GWG namespace: Keep g5 or start fresh?

Working Groups WG Games
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Regardless of the outcome of “Is the GWG just one group?”, we’ll need a namespace to hold lexicons developed by this group (either for metadata, infrastructure, or both).

Option 1: Keep games.gamesgamesgamesgames.*

games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* is the namespace for The Pentaract, which is a project I have personally been building for the past several months. The docs website has a reference section that shows all of the lexicons that currently exist. It’s a lot:

  • 20 record lexicons
  • 41 query lexicons
  • 12 procedure lexicons
  • 68 shared definitions

That’s just for metadata. I think there’s plenty of cleanup that could be done (for example, all of the contribution records should probably move to the dev.cartridge.* namespace), but it’s a fairly complete metadata spec that’s based on the data formats from IGDB.

These lexicons are already in use by a handful of atproto applications:

Option 2: Move into community.lexicon.*

Lexicon Community has recently relaunched with new governance. We could investigate creating the game lexicons under the community.lexicon.* namespace.

My main concerns with this:

  • Lexicon IDs risk getting longer than they already are with namespace reorg.
  • We’d need to either migrate existing consumers to the new namespace, or maintain both namespaces side-by-side.

Otherwise this is feasible.

Option 3: Start totally fresh

We could investigate a brand new namespace. This would require the purchase of an additional domain, but would also signify a clear shift from Trezy-made games lexicons to community-made games lexicons.

My personal preference would be to keep the games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* namespace and place it officially under the management of this working group, but the floor is open to discussion.

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A lexicon for game activity sharing
A lexicon for game activity sharing
A lexicon for game activity sharing
A lexicon for game activity sharing
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For the sake of compatibility I don’t see a reason to move off games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* for existing lexica, but new ones might want a new authority. The pentaract is a bit hard to write repeatedly!

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I’m just renewing this conversation so we can hopefully resolve and start moving forward. With the rich presence discussion closing in on something shippable, it would be nice to get more feedback and decide on the “blessed” namespace for WG lexicons.

For the record I prefer the games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* namespace because it has its own sort of brand recognition, but I am absolutely open to other options.

I do think it’s critical that we have a “blessed” namespace so we can provide consistent guidance on how to implement (e.g. all lexicons are prefixed with cool.game.lexicons, vs games metadata is prefixed with games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* while status records are prefixed with games.atmosphere and credits are prefixed with com.igdb and other records are prefixed with yada yada yada).

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I don’t like games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* personally because it’s too easy to lose track of how many games you have to write, and so I’ve been the main source of a push for an alternative. I’ve been talking to @rpg.actor about using games.atmosphere.* for community lexicons, so that’s another option we can move to.

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I think I’m of the same opinion (sorry Trezy!); though games.gamesgamesgamesgames is fun, I see developers abbreviating it (I do too!) as g5. or g.gggg — which makes those comments opaque for people not already in the know.

It’s a minor gripe though, as it’s not like these have to be written a lot, and there’s already a wealth of games data on games.gamesgamesagmesgames we want to reference and use!

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Yeah, whatever happens with our blessed domains going forward we do kinda have to keep games.gamesgamesgamesgames.game and other existing lexica as-is to not break backwards compatibility. I’d still prefer to move to something else for new lexica, though.

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For us, it really doesn’t matter either way. We’re in a decentralized environment, so adoption drives the standard. Designation from the WG has weight, but isn’t an enforceable authority and things can change at any time.

Nothing could stop Steam or Microsoft from taking all the design work we put into these lexicons and then instantly becoming the favored standard, just by sheer scale. So, it’s important to keep perspective on just how small-potatoes it really is at this point.

There are only 15 devs/dids using atmosphere.games definitions, and only 6 devs/dids publishing with gamesgamesgamesgames.games records.

That’s really the whole of it. As prolific as The Pentaract is within our community and as active as rpg.actor has become recently, we remain minuscule.

gamesgamesgamesgames.games has a lot of valuable design work, and as long as the IGDB records are kept and maintained for new titles, then the apps that reference them will stay compatible. Nothing there needs to change unless service or utility does.

If the WG wants to build on atmosphere.games in any capacity, then we are happy to provide whatever we can with atmosphere.games/lexicons under CC0.

However, our “permission” isn’t really a constraint either way, and applies authority where there shouldn’t be any. Everyone can already publish any games.atmosphere.whatever, or reformat the records however they like. That’s part of the beauty this protocol creates.

Thus, our position is that it’s best that we provide guidelines, tools, and examples as a workgroup until real permissionless adoption finds a natural consensus, rather than to expectantly declare anything as a “true” namespace.

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I lean towards atmosphere.games as well, both for the aforementioned less confusing typing as well as the domain being owned by a group rather than an individual which feels like better stewardship.

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Hey @trezy.codes how do you think we can help the WG reach a decision?

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Right now we’re mostly waiting on @zeroassembly to give a tiebreaker vote from the chairs, I think.

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Hey, sorry, I broke my old zeroassembly.net did and had a heck of time getting in here (long story).

I think it would be nice to start fresh with something, akin to standard.site. If not that, I’d lean towards using atmosphere.games because it’s easier to remember.

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We’re settled on not using games.gamesgamesgamesgames.*. Now do we bless lexicons in atmosphere.games, or do we create something fresh?

I’m leaning towards something new. @bmann.ca made a great point in the Cartridge Discord:

[gamesgamesgamesgames.games is] a great brand. Atmo.games - or literally anything atmo - is an insider only thing
~ @bmann.ca

I don’t think it’s a safe assumption that anybody looking at our lexicons will be familiar with what the Atmosphere is. If game devs are just interested in how to get their game data to show up on Bluesky or Cartridge or postgame (or whatever other platforms build on atproto in the future without making a significant acknowledgment of the Atmosphere or atproto), atmo/atmosphere doesn’t mean anything to them.

I think we’d be better off going a similar route to standard.site, creating something that 1) has its own brand, and 2) is easily recognized as focused on game dev enablement.