Quoting Pantheon:

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I wish I had more computer know-how to be able to do something like that ...

Oh now that's where the wizards on the team come in - just look at the efforts already put in by DJ on CCE tools, by Tom Gaines on the Collection Viewer, Mithi's tools, my DVDPca plugin, and the list goes on. Don't worry about the techie stuff. What we need is a solution that involves workable rules and procedures. The code to support it, is the easy part, and there are plenty of us chomping at the bit to help out on that. And it will undoubtedly require some changes to the Invelos database and website - so, we are doomed if Invelos does not step up with some kind of statement of support. No point in kidding ourselves on this ...

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The cynic on me must speak. Thiscommunity does not want to be lead in any way. I have tried, every technique I have learned in 40 plus years. There are some willing to. listen and learn. But by and large what I have seen is a steady stream o people who are completely clueless about the power that profiler brings with its online/local format they want the online to reflect their wants. In spite of not contributing for now, Istill only Mt to help. That wasy objective when we began discussing the rule concept 10 Yeats ago and remains true today.

Quoting Winston Smith:

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The cynic on me must speak. Thiscommunity does not want to be lead in any way. I have tried, every technique I have learned in 40 plus years. There are some willing to. listen and learn. But by and large what I have seen is a steady stream o people who are completely clueless about the power that profiler brings with its online/local format they want the online to reflect their wants. In spite of not contributing for now, Istill only Mt to help. That wasy objective when we began discussing the rule concept 10 Yeats ago and remains true today.

This community can and often is led. We are led by individuals who show signs of leadership, not by bullies who claim leadership and show zero sympathy for less than an artificial, subjective perfection the bully is unable to perform himself. Why would we subject ourselves to the dictatorship of a person who demands unspecified perfection when he cannot write a single sentence without a major typo? This lazy attitude toward basic communication is not the mark of a leader; it is the mark of someone incapable of understanding leadership.

Quoting Winston Smith:

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Media:

The cynic on me must speak. Thiscommunity does not want to be lead in any way. I have tried, every technique I have learned in 40 plus years. There are some willing to. listen and learn. But by and large what I have seen is a steady stream o people who are completely clueless about the power that profiler brings with its online/local format they want the online to reflect their wants. In spite of not contributing for now, Istill only Mt to help. That wasy objective when we began discussing the rule concept 10 Yeats ago and remains true today.

IMHO, a good leader:
- has vision and passion for achieving the common goals
- respects and appreciates the team
- shows by example the type of behavior expected
- understands that the primary motivation for excellence comes from within
- provides inspiration that enhances motivation
- gains respect without demanding it
- is also a good follower when necessary

At any given time, one or more persons rise to the occasion with those attributes, in any community, depending on the task at hand. I have already said that I lack the necessary understanding of the Contributions process, even though I might have some of the other traits. Hopefully, the "ideal" person will emerge at some point, or alternatively we figure out a collaborative strategy. But it will not succeed unless:

(1) The carping, complaining and in-fighting must stop. Period. Swallow hard, suck it up and just stop.
(2) Invelos must step up and show that it cares.

Otherwise, business as usual. And with that, my friends, I rest my case.

Ok, I am just going to spell out my idea here, well which bits I remember to type anyway. it's not set in stone or anything, it's just my thoughts.

Firstly, it's most probably not going to include Invelos, it will be a community driven thing. Mainly because I don't see much participation from Invelos anyway and others have noted how long it takes to get things done/changed. It also won't be to make new rules, change rules etc, it's sole purpose will be to get more people involved and also get more consistent profiles for our dvd's/blu-ray's. That doesn't mean discussion from the thing won't help to make suggestions to rule or other changes in the future - it will just not be the focus of the project.

1. It will most probably be a wiki with links to forum threads (these existing forums could serve for that bit)
2. It will most probably be concerned with profiles on disc id's, rather then EAN/UPC. Why? Sheer number. It would be crazy to have a dozen wiki pages on the same movie with the same details because those releases all have the same disc id. Contents of a disc id doesn't change per release, they are all stamped from the same master.
3. Each wiki page for each disc id won't cover everything in a normal profile, only the stuff that is applicable - audio, features, cast, crew, whatever.
4. The wiki will have a number of admins, most probably 6 or 10 or however many well respected members we have who want to be involved.
5. People should use the same nickname they use on these forums and as long as they have a login on the wiki can submit a change to a disc id page, or start a new one - they can use the linked forum thread to give a reason why. This change will be reviewed by an admin and allowed or not allowed.

The reason behind my vision above? because I have only been a dvdprofiler person since about July. Do you guys know how hard it is, how scary it is to submit your first profile contribution? Even if you think you filled in all the sections right and got blurry eyed trying to read all the rules and understand them and then you sit there wondering whether to hit the submit button - and then when you do suddenly realise you aren't allowed to because you don't have an online profile. Huh what? So you read some more and realise now you have to upload your entire collection so everyone can immediately see all the mistakes you have in all of them! Ok, so really they don't, but you don't know this beforehand. So you finally get the nerve to upload your collection and then it's back to hitting that submit button. You bravely do and then... nothing. You realise you have to wait, sometimes a week to find out what happens. Great, let's add to the stress here, since you were going to also hit the submit button on this other profile.. but what if the first one comes back wrong? What if I did something wrong.. maybe I should wait before submitting the second...

Submitting is a scary business for a new user, it's no wonder 99% of them don't bother. I consider myself rather computer literate and it was a hard learning curve for me, i have no idea how normal people could take the contributing step.

Just think what it would be like if you read in the forums that there is a wiki with a lot of info in it about releases? Maybe when you checked your disc id there was already an entry for another upc release yet it basically showed a lot of the info needed for your upc version. And if there isn't, you can add your disc id and only a couple of bits of info - not necessarily all of it and people will help you in the forum advising you if you did it right, what things to look out for etc and you understand how to do the rest of that disc id. Then you can just use all that info as part of your profile and contribute it to the real database, without being scared because some people have basically held your hand through the entire process.

Final note: I also see this thing as mainly for new releases, as I think thats the best place to start. It will also help ensure that pre-orders and wishlist items are correctly entered once they are released as they can only be entered once you actually have the copy and the disc id to create the wiki page.

Read it again Winston, maybe it seems a little confusing the way I wrote it but the fact is multiple upc's can include the same disc id. Thus why based on disc id not upc. The info on that one disc id can be attributed to all UPC releases that include that disc id. If you have a UPC release, say a trilogy boxset or similar then it will have 3 disc id's (one for each) however those disc id's could have also been used in single release upc's, 2 disk sets, quadrilogy's etc. If the info on the wiki is done by disc id then that info will apply to all profiles that have that disc id in them, thus saving the number of entries on the wiki. This hopefuly will end up with more consistent profiles across lots of dvdprofiler submissions.

The wiki does not store a profile for a submission, it has the info for each disk. If you use that disc id info as part of that submission you still have to do yourself the general information (title, release date, country of origin, etc). if your release is a 2 disc set of 2 movies maybe you get lucky and both disc id's are already in the wiki.

Quoting Parsec:

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2. It will most probably be concerned with profiles on disc id's, rather then EAN/UPC. Why? Sheer number. It would be crazy to have a dozen wiki pages on the same movie with the same details because those releases all have the same disc id. Contents of a disc id doesn't change per release, they are all stamped from the same master.
3. Each wiki page for each disc id won't cover everything in a normal profile, only the stuff that is applicable - audio, features, cast, crew, whatever.

I could be wrong, but I think this is going to limit, rather than increase, the number of people involved.  I know it will automatically eliminate me because I don't own, and have no plans to purchase, a blu-ray drive.  Without that, there is no way for me to know what disc ID I have.  I know there are a lot of other people in that same boat. 

Guys, it's just my ideas of what would be nice. I am not proposing that's how it's going to be or even that it will be. Heck I even had thoughts of just adding some pages to Doug's current wiki concerning disc id entries and I also lost a bit of momentum there when I learned Doug isn't really active - I don't even really know who Doug is :-)

As I said it's just ideas - maybe one day something may come from my ideas or other people's ideas.