that's the only date, then the "WW:" presentation is unnecessary, and it would be great if that could be simplified in the resulting wikitext. Obviously, this is only the case if this is a preferred use template. If it is not necessary or preferred, then we can just spell the date alone, and that's it. --M asem (t) 15:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * My position is that the template is unnecessary to display a single date. The template's primary purpose is to create an unbulleted HTML list with region/date pairs. I could update the module to detect if the template has only been used with WW though, and suppress the display. I view that as a bit non-intuitive though, and could result in users believing the template broken or their syntax wrong, leading to extra edits or complaints as they try to figure it out. The template also used to be used without a first parameter, which caused some minor unexpected issues, so there is now a category to find and fix such uses. -- ferret (talk) 15:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that having an input that isn't displayed (e.g.  only showing the date) isn't ideal. Primefac (talk) 15:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, so the template's not preferred and it is preferred to actually avoid it if there's a single date. I'll look to update the infobox template to reflect that. --M asem (t) 16:04, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and updated WP:VG/DATE with this info, but I'm sure somebody could make it more clear. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:39, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Metadata
Adding to the prior discussion re: not using this template when the infobox only lists one worldwide date, is there some metadata benefit to using this template or start date over simply using no template? I remember the answer being "yes" but I never asked how/why. czar 00:55, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This template creates a div box for listed items, resolving countries codes and pairing them to dates. No metadata or other tags/categories/etc are output, there is no benefit to using it for a single date except when you want to designate a specific region. Single WW use just outputs more HTML than necessary to convey a single date. No comment on start date. -- ferret (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Format tweak
Currently, the Module builds UL and LI HTML on it's own. I've updated the sandbox to rely on Module:List, which helps us ensure we're inline with formatting in other lists. This results in the list becoming slightly more condense. Please see Template:Video game release/testcases to compare the differences. If no opposition, I will move this live within a week or two. -- ferret (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm completely fine with the new look, and this actually makes the infobox less dominant in shorter articles or in articles with many dates. Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 17:24, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Went ahead with this, since the format change is minor, makes things more compact, and by virtue of using Module:List should be MOS compliant. -- ferret (talk) 13:36, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the new styling parameters
, you just enabled possible stylization for this template. While I feel like this would generally be a neat addition, I fear that it sacrifices uniformity. Is there a specific thought behind the inclusion? Lordtobi ( &#9993; ) 06:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Could an example be provided of what this change did? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 07:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It changed nothing directly, but allows for customization of the output generated by the List module, including horizontal vs. vertical ordering and custom CSS inclusion (you can check the changes made to the doc for detail). As I stated, usually those are good, but only if you are a single user, but in a project like ours, some people might ultimately use it to push their personal preferences on the appearance of VG releases, nulling the uniformity. Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 07:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * was looking to be able to specify class=inline when using Video game release hlist, so that it would not start with a new line. I didn't see a reason to only expose one of the usual Module:List parameters. At this point, the template was already a wrapper of Module:List. We are just formatting our data a particular way before passing it in. -- ferret (talk) 10:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Lordtobi's point about uniformity is not a frivolous one but I feel like giving the template more options is the good way forward, and if need be, agree on guidelines on its usage, especially within infoboxes which is a most rigid context and also probably 90%+ of this template's usage. Ben · Salvidrim!   &#9993;  20:33, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

or 

 in infoboxes?
Is it pointless to change

to

in an infobox? and I.

I thought it was easier to read the page in source mode when the infobox uses

since

is very long when it appears many times in one infobox. Also, almost every article I’ve come across uses

. Inter qwark talk  contribs 11:04, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * From a technical standpoint it does not matter at all which one is called, since the latter is a redirect to the former. I obviously was not the one making the edit, but that looks a lot like what AWB and some other script programs are hard-coded to do, which is to remove template redirects and replace them with the "source" template. As far as I am aware there is no hard and fast rule about whether to use templates or their shortcuts (from an anecdotal perspective, I am hard-core about using citation needed instead of cn but I use t and u). Primefac (talk) 11:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * said, “There is not really a point on redirecting templates with shortcuts as it puts additional load on the servers and server tasks.”
 * I was not sure what this meant. Inter qwark talk  contribs 11:51, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's pointless. What you are doing is pretty much what WP:COSMETICBOT says is not helpful. All of your effort is better spent on almost literally anything else. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 11:45, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay. Which one should be used in articles, though? Inter qwark talk  contribs 11:51, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter. I'd personally go with vgrelease as it's shorter and easier to remember if you are starting an article from scratch. And if there was an ever an issue from using a template redirect name (hasn't been so far), then a bot/AWB would handle it, so don't worry about that. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 12:00, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don’t think there is an issue with it. I thought to change the long template names to shorter ones to make the article easier to read and edit in the source editor. Inter qwark talk  contribs 12:05, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the template names should not be changed. The base template should be descriptive, which is why we have things like interlanguage link even though 99% of uses are ill. Basically, a complete newbie should be able to see a template name and have some idea of what it does, with the redirs available to avoid typing out things like interlanguage link multi. Primefac (talk) 13:25, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

I understand. “Video game release” or “unbulleted list” tells you right away what the template does, while “vgrelease” and “ubl” are pretty ambiguous. I had to look ubl up to figure out what the template did the first time I saw it. Perhaps it is best to use the longer version? What if the first time the template appears in an infobox, the full name is used, but the shortcut is used after? Or would that be pointless as well? Inter qwark talk  contribs 02:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, there is no reason to make these sort of edits. If people don't understand the use of a template, they should just look up what it does first anyway. ~ <b style="color: #660000;">Dissident93</b> (<b style="color: #D18719;">talk</b>) 05:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * All right. I will not make the superfluos changes of such template names in the future, but when it comes to adding them to an article for the first time, which one should be used?

or

? I’ve been using the latter when adding the tag to an article for the reasons I described earlier. Inter qwark talk  contribs 05:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Like I said earlier, it doesn't matter. Personally, I would just use the shorter version if starting from scratch. ~ <b style="color: #660000;">Dissident93</b> (<b style="color: #D18719;">talk</b>) 05:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As Dissident says, use what suits you best when creating an article, but retain a pre-established format when editing an existing article. Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 06:14, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Definitely! Thanks for the replies,, , and Inter qwark  talk  contribs 06:46, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Non-date values?
Hi guys. The docs only mention dates but another data point in a video game release is its price, and possibly others. And it renders ok, like with this edit. Is that ok and should the docs be updated to not be hardcoded to mention dates? Or are dates legit hardcoded into the template? Must they be? Or what? Thanks. — Smuckola(talk) 08:57, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This template was developed with dates in mind, but it does enforce those so obviously it can be used and abused for anything. Per your example, prices really aren't that good of a use-case as they would only appear on consoles/peripherals, given that we out-MOS them on game articles. IMO, it does not require to state every single possible use but its primary one, which is dates. Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 09:32, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The /doc says The items are typically dates, but can be used for companies or people as well which pretty well covers every possibility while still indicating that dates are its primary function. Primefac (talk) 14:21, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This basically. This is frequently used to denote publishers by region. The template has no actual support/control/enforcement of dates. That was just it's earliest use case. It's main purpose is to generate a list and resolve region codes. -- ferret (talk) 14:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Need support for CN and KR ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code
This template does not currently support ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes for China and South Korea. I was editing the entry Azur Lane and was forced to link to the countries' articles manually. Why isn't this implemented? Both China and Korea have huge, growing VG markets. Not supporting codes CN and KR makes this template Western-centric. Please consider implementation. Thank you. --Tsumikiria (talk) 01:36, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Use CHN and KOR. The reason CH and KR don't work is that there is no associated template redirect for those codes. Once upon a time, back in the day, most ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 aliases were deleted unless they were heavily used, apparently there was a consensus to rely on alpha-3s. This was before my time. -- ferret (talk) 01:37, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * But WP:VG/DATE stated that ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 should be used in infoboxes, instead of alpha-3. Can you provide link to the discussion on deleting ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 aliases? This inconsistency between template support and MOS:VG will be confusing for other editors who are looking to follow MOS instructions. I still see a need in implementing more country codes for this template. I guess I'll revert to manually use alpha-2 just for the sake of consistency with ISO 3166 alpha-2 code JP and ISO 639-2 code EN. --Tsumikiria (talk) 02:04, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I tweaked WP:VG/DATE. Using alpha-3 is DEFINITELY preferred over manual linking. Please check the documentation of this template itself: Video game-specific aliases for regions such as NA, EU, AU or AUS, PAL, SEA, AS, SA, OC, WW and ? are supported, as well as all ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes and a smaller number of selected ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes.
 * All these old country code templates were deleted in 2009 or earlier. It was before my time really. See Template:Country data CN for example, deleted July 2007, and redeleted 3 times in 2009. VGR relies on these Country data templates to work. All of the alpha-3s exist, but only limited alpha-2s do. -- ferret (talk) 02:09, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh well. Thank you for the clarification on MOS:VG. Although I must say that I liked ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes better for their succinctness. Can I still use alpha-2 manual link on Azur Lane for keeping consistency with "JP" and "EN"? Or should I use alpha-3 codes JPN and ENG for consistency instead? Mixing 2-character and 3-character codes just doesn't feel... right to me. Thanks. --Tsumikiria (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2018 (UTC)


 * We actually had this kind of discussion before and our only stepping stone was the usage of 'JP' instead of 'JPN'. The latter is currently an alias of the former, but if we are using alpha-3 codes, ahould that be switched around? Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 05:13, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Edit; I realize the manual overwrite has been removed when we carried it over as a Module. Maybe we should, if a country data template exists, use the full alpha-3 code as link label. On a side note, why do we enforce Australasia for 'AUS'? Shouldn't it be Australia instead (and AU for Australasia)? Lordtobi  ( &#9993; ) 05:38, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No one wanted to take on the effort of checking and fixing AU/AUS usage, so it was left as-is. Otherwise we removed all hardcoded country values, leaving only regions hardcoded since they otherwise don't exist in ISO standards. It's also plausible that recreated an alpha-2 country data redirect will go uncontested. -- ferret (talk) 11:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Support for JP/NA?
I noticed there are a few of this style of multiregion dates. Any objections to having the module automatically split/link these? Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 23:29, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Sometimes people also do JP/NA. May want to only split on / as long as the parameter doesn't already contain a link. On the flip side, I noted that most of these are Arcade release dates with only a year (that are unsourced as well, it seemed), so it's a bit of a niche use. -- ferret (talk) 23:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For that matter, if the parameter contains a link, we should probably skip trying to resolve Country data as well. -- ferret (talk) 23:57, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ferret, yes, I agree. Anything we can do to reduce the number of failed country data transclusions the better :)  Let me know if you want me to help. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:00, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're more than welcome to work on the module, though I'd love to see the finished sandbox before you push live. I can't promise I'd look into this any time soon. -- ferret (talk) 00:02, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ferret, I put something in the sandbox. It's probably more cautious than necessary in that it (1) attempts to split the label into a list and (2) checks to make sure all entries in the list are 2 or 3 letters uppercase and (3) then iterates over entries.  If there are any entries that don't match this pattern, it falls back to the old behavior.  I could make it more aggressive, but you never know what someone might try to pipe through there :)  Feel free to make changes, suggestions, throw tomatoes, etc.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:41, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Added use cases to Template:Video game release/testcases. What about the case where one is linked and the other is not? Too niche? I believe we won't be making a bad Country data transclusion anymore so maybe not worth dealing with. -- ferret (talk) 01:20, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ferret, I updated the sandbox to include that case. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  12:27, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Added a "triplet" test case, also worked fine. I'm good! -- ferret (talk) 12:34, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Within such constructs, '?' ("Unknown") is not recognized. Should it be included despite the rather rare usage? IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 12:41, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * To be honest, why do we have ? for Unknown? Like, when would you have a sourced release date but not know the region it pertained to? Especially in combination with other regions, i.e. NA/JP/? .... -- ferret (talk) 12:44, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Only case I could imagine would be for old games where a source vaguely claims that it released e.g. "in Japan and some other regions" on date X. I'd have to agree, though, that we could deprecated the question mark altogether. IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 12:45, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Let's attach a category to ? and see what we get. -- ferret (talk) 12:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Assuming I did it right, we should now be tracking ? with . And, I have synced the new / region parsing from the sandbox. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  13:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * So far I've only seen one mainspace article using it, which I just removed it from. Probably need to wait longer for cache purges though. -- ferret (talk) 13:44, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed the parameter and deleted the category, after all these months it only contained the template and it's subpages. -- ferret (talk) 14:21, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I just learned this features exists, so could this be added to the documentation please? I looked before when I needed the same value for multiple atypical locations and resorted to using manual values, which were then corrected by another editor to this split variant. — HELL KNOWZ   ▎TALK 09:09, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added some text for it. -- ferret (talk) 14:20, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Preview warning and hatnotes moving to templatestyles
Page watchers may be interested in Izno (talk) 00:22, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Question (help)
Hello, I used your module in Videoherní vydání (on the Czech Wikipedia) and changed some functions, because we don't use them or have them (we are only using labels etc.). My question is: is it somehow possible to add error message in parametr of label (and error/maintenance category) when the label is wrong, for example when label is "Ssasdsa" (doesn't make sense) or / "us" (small words)? When you for example put wrong ID into Authority control, it will make nice red words using row and also adds category, but I'm not skilled in these fields so I'm asking you. Thank you very much RiniX (talk) 14:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Lines 135-146 is how you'd do this, roughly. In this case, we're checking for and reporting older syntax so if it appears, it can be corrected. But it's the same concept to check for other conditions, undesired combinations, something being lowercase, etc. -- ferret (talk) 15:16, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I somewhat made it (error when it's blank), but still couldn't find a way to do it with labels (aliases). You'll probably know right away (sorry for bothering you). RiniX (talk) 16:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * You have to loop through all the arguments, and if one isn't what you want, throw the warning label. To do that you have to have a list of some sort designation what the valid arguments are. That was "knownArgs" in the original module, which is at the top. -- ferret (talk) 17:53, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. RiniX (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Better method?
I always thought this template was really weird compared to the rest of Wikipedia's template formating. I wouldn't mind so much, but the more I use it, the more it gets annoying to use.

Wouldn't it make much more sense to do it like this?

Maybe this will also help organize the release dates more vertically, like this:

I know you can still technically organize it vertically on the current version, but this seems easier to read. In my opinion at least. What do you think?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:20, 27 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The template worked that ways years ago. It presented several problems though. First, the old template had a set order, meaning that Japan always came first, even if it was an older date. Second, you could only use each parameter once, and in some cases you needed them multiple times. This resulted in people use the template repeatedly back to back, causing multiple lists that weren't a single unit. Third, only specific hard coded regions worked. Fourth, you can't combine regions, such as NA/EU. A some point, a new template, literally named Video game release new was created, using the current format, to work around this. A TfD later resulted in the templates being merged, with the "new" syntax being preferred, and later the entire template was converted to Lua to expand its limits (it was limited to 20 total items period before), make them standardized Lists, and make it work with literally any region. Finally, unnamed parameters are widely used and this really isn't as unique as you think. -- ferret (talk) 22:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I see. it makes sense now.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:37, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Microformats
Does this—or should this—template emit microformats, as start date (etc) does? <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">— HTGS (talk) 04:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * @HTGS Although this template is primarily used to couple regions and dates, the date portion of that often has other text included, or the item pairing might not be dates at all (for example, often used to pair regions to publishers). I don't think microformats work here. -- ferret (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2024 (UTC)