Quoting surfeur51:

Quote:
Quoting Graveworm:

Quote:
... "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”

Love that... 

My sense of humor has passed over to the dark side... I immediately thought that may be true, but we have too few wise men here and far too many wise guys.

Again, just joking...

Quoting Graveworm:

Quote:
All of the rules could be modified by  ... or otherwise in exceptional cases that which is acceptable to the screeners.

This of course already exisits because if it's in it's in and they have the final say, but it could be subject to lot's of subsequent submissions. If that sentence were added earlier contribution notes could make clear they were seeking an exception to the letter of the rules. The voters could then in all good conscience vote with what they thought made sense even if it was against the rules and that could guide the screeners, the contributor would already have said it was against the rules.
This is not anarchy this is common sense.
Some examples already in the system are some cover/logo issues where taking the title exactly from the cover has caused all kind of battles and some of the few ping pong switches that some are paranoid about. I am not saying this would be common and I am not saying this definitely would stop any arguments but it would allow an argument that it it's against the rules but clearly the rules can't anticipate every posssibility and, in this case, they never intended to prevent this.
Some examples I can think of are If you have no overview you can already make up a short synopsis of your own and upload it to the on-line so it accepts that this is preferable to no data there. But what if the overview is as useless as no overview.

What if you have "For the first time on DVD the Godfather Trilogy" is that really any use as an Overview? Since we only profile the first release of any URN and  the title would tell us what it is it may as well be blank. Wouldn't it be better if a synopsis was substituted? If that one sentence were added then contribuition notes could say from the cover "For the first time on DVD the Godfather Trilogy" this adds nothing to the profile short synopsis appended" Just as you can append an episode list for TV series.
Or what about something that effects all of us and something I have already changed locally where I can. At the moment if we have the stars in the opening credits and then a different listing alphabetical, order of appearance etc in the end credits we take that order if it includes the stars, if it doesn't then we can put them back at the top again. This makes the program and the data less useful in many cases if you use it for lay people to browse to choose a film as if it's a film they don't know they would like to know who stars in it.

Incidentally this doesn't replace the real data with what I want blah blah blah it replaces useless misleading or poor data with data which, in the opinion of the screeners, aided by the owners of the disks adds value to the profile.

I klnow I have done this before but can I quote from Douglas Bader when he said "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”

NO, Grave that is entirely to close to teh Guideklines, this would please surfeur, and would drive most of the rest of us out of our minds.

Cliff the answer to your comment lies in the first responder.

Skip
   

That's why we have Rules in life, Grave. You come to the United States, for example, to you it doesn't make sense to drive on the RIGHT side of the road, but if you don't you are going to die. The Rules, whatever they are, are there for a reason and whether or not they make sense to you is irrelevant, you follow the Rules,  you vote in accordance with the Rules not what you think makes sense, you contribute in accord with the rules, not what YOU think makes sense. You wern't here when we had a situation not unlike what you describe, they were called Guidelines and there were users who refused to follow them because they were Guidelines NOT Riules, So now they ARE Rules. Under the guidelines the database was an utter disaster and users were literally running amuck. It is perfectly natural to resist Rules and if you don't wish to follow the Rules you do have options, this was built-into the system, but the whether you understand the function of the Rules or not...follow them, they do have a reason for being and there is an underlying principle.

Rules are never flexible, if you blow off a stop sign and a cop sees you, you will pay the consequences. Here's a personal example, in the US we have double yellow lines on the road, they mean do NOT pass PERIOD, they don't mean if you come on slower traffic then pass them or any other excuse you can create to allow yourself to break the Rule. OK. One night, I had a young kid hit one of many cars because he passed on a double yellow line and did not bother to observe that i had my left hand turn signal on and was going slow looking for my turn. He chiose to pass just as I was turning.

Rules are Rules...I don't care whether you understand the rationale behind them, there are many time that i think a given in life is wrong, FOLLOW THE RULES.

You will get no acceptance from me for any kind of return to weaker system which allows for user-interpretation of ANY kind, if anything, I think they should be far stricter than they are, there are too many places which users have managed to create wiggle room to the detriment of the database and all other users. Your reference to what makes sense to you is imply another way of saying user preference or interpretation.

Between my wife and I, we have  built some of the largest, most secure and most accurate databases in the United States, this was not achieved by allowing the people who do the data entry to just put whatever they want into a given field. Each field has a very well-defined meaning, anyone entering data based on their interpretation will not have a job for very long. And the databases we have designed are always about the REAL HARD data, you see X, you enter X, not x, not Y or Z, you deal with the hard data if you want a paycheck, Mistakes happen and wrong data gets entered, but someone who persists in making the same errors over and over...gone...no job...no paycheck.

I mentioned that you have options, which you do. Let me give a real life example. In the Staes many neighborhoods have Homeowner's Associations, which have Rules that to me manke no senses. Such as preventing the HOMEOWNER from putting up a flagpole or even in some cases dictating that you can't put Christmas Decorations. What are my options, very simple, I will not buy a home in any such neighborhood or town. If I want to put up a flagpole, it's my property and I will put one up if I choose. Likewise with Profiler, no user is required to Contribute or even vote, but if they do they will follow the Rules.

Skip

Sounds risky to me.

Skip

That's a great analogy, would you be very offended if I hijack it?

You can't pass just because of slower traffic sure, but what if your wife needed to get to hospital urgently? Then you would break the rules and expect those who enforce them to accept that in those circumstances the rules should be broken. Or if your brakes failed would you say oh well I'll plough into the back of the stationary truck rather than drive around it?

There is no way the rules could be drafted to accommodate every conceivable situation so they rely on those that enforce them to use discretion or they have objective exemptions that require interpretation. So it may say you could pass in an emergency or in our rules you could deviate from them in exceptional circumstances, each case will always be treated on it's merits but in 99% of cases it would be the yellow line means no passing.

I don't know, this isn't REALLY about traffic laws. But you have taken it a step further each time. What if I didn't hit the oncoming car and what if I couldn't stop in time by other means? I should sit in traffic and let my wife die and i should hit the truck. So the Police Ambulance and fire department all have to sit in traffic as well in those circumstances no matter what? Or maybe in some circumstances it is safe to cross that line?

This is about this program and this data. Here we have rules that were designed to make it good, if they fail in that aim and can't be readily modified then the owners of the system can ignore them. I am not saying they have to just that we can ask and they can say yes or no.

Quoting Graveworm:

Quote:
I don't know, this isn't REALLY about traffic laws. But you have taken it a step further each time. What if I didn't hit the oncoming car and what if I couldn't stop in time by other means? I should sit in traffic and let my wife die and i should hit the truck. So the Police Ambulance and fire department all have to sit in traffic as well in those circumstances no matter what? Or maybe in some circumstances it is safe to cross that line?

Police, Ambulance and Fire have lights and sirens and are exempt from the rules of traffic when on an emergency call.  As a matter of fact, there is a law that says normal vehicles must move out of the way so that emergency vehicles can have the entire road.  As for letting your wife die, her life is no more or less important than the guy whose life you endanger by driving in a dangerous manner.  The better choice is to call an ambulance so that they can work on her on the way to the hospital.

Quote:
This is about this program and this data. Here we have rules that were designed to make it good, if they fail in that aim and can't be readily modified then the owners of the system can ignore them. I am not saying they have to just that we can ask and they can say yes or no.

Yes, this is about the program and the data, but I wasn't the one who brought up the other analogy...I just commented on it. 

The rules, however, were not designed to make it 'good', as that is a subjective state based on personal preference.  The rules were designed to standardize the data.  They even say as much in the introduction.

Quoting Graveworm:

Quote:
I don't know, this isn't REALLY about traffic laws. But you have taken it a step further each time. What if I didn't hit the oncoming car and what if I couldn't stop in time by other means? I should sit in traffic and let my wife die and i should hit the truck. So the Police Ambulance and fire department all have to sit in traffic as well in those circumstances no matter what? Or maybe in some circumstances it is safe to cross that line?

Unfortunately, I think you are loosing your time. I already used the example of a "No swimming" rule with a baby who felt in the water to save, but here rules are as an untouchable idol. Even if it is beyond all stupidity to use them in very particular cases, some consider they always must be applied (until they think that, themselves, not you, are right to violate some specific parts they do not like (example of crew roles that are not on the list...))