Currently we have the Announcements thread, the Developer's Journals and sometimes the lounge are used to publicise/market games that various members. For the most part a lot of these announcements I see are from short-term "just joined to post" members but some are from longer term members who are active participants in helping the site to grow as well seeking aid in their various projects.

What I propose is that gamedev creates a "showcase" gallery (basically a museum as such) which takes those projects created by consistently active members who in addition to their own needs have taken time to help others out in gamedev and have as such become associated in part with gamedev i.e. in a sense that we have contributed to the creation of said game by help through the forums for various problems/advice etc as well been a part of the gestation process and as a form of recognition to those active members.

I see this as gamedev being able to provide another form of legitimisation/publicity to show that games have been developed utilising these forums as an effective tool and as time goes on, a pedigree of games associated with this site becoming well established. I would suggest that application for inclusion in this particular gallery be somewhat restrictive - so that it does not become another announcements forum but rather one that meets criteria as mentioned above or something along those lines.

edit: as an addendum this might also be used to store historical jams such as the Kraken event

I'm sorry, but I'm not following exactly what you want here. Basically it sounds like Your Announcements all over again.

Answer me this -- what games in the past decade or so have been developed by active members in Gamedev.net with help (at times) from gamedev.net?

My proposal is that we create a museum of those games - establishing "the effectiveness" of gamedev in acting as a resource as well demonstrating accomplishments of active (past, current and future) members.

It will take time but I don't see this site, even as it is, going to the outskirts of obscurity. GD.net seems to still be a beacon to new, current, and old game developers across the net.

Never thought it would go to the outskirts of obscurity.

I think the initiative started by the Staff is the right direction to go in. New blood, new resources, new results. With members putting in articles (and most likely games) and other resources, the site will take a life of its own.

I agree -- the approach to developing a basically static (with updates) article database upon which people can reference as well the dynamic feedback associated with the forums is a good direction.

But my question still becomes:

What games in the past decade or so have been developed by active members in Gamedev.net with enough help (at times) from gamedev.net that we could be said (without legal obligation) to be a part of helping to make it a reality?

Unless I start trying to track down old, defunct threads (which by nature of their defunctness become increasingly out of date) how do I associate new and future projects helped into existance as well the old ones. Moreover if I am brand new to the site - I might be very impressed by the articles and forums but I have no sense of "history" as to how this site has aided previous members etc. There is a lot of talk about how long Gamedev has been around but there is very little evidence to demonstrate it beyond the occasional yearning for the previous black schema or logo links etc and with the new architecture we have also lost a lot of the threads from earlier years without far more creative searching needed.

Well all the css is broken but here is the largely unstyled "old" gds.. which isn't entirely working when you look at an actual entry:

http://www.gamedev.net/page/community/gds/index.html

The Game Development Showcase is the one place that you can show off your work to the world without having to worry about your own server space. Anyone can exhibit their project - a demo or a game, finished or unfinished, regardless of its quality or complexity. Anyone can download the project, run it, and if they choose, offer comments to the author(s).

The thing that I look at in this though is that this was a case of "anyone" not necessarily just projects/games that might be said to be associated in part with the gamedev itself beyond it being showcased.

Something like a Hall of Fame?

Not necessarily of fame - but accomplishment definitely.

Instead of making it completely restrictive, you could sort items by some kind of rank derived from a combination of reputation, join date, post-count, etc, so that people who sign up just to post their game appear at the bottom of the list (when sorted by this ordering)?

By restrictive I was meaning that it was not for those who simply join to post as such (this type of post would effectively work in the Announcements forum), but rather restricted to those games that have an "association" with gamedev resources helping to make it a reality. But your point does make sense if it was created that way and simply sort by search criteria.

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It really comes down to the fact that I don't know the answer to the following:

Gamedev has helped a lot of people, but I have no idea just what games have produced because of that help (beyond a few recent items). It would be nice to see the results.