Official Stance: Web Series, Sports, WWF/UFC/etc

[szsori]

We've had an internal discussion with our mods and come up with some more clearly defined rules for what is and is not allowed. I'm going a step further with a few of these things to make sure there's no gray area. If you have questions, feel free to ask, but debate on these will be mostly ignored since anything you say will probably have been said already.

Web Series
Examples: Red vs Blue, Jake & Amir, etc.
These are now allowed on this site. Make sure you follow these rules:

1. For series with an average episode length of under 10 minutes, there must be at least 20 episodes to be added.
2. For series with an average episode length of at least 10 minutes, there must be at least 10 episodes to be added.
3. These first 10 or 20 episodes MUST be added immediately after the series record is created.
4. Series with an average episode length of under 2 minutes are not allowed. Example: failblog videos.
5. There must be an official order for the clips available, generally listed by upload date.

You don't have to be exact with the average length, but check out a handful of episodes and estimate. When in doubt, post on the forums with links. The length and number requirements are to keep the site focused on things that are episodic in nature instead of just a random sampling of unordered clips.

Sports
Sports are not allowed and will not be allowed in the foreseeable future. If someone really feels like there should be a user supported database for sports I would encourage them to make it. The problem is that sports requires some very specific fields that vary considerably from our site's fields. There's some excellent sports data feeds out there, so someone would only need to use that data (after checking copyrights) and associate graphics and a proper API.

WWF/UFC
Episodic sports like these are not currently allowed, but may be allowed on the new site. If we find them on the site right now they will be deleted. Once the new site is up and running we'll take a look at our new structure and see how it'll work with these. I'd say there's an 80% chance we'll allow them. However, until that decision is made and posted, they're not allowed.

Movies, one time documentaries (also called movies), made for TV movies, books, hidden camera feeds from your neighbor's bathroom, and furry porn convention photos are still not allowed. Although hikaricore would probably love those photos via email.

[hikaricore]

I'm actually only interested in catgirls currently.

[djcode]

/me cancels plans to upload a flood of furry porn.

[szsori]

I didn't say anything about furry porn. Just furry porn convention photos.

[Serberus]

Here you go hikaricore:
http://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=173301

[saltedlolly]

I have long been thinking that there needs to be a database similar to theTVDB for Educational videos.

I often download video content from sites like:

www.khanacademy.org
www.ted.com
www.udacity.com
www.creativelive.com
www.codeschool.com
www.lynda.com
www.kelbytraining.com
etc.

I appreciate that TVDB is not the place for this, but does anyone know of a site that offers this?

It would be really useful to access videos from these sites in XBMC, Plex etc.

[nihir]

I'd like to add the web series Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen (and subsequently, Top Chef Masters: Battle Of the Sous Chefs) as it's own show. While connected to original Top Chef show, LCK is a self-contained series in its own right. It doesn't seem logical to have these episodes pile-up in the Specials section when they are seasonal episodic shows. It seems more akin to The Apprentice UK side kick You're Fired than a special. The only difference being this show is online. I've read through the rules and this series seems to follow them:

1. Last Chance Kitchen has 10+ episodes per season
2. Last Chance Kitchen averages over 10 minutes per episode
3. While related to Top Chef, the show is a self-contained series

Still, I thought it best to ask. Even though I've made many contributions to theTVdv database, including adding series that were missing, I haven't yet run into anything that warranted questioning.

Thoughts?

[dangruhn]

I was interested in adding information for the Formula1 Grand Prix racing circuit. This seems to fit quite nicely with what TVDB seems to require, it has 12 episodes per season, they have names (each country), guest starts (the drivers), specific dates of the races.

Is this such an unreasonable thing?

[ManiacB]

But who's broadcast of it would be the "authoritative" one? Every country will probably have it's own broadcaster. For the UK it'd be Sky or the BBC, and each broadcaster will have its own presenters/commentators, as well as their own pre-race interviews and segments. Would you only allow the "core" race, or pre-events, the qualifiers etc?

These are just a few things off the top of my head, but it highlights that sporting events are very different in nature than "normal" just TV series.

[zag2me]

I was interested in adding information for the Formula1 Grand Prix racing circuit. This seems to fit quite nicely with what TVDB seems to require, it has 12 episodes per season, they have names (each country), guest starts (the drivers), specific dates of the races.

Is this such an unreasonable thing?

Try www.thesportsdb.com

F1 has some nice examples that need filling out.

http://www.thesportsdb.com/event/447364