TheTVDB.com

Hi! My name is Nate. I'm the community manager over at XBMC. Lately, a couple of forum-based complaints have been spilling over onto our forums, so I've got a small suggestion that may (probably won't, but may) make things a little easier.

Right now, you have an excellent Sticky in the request forum called Series-Specific Information, where you describe various shows that, for whatever reason, are often up for debate. My suggestion is to make that sticky WAY clearer and more prominent. If possible, I'd start by adding a description under the title "Series Specific Information" on this page viewforum.php?f=7 that says something like, "If you think there's something wrong with a particular series, check here first. There may be a reason we have listed the show in a way that differs from other sources or how you think we should list the show."

Then, when inevitably 300 people write the same request, you say, "Why didn't you check the page that we told you to check? You know... this one (link)." And THEN you close the thread.

After that, sort of keep an eye on which shows are generating the most controversy over a particular period of time. For example, right now the Avatar ordering scheme is obviously a big deal. So you update that page with info about Avatar. Hopefully, you keep people up to date on any potential changes (or lack of changes) to policy regarding Avatar. Also, each show listed includes a link to a discussion thread about the topic in question. Honestly, you don't really need to check the discussion thread that often, but words are free on the internet, so it should be no sweat off your back to let users vent your "obviously incorrect and horrible decisions." (Man, it's fun to be a forum mod!) This also provides the secondary benefit of pushing multiple untidy threads into one clean thread that you ignore.

I'll leave you with this quote about letting people debate from the book Making Money by Terry Pratchett. "He was a great believer in letting a thousand voices be heard, because this meant that all he actually needed to do was listen only to the ones that had anything useful to say, “useful” in this case being defined in the classic civil-service way as “inclining to my point of view.” In his experience, it was a number generally smaller than ten. The people who wanted a thousand, etc., really meant that they wanted their own voice to be heard while the other nine hundred and ninety-nine were ignored, and for this purpose the gods had invented the committee. Vetinari was very good at committees, especially when Drumknott took the minutes. What the iron maiden was to stupid tyrants, the committee was to Lord Vetinari; it was only slightly more expensive,* far less messy, considerably more efficient, and, best of all, you had to force people to climb inside the iron maiden."

Edit: One other other suggestion occurs to me. On the sources page viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9271 , you might consider including "Unacceptable Sources." And put just one word: Scene. Just to make it clear that the goal is accuracy, not necessarily simplicity in downloading.

Unfortunately that won't work. We have multiple Links to the Series specific information and such, users just generally make an account post and complain after we tell them they didn't even read any rules.

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