Hm. Well, I didn't know I could contribute normally, but then again I feel like if I won't if I don't feel the responsibility of a role. I'm unsure now.

Yes any user can add things to the database, though unless you're a GameDB Admin then most of your changes will go into a job queue for approval/rejection by Admins before they show up on the game pages.

You can always wait for the GameDB to go live and try your hands at making some contributions - if you take to it then we'll no doubt need more GameDB Admins further down the line (and the most active contributors tend to be invited to join the team anyway). If not, then at least you didn't go through the process of signing up only to not do anything.

Machina said: 

1) Right now it is. This change will end the link, which has stifled the GameDB on VGC in a kind of straight-jacket, so everything will be available on the game pages here once more.

2) You'll be able to make them yourself if it's changing something about the stuff on the game page. If it's a suggestion for improving the site I expect there'll be a thread for that at some stage after the DB goes live.

3) Right now it does yes, but you're looking at the current, old pages. The new ones will have a lot more data and things to alter. And yes the changes you submit are for single game pages.

4) I mean there are a bunch of reasons all of the older users want the old GameDB brought back - from fixing the game collections on our profiles and being to add new releases again, to the fact the old pages included so much more information and more features, to being able to link articles and reviews published on the site to the relevant game(s), and so on. There was just so much more functionality and it'll finally fix a lot of the issues caused by the database being split off into another site (it left behind a bunch of broken stuff on VGC).

Oooh they're very good. Yes that sort of thing would be awesome.

This is NOWHERE near complete - there will be a lot of changes to the .css and coloring scheme before anything goes live, but I just want to give an example of the level of detail that's missing and what everybody in the community will hopefully be able to contribute:

Here's how Wii Sports looks - the level of detail is SPOT-ON!! Boxart (you can't tell from the screenshot, but there is the allowance for front, back and multiple regions of boxarts), banner, game information (game ratings, alternate names like Japanese writing, critic review scores, developer, publisher, genre, screenshots, on and on and on!!!!). This is how MOST PS3, Wii, and X360 (and even some older and vintage consoles) games look in the system:

And here we have GTA:V on the XOne - it has almost NONE of that detail! No boxart, no banners, and barely even any game information, and that's because the majority of that information simply isn't here. It may exist over at Gamewise, but it definitely doesn't live here on this website:

You'll note there are tools available in that column, and so long as you're logged in, any regular user of the site will be able to add these things to our game pages and begin fleshing things out. BUT, none of those submissions will actually post to the game page until they have been approved by a DBAdmin - and that is the key role of the DBAdmin (they are a check on the community to make sure people aren't submitting garbage).

Most DBAdmins are actively submitting this information themselves, which is how the role originally came to be in the first place! Guys like Oliist were sending across so many updates, it made more sense to just give them the DBAdmin role and have them simply accept all of their updates in one go - rather than have somebody else parse through everything he was submitting (since he was a trusted user sending LOADS of information!!).

If you feel like you'll be contributing a great deal of (good!!!) information for the game database and want to ensure the stuff that's getting added to our database, doesn't get overwritten by garbage submissions from other users - the DBAdmin role is what you want! If you feel you're most likely only going to submit a few things here and there, then this role is likely not necessary for you - you can still submit is much (or as little) information as you want, but you'll just have to wait until a DBAdmin has had a chance to review and accept or deny your submission...