Stats 21 December 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 61.66%        Forum Posts :   1,726
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 34326         Shows       :     1  Pending    :     9         Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   129         People      :     0  Total      : 34464         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  175 Shows                  2 Shows

We interrupt this period of purdah to bring you some interesting information about level points!

Someone asked in the forums whether anyone knew what percentage increase we were due at each level. I confess that the issue is of great interest to me, not least because I used to feel that I had been "robbed", what with the early problems with the level cap (set at a ridiculously low level, and retrospectively imposed on a week's worth of submissions, then raised for other users); the number of times that CPs and levels failed to run; the initial Level 50 controversy (where we were each capped until and unless individuals were able to persuade smushmeg to give them preferential treatement); the recalibration of Level 50 after some of us had slogged through it). Taken together, there was a period where I had made more submissions than anyone else, but didn't have a level that reflected that.

Accordingly, I had been using my other IDs to establish precisely the relationshiop between accepted submissions and level increase at the lower levels. I was reviewing my notes when, suddenly, I saw the pattern. (This is confirmed from direct observation at levels from 8 to 27.)

So, how does it work? Nowadays, of course, you need to get to Level 2 before you can contribute to guides, and the marginal increases awarded for blogging/posting/reviewing can be quite a significant factor at the lower levels. But there is a formula for calculating the percentage increase due for each approved submission. This is based on the Rule of 20: simply divide 20 by your level number. The result is the percentage increase you can expect for accepted submissions alone.

A different, and much more challenging, formula is applied when calculating the submission/award rate from Level 50 up. Many thanks to dju010 for confirming the current state of play at Levels 50 to 53. When I was there we didn't know our level percentage to two decimal places as now and, in any event, the formula has been eased at least twice (in February and April 2006) since I was there.

Your little stats box tells you the number of approved submissions you have made up to around 0100 PST that day. To calculate your daily figure, subtract the previous day's accepted submissions figure from today's. Multiply the difference by the percentage increase due at your level, in accordance with the table below. Bear in mind that the stats box, contributions points and levels are all calculated at different times. I operate on GMT and generally find that submissions approved while I sleep appear in the stats box that morning but are included in the level increase the next day. And, yes, I am sad enough to maintain an Excel spreadsheet of all these comings and goings!

         % Increase         Submissions  Level   per Approved         needed to
         Submission         clear level
  2        10.0                    10
3         6.66666666667          15
4         5.0                    20
5         4.0                    25
6         3.33333333333          30
7         2.85714285714          35
8         2.5                    40
9         2.22222222222          45
10        2.0                    50
11        1.81818181818          55
12        1.66666666667          60
13        1.53846153846          65
14        1.42857142857          70
15        1.33333333333          75
16        1.25                   80
17        1.17647058824          85
18        1.11111111111          90
19        1.05263157895          95
20        1.0                   100
21        0.95238095238         105
22        0.90909090909         110
23        0.86956521739         115
24        0.83333333333         120
25        0.8                   125
26        0.76923076923         130
27        0.74074074074         135
28        0.71428571428         140
29        0.68965517241         145
30        0.66666666667         150
31        0.65516129032         155
32        0.625                 160
33        0.60606060606         165
34        0.58823529412         170
35        0.57142857143         175
36        0.55555555556         180
37        0.54054054054         185
38        0.52631578947         190
39        0.51282051282         195
40        0.5                   200
41        0.48780487805         205
42        0.47619047619         210
43        0.46511627907         215
44        0.45454545455         220
45        0.44444444444         225
46        0.43478260870         230
47        0.42553191489         235
48        0.41666666667         240
49        0.40816326531         245
50        0.05                2,000
51        0.04                2,500
52        0.03                3,000
53        0.025               4,000
54        0.02                5,000
55        0.01               10,000

I believe that these figures are completely reliable. Please feel free to post here or PM me with missing data, or any corrections.

So, what's been happening since I've been away? Since my last blog, I have had 6,330 submissions approved, and 4 rejections. One was a rejection of phantom sub, made for one show but directed by the system to another, but the others were attempts to consolidate credits, and the editors simply made the wrong call. I acquired two guides from an absentee editor, another from an editor I decided to force out (an earlier blog refers) and seven that had been editorless. Meanwhile, I acquired another trusted user slot.

I had given up on the duplicates thread a long time ago, but am now nominating several IDs for deletion each day under the new procedure. I also appear to have made have made 150 forum posts, which seems a lot for a man in self-imposed exile, but many of these were just edits. Most of my posts have been to the Technical Support forum, where I have tried to restrict my troublemaking to the levels thread. Did you know that the levels have run every day for more than a month only once, from 11 May to 28 June 2006?

And now a whinge. I have posted before about a problem contributor who has been plaguing me since TVTome days. He is incapable of making a reasonable submission but has reached Level 28 and acquired 2 editorships through the submission of garbage and the approval of same by indulgent editors and staff. Last year, he actually made up episodes and submitted them to a guide that I edit. I have taken to reporting him every time that he submits a plagiarized summary. He was banned for a week for this, since which time he has repeated the offence every week, but still he hangs on in there. Please, if you find a contributor submitting obviously plagiarized or bogus material, don't be tolerant: report him or her to danmod.

Stats 7 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 3.06% (+0.76) Forum Posts :   1,577 (+5)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27996  (+95)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    73   (-5)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28194         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  165 Shows (+1)             1 Show

Stats 6 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 2.3%  (+0.64) Forum Posts : 1,572 (+5)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27901  (+64)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    78   (+6)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28104         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

I had a lot of thinking to do last night. Eventually. I was distracted when I was addressing some credits attached to a duplicate person guide and discovered that someone had 80 points for The Guardians. When I took part in the great grab for shows last year, I corrected the show summary, added the producers, the odd synopsis, and all missing actor and creator credits, but I completed the guide as far as I was able and couldn't make 80 points. The guide I saw last night was unchanged from my last visit, yet someone had gone from zero to 80 points at some point between April and July. The guy has a private profile, but a Google search shows a familiar picture: an unscrupulous editor grabbing as many show guides as he was able, and eventually being sacked. Happily, correcting the credits for the one actor gave me the necessary points for the editorship. This was all done after I had decided to retire for the night, having gathered enough submissions to hit 3 per cent, so my thanks to the hard-working staff for working so late on a Sunday.

Meanwhile, something has been troubling me all weekend. Late on Friday, I received a surprisingly hostile PM from a senior staff member. This wasn't quite unprompted: I had just written him to thank him for the swift action taken to sort another corrupt guide/incompetent editor I had uncovered: the editor had been stripped of the guide and the guide stripped of his bogus contributions within a few hours of me PMing about it.

Now, I have previously been openly flamed in the forums by another senior staff member who, when challenged, put it down to being tired (although her inflammatory post remains). She is of the opinion that everything I write is sarcastic, and that view appears to have filtered through to the rest of the staff. I cannot otherwise account for being attacked for sending a thank-you note.

Now, those of you who know me will realize/realise that I am rarely critical of anyone or anything in the forums these days. This is largely because I feel that the some of biggest issues have been addressed, while others are in hand, and I have learned to live with the rest. I have adopted an early Huntsman-like position of unquestioning support, not because I am trying to score points, but because I believe in the site. That said, I have written here before that I have become fairly guarded in my forum posts, as I am commonly misunderstood and moderated without apparent cause. Even defending missribs in the forums gets me moderated these days. It seems I can do no right as far as TPTB are concerned, having once been tarred as a troublemaker, although I still get PMs from senior staff members asking for technical advice. But I feel it's all rather thankless and, frankly, a little one-sided. These days it seems that, every time I pop my head out and express a viewpoint, I get grief, but, like the tv.com staff, I am a human being, not a machine.

I have been thinking, over the weekend, about what I want from the site, and that has taken me back to why I joined in the first place: to help build the greatest resource of information about British television programmes on the web. I am not really a great one for blogs, and only post these to have somewhere to record the stats that I was recording anyway. I am not a great one for forums, and only started visiting them to find out what the hell was happening with the site, and whether everyone else was having the same issues I was. I only started offering my tuppenceworth because I thought that I had acquired a lot of knowledge and experience that I could share.

I look around now and think, would the site be any worse if I had maintained my low profile? I honestly mean no disrespect, because I love their ways dearly, but CaptainMidnight is every bit as superior and intolerant of fools as I can be on my best/worst days, and 123home123 just as crushingly adversarial. Ethandune is there to fight for the language. angelandspike is now a moderator, while afenla, Angus_Mac, dju010, EdKlumpp, jekyll, MacDeacon, maritimer00, ntonks_tvtome and sesho2022 are all fighting on different fronts, fighting their corners, giving advice to newbies, and agitating for positive change. I have followed each of their bloggings and forum posts avidly, envious of their focus or erudition or humour or patience. Meanwhile, new stars are arising all the time.

I've thought about it, and I feel I can safely retire from public life. So, no more PMing the staff to report corrupt or incompetent editors, nor to beg for basic services, nor to follow up on promises unkept. And I shan't be posting any more words on these pages, either interesting or banal. I shall just be going back to what I do best, which is sorting the guides. Not retiring, then, but retiring from public life for a while. I might be back, or I might quietly slip away when the job is done. In any event, I know that the site is being watched over by a fine group of dedicated people, without whom the site would be nothing. Tonight, I shall sleep soundly, for the first time in days.

Stats 5 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 1.66% (+0.24) Forum Posts :   1,567 (+6)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27837  (+22)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    72  (+10)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28034         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

Stats 4 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 1.42% (+0.47) Forum Posts : 1,561 (+6)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27815  (+48)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    62   (+6)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28002         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

Stats 3 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 0.95% (+0.15) Forum Posts : 1,556 (+1)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27767  (+14)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    56  (+30)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 27948         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

There has been some interesting discussion in the forums about American English v. Queen's English. Ethandune made a useful contribution in his latest blog. Like Ethandune, I prefer English spelling for UK shows, but expect American English to be used for US shows. It seems to me extraordinary that we are having this debate, when there is so much general illiteracy and carelessness on the site, and I suspect an element of anti-Americanism behind it all. Certainly, as someone who prides himself on his mastery of the language, I confess that the debate encompasses the last remaining weakness in my literary skills. A teacher whom I respected greatly taught me, at age 11, that -ize was an americanism, and never to be used. In later life, I realized the fallacy of this position, but haven't really addressed it, and, while I am pedantic in all other aspects of writing, I tend automatically to use -ise.

The recommended spelling (in the Queen's English) for most verbs is -ize. This is because, for most verbs, the suffix is derived from the Greek root -izo/-izein, whether the word is taken directly from the Greek, or from a Latin or French imitation. That rule applies whether or not the stem is Greek in origin. The alternative form -ise has long been acceptable, and is based on the French influence, where the form is -iser whether the word comes from the Greek or the Latin. The difficulty is that some words are not in the least derived from the Greek -izo, and these should always take -ise and not -ize.

When we brought civilization to the Americas, -ize was still the preferred form, although there had long been resistance to that form, largely through the Norman influence ("Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!") and the Romans themselves only added the 23rd letter to allow them to spell Greek words. A convention has arisen over the past 200 years or so that it is easier to prefer -ise than it is to prefer the correct form -ize and to commit to memory an extensive list of those words that must take -ise. Meanwhile, Webster et al settled on -ize, and the Americans regularly create new verbs by adding -ize to nouns (burglarize, anyone?).

None of this makes the -ise convention correct, however.

For those who are interested, the following must always be -ise in the Queen's English, as the ending syllable is -cise, -mise, -prise, or -vise, etc., not -ise: advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disfranchise, enfranchise, enterprise, excise, excercise, improvise, incise, premise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise.

The preferred form in the Queen's Engish is -ize if the word is actually Greek, or if the suffix is being added to a Greek or Latin or modern word or a proper noun, and we have little choice but to use -ize if the whole is an American invention where a perfectly adequate verb already existed . The following should always take -ize: alphabetize, americanize, apologize, authorize, baptize, bastardize, bowdlerize, carbonize, colonize, dogmatize, finalize, galvanize, hospitalize, immunize, institutionalize, jeopardize, mesmerize, moisturize, organize, ostracize, pasteurize, pressurize, privatize, randomize, standardize, summarize, tenderize.

So, unlike colour v. color, theatre v. theater, defence v. defense, dialogue v. dialog, programme v. program, archaeology v. archeology, travelled v. traveled or, for that matter, petrol v. gas, the -ise v. -ize debate should not be seen in strictly English v. American terms, as it is a much older debate. If anyone sees an inappropriate -ise in any of the show guides that I look after, please feel free to submit a correction: decades of programming have taken their toll on my spelling.

Oh, but in the Queen's English it's analyse, and not analyze.

Stats 2 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 0.8% (+2.37)  Forum Posts :   1,547 (+8)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27753 (+154)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    26  (-28)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 27904         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

Level 55, eh? The air up here is pretty thin! As I now get just 0.01% per submission (half the increase awarded at Level 54) I can expect to be level 55 until the end of January 2007. Plenty to do between now and then though: I have the last few seasons of Dixon of Dock Green to attend to, and I'm helping out on a few other guides. See you in January!

Stats 1 August 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 98.43% (+2.15) Forum Posts :   1,547 (+2)
  
  Submissions                 Reviews  Accepted   : 27599 (+112)   Shows       :     1  Pending    :    83  (+54)   Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125          People      :     0  Total      : 27778          Total       :     3

  Edited Guides               Trusted User  164 Shows (+5)              1 Show

Heartfelt congratulations to angelandspike, who is to be anointed into the ranks of the moderators: this is due reward for her selfless work on behalf of us all, staff and contributors. I only hope that her new responsibilities don't prevent her from watching Life on Mars twice a week!

I reached a total of 140 outstanding submissions this morning, the most in a very long while. Those for editorless shows continue to be approved promptly, but increasing numbers of editors seem to be visiting the site less often, and are taking several days to approve submissions. Staff appear to be behind their seven-day target for turning around submissions made to shows with absent editors: I now have a significant number of outstanding requests from 20 July, made to shows with different editors.

I acquired another five editorships this morning: Crime Sheet and Murder Bag, (both prequels to No Hiding Place); Storyboard, a collection of one-off plays, many of which led to the commissioning of full shows, including The Bill; The Bill Uncovered, a clip-show spin-off from The Bill; and Specials, a short-lived police procedural looking at the work of a group of special constables (unpaid volunteer officers). That gives me editorship of seven of the ten show guides launched last week in response to my requests (and nine of the thirteen guides I have requested in total). I have also done as much work as I reasonably can on the three other guides launched last week, but as these are two two-parters and a one-shot, noone is going to be acquiring editorship of those.

I have fallen short of a personal target: I have long planned to reach level 55 by 31 July. In the event, I was 186 submissions short. I shall reach that milestone tomorrow, having spent 12 weeks at Level 54 saddled with the Level 53 emblem.

Stats 31 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 96.28% (+1.85) Forum Posts :   1,545 (+4)
  
  Submissions                 Reviews  Accepted   : 27487  (+92)   Shows       :     1  Pending    :    83  (+16)   Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125          People      :     0  Total      : 27695          Total       :     3

  Edited Guides               Trusted User  159 Shows (+2)              1 Show

Almost back on track! I spent the weekend attending to The Bill and the new British police dramas added to the database last week. I am now editor for the Mayo and Messiah guides, with more to follow soon.

By all accounts, Mayo was something of a disappointment, although it should not be judged purely in terms of ratings: it was never even broadcast in my corner of the UK! A whimsical series of whodunnits, it featured a lead better known for his impressions than his acting skills, always a strange casting choice. I submitted a new guide request when the show launched, but it has already been decided that there will be no second season. Messiah, on the other hand, is a fantastic, high quality drama, implausibly plotted but convincingly delivered, not least by Ken Stott, the ubiquitous Scots detective with a dark side (see also The Vice, Shallow Grave and Silent Witness. Now that he has landed the Rebus gig, we may not see any more Messiahs. Don't despair, though, as all four stories are now available on a complete DVD set. Meanwhile, I have been also been working on The Bill spin-off clip show The Bill Uncovered and Storyboard, the short season of plays that launched The Bill in the first place, 23 years ago.

I'm off now, to work on some more guides.

Stats 30 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54   Percentage : 94.43% (+0.86) Forum Posts :   1,541 (+2)
  
  Submissions                 Reviews  Accepted   : 27395   (+43)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    67   (-30)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125          People      :     0  Total      : 27587          Total       :     3

  Edited Guides               Trusted User  157 Shows                   1 Show

I came back to a queue of 33 submissions! Sorry to those who had to wait more than a day for their submissions to be approved: as reported elsewhere, I shan't go away again. In the meantime, my own pending count continues to rise: these relate mostly to shows with editors, and some have been outstanding for well over a week.

Stats 29 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 94.43% (+0.86) Forum Posts : 1,539 (+5)
  
  Submissions                 Reviews  Accepted   : 27352    (+4)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    37    (-2)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125          People      :     0  Total      : 27514          Total       :     3

  Edited Guides               Trusted User  157 Shows                   1 Show

Stats 26 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54   Percentage : 93.47% (+3.01) Forum Posts : 1,534 (-)
  
  Submissions                 Reviews  Accepted   : 27348    (+8)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    39    (-8)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125          People      :     0  Total      : 27512          Total       :     3

  Edited Guides               Trusted User  157 Shows                   1 Show

Stats 25 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54   Percentage : ??%           Forum Posts : 1,534 (+6)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27340  (+34)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    47  (+10)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 27512         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  157 Shows                  1 Show

Did you miss me? I had hoped to get on line when I was away, but there were no facilities, so I failed to contribute to the site for the first time since launch. And, no sooner was my back turned, than missribs responded to angelandspike's missive about unresolved bugs, and lilaholland dealt with all of my outstanding show requests. That's right: all ten of them. Even the ones I had forgotten about. So heartfelt thanks to her (and thanks also to maritimer00, who PMd that these had been added when I was away and that "there might be a few would be interested in." I should say so! It was gratifying to see all of these added, not least because some of them were requested so long ago, and some were tests to see what TV.com (or, specifically, emaldalani) would accept. The answer? Well, TV.com have adopted guides for current shows, expired shows from the 1950s, 1980s and 2000s, long-running series, two-parters and one-shots. I have secured editorship of a couple of these show guides: announcements tomorrow when the position is confirmed. Being sole contributor to all but one of the guides helps! Other guides cannot legitimately be acquired, as there aren't enough points available, but I thought they deserved to be here, for completeness.

Stats 24 July 2006 (updated)

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 90.46% (+17.45) Forum Posts :   1,528 (+6)

  Submissions                  Reviews  Accepted   : 27306 (+105)    Shows       :     1  Pending    :    37  (-39)    Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125           People      :     0  Total      : 27468           Total       :     3

  Edited Guides                Trusted User  157 Shows                    1 Show

And lo, the levels were recalculated. My little stats box to the right was updated some time after the levels ran at 0700PDT. This is an unusual occurrence, as the submissions figures are normally updated only once a day, while I sleep. Then, a little after 1500PDT, the levels were recalculated. I am now showing a whopping 17.45% increase since this afternoon, so I expect an announcement about the levels in due course. Of course, I am not actually due that kind of an increase – by my reckoning I should have been on 81.69% this morning, 83.79% based on the stats update – so it may be taken away again soon. Now stop reading this and get ready to watch Life on Mars!

Stats 24 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 73.01% (+0.93)  Forum Posts :   1,522 (+7)
  (Due       : 81.69%)

  Submissions                  Reviews  Accepted   : 27201  (+48)    Shows       :     1  Pending    :    76  (+17)    Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125           People      :     0  Total      : 27399           Total       :     3

  Edited Guides                Trusted User  157 Shows                    1 Show

Another late night last night, as I ploughed through more duplicate IDs. Today I took the opportunity to look at a couple of recently- acquired show guides and standardised star credits, deleted superfluous Notes, formatted Quotes, transferred items from Allusions to Quotes and such like. I really have to check all of the guides I look after, but it seems I am always caught up in adding cast to long-running shows and, increasingly, attending to guides for renewed shows.

On which subject, if you can, tune in to BBC America tonight and watch the first episode of Life on Mars. You've seen the annoying adverts plastered all over the site. We will keep pushing these at you until you agree to watch the show! The stuff you have read about the show doesn't do it justice. The first episode, in particular, is a must-see for anyone who enjoys fantasy or left-field dramas, has seen a police drama, likes popular music or, indeed, lived through the 1970s. That's BBC America, 10pm PT/ET. Check it out, and tell us what you thought. And any submissions to the Life on Mars guide will be gratefully received!

I am away for a few days, so
BE PURE!
BE VIGILANT!
BEHAVE!!

Stats 23 July 2006

Rank       : Prison Warden  Level      : 54  Percentage : 72.08% (+1.11)  Forum Posts :   1,515 (+9)
  (Due       : 80.73%)

  Submissions                  Reviews  Accepted   : 27153  (+55)    Shows       :     1  Pending    :    59  (+19)    Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125           People      :     0  Total      : 27337           Total       :     3

  Edited Guides                Trusted User  157 Shows                    1 Show

I was editing a show guide last night, correcting duplicate IDs as you do, when I came across the worst offender yet. I have complained before about those contributor-editors who don't know how to use the Search For Actor Name feature, preferring to create duplicates by using the Manually Add a Guest/Manually Add a Star feature. Correcting the duplicate people IDs created for a number of guides under the purview of a single editor-contributor has become a daily chore, not eased by the fact that new duplicates are being added weekly. I also deal with a couple of currently airing shows under other editorships, both of which now get duplicate IDs added to most episodes.

Last weekend I came across the guide to a currently airing show where the editor had deleted all of the star entries with the correct IDs and replaced these with star entries with duplicate IDs! A guide I stumbled across last night, however, takes the biscuit: a show guide where not one person entry has the correct ID. The guide's list of show stars has only two actors, but three IDs, as one of them has two: both duplicates. (The guide is also missing 45% of the episodes, has Coming Soon summaries for Season 1, and has bogus airdates – wrong day, wrong month, wrong year – for every other episode. Never mind that it also duplicates a real guide to the show elsewhere on the site!)

In every case, these duplicates are being created not through malice but through ignorance of procedure, which seems remarkable given that the editors in question have been with the site since launch. Gentle hints to the editors in question do not seem to have resolved the problem. Now, don't get me wrong: one of my interests is in database managment and I actually enjoy helping out by consolidating and correcting credits, but the creation of duplicate IDs since site launch has reached industrial proportions. I now treat every TV.com-generated ID (in the range from 372597 up) with suspicion and am spending nearly 50% of my on-line time checking and correcting the errors of others. Meanwhile, I have started to acquire unwelcome editorships solely through correcting this kind of error.

I have suggested to staff that it would be helpful if editors and staff moderators were able to see the ID numbers of cast and crew being submitted to a show guide: a bunch of IDs with consecutive numbers, or newly created IDs with a "blank" as a middle name, should sound alarm bells and prompt rejection. I do feel, however, that someone should be policing the guides and addressing obvious difficulties experienced by editors operating outwith their depth and outside of the rules.