@Charlie

Please read what I wrote, from the beginning to the end, specially the PS, and trying to forget who wrote that.

Note that in examples I gave, I was not yet speaking of rules data. I also wrote that rules data are 99% correct data... as for parts of covers we are allowed to correct with disc information.

Unfortunately, you quoted only the introduction of my reasoning, and missed the most important.

Quoting Kinematics:

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Quoting Scooter1836:

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Quoting mediadogg:

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@Scooter1836, I'm loving all those thoughts.

So we would have at least these three tasks going?

(1) Priority set of rules updates
(2) Contribution Wizard
(3) Definition of Consensus process to be used for Rules Change submissions to Invelos (I like all those ideas you have on this)

Only question is, how do we get some folks working on them? Anything you can do to get stuff organized, please go for it ...

I think the first thing to do is define a process for concensus building.  In the past that has been a big part of the Ken's process that has been missing.  For smaller things that has not been as much of an issue.  What I can do is come up with a proposal for that process in the "Contribution Rules Committee forum.  But I would not be able to do it until later next week.  However that may work out since some key people are staill awaiting access.

After a consesus process is agreed upon we should then formulate the list of rules/issues we want to tackle.

A process for building consensus is absolutely needed.  If you ask, "How do I apply this rule?", even if it takes a lot of arguing, people will usually eventually settle on a single answer.  If you ask, "What should this rule be?", all bets are off; everyone will have their own pet idea on how things should work, and agreement is a rare commodity.

In any given poll where the options are A, B, C, D, or "I don't know", you'll be lucky to get more than 1/3 of all respondents voting for any single choice.  The main problem is, nobody who votes has to justify their choice with actual, verifiable argumentative details.  They can just say, "I don't like the choices" or "I don't like you" or whatever, and nothing ever gets accomplished.  The anonymity of the poll also means that you can't ask specific people about why they chose choice X over choice Y.

I had, back in the day, a specific mathematical pattern that I used for determining the validity of consensus for a poll result.  I don't think I saw more than one poll that passed muster as a valid consensus.  In the end, the mathematics don't matter very much (though I can still provide some mathematical validation if that's desired) because they don't address the underlying issue: the people usually vote for their gut instinct on any given issue, but gut instinct doesn't provide a convincing argument, and there's no real way to tell whether it's 'right' or 'wrong'.


If I were to write up rules for a process of how to go about things, I'd probably go with the following (quick and dirty overview):

1) One thread per discussion topic, and that thread must be defined as narrowly as possible.  If it's related to other issues, it can reference them (eg: in other threads), but it should maintain its focus on the single issue that can be defined by a single answer.  If the topic finds itself dependent on the results of an unanswered question or undefined/poorly defined term or similar, it can be put on hiatus until the underlying question is resolved.

2) There should not be a poll for the basic discussion.  This helps avoid the issue of the poll setting limits on what people are allowed to answer.

3) The OP needs to lay out the details of the issue in the starting post, and should maintain a full list of arguments, objections, and resolutions (with justifications) within the post so that everyone can see the full summary of the activity on this question.  In other words, whoever starts the question has to remain an active participant.

4) Arguments that are logically flawed (as in, break down due to logical fallacies) should be tossed out.  If you can't form a coherent argument to support your point, there is no reason to consider your point valid.  "I don't like it" is not a valid argument for an objection, though it might be used as a starting point for trying to define what the actual objection is.

4a) In order to support this, a fair number of truly fundamental principals and terms must be defined.  There are a great many things in the current rules that are simply assumed, where their clarification and definition would make answering other questions easier.  A reluctance to complicate the rules with this information does not mean that they should be ignored altogether, though they do not necessarily have to be directly integrated into the general rules document.

5) In order to consider an objection 'resolved', there must be a logically complete and coherent argument that addresses the issue that the objection brought up.  An objection to the resolution should be handled the same way as for the principal topic itself.  A single person refusing to accept the resolution does not mean an objection has not been resolved.

A resolution that defers the issue (eg: it requires a change to the program, and thus can't be resolved until Ken implements it) can be considered resolved for the purposes of argument, but not for the purposes of the consensus (ie: moving to point 6) unless there is full commitment that the deferred action is absolutely going to take place (eg: Ken posting that he will definitely implement the change).

6) Only if -all- objections to the original point are resolved to the satisfaction of most participants can you consider it to have reached the first tier of consensus.

7) After that, the wording that describes the full consensus must be written.  I would recommend two forms: one that is complete, and can be used as an absolute reference to cover normal and edge cases (any new edge cases that it can't answer would prompt a new adjustment round); and one that is simplified to the most minimal level that can answer all non-edge cases for general use.

8) After that, you can form a poll to codify the resolution of the topic.  The poll should be a simple agree/disagree split.  Any votes for 'Disagree' must post with the details of the objection.  This stage does not require fully formulated objections, and may reference objections that were considered 'resolved' in the main thread (eg: if someone explicitly does not agree with a given resolution), or issues with the process itself.  Only negative votes that are accompanied by the point of objection will be considered valid.  Other 'Disagree' votes will be discarded.

9) If, after that culling, you can reach a 2/3 majority of agreement, then it can be considered a valid consensus for submission.

9a) Optional: If there is no explicit rejection of the consensus, it can be considered tentatively valid for use within some time period after the consensus is reached (I won't attempt to define what that time period might be).  I'd only include this in order to get around the issue of stagnation/unresponsiveness on Invelos' part.  IE: they must be part of the process if they want to maintain the relationship with the community.



The agree-upon simplified rule form would provide guidance for all standard use cases, which is all that most people need most of the time.  Ambiguity regarding edge cases should be referred to the more complete form of the rules.


The above is somewhat similar to the basic idea of how to get a rule changed in the Rules Committee forum, though obviously far more verbose and detailed.  And, being a set of rules itself, I'm sure there will be those who object to what I've written here.

There are aspects that could make it easy to push things through over objections, and there are aspects that could make it easy to completely stonewall a given topic.  I deliberately went for a construct that would allow for both.  In the current environment, it's far easier to deadlock than it is to make progress, which leads to people just giving up in frustration, so I tried to ensure there were levers for moving forward on things that are well justified while still having walls to keep changes from progressing too fast.  In a cooperative setting I would expect things to be easily resolved, but given past history here, that's most likely wishful thinking.

Well done, you made my commitment a lot easier lol

However I would say we have to work on #4 and #9.
As far as #9 goes a 2/3 majority is going to be hard in cases where there is more than two options, which we have seen before.  We have found cases that after the discussion we need to poll specifically on which options are preferred after the discussion phase is done outlaying the options.

I see #4 as hard to manage in a forum environment.  But something that really needs to be flushed out.  Unfortunately you cannot see who polled what way so if someone posts an illogical argument that could be in the poll results as well.
Today or tomorrow I will open a thread in the rules forum to discuss the process in detail.  I think what you have laid out will help a lot.

Let me bring up a fictional example. Let's say at the end of the overview the name Bruce Willis is spelled Bruce Willisss. Would we correct this or would we say this could be what the designer of the cover wants and this is intentional.

Donnie's example about blu and blue. Could it be intentional blu? Could it be a pun?

All I am trying to say is that we don't know what are honest spelling mistakes. That's why I can't agree with users saying "correct" or "incorrect" because we simple don't know for sure. All we know is what's on the cover in front of us.

Quoting TheDarkKnight:

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Let me bring up a fictional example. Let's say at the end of the overview the name Bruce Willis is spelled Bruce Willisss. Would we correct this or would we say this could be what the designer of the cover wants and this is intentional.

Donnie's example about blu and blue. Could it be intentional blu? Could it be a pun?

All I am trying to say is that we don't know what are honest spelling mistakes. That's why I can't agree with users saying "correct" or "incorrect" because we simple don't know for sure. All we know is what's on the cover in front of us.

I have to disagree with you here
Maybe and I say MAYBE, 1 out of 1000 is an intended pun, then I gladly have 999 correct spellings in the database and maybe 1 missed pun, instead vice versa.
And again I have to say, a much larger database than ours (discogs) has no problem at all with this, they just use correct english spelling. If by mistake the cover of the new Neurosis CD would have Neurosis spelled wrong (for example Newrosis), there is no reason to enter this mistake into the database, you just correct it and move on. Such things aren't even a point of discussion over there, the correct name is entered and that's it.

Donnie

Quoting Winston Smith:

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But discogs is not profiler, Donnie
Why does everybody bring a a wide variety of oranges to an "apple" store. Its not relevant. You may think mistakes carry no value, but you are completely wrong. Suppose you had the only copy of newrosis to get onto public hands, that mistake would not have value and should not be captured. You obviously have not done much serous collecting to understand the value such mistakes might have, especially if they are subsequently corrected. If I owned a certain famous stamp I would want to be able to refer to Scott's to learn about the stamp, its history and value.

It would be very upsetting to find no info on that mistake because some politically correct fool considered just an error of no value...9 figures of no value.

You do not understand what this is about at all...

Discogs is exactly the same what we do here, the difference is that it is for CD, Vinyl and Mp3.
And the really important difference is that over there are not a handful of stubborn people who actually think they have got the clue of it all.

You example lacked in everything, you do not even grasp what this is about.

Neurosis are a well known hardcore band, and if by mistake the new CD of them would have Newrosis written on it, everyone with an inch of intelligence left, knows that this is a mistake and no one over at discogs would even try to suggest to add a new band to the database which is called "Newrosis", only a complete idiot would try to do such a thing.
You can call this common sense, knowledge about music or whatever, but no sane person would suggest to add it as "Newrosis".

But I am more and more getting to the conclusion, not everyone is sane around here.

To make this a bit more clear to you what I am talking about.
A film we all know...  Casablanca with Bogart.
Let's say in Germany one stupid graphic guy writes "Casablonca" on the cover.
YOU are the guy who would enter it this way, cuz you can NEVER EVER be sure if this really is Casablanca.

99,99 % of the world population would use common sense here and see and know, that this is just a mistake by someone and that of course we are dealing with the film named Casablanca.

And no, before you say it as an argument in your favor, also no sane person would use a credited as, alias or whatever you may call this feature, to link the wrongly spelled title Casablonca to Casablanca.

A person of intelligence will just enter this movie under the name Casablanca and that's about it.
That common sense works for thousands at discogs, works for millions at imdb, just for a few people in here it does not seem to work.

If it wouldn't be that sad, i would laugh my ass off about it.

Donnie

@Donnie

I actually think that you are the one that doesn't understand the debate.  You seem to think that everybody that are collectors are insane. 

As far as I can tell, Discogs has no option to keep local data (excuse me if I am in error).  There is one data source and one only.  Discogs does not catalog CD's as primary, they catalog songs and artists.  It just happens to be that they are associated with MP3's, CD's at what else.

DVD profiler is not a movie collection software.  If it were, the design would be different.  We would directly be able to catalog vhs, beta, laser disc, digital copies, etc. etc.

We Collect and catalog DVD's and BD's (and for some HDDVD)  We track disc id's, UPC's Features, Audio, Video, Subtitles, and all things that are associated with the release on disc.  And yes we track Cast and crew.

If you cannot see the difference, maybe we are not the people that have sanity Issues.

That being said, and again I will say this,  You can do anything locally that you choose.  You can make whatever corrections to the actual data that you choose (and nobody will criticize you for that).  If you choose to participate in the contribution system, within the confines of the rules and program, I will gladly appreciate the profiles.  If you choose not to participate in the online db, I will respect that also.

But to come here and imply people are insane, because they collect and track different than "your common sense" will allow, then we are not the problem.

Charlie

Quoting CharlieM:

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But to come here and imply people are insane, because they collect and track different than "your common sense" will allow, then we are not the problem.

Not just insane, but also stubborn, complete idiots and unintelligent.  Call me crazy if you want, but the point and credibility were lost the minute the insults started flying.

Quoting DarklyNoon:

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Quoting CharlieM:

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@Donnie

I actually think that you are the one that doesn't understand the debate.  You seem to think that everybody that are collectors are insane. 

As far as I can tell, Discogs has no option to keep local data (excuse me if I am in error).  There is one data source and one only.  Discogs does not catalog CD's as primary, they catalog songs and artists.  It just happens to be that they are associated with MP3's, CD's at what else.

DVD profiler is not a movie collection software.  If it were, the design would be different.  We would directly be able to catalog vhs, beta, laser disc, digital copies, etc. etc.

We Collect and catalog DVD's and BD's (and for some HDDVD)  We track disc id's, UPC's Features, Audio, Video, Subtitles, and all things that are associated with the release on disc.  And yes we track Cast and crew.

If you cannot see the difference, maybe we are not the people that have sanity Issues.

That being said, and again I will say this,  You can do anything locally that you choose.  You can make whatever corrections to the actual data that you choose (and nobody will criticize you for that).  If you choose to participate in the contribution system, within the confines of the rules and program, I will gladly appreciate the profiles.  If you choose not to participate in the online db, I will respect that also.

But to come here and imply people are insane, because they collect and track different than "your common sense" will allow, then we are not the problem.

Charlie

The last post that I will ever make in the Contribution section of this forum.

First of all, Charlie you got no clue about discogs, they of course track CDs, MP3s and Vinyl and NOT artists and songs, you couldn't be more wrong on this. They do exactly what we do here, just that it is for music.

They also list features like digipak, Bonus DVD, length of songs, producer of a cd and so on.

Get off your high horse and stop telling me I do not know what a collector is... that is pathetic!

And yes, if you are one of those people that would enter "Newrosis" as a new artist or Casablonca" as a new film to a database (tho it is obvious to any non idiotic person, that those are simply typos), then I would call you a stupid person or a troling person or a bitter stubborn person, you can chose one of those three then.

Common sense is what is keeping our world alive and not finding the one in a million exception, where common sense maybe fails.

Instead of using common sense we enter ridiculous non existing words into the online database, we use a terrible linking system in which we use a completely useless credited as feature, who in devil's name wants to know that Bruce Willis was misspelled in the end credits of some movie. The only thing that counts is that we know that Bruce Willis was in the movie.

But, hmm let me think, maybe it was his twin brother, who chosed to change his name into Bruce Wallis, yeh the more i think about it, the more this might be the case.

Nothing has changed here over the last 2 years and nothing will ever change, a few people who think they are the godfathers of the database, hogging this forum and trying to bring sense into the senseless.

I am out of this part of the forum, as I do not want to have the same damn arguments with a few stubborn people all over again, I surely have better and nicer things to do with my life.

adios pendechos
Donnie

Well it all depends on what the database you are working with is based on. DVDProfiler is based on data that can be verified on the cover or the disc itself. Other databases let users enter data that is not coming directly from the medium. It's two different approaches and it seems that many users here want to change Profiler away from it's approach where the data has to come from. I don't understand why so many people don't want to see these two different approaches.

The question to me is very simple. Does Ken/Invelos want to allow data that is not directly from the medium or the film itself.

@ DarklyNoon Why are you using Profiler if it's so bad?