Rules for tile descriptions

[Massimo Maso]

In your opinion it would not be better to omit the presence of the groove in all the tiles and indicate only the possible lack.

I know that it is contrary to the principle of expressing what is there and not what is missing, but in this case it seems to me that we would have more advantages than anything else:
  in alphabetical order the first part of a tile family would be the neutral version (as is now the case for 1x3 tiles, 1x6 tiles and 1x8 tiles, but not for 1x2 tiles, 1x4 tiles and 2x2 tiles)
  the descriptions would be shorter and more homogeneous (already now, most of the 1x4 and 2x2 patterned tiles do not give indications of the presence or absence of the groove)
  the new parts are already with the groove, only very first versions were devoid of it (and there are many more patterned or stickered parts based on the grooved versions than on the others).

[Cam's Bricks]

In your opinion it would not be better to omit the presence of the groove in all the tiles and indicate only the possible lack.

I know that it is contrary to the principle of expressing what is there and not what is missing, but in this case it seems to me that we would have more advantages than anything else:
  in alphabetical order the first part of a tile family would be the neutral version (as is now the case for 1x3 tiles, 1x6 tiles and 1x8 tiles, but not for 1x2 tiles, 1x4 tiles and 2x2 tiles)
  the descriptions would be shorter and more homogeneous (already now, most of the 1x4 and 2x2 patterned tiles do not give indications of the presence or absence of the groove)
  the new parts are already with the groove, only very first versions were devoid of it (and there are many more patterned or stickered parts based on the grooved versions than on the others).

I agree with this. Its been 50+ years since the "without groove" were produced.

Ideally, maybe they get a separate category? Tile, no groove or something.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I agree, simpler -> better!

[N. W. Perry]

For the tiles this makes sense, as the groove-less tiles are so old that most uses will require the grooved ones. It would be similar to the old Mursten-era bricks with slots, beams without posts, or plates with waffle bottoms.

It might be necessary at some point to find a cut-off, though. For example, would this also to apply to the ubiquitous jumper plate? This had no groove until much more recently, so while the grooved version is the current standard, there are perhaps as many official sets that would use the groove-less version. Also for the jumper plate, as well as certain tiles, there are multiple bottom variations that exist concurrently, or nearly so. Would we want to extend a similar naming convention to those?

It's tempting (and perhaps ultimately best) to let this be decided case-by-case. Although that is probably what led to the current situation in the first place…suffice to say, if there is an obvious guiding principle that we can identify for all parts—e.g., newest/current mold variation gets the least verbose description—perhaps this is a good time to do so.

[Cam's Bricks]

For the tiles this makes sense, as the groove-less tiles are so old that most uses will require the grooved ones. It would be similar to the old Mursten-era bricks with slots, beams without posts, or plates with waffle bottoms.

It might be necessary at some point to find a cut-off, though. For example, would this also to apply to the ubiquitous jumper plate? This had no groove until much more recently, so while the grooved version is the current standard, there are perhaps as many official sets that would use the groove-less version. Also for the jumper plate, as well as certain tiles, there are multiple bottom variations that exist concurrently, or nearly so. Would we want to extend a similar naming convention to those?

It's tempting (and perhaps ultimately best) to let this be decided case-by-case. Although that is probably what led to the current situation in the first place…suffice to say, if there is an obvious guiding principle that we can identify for all parts—e.g., newest/current mold variation gets the least verbose description—perhaps this is a good time to do so.

I see where you are headed with this and I think that a  category called something like "Tile, Without Groove" fits in the current array of LDraw categories. 

By extension you could do others like:
Plate, waffle bottom
Brick, no vertical tubes
Brick, with slots

For jumper plates there are 3 versions. 
There are also the recent addition of 1x4 plate with 2 studs that has had an update in the last few years to have a groove. 
There is also the new 2x2 tile with 2 studs that I am sure will get a groove in the next few years (this however would fit in the above category changes)

This is probably controversial but with some of these, are jumpers modified plates or modified tiles? They fit better in my mind as modified tiles because of the groove but I am sure changing that at this point in the game is gonna cause some frustrations.

[N. W. Perry]

I see where you are headed with this and I think that a  category called something like "Tile, Without Groove" fits in the current array of LDraw categories. 

By extension you could do others like:
Plate, waffle bottom
Brick, no vertical tubes
Brick, with slots

Those sound like sub-categories, something which has been tossed around occasionally over the years. And individual editors are always free to go further with the sorting of parts into sub-groups (as LDCad does).

The question is when you have some modification that, for some parts, is a default, but for others is a variation. If the above (sub)categories had existed since the beginning of LDraw, then the "default" tile would have fallen under Tile, and the old-school 1960s tiles would be under Tile, Without Groove. But the jumper plate would have been listed, by default, under Plate (or Tile), and when the new grooved variant appeared, that would have been under Plate (or Tile), With Groove. (And then the third variant would be, what? Plate, With Groove, With Bottom Stud Holder?)

Now for jumpers, that issue might be resolved by the below discussion (plate vs. tile), but it's just meant as an illustration.

This is probably controversial but with some of these, are jumpers modified plates or modified tiles? They fit better in my mind as modified tiles because of the groove but I am sure changing that at this point in the game is gonna cause some frustrations.

That has actually been discussed at some length, here. The consensus was that, for category purposes, only fully studless parts are Tiles (or in the case of inverted tiles, fully anti-studless parts), and anything with one or more studs is a Plate. However, a keyword of "tile" is recommended for those plates that can be thought of as having a tile-like function, like jumpers.

My personal rule of thumb is that any plate missing 50% or more of its studs in a contiguous surface area is in the tile family, so that would exclude the 1x2 jumper. But, I also consider all tiles to be a modified type of plate anyway, so the jumper is always a modified plate to me, whether or not it's also a tile.

[Cam's Bricks]

I think it might be best to consider the mold variation of a single part vs a category of similar parts. 

Jumper has had 3 mold variations:
Not groove bottom tube
Groove bottom tube
Groove bottom stud jumper

Where as Tile, Without Groove covers a group of parts:
1x1
1x2
1x2 grille tile
1x4

The mold variation implementations are already seen in practice when looking at 1x1 clip plates and tiles.

[N. W. Perry]

I think it might be best to consider the mold variation of a single part vs a category of similar parts. 

Jumper has had 3 mold variations:
Not groove bottom tube
Groove bottom tube
Groove bottom stud jumper

Where as Tile, Without Groove covers a group of parts:
1x1
1x2
1x2 grille tile
1x4

The mold variation implementations are already seen in practice when looking at 1x1 clip plates and tiles.

A perhaps closer example might be slopes. There are lots of bottom variations, and there are lots of different slopes that have variations (and lots of different patterns that exist on different variants of the slopes). Going by the original criteria of the question, which version would be the "default" slope, with the short, unmodified, alphabetically first name?

The idea, basically, seems to be that the part most users will be searching for is the one that should come up most easily. It does seem odd that, the vast majority of the time, the tile or slope part you want is the variant with a 'b' next to it. But I don't know if that's so much a naming issue as it is a search filtering issue.