[natethomas]

As long as you follow the rules and be courteous there are no problems. If you don't, we let you know.

One of the rules is to never disagree with mods on episode organization ever, for any reason. It was a lucky soul that managed to escape the great Legend of Korra burn of 2012.

Don't get me wrong. I think thetvdb provides a valuable service, and the people who have ultimate say on episode ordering have to put up with a LOT of shit. But there's no denying that certain individuals fly into a defensive, obstinant rage absurdly fast.

If I had to guess, I'd say that any service that is all about organization tends to attract people who are fairly unwilling to bend from whatever their opinion of the "right" way is. Kind of like people who fly into rages about double or single spacing after sentences.

My most recent run-in (after I'd learned the ways of asking questions in the proper obsequious manner) was with the show Red vs Blue. That's something of an unusual show, because each episode is only about 5 minutes long. At the end of each season, the RVB team pulls all the episodes together and recuts them into a single full length movie, which is called the Season X DVD/Film. This organization was reflected fairly well in TheTVDB until a certain mod decided that including the movie version of each season was redundant. This happened just after season 8. So now, the Season 9 and Season 10 films can't be added to RVB, because Mr. Mod locked the show and refused to add them. Which means my personal library is stuck with the first 8 movies showing up correctly, and the 9th and 10th movies showing up as "episode 1" of their respective seasons. Having a positive discussion about this unfortunate fact is frankly impossible. The Rules exist, and there's no bending on The Rules.

It's frustrating. It's very, very frustrating. But it's still substantially better than if TheTVDB didn't exist, so I accept it.

[Martijn]

all goes well for 99.99% of the tv shows and 99.99% of the people.
just for those unlucky circumstances problems can/will happen.

just be happy there is such a site as there isn't anything that even comes close atm

[bluenote]

Supporting something for fear of the lack of it is silly.
Nobody and nothing is indispensable. I strongly agree with the comments about the poisonous atmosphere over there.
It'd be great if they adapted, or died and let a new community spring up.
This in between limping along and being unhappy about it is silly.

[artrafael]

It depends on how much pain you're willing to live with for how long until there's an alternative to your liking.

[rd1979]

As long as you follow the rules and be courteous there are no problems. If you don't, we let you know.

One of the rules is to never disagree with mods on episode organization ever, for any reason. It was a lucky soul that managed to escape the great Legend of Korra burn of 2012.

That is the problem with the site frankly. Of course, we understand the challenges with "certain individuals" and such, but the mods will not admit wrong for anything, often spitting in the face of their own established rules.

Nate's example with Red vs Blue illustrates this perfectly. Some mod just randomly had an issue with something that's clearly following established rules, and when called out on the error, they just lock it?

One aforementioned mod in particular is very crude, and I have little doubt from the countless complaints I've heard, and my own dealings, that it's got less to do with the stress of dealing with users, than his own bad attitude.

[Ned Scott]

Perhaps it's time another group and site was formed. One were the contributors also had a say in site management.

Find those within thetvdb.com who are willing to defect, bring along a dumb of the existing DB (it is Creative Commons, after all), and address technical limitations from the start instead of "some day" and locking things until then.

[mwkurt]

You all complain about things over on theTVDB, but no one wants to go and create a new site. Go ahead, give it a try and run it to your liking. The fact of the matter is, I am a Mod over there as well as belonging to this forum. I like to think that I am fairly good at determining what is what. The site needs to have rules or else chaos would reign supreme. You have no idea how many times some new user comes along and "fixes" a listing the way they think it should be, or adds duplicate series or duplicate episodes or seasons that don't exist or any other myriad of things that mess up the listings so that it messes up peoples collections. You do realize that whenever a change is made to any show, it messes up the collections of others and systems that rely on theDB? Of course, they mess it up so someone has to go and fix it, usually a Mod. The rules are fairly simple: Listing of a series is supposed to be done based on the country of origin for a series.The listing is based on the date the episode aired in the original country and the originating network is gospel for the order the shows are listed in. When there isn't a network episode order available we have to go by other less reliable sources. So would everyone be happy if we allowed people to go changing, adding, deleting and moving around show information every day? How would your collections look?
Here is a suggestion. Go over there and start helping to fix things as far as fixing shows that are messed up. Eventually, you will probably be asked to become a Mod based on your help. Then you can have input into the decisions and understand why they are made. We have recently added 3 or 4 Mods because they helped out so much and didn't adjust things with no idea of what they were doing. Instead of bitching about things, how about pitching in to help out and keep it orderly? Or go ahead and create your own database and run it the way you like. By the way, if you come over there and have the proper sources for anything you want do, you shouldn't have a problem making changes to reflect your proper sources. If you have a problem, I have no problem with receiving messages.

Mark

[rd1979]

Here is a suggestion. Go over there and start helping to fix things as far as fixing shows that are messed up. Eventually, you will probably be asked to become a Mod based on your help. Then you can have input into the decisions and understand why they are made. We have recently added 3 or 4 Mods because they helped out so much and didn't adjust things with no idea of what they were doing. Instead of bitching about things, how about pitching in to help out and keep it orderly? By the way, if you come over there and have the proper sources for anything you want do, you shouldn't have a problem making changes to reflect your proper sources. If you have a problem, I have no problem with receiving messages.

Mark

I for one have done just that for a very long time. I insert data for shows that myself and my wife and kids watch. I try and follow the rules, and try and follow the 'spirit of the law' when no rules apply. I'm not looking to be a mod, like I say, I FULLY understand the issues you have to deal with, and I'll be the first to say I couldn't do it. But I feel I'm doing my part by entering data. Yet I also see things from the POV of the end user. And the main complaint I see here is the general attitude of the mods, and the way they handle their authority being questioned and give off a general 'holier than thou' attitude. Even your response, while fully understandable, (you face many of the same issues mods here do) gives off a vibe of anger.

I point to Nate's example once more as a perfect example. Instead of facing the issue and dealing with it head-on, it's just locked. All for something that, by all accounts, was following the rules until some mod suddenly and randomly had issue with it.

I've discussed the issue with the site with many people all across the Internet, and they all point to the same thing. THIS MANY people can't all be saying basically the same thing and all be wrong. Like the old adage says, "Where there's smoke, there's fire".

[Ned Scott]

network is gospel

This ideology is dead and no longer works. If TheTVDB.com doesn't understand this, then I say let it sink. People don't want to help make the site better because the rules and attitudes are too locked up. Users don't have enough say. They think it would cause chaos, but the fear of that chaos leads to over reactions and locking things with zero discussion. All the content comes from the community, so the community should have a say in how things are ran. Without that, the community will become unhealthy and fall apart.

I propose those who have "had enough" band together. If we can get some working proof-of-concept for a better site/database system, we can go to kickstarter to raise initial server funds.

When someone says to me "do it yourself", I will often be glad to do so. If anyone is interested in this, please contact me.

[natethomas]

I should repeat, I have no interest in doing it myself, because I think everyone over at tvdb does a really good job for the most part.

My only complaint was in the realm of RVB (and to a lesser degree Legend of Korra) where it certainly felt like discussion was a near ban-able offense. I honestly wanted to help out with RVB, given my history and knowledge, but was roundly rejected.

For the most part, I never raised a stink because I had way too much on my plate for yet another fight.

[mwkurt]

I should repeat, I have no interest in doing it myself, because I think everyone over at tvdb does a really good job for the most part.

My only complaint was in the realm of RVB (and to a lesser degree Legend of Korra) where it certainly felt like discussion was a near ban-able offense. I honestly wanted to help out with RVB, given my history and knowledge, but was roundly rejected.

For the most part, I never raised a stink because I had way too much on my plate for yet another fight.

Nate,

I was just looking over the listing of "Red vs. Blue", that you were talking about. First I must admit, I have never watched nor do I know anything about this show, however, I notice that the 9 episodes of the DVD/Season movie that are there do not have airdates listed. Are these things just DVD extras that would not be permitted to be listed anyway? If so, there is your answer. If that is the case, I am surprised that the 9 there have not been disappeared.

Mark

---

network is gospel

This ideology is dead and no longer works.

I do not understand why you say this. Is it your opinion that shows should not be listed according to the network they aired on? If not, what is your solution?

Mark

[Ned Scott]

Network TV distribution is only one of several disruption models that exist, and the importance it once held has diminished greatly. Plus, the Networks like to do weird things, like air two episodes as one, or split an episode, which really doesn't change the show at all, but has devastating effects on the listing if we are forced to use the network as gospel.

Details like, what network and what country a show first airs in/on are often arbitrary. Some online distribution models are ignored completely, even if they came first.

That's only part of theTVDB's problem. The other is the acceptance of different sources to backup what even is network broadcasted order. I've read discussions over there were shows were locked down in mistaken order because the website for the network listed it wrong, and not even statements from the producers or TV Guide would change the minds of the admins. So even when network is gospel, the rules there are so flawed that you can't even follow the gospel.

The community, which creates all of the content on theTVDB, is more capable than you think when it comes to finding a consensus. I know this because for years I was involved with "list of X episodes" type pages on Wikipedia, where people will argue over anything. Over there, you'd be surprised at how few issues there are, how easy it was to get people to agree to something, and make sure everyone had verifiable sources to back it all up. If a nutt-house like Wikipedia can do it, anyone can do it.

Network broadcast order is data, and in most cases it works fine as the default data. However, there is no technical reason why we can't have an almost unlimited amount of broadcast/distribution data. I know some at theTVDB are working on technical solutions, but I think one of the reasons it's taking so long is that no one wants to help them. No one wants to invest the needed work when too many of the people in charge are following guidelines that piss off the community that made them.

The disregard of community discussion is too extreme and goes beyond what is needed to maintain order. I have no doubt that it creates issues in several different places for theTVDB, not just the episode order. Unless someone shows them that other methods do work, then I don't think they will change those rules.

[natethomas]

Nate,

I was just looking over the listing of "Red vs. Blue", that you were talking about. First I must admit, I have never watched nor do I know anything about this show, however, I notice that the 9 episodes of the DVD/Season movie that are there do not have airdates listed. Are these things just DVD extras that would not be permitted to be listed anyway? If so, there is your answer. If that is the case, I am surprised that the 9 there have not been disappeared.

They're not DVD extras. They're the actual DVDs. The show is written as a roughly 90 minute movie and then broken up into 5 minute weekly episodes. The show is presented as the episodes for the season and then reconstituted into the movie at the end.

I believe this is an example of the awkwardness of internet videos. They don't fit into the standards of traditional TV.

[ThePolarSky]

...

[nickr]

Thetvdb has multi language options. I am not sure why you insist on everything being English only, or Region 1 only.