Some history - Once upon a time in Intervocative World

At the beginning of dvdprofiler, there were no rules, and no voting system. To contribute, users had just to send their profile, and it was better to read the guide (rather simple) before doing that. As Ken probably wanted that as many people as possible contribute, in order to build a large database, the names of the last contributors were directly shown on the profile. At that time there was no legal problem with IMDb, and users could find, in the forum, tools that allowed to import directly cast from that site. This worked very well in places where not so many people contributed, but it let to a ping-pong war in the places where there were many contributors, mostly for biggest hits. The discussions on the forum began to flame, and several solutions were proposed. The problem was only for the changes, everyone being happy with new contributions.

Among the solutions to avoid ping-ponging, there was the possibility to remove the list of contributors from the profile, but the majority prefered to build rules, and a group of users worked hard on this and made a good job. At the same time Ken was working on a system to vote on the changes of profile, always to avoid ping-pong contributions.

After that, Intervocative seemed to stop any development of dvdprofiler, which remained for more than a year in 2.5 beta version... The database was still growing, and if it seemed to be very correct in some region/countries, in others some users said it was "a mess".

Where are we now ? The facts

With the creation of Invelos, and the new 3.1 version, life come back in the community which was rather sleeping. Two major changes were made to the contribution system. It is now strictly forbidden to carboncopy datas from other databases, for legal reasons, and contributions for new profiles are now also submitted to contributions notes. The rules have also been precised with many little changes that may have significant consequences. The result of this evolution is a better quality of profiles (quality means "matching rules"), but, of course, only in the places where those profiles exist.

In some other places, the necessity to write notes for new contributions is a problem for many people who do not speak english. And for those people, rules in english are quite non understandable. People who do not want to elaborate cast lists from the credits also do not contribute, or with incomplete profiles. The more precise the rules are, the more chances there are that people who use for their local base other preferences do not contribute any more. So, now, we have places where very big hits have never been contributed.

In the places where there are still many contributors, we have no more ping-pong war, which is a good thing. But instead we got a "rule matching" war where "no" votes are a weapon between people who have not the same interpretation. So people ask for more precise rules, and the more precise they are, the more exceptions they find, and the more the "no" vote war grows.

At this day, instead of having a community of friendly people who share the same passion for DVDs, we have a place (the contribution forum) which is a battle field where people write pages full of the worst imaginable insults to know if we must change "Woman in Tub" by "Woman In Tub", or if we must keep the word "Episode" in Star Wars movies' titles. 

What can be done ?

I suppose many users are pleased with the current system, and many others are not. Anyway, only Ken will decide what to do, or not do, and it is probably not easy for him to manage opposite positions.

I personnaly think that things would be better if rules were simplier. I already wrote on different threads about a system that could solve many problems:

For new profiles, only one rule : no datas from a third party. Current rules should become a guide.
For changes on existing profiles, the voting system would be warrant of the pertinence of changes, common sense (I mean the majority) saying if the change is interesting or not.

Other systems can be imagined (for example current rules remain, but only for changes, which is a middle measure with also its advantages), but for that this must not be a tabboo, and people who dare to propose evolutions should not be flamed. Anyway, Ken will decide what he wants, so there is no need to send insults at each others...

Quoting surfeur51:
[...]

Quote:
people who do not speak english. And for those people, rules in english are quite non understandable.

[...]

Quote:
What can be done ?

Translate? 

Yves:

You just refuse to give it a rest, are you related to Napoleon. He was nuts too.

His history has moire than afew flaws, Unicus, but I would expect nothing less from Yves. I never saw him attempt to do anything about it. But NOW he wants to whine on and on and on incessantly. Stop it, Yves, you are not going to get your way.

*EDIT* Nationalist generalizations aren't productive

Skip

I have no problem with the way things are right now...

Well, like most others here I don't think that relaxing the rules will improve things.

It sad, however, that not everyone can respond to your opinions without resorting to personal insults or slurs against a whole country. That, in my opinion, is a much bigger problem that the one you're outlining. 

I feel the need to abstain from this vote.  It's just all wrong.

Quoting DariusKyrak:

Quote:
P.S. I don't expect all of this post to be around long, as I've PMed da' boss about this thread.

Personally I hope Ken leaves this thread open, at least for a while longer. Otherwise it gives Skip a perfect excuse to not apologise for his offensive comments. Something he really needs to do.

For my part, if my previous post came across as abusive in any way, I apologise, I certainly didn't intend for it to be read that way.
This is a perfectly valid debate to be having, especially when you look at the infamous "episode" thread. I just don't agree with surfeur's solution.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
You just refuse to give it a rest, are you related to Napoleon. He was nuts too.

...

You being from France I realize that anarchy is in your blood...

What the hell?

You may think you're being funny skip, but you're not. You're only being rude and offensive.

KM