Careful, you're derailing again, John.

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Its just as I thought.  You people (with a few exceptions) don't understand how the online is supposed to work.  All the information is supposed to be available to one and all.

No one is saying that the information should not be available.  We're merely arguing about which variation on how the information is presented should be considered 'correct' with respect to the rules on how people contribute profiles.

We don't list every alias any actor has ever used in a single cast credit.  We don't list every change in cover art or SRP that ever gets released.  Thus, strictly speaking, "all" of the information is not available to one and all.  However we don't provide that information because of technical limitations in the program itself (as you yourself point out), and convenience/usability factors on entering the data.

The Box Set Contents field also has a technical limitation: it can't differentiate between what was in the original package and what is 'supposed' to go in the box.  Because of that we have to decide which of those options is the better choice for the database as a whole.  Also note that, if you include all child volumes as Box Set Contents in the main database, you still lose information -- you lose the detail showing exactly which volumes were included with the box's purchase.

Thus the choice can be considered as the decision on how we can retain as much information as possible.  Some data is going to be lost no matter which option is chosen, so it's a question of either which data is more important, or which data is more easily recoverable by other means.

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That means all the children,

The children are being added.  That has not changed.

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all the masters,

The master (box) profile is being added.  That has not changed.

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all the boxset contents,

The specifics of which are being debated in this question..

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Your LOCAL DB is where you fine tune things to satisfy your particular phobia.  With or without children, with or without boxset contents, and so on.

With or without children, yes, that's purely local choice.  You can download the child profiles at your option and they will match what's in the main database.
With or without boxset contents is slightly different.  When you download the box profile it does not match what's in the main database.  Thus it must be fine-tuned locally regardless of which choice is made for the main database.

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There is no way to do that following the wishes of those who wish to restrict what gets in, because in most cases it is colored by personal preference.

This entire debate is heavily colored by personal preference   However I feel that you're incorrect in stating that "there is no way to do that following the wishes of those who wish to restrict what gets in" (with respect to locally customizing which information you wish to keep of the Box Set Contents) due to the fact that you don't have an option in the first place.  All of that information is lost when you download the profile.  Even if the information was not stripped, it does not prevent local customization.

Side note: as long as a single profile cannot be a member of more than one box set, I don't think it is feasible to not strip Box Set Contents from profiles, due to conflicts in the local database.

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There are a lot of things in the online database that I don't like, but a lot of others do, so I keep my own counsel and set up my local db as *I* want it, just as was intended by Ken.  It's time everybody did that.

For each rules decision we make, there are those who will do that.  The point of the discussion, however, is to get a general agreement on the way things should be done on the level that everyone has to interact with - the main database.

So far your only argument has been that all the discs in the set belong together.  I am not disputing that.  However the user must enter that information manually, regardless of what decision is made about what Box Set Contents to include in the main database, so in a sense that becomes redundant data.  As such, I feel more total information is maintained by including which discs should be considered part of the original purchase.

Edit: corrected a sentence to ensure clarity.

Final day of this vote, and it's tied at 18-18.  This vote is closed, but not resolved.

Summary: A several arguments put forward for only including the disc that came with the box, a couple arguments for including all discs.  Despite the equal number of votes, only Rifter was writing any arguments for the multi-disc side (misunderstandings aside), which is somewhat frustrating because there's no further reasoning given for the silent voters' choices.

Because of that, there's a strong likelyhood that the option voted for was primarily done as simply a personal preference.  Even with the misunderstandings over the course of the debate, I suspect that putting up another poll will not generate a markedly different result.

Thus I would like to request that Ken declare by fiat which method we should use.  There are actual arguments involved, and Ken can review them if he wishes, but at the moment people mainly just want to do it 'their' way and are unlikely to reach a solid consensus resolution.  A declaratory judgement means we can move on to other issues.

Quoting Rifter:

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Quoting Kinematics:

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Final day of this vote, and it's tied at 18-18.  This vote is closed, but not resolved.

Summary: A several arguments put forward for only including the disc that came with the box, a couple arguments for including all discs.  Despite the equal number of votes, only Rifter was writing any arguments for the multi-disc side (misunderstandings aside), which is somewhat frustrating because there's no further reasoning given for the silent voters' choices.

Because of that, there's a strong likelyhood that the option voted for was primarily done as simply a personal preference.  Even with the misunderstandings over the course of the debate, I suspect that putting up another poll will not generate a markedly different result.

Thus I would like to request that Ken declare by fiat which method we should use.  There are actual arguments involved, and Ken can review them if he wishes, but at the moment people mainly just want to do it 'their' way and are unlikely to reach a solid consensus resolution.  A declaratory judgement means we can move on to other issues.

You can't just conclude its personal preference.  In my opinion the who issue boils down to common sense.  Now, I'm gonna be blunt because I don't know how to say it subtle and get the meaning across.  It is completely idiotic for a manufacturer to sell a box big enough to hold 7 individual keep cases with just one volume, as anything but a starter set - clearly intending the buyer to purchase the remaining volumes and add them.  It is equally idiotic to read the rules in such a way as to disallow adding those other volumes to the box set contents of the master profile as they become available.

Now, because you have to profile each disc individually anyway, and manually add it to the box set contents, what is the point of saying the online profile of the box and first disc is ALL you can have for that set?  That simply defies logic.  Making that information available in the master lets everybody set this up the way they want it.  If somebody (however illogically) wants only the box and the first volume, the contents won't matter.  But if somebody wants ALL of it, then it does matter.

No matter how you cut it, to be fair to everybody, you have to include it all.  It is far easier to remove if necessary than it is to add, and if somebody comes along after all the volumes are out, they only need look at the box set contents to get the IDs for the whole set of discs.

what he said

Quoting Kinematics:

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I won't argue further on the reasoning for either choice right now; we've already gone over that.  The only issue is, should we redo the poll (cleaned up and rewritten to account for the issues in this thread), or just ask Ken for a declaratory judgement?

I think it's best to ask Ken. If he is unclear about anything he can always post a question or PM the poster in question.

Ken will have some idea of where he plans to go with box sets, we can only guess.

Quoting Kinematics:

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Well, no reply from Rifter.  I'm just going to leave this up over the weekend, hopefully Ken can make a reply on which way to go, even if it's just a "I don't want to make a decision on this just yet" type.  I'll probly start working on the wording for the next poll, in case Ken doesn't want to say one way or the other yet.

Actually, I'm not sure how closely Ken tracks these threads.  Should I be PMing him to bring it to his attention, or just expecting him to be reading it?

What am I supposed to reply to?  I've already stated my preferences and my beliefs.  Is that not good enough.  Regardless of how many others have weighed in on this, you pointed out yourself that there are just as many who agree with me as don't.  That ought to tell you something.

I know you mean well, but these incessant polls are not really helping all that much.  We had most of these problems solved and had a working compromise in place that has held more or less for the last two years.  Now, with 3.0 out, everybody seems to want to throw it all out and start from scratch.  That is not only shortsighted, its just plain idiotic.  Progress is made be building on the successes of the past, not by throwing the baby out with the bath and starting over for what seems to be just some disgruntled user's visiion of how it ought to be.

From the 3.03 beta ...

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Box set children are now moved when moving the parent

I said that I thought changes were coming to make real box sets (a set you you buy as one unit) easier to work with, but would break a Riffer box.

Here is the first one, I expect more will follow it.

I'm inclined for the whole completed boxset; is there anyone who buys a vol. 1 + box and then never buys the rest of the volumes?  And if you do that, it's easier to delete the remaining volumes than it is for the vast majority of users to add them in.