TheOldBill

TheOldBill / Member

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Arbitrary Rules and Inconsistency

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Stats 22 April 2006

Commander in Chief Drama King - More than 10 favorite shows, at least 20% dramas. Space Cadet - More than 10 favorite shows, just 14% sci-fi. Swashbuckler - More than 10 favorite shows, just 12% action/adventure. Mr Clean - More than 10 favorite shows, just 6% soaps. Editor for a show guide. Trusted Contributor for a show guide. Contributite - This user has made at least 1 contribution. Side-kick'n Contributor - This user has made at least 50 contributions. Captain Contributor - This user has made at least 100 contributions. Cosmic Contributor - This user has made at least 500 contributions. Contributor of the Century - This user has made at least 1,000 contributions. Master of the Contributions - This user has made at least 2,000 contributions. Contributor Sensei - This user has made at least 5,000 contributions. Contributor Shogun - This user has made at least 10,000 contributions. Contributionator - This user has made at least 20,000 contributions. This user has one of the top 100 point scores in the community. This user has one of the top 500 point scores in the community. This user has one of the top 1,000 point scores in the community. This user has contributed over 500 message board posts. This user has over 50 journal entries.

Rank       : Commander in Chief Level      : 53 Percentage : 82% (+1)      Forum Posts :   830 (+4)
Submissions                Reviews Accepted   : 22280  (+34)  Shows       :     1 Pending    :     8   (+1)  Episodes    :     2 Denied     :   120         People      :     0 Total      : 22408         Total       :     3
Edited Guides              Trusted User 143 Shows                  3 Shows

Ruminations:

Well, the beta is now live. During beta testing, I used the beta to check scores and such, but went back to the main version to work on guides. Now that the beta has gone live, bugs and all, I cannot reach the episode guide without going through episode listings first (design fault), I cannot reach the contribute button from two-thirds of the episode pages (design fault), I have to get past an error page for every single cast member I search for and add to the guide (bug), and everything takes sooo long to load. And where have the hyperlinks to person IDs on the submission and moderation pages disappeared to? I liked those!

The staff now deprecate my use of the "do not use" tags on duplicate person IDs, so I will stop. It's a great pity that they are clamping down on this user-created initiative, but it appears that they choose not to understand what it is for. Users can identify duplicate and mis-spelled guides, we can flag them to staff, but noone is deleting them. Until such time as they do, it seems pointless to clean up person guides which can just become full of credits again because the average user is unable to tell at a glance which guide to use, and TV.com search engines invariably promote the most recent at the expense of the original.

Is this what they call a WYSIWYG editor? It is unhelpful to me in the forums to be told that every one of my posts is incorrectly formatted. Happily, one can ignore the message and publish anyway, but it was a nightmare trying to format this blog.

Levelling is working fine. We have been told that so often it must be true. So how come DebStitch cannot get a level increase? She may have fallen victim to the "cry wolf" syndrome, as many of us higher level users have been complaining about levelling when we have just failed to understand that some levels are harder than others, that there is a time lag between contributions being accepted and levels being applied, or we make unfair comparisons with the progress of others. None of this was helped by the fact that staff keep levelling shrouded in secrecy, that sometimes the system does get it wrong, that some system failures are corrected by staff and others are not, that some days contributions have gone completely unrewarded, or levels have been capped. I have no brief to campaign on behalf of DebStitch, and we have had our differences in the past, but she is far and away the most significant contributor on here and now seems to be permanently capped, no matter how much she contributes.

Stats 20 April 2006:

Rank       : Commander in Chief  Level      : 53  Percentage : 81% (-)       Forum Posts :   824 (+6)
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 22246   (+2)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :     7   (-2)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   120         People      :     0  Total      : 22373         Total       :     3
  Edited Guides              Trusted User  143 Shows                  3 Shows

Stats 19 April 2006:

Rank       : Commander in Chief  Level      : 53  Percentage : 81% (-)       Forum Posts :   818 (-)
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 22244   (+3)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :     9   (-2)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   120         People      :     0  Total      : 22373         Total       :     3
  Edited Guides              Trusted User  143 Shows                  3 Shows

Not that it really matters a whole lot, but this week I decided to concentrate on updating my database for The Bill. This is the show that brought me to TVTome in the first place: I maintain the most comprehensive database to episodes, cast and crew for the show outside of the production compant, but my website has been somewhat neglected since TV.com launched and I have concentrated my activities here. When the database is updated, I am going to finish the TV.com guide for the show and will probably move onto the TVRage one, as there I can sort cast lists, insert character guides and do all the other things that I have on my site but that TV.com won't let me do. Not that I shall be abandoning this site. I maintain just the one show guide at TVRage, as I do at IMdB.com, whereas here I can dominate all the British show guides that interest me. (Mwah, ha-ha hahhh!)

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