Bug#632930: debtags shows different packages when extending/fine-graining a tag expression.

[Enrico Zini]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2011 at 11:42:40AM +0530, shirish शिरीष wrote:

> Anyways, then went looking for rpg
> 
> $ debtags search game::rpg
> adonthell - 2D graphical roleplaying game
[...]
> slashem - A variant of Nethack
> 
> Ok, that is a reasonable output . Then fine-grained the search as I'm
> looking at/for rogue-like rpg games.
> 
> $ debtags search game::rpg:rogue
> angband - A single-player, text-based, dungeon simulation game.
[...]
> zangband - A single-player, text-based, roguelike game
> 
> Surprisingly this shows more game then just games::rpg, shouldn't it
> be the reverse way?

[That's an interesting question, which I think is a good spark for a
 little[1] game::* tag cleanup, so let's involve debtags-devel and
 debian-devel-games]

In theory, I would expect the same as you; however that behaviour is not
enforced, and game::rpg and game::rpg:rogue, as well as game::board,
game::board:chess, game::sport, and game::sport:racing, are all
considered completely different tags.

I can see two ways of bringging the theory in line with practice:

 1. adding a hint to the tagging interface to suggest people to add
    game::foo when the game::foo:bar tag is there;
 2. renaming the data without a hierarchy (i.e. game::rogue,
    game::chess, game::racing)

I recall a discussion some time ago with people saying that rogue-like
games weren't really RPG games, but they just shared a Tolkien/D&D
atmosphere with some RPG games. That is probably correct, and would hint
at a game::rpg:rogue -> game::rogue rename.

Wrt game::board:chess, should we just remove it and keep game::board
only? Or is it time to expand the board game categorisation and also
introduce game::board:go?

And wrt game::sport and game::sport:racing, does it make sense to have
two separate game::sport and game::racing tags? One could argue that
racing games have a rather different concept than sport games like
volleyball, soccer, tennis and golf games.

My personal proposal would be to reorganise tags in this way (and add
tagging hints only for the chess->board and go->board inferences):

  game::rpg
  game::rogue
  game::board
  game::board:chess
  game::board:go
  game::sport
  game::racing

I'd like at least the games team feedback on it.


[1] Just this little cleanup, in this thread. If you have ideas for
    bigger reorganisations, let's start new threads for them.

Ciao,

Enrico

-- 
GPG key: 4096R/E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico at enricozini.org>
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