While I applaud the efforts started by mediadogg, Gold Audited Profiles, it does not address what - in my opinion - is the most serious problem with the database.

I know many will disagree, and it surely depends on what titles you are interested in buying. If you are mainly buying new Hollywood titles, then you probably won't see the problem that I am seeing - the lack of titles in the database.

Having a wide film interest I often buy older titles, often releases that have been on the market for quite a while, both US and UK (and occasionally Swedish) releases. And way too often these titles are not in the database. I try to contribute as many of these as I can, but I wish that more of them were already in the database.

Having perfectly audited titles in the database is a good thing. But if what you are looking for isn't there, then the fact that other titles are perfect is of little consolation.

So, in addition to making an effort to make existing titles perfect I would really wish that we could come up with a scheme that better encouraged users to contribute the lesser titles that they may have. I wish I had a suggestion as to how to go about that, but unfortunately I don't. But I am writing this in the hope that someone else may have an idea.

Quoting GSyren:

Quote:
So, in addition to making an effort to make existing titles perfect I would really wish that we could come up with a scheme that better encouraged users to contribute the lesser titles that they may have. I wish I had a suggestion as to how to go about that, but unfortunately I don't. But I am writing this in the hope that someone else may have an idea.

I am not aware of any statement about existing or non-existing in the objectives. In fact, I would argue that we have been saying almost the opposite. That this would be a way to collect audited previously un-submitted profiles that have been withheld for fear of having them "tainted." The Gold database would protect them, yet make them available to the Community.

Quoting GSyren:

Quote:
So, in addition to making an effort to make existing titles perfect I would really wish that we could come up with a scheme that better encouraged users to contribute the lesser titles that they may have. I wish I had a suggestion as to how to go about that, but unfortunately I don't. But I am writing this in the hope that someone else may have an idea.

In my collection, I have many titles that are not in the database. I can explain why I do not contribute them anymore :
- First contributions are complete, I mean you cannot choose not to contribute fields that are not per the rules. So, if you want to contribute, you have to save your profile, rebuilt it, contribute, then restore your profile.
- To rebuilt cast and crew, when you have a correct list (I mean without spelling mistakes, and good linking), is too much work when you have more interesting things to do then to degrade the quality of what you have done before.
- Contribution rules impose cosmetic data (as bold and italics in overview, or worse, group dividers in cast, or even worse, recopy of errors), that should not be contributable since their use depends on the taste of each user. Those data have no interest for the functionning of the database (Sorting, filtering, linking) and should be left to local use. This is one other field which needs much work for nothing for a new contribution.

So to encourage first contribution, we should be able to contribute partial new profiles. Better rules about cast and crew, and cosmetic data would also help.

I am for anything that will allow Yves to contribute somewhere without muddying the online. He doesnt understand data that much is clear and does not want yo. Re-imagined data has its place but it is not online. St the same time the gold data must be contributed to the rules.
The One thig tba I do not understand about Yves, a database exists which meets his criteria and will allow him to enter data however he believes it should be, why cant he let profiler be profiler, why does he want to turn it into something else, he should take his superior intellect, thank you james kirk, and go where it will be appreciated. Sorry I het tired of the endless wine I cant give endless cheese.

Perhaps a contribution wizard would help if it allowed easier selection of what to contribute?
It could start with required fields and make it clear that anything else is optional. I think many users may be intimidated by the sheer number of data that can be contributed, and are not aware that most of it is optional.

A wizard could also include the possibility to include comments about the source for the data. Being prompted for the source for each section separately would make it easier to remember to document everything, and would also make it possible to build standardized contribution notes.

Exactly! We have to do the works in double wich is certainly not the best incentive to contribute when we use our own cast and crew database. I would restart to contribute if a way to select what we want to contribute was added to DVDP and yes I have a lot of stuff that aren't in the database.

I too like the wizard idea, very interesting.

Quoting mediadogg:

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Any developer willing to take on the "Wizard" concept and build it?

I thought about something like that a couple of years ago, but I'd never (and still have not yet) created any plugins for Profiler before and didn't want to discover I was biting off more than I could chew. (I've always been more of a designer/editor than a developer.)

This could give me new incentive to get started, though.