I apologize in advance if this has already been posted, I tried searching before posting this to see, but found nothing.
****Here's my Idea:****
Adding a community feature that allows users to flag a project as abandoned would not only help streamline the process of users finding games they enjoy, while simultaniously promoting traffic to projects that are regularly updated thus giving hard working devs more of a chance to have their work seen. It would also allow for a means to lighten the server load for Itch.io its self by way of reducing the amount of clutter by deleting abandoned projects from the database.
Obviously there would have to be some means of control for users, developers and itch staff themselves.
I.E.
* Requiring a specific time frame of not being updated by the developer to pass before users are able to flag as abandoned
* Requiring a certain amount of users (User quota) flagging a project as abandoned before the system allows the project to be removed from the site.
*Once the user quota is met, I see two possible solutions. One being an automatic deletion from the database. (However that presents numerous issues) A way to avoid these issues could be a pre allocated time frame that the developer has to appeal the process before it is acually removed from the database. And the second possible solution would be that once the user quota is met, that it gets forwarded to an Itch staff member to review. They would need to review the project, taking into consideration time since last update as well as user/developer corresponance in it's feed. At which point the staff member would decide to approve or deny user's request to flag as abanoned, if approved, then a message could be sent to the developer stating they have X amount of time to appeal the process before it gets removed from the site. (Possibly requiring the dev to present either evidence that it is not abandoned or a reason why they have not updated it but plan on continuing work on said project.)
* Once a project has been successfully flagged as abandoned, it could be hidden from public view until either A: it is removed completely, or B: a dev successfully appeals the process
* Another idea would be to add more search filters to the site that allow a larger time scale than the 30 days it's already capped at such as 90 days and/or 6 months. but that's only a half-measure.
I believe that adding a feature such as this would not only streamline the site extremely well, but also make the browsing process much more intuitive and help prevent users wasting time and getting invested in a project only to find it has been abandoned.
****Here's my reasoning****
I have been using Itch for a couple years now, and have found some pretty amazing games. However there is a recurring issue I have noticed over time, and frankly it's getting tiresome.
I have put several hours into playing games that were great pieces of work, only to have the developer abandon it before it is finished, often leaving on a seriously disappointing cliff hanger. I have not noticed any means (Other than the search tag "Last Updated" which caps out at only 30 days. Many developers post regular updates every few months, which will not be caught by that search filter) for users to sort through the projects that are actively being developed and ones that are abandoned, oftentimes making it much more difficult to spot projects that have a lot of potential and that developers are working hard to post regular updates. This is not only detrimental to the developers, by limiting potential traffic to their project, but also frustrating to us little people who just want to find something that isn't abandoned.
There are too many abandoned projects that I find myself wasting a lot of time opening the link, scrolling down and reading the page to find the update schedule (Many of which aren't clearly communicated)
I am interested in hearing feedback on this idea.
*****TL:DR*****
Too many abanoned projects make it hard to find good ones that devs work hard on. A means to flag them for removal would be great!
*****TL:DR*****