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Well, let me cement my status as one of the main villains in this thread by
saying that I've posted games without playtesting them. Just because it
was the only way I could find a playtester is no excuse. I sometimes
suspect David Howe set the CVwiki up for people like me to put all our
absurd games in, protecting the main site. If so, it worked, to an extent.
A number of people have posted games and discussions on games there. The
ones that work sometimes cross over to the main site, but maybe not; there
are games with presets there found nowhere else. How do we tell what's
good and what's not?

Classification of variants is a tricky proposition. As George has noted
recently, a lot of designers can often/sometimes be recognized from style
alone. Classifying by designer is pretty easy, and if you like a
particular designer's work, it's useful to you for finding games you'll
likely enjoy. A favorites list in shorthand. 

Classifying by piece-types seems like one good general category. Leaping,
sliding, long range, short range, multipath, inclusive compound pieces...
phew! And we're just getting started. What about all the pieces with
special powers? Cannons, grasshoppers, immobilizers, leaders, followers,
compound, multisquare, and on and on. How do you even classify the
pieces?

Board size. Dimensionality. Victory conditions. It's getting the taxonomy
of an ecology, classifying a game, as compared to the much easier task of
classifying a species or a piece. Practically impossible, but if we
don't, or don't try, what's left? Recognized Variants, contest
winners/finalists, official Game Courier Tournament games - all these
games would be playable and likely decent games even if you personally
didn't enjoy them. Then you explore and network. 

Suggestions anybody? We seem to need some higher-level sorting schemes.
Does that cover the basic options, George?