Needs Help: Sideways Compatibility

I'm not sure if this "misuse" per se, so I'm keeping it as just "needs help". I feel like the Sideways Compatibility trope has been poorly named, which only feels more glaring considering the lack of a Backwards Compatibility page, which this page appeared to be launched to serve as a supertrope to. I understand that that the name was an attempt to be more encompassing than "backwards compatibility" in terms of describing interoperability, but:

1. The majority of the examples listed are just backwards compatibility.
2. An internet search using Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, shows that "sideways compatibility" isn't even a real term. The trope page in question is the only one of two hits I found using it, the other being just a random blog post from a few weeks ago.
3. The trope name fails to convey its desired scope. Sideways Compatibility doesn't imply that it includes backwards (or even forwards) compatibility to me. Rather, it implies compatibility with concurrent hardware, ala how some The Golden Age of Video Games consoles had adapters to play games from the Atari 2600 (which isn't really a common thing).

I feel like the odd name is also the reason why it isn't heavily wiked to. Only four pages other than the "Needs Wicks" page currently link back to it, and two of those pages are come across as misuse.

• Game Within a Game pushes it as a related trope, which feels off (yes, some cases of BC are a result of putting the internals of one system into another, but it feels like an odd comparison).
• The use of it on Freefall deals more so with Hollywood Evolution and an inversion of Devolution Device than anything else.

I'd argue the entries on Dendy and Video Game Culture are the only proper use of the trope as is. It's just a bad alternate name for something that already has a far more widely used term in "backwards compatibility". Or even "interoperability" if you want the trope name to be more inclusive for "forwards compatibility", but considering the small number of gaming devices that offer that — I can only think of the Game Boy, Neo Geo Pocket, and Wonder Swan, which all offer it to limited degrees — I don't think the broader name is all that needed.

Finally, the trope description also feels contradictory, as it states itself to be about hardware compatibility (console within a console), before going on to list peripherals, virtualization, and emulation as examples of the trope as well.

I think this is a good page with fantastically detailed examples, but one in need of a rename and maybe an improved description to better reflect its subject matter.

Edited by RacattackForce on Dec 24th 2020 at 4:11:10 AM

Opening per moderator discussion.

Rename the trope to Backwards Compatibility. Maybe even move to Useful Notes.

I'm neutral on the Useful Notes idea for now, but it should be moved to Backwards Compatibility in some namespace.

to both renaming and usefulnotesifying.

Rename to Backwards Compatibility.

I think it's obvious what we're renaming it to; the only question is whether it goes in Main/ or UsefulNotes/.

Backward Compatiblity (with no S) should be a redirect, since that's what Wikipedia's article calls it. Also, upward compatibility is a synonym of forward compatibility, so both terms should be redirects.

Edit: Also, I think Useful Notes would be the best place for this.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 16th 2021 at 10:55:50 AM

Plus I think it's technically just a Commonwealth / American thing.

I agree UN would be the best place.

Jumping on the Useful Notes train.

I think we have clear consensus on the page going to Namespace.Backwards Compatibility (plus redirects), but I'm not quite happy with the consensus on which namespace is appropriate. Will a single-prop suffice for everyone, or is there some other option that might compete with that?

Single prop first.

So what question should be asked by the single-prop? This is one of the rare cases where it shouldn't be "do we rename", because we already know the new name...

It would be for whether it's moved to Useful Notes or if it stays in Main.

here goes nothing.

I think I got everything. I posted a notice on the old discussion page, wicks have been moved over (aside from the one on Pages Needing Wicks, since it's no longer needed), and I indexed it on the Useful Notes page.

Noted in the Renames thread, so closing.