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  Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion Page: 1 2 3 ...15  Previous   Next
Ken - Abolish the rules in favor of a new system? (Locked)
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DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantchibul
formerly abrg923
Registered: March 13, 2007
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This post was made in the Star Wars thread, and should be carefully considered, IMHO.

Quoting Mark Harrison:
Quote:
Quoting skipnet50:
Quote:
We have tried Guidelines, they don't work. And you know that, Mark. Or do i need to remind you "They are only Guidelines, we don't HAVE to follow them." And the database was a total wreck.


The guidelines by themselves were a bad idea.  Having guidelines with a voting system, more robust contribution system & partial acceptance of updates hasn't been tried yet.  I'm not saying that we throw all the rules out the window.  But I do sometimes question if we're making things too complicated.  I can't think of a better example at the moment than this very thread.  We're allowing the rules to back us into a corner where we're forced to make stupid contributions.

The rules should be a tool to ensure that the database is populated with good data.  Let me repeat that since so many seem to be missing the point.  The rules should be a tool to ensure that the database is populated with good data. Instead we're putting ourselves into a position where we're allowing the rules to dictate to us that we place bad data into the database.  How can that be considered a good thing?  And no, this isn't an endorsement of your theory that things were good before we had the rule changed and you tried to save us and we wouldn't listen.  The previous rule was just as bad.  It forced us to enter a small percentage of bad data just because the rules said so.

The solution to the problem isn't more rules.  So unless we can find the perfect wording to cover every conceivable problem that might arise, we're left with putting bad data in from time to time or allowing some room for common sense (combined with the voting system, robust contribution system and partial acceptance of updates) or some other idea that we’ve not thought of yet.

I was once told that if what you're doing isn't working, it's time to try something else.  I would say that rule upon rule upon rule is forcing us to put bad data into the database.  That isn't working to meet the goal of having a good database (I would hope we can all agree that that should be our ultimate goal).  So perhaps it's time to try something else.
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No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorBodi
Registered: March 15, 2007
Posts: 445
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Just to respond to this...uhm...who says it's bad data? The title comes from the dvd case...it's the best option...if you don't like that then change your local database. I have dozens of foreign titled dvd's which I have changed locally to the English title.
 Last edited: by Bodi
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantVibroCount
The Truth is Silly Putty
Registered: March 13, 2007
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The rules attempt to make order out of chaos. Every film title designer can design onscreen credits which confound description, whether using unusual capitalization, strange layering, overlapping scenes using long fade-ins and fade-outs, etc. And art directors and artists also can design DVD covers which are equally confounding.

The rules give us a baseline. A fairly consistent path over some rocky terrain to traverse.

If we all follow the rules as closely as we can, then we have a common place -- a baseline -- to start designing each of our local databases. Either you maintain your own database, drawing from the community one and refining it into the set of data which you want to work with, or you abandon the decisionmaking to the screeners who ultimately determine what is in the main database.

If you have a way of reinterpreting the rules which you believe is more correct than the rules allow, you are allowed to use it -- but only locally. Anything else gives license to all of us to reinvent every rule and this becomes a database of whim, however logically thought out.

I believe following the rules for the common database is a necessity. What you do with your local database is entirely personal, and I should have no say in it, just as you should have no say as to how I modify mine.

Guidelines are doomed to fail: your common sense might be my version of stupidity (as my common sense might be viewed by you as pure insanity). Go with the flow: it's easier; you will not struggle as much; and you'll have more time and energy to accomplish things you want to do. It's easy to follow the rules if you turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. Fight the current and you might drown.
If it wasn't for bad taste, I wouldn't have no taste at all.

Cliff
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantVibroCount
The Truth is Silly Putty
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Quoting VibroCount:
Quote:
... a baseline. A fairly consistent path over some rocky terrain to traverse.

...

Go with the flow: it's easier; you will not struggle as much; and you'll have more time and energy to accomplish things you want to do. It's easy to follow the rules if you turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. Fight the current and you might drown.


I can mix a few metaphors as well as anyone, can't I? 
If it wasn't for bad taste, I wouldn't have no taste at all.

Cliff
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantGrendell
One disc at a time...
Registered: May 8, 2007
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Did this really need its own thread?

The Star Wars titles in the database now match the DVD covers. That's good data in my book.

I cannot believe that such a simple (and accurate) contribution has caused people to write marathon length diatribes regarding the metaphysics of the rules.

Holy crap.
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorJimmy S
Registered: March 15, 2007
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Quoting VibroCount:
Quote:
I believe following the rules for the common database is a necessity. What you do with your local database is entirely personal, and I should have no say in it, just as you should have no say as to how I modify mine.


Exactly my opinion on this. Why we have to come and come again on this subject? The rules work as they are right now. I don't say that I agree 100% with them, but this is a public database and the most acurate one. If I don't like a rule I don't use it on my personal database, that's all.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorAddicted2DVD
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Quoting AESP_pres:
Quote:
Quoting VibroCount:
Quote:
I believe following the rules for the common database is a necessity. What you do with your local database is entirely personal, and I should have no say in it, just as you should have no say as to how I modify mine.


Exactly my opinion on this. Why we have to come and come again on this subject? The rules work as they are right now. I don't say that I agree 100% with them, but this is a public database and the most acurate one. If I don't like a rule I don't use it on my personal database, that's all.


I agree.... in my personal opinion... THAT is common sense.
Pete
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributormwkirchner
Everybody down!
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I did not know if I wanted to get involved in all this ... but have decided to.

I do agree that we do indeed need RULES or GUIDELINES (however you want to refer to them). If you do not then you will continually get bad data and that is just a waste of time for us to have to keep voting on ... not to mention Ken & Geri would have to make the final call and with all the activity with this program ... that would be unfair to them.

I do think that at times we tend to stray a bit. I am only going to give an example here ... NOT to point fingers at anyone ... but just to make my point.

I had contributed a change to a DVD (Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke) and all I did was remove the quotation marks from around UP IN SMOKE since they did not appear on the cover. I thought that was a ligitimate contribution and thought nothing more of it.

I go into my profile to look at the contributions and I scroll down through them and happen to notice that I had a NO vote for that particular one. I am not upset when I see this ... but I do click on the yes & no to see what I could have possibly done wrong.

The comment in there was that between CHEECH & CHONG's was not really an "&" but was indeed a "Y". What did that have to do with what I contributed. Why vote NO on my contribution because you find an error that is not related to my contribution? I did not understand it.

Again ... I am not wanting to open a can of worms over something as minor as that. I guess my point here is that you should not penalize someone by voting no on a contribution if what they are contributing is not what you are complaining about.

I also feel that sometimes we get WAY TOO PICKY on colors in a cover contribution. I am not saying we should just take any cover (I like one that is done nicely for my database and I am sure you all feel that way too), but everyone's monitor does not necessarily show the true colors. If you put two monitors side by side I can almost guarantee you that you will see two completely different pictures. One may be a little darker. I feel that the main thing that should be concentrated on in cover scans is to make them as clear as possible and to try to get the colors as close as humanly possible (without having to get some program that will define the true Pantone color). I am just saying that what looks perfectly fine on my monitor may not look as good on someone else's. I have seen perfectly good scans get tossed because we had a bunch of people say the colors weren't "perfect".

I do not want this to start a bunch of bashing etc ... I guess I am just wondering if we can lighten up just a little and try to work as a group to get things to be as close to perfect as possible. We are only human and we all will makes mistakes along the way. We may not always interpret the rules the way they are meant to be ... so just a "friendly" comment to maybe explain that to someone would be so much nicer then to get in a bashing match to try to get a point across.

Just my $0.02 ... don't wanna fight ... just airing my views ... be them right or wrong in certain people's eyes.
.
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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar Contributorhal9g
Who is John Galt?
Registered: March 13, 2007
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Quoting Grendell:
Quote:
Did this really need its own thread?

The Star Wars titles in the database now match the DVD covers. That's good data in my book.



Quite right.

It matches the cover of the DVD, BECAUSE the Rules say that's what to enter, not because it's actually the correct title.

The argument is that nowhere else in the known universe are these movies known by those titles.

Do we want Rules that create arcane titles just so that we have one simple brainless data entry method?

Many here apparently think so.
Hal
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantDr. Killpatient
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*sigh*
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorgreyghost
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Quoting mwkirchner:
Quote:
...

I had contributed a change to a DVD (Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke) and all I did was remove the quotation marks from around UP IN SMOKE since they did not appear on the cover. I thought that was a ligitimate contribution and thought nothing more of it.

I go into my profile to look at the contributions and I scroll down through them and happen to notice that I had a NO vote for that particular one. I am not upset when I see this ... but I do click on the yes & no to see what I could have possibly done wrong.

The comment in there was that between CHEECH & CHONG's was not really an "&" but was indeed a "Y". What did that have to do with what I contributed. Why vote NO on my contribution because you find an error that is not related to my contribution? I did not understand it.

Again ... I am not wanting to open a can of worms over something as minor as that. I guess my point here is that you should not penalize someone by voting no on a contribution if what they are contributing is not what you are complaining about.
...
.



... you did contribute a title change to reflect what appears on the cover, but it is not. The Title is a single field, to correct one portion of it and leave another wrong, is not an appropriate change. Yes, I voted no because the contribution replaced one now wrong field with another equally as wrong based on the same change in the rules quoted in the contribution notes. This was not a case of  "penalize someone by voting no on a contribution if what they are contributing is not what you are complaining about." , but voting to reflect the new rules.
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DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorTheMadMartian
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Quoting hal9g:
Quote:
Quoting Grendell:
Quote:
Did this really need its own thread?

The Star Wars titles in the database now match the DVD covers. That's good data in my book.



Quite right.

It matches the cover of the DVD, BECAUSE the Rules say that's what to enter, not because it's actually the correct title.

The argument is that nowhere else in the known universe are these movies known by those titles.

Do we want Rules that create arcane titles just so that we have one simple brainless data entry method?

Many here apparently think so.


That is your argument, it is not the argument.  I would be willing to be that most people do not refer to any of these films using the full title, as you want it entered.

I say 'The Phantom Menace', not 'Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace'.
I say 'The Empire Strikes Back', not 'Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back'.
I say 'Star Wars'. not not 'Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope'.

Should I request that the rule be changed to reflect how I know them?  Of course not.  As I said, this is DVD Profiler and the title should reflect the DVD title.  We have a spot for the film title...it's called 'Original Title'.
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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorAddicted2DVD
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once again... have to agree with the Martian.
Pete
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorWinston Smith
Don't be discommodious
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Admit it people, save for some of us that deal with the Rules, all the arguments revolve around not user being willing to simply deal with the Rules, BUT instead as YOU believe it should be and this where 99% of the arguments here actually originate.

Please, as Pete does, Unicus myself and others, simply deal with the data and what the Rules say to do with it. Don't try to overthink it and find some way to twist the Rule to your will. The place for anything is else is LOCALLY. I grow weary of this nonsense and instead of arguing over something that really should be addressed, we are arguing of what is nothing more than personal preference and a desire to have the Online meet your needs, when that is not its function. As someone recently pointed out what you might believe to be Common Sense, might be my idea of sheer stupidity and vice versa.

PLEASE

Skip
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Outta here

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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantWhite Pongo, Jr.
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Quoting Bodi:
Quote:
Just to respond to this...uhm...who says it's bad data?


I was going to say that! 


Quote:

I have dozens of foreign titled dvd's which I have changed locally to the English title.


I think a new "AKA Title" field (or something like that) would be useful in such cases.
-- Enry
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantDvdjon
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actually an A.K.A title field would be bloody perfect.

Mission: impossible 3 A.K.A M-I-3 Or other way around.

And we could have a checkbox to deside wich title should be the basis for order in the list. Oh KEN Oh mighty KEN PLEASE make it so. No more pingponging over short pr titles MIB MIIB and so on.

Heck people could even make lord of the rings A.K.A LOTR:


Great Idea EnryWiki
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