I am a programmer and I feel confident that I could implement the often asked for exclusion filter for the site. I usually make my own game engines, and my work has very few bugs. My last job was maintaining a code base from the days of DOS, so I can handle complexity.
I also have in mind a simple sorting algorithm which could make a rough estimate of the quality of a game based on the data the creators entered. It would make a good option for users looking for high effort content only.
You might be interested in this here https://github.com/itchio . But I do not think Itch is looking for developers and the site itself is not open source.
I suspect the people that are highly interested in exclusion filters do have ways to cope with the current system. Single exclusion is possible with a bookmark for a favorite search.
Multiple exclusion is just not as usefull as it sounds. Client side, one can simulate it quite fully with the tampermonkey script I made a while ago. It can hide items and or developer's items. So just visit every tag you wanna exclude, hold the hotkey for hiding till a lot of the popular games are hidden. Rinse, repeat. A better approach is to just search what you wanna search and hide individual games. Since they stay hidden, they will not bother you again, when you search similar games. Also usefull to hide the stuff you already know.
Tags are unreliable to begin with and I suspect most people do not browse for games as they would enter a complex database query. While Steam has this feature, I did not even know about it. And there the tags are a lot more reliable and from a small fixed pool of tags.
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How would data entered by the developer be of any significance about the quality of the game? Web development and publishing a game might be related to game development, but it is different skills.
What kind of data are you talking about? Is it somethign from here? https://itch.io/directory
Thank you for your reply. I was speaking of the website rather than the desktop app. All the people that need help unzipping a game are on Steam. ;)
I disagree, multiple tag exclusions will be very useful, and so would its sister feature, an option of viewing by multiple tag inclusions. The way we cope with the absence of these features is to ask for it to be implemented, because that would seem to be the way forward. We ask for it because we need it. Aren't you tired of writing these long paragraphs of theories about why it might not be useful? This feature's benefits are already more than you imagine. :D
I have a different understanding about the term "very useful" ;-)
I now know that it is possible on Steam. I have the tools to have it on Itch. Times I used it: about once on Steam for research.
Other people might want to use it more often, but I suspect they just want to filter out horror games, and this they already can do with a bookmark.
In the thread about exclusion of already owned projects, there is zero interest shown, and imho it is a much more useful feature https://itch.io/t/3477347/add-an-option-to-exclude-owned-games-when-searching
The reason why I do not use the feature of exclusion is the unreliability of tags. And my speculation why it is not implemented, is the lack of feature requests in combination with how hard it would be to implement in the current system.
an option of viewing by multiple tag inclusions
Inclusion?
Like this?
https://itch.io/games/newest/downloadable/exclude-jam/free/platform-windows/tag-...
You can combine and pile up "inclusions" all the way you like. No matter if tags, or technical information or whatever. If it is an url parameter, it will "include". And implementing negative inclusions on such a system sound like a hard task. It is optimised for intersecting sets.
Or is inclusion something different? English is not my native language. Do you mean a logical "or" maybe?
Like, give me (platformers or shooters) and robots. Including the searches of platformer & robot with shooter & robots.
Good luck with that. In the six years after implementation of single tag exclusion as an undocumented feature, there seems to not be a single piece of official statement regarding that feature or expansion of it. That it was neither removed nor expanded upon can be a basis for deduction, but deduction and speculation it is.
But please do not let me hanging here. What did you mean by tag inclusion?
Guesses and suspicions are not really helpful, especially when there is a dedicated place for customers to ask questions from the staff, and another place for customers to request features.
If one cannot expect a response from the staff, that is another matter, not related to the specific feature being requested.
especially when there is a dedicated place for customers to ask questions from the staff
I am not aware of such a place. This is public community. Users talk to users here. That the founder of Itch sometimes posts here, does not change this.
Share your ideas and feedback for things you'd like to see itch.io do.
Share. As in: discuss.
So the only answer to such topics will come from other users. What would you expect in such a discussion? I voiced my opinion about the matter, why it might not be already implemented and why it might not be as helpful as it seems. You can voice your opinion why it is a good and needed feature*. Maybe you can convince me, and I would use such capabilites more often in the future. Maybe you can convince others and they hit the feature request button in the feedback button. Search is currently being overhauled, maybe multiple tag exclusion is on the roadmap.
* That might be interesting. A showcase where such a feature will help you find the games you seek.
Search is currently being overhauled, maybe multiple tag exclusion is on the roadmap.
A good example of a really unhelpful comment.
Sharing a suspicion, for example, that all the people that have asked for multiple tag exclusion only want to exclude horror, and that they can use a bookmark for that, is also not helpful.
It is clear that you do not understand the usefulness of this feature, and if you could be honest, that will not change. You might send hundreds more words to restate your opinion on the matter. Please know that if I don't reply, it's not because I am afraid, or dumbstruck. You and I have made our opinions clear on this matter. Let's hear from someone who has a say in it.
It is clear that you do not understand the usefulness of this feature
I asked you to illustrate the usefulness. Make me understand. Give me another perspective.
You also did not answer my question what you meant with tag inclusion.
You also did not answer my question about your game evaluation quality thingy.
As for sharing opinions, please realize where you posted. "Share your ideas" is this communitiy's headline.
Let's hear from someone who has a say in it.
Now that would be something. The nearest I could find is this https://itch.io/t/3818776/new-search-backend "Refining our search system is an ongoing task".
