The Movie Database Support
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The chineese cartoons could use some help
posted by sp1tiSTAFFMOD on January 28, 2017 at 10:06 AM
Ever since the creation of the TV db there has really a distinct lack of guidance for it's content along with some missing implementations. One area where it has gotten especially noticeable for me is "Anime" - aka the cartoons from Japan. With one of the mods recently quitting that wanted to help in that area I think it is about time to tackle the issues. Now don't get me wrong, I do not want any "special" treatment for this type of content per se but guidelines addressing the issues that come up when entering it here. Currently it's just random depending on who is entering stuff (which is at a low standard for anime anyways) and I mostly limit myself to just clean up a little once it affects me (via trakt).
See some discussion points below. I didn't feel like writing it all out again so I linked some threads there. I'm sure there are things I forgot about just now.
Shows vs Productions Anime is usually aired in cours, which is a three-month long television season. Sequels and the like always get a new title for a cour and can have completely different staff and studios behind them (along with production committees, etc.). For those reasons you find the entries in anime specific databases separate to each other. Western sites do however treat them as a main show with seasons (tvdb, tvrage, etc.). Going by the discussions linked below it was never established as to how TMDB wants to go along with it. At the moment you can find single seasons in the DB however most shows are "westernized" given the db dump...
Anime production? (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-05 / https://washiblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/anime-production-detailed-guide-to-how-anime-is-made-and-the-talent-behind-it/ / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wMqH0sJ-zE)
➥ Easy decision to make. Either separate them and clean up all existing data or keep them as it is (season titles help here).
https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/575c3f17c3a3685d8000063e, https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/586fbfa7c3a3686dc7004c34, https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/5869a1c09251414e7a011dc4
Absolute numbers I'm sure you encountered this more than enough. Certain shows are just continuing on like One Piece. TVDB, Wikipedia, etc. do arc splits for them; TMDB has also taken over this practice (unofficially). Unlike TVDB you do not however not carry absolute numbers. So in case of One Piece the first episode of Season 16 is number 632 (or smth) in your DB... certainly doesn't make sense. Then there are other shows like Gintama that get released on streaming sites per absolute numbers but actually carry cour titles which anime dbs separate for the numbering (http://thexem.de/xem/show/305).
➥ Decide on arc splits, deal properly with absolute numbers.
https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/575b883dc3a3684841000353, https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/5759c7dfc3a3684ea9002c1b
Split cour In recent years we saw more "split cours", aka shows that get their second half with a season gap in between. TVDB has decided to merge them together, anime dbs do however split them. A good example for this would be Durarara with three separate cours for season two (x2: Shou, Ten and Ketsu).
➥ Do you want to merge split cours? You'll find both practices in the db...
https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/54bd63bdc3a3681421007ede (here is me getting it done the old tvdb way... s1 is a mess)
OVAs etc OVAs are disc releases of anime. TVDB for example does not allow them in their DB unless they can be paired with a show. They can be standalone series (only 2-3 episodes long) but also unaired episodes for tv shows. In plenty of cases when they're unaired episodes they're not bundled with the shows actual disc release but for example their original manga. It goes so far that those episodes then get labeled as say "Episode 14". The TV section also needs the adult tag for hentai content (last example)
➥ Are they welcomed in the DB? Where do you put standalones (movie, shows)? Can they become an additional season of a show? Can they be part of a season`that aired on TV?
https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/5873f0559251410e6d010d3e, https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/575c3f17c3a3685d8000063e, https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/589714cf9251415a5b012b61
Rebroadcasts Apparently there are no rules as to how to deal with edited rebroadcasts of shows in the US. At least it looks like that.
➥ I mean this is easy for me... Just don't allow those entries like recuts of movies etc.
https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/54ac29fa9251415679004145
Various luckily we're getting rid of mini-series https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/56aca3e9c3a3681c340054d5...
Things that will also greatly help here:
- Language specific official website fields (https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/5696db89c3a3683aec000297)
- Proper handling of TV networks (Countries, Logo, IDs)
- keyword descriptions (there are for example plenty of shows that deal with "idols", that word has usually a different meaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol)
- Better support for romaji (https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/586bb1b59251415d27005f18)
Reply by Travis Bell
on April 13, 2018 at 2:34 PM
Should be vastly improved. Now they have a sane default sort and can be sortable in a manner that makes sense.
Done.
Done.
Reply by sp1ti
on April 13, 2018 at 2:36 PM
Can you give the option to overwrite the # in the assign order? It's not possible to move elements past their page (100 episodes) and adding in something into a big list is impossible to ask of someone.
Here is One Piece absolute# to toy around since it has quite a bunch of episodes https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/37854/episode_group/5ad0f096c3a36825a300e78b/group/5ad0f3230e0a260942006562
Imho it would be great if the "absolute" order also brought in the absolute numbers (here people actually named the episodes absolute despite adding new seasons. without that you would not find "episode 583" from that order for example). Note this would already be sort of broken by my order above since I've added in the specials that aired inbetween ;X...
PS: How are you linking in episodes? If they end up getting moved into a different season would they drop out of the order?
Edit: thanks for the above. It's now possible to create absolute orders in 2 seconds :) https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61339/episode_group/5ad0fa00c3a36878ac0002cc/group/5ad0fa10c3a36878b0000346
Reply by Travis Bell
on April 13, 2018 at 5:03 PM
There will eventually be that option. For now what I do is delete the item and then switch pages and move it back. A bit hacky but it works.
I added them on the public group page, is that what you mean? I think this makes a lot of sense for all groups actually.
What happens to season and episode numbers will not have any affect to the groups. The only real thing that would affect it would be deleting the episode. Then it's gone.
Reply by sp1ti
on April 14, 2018 at 10:12 AM
Yes, it makes sense everywhere actually :)...
Reply by sp1ti
on April 19, 2018 at 3:50 AM
Reordering the groups does not actually change the order outside of the edit area.
Ex.:
https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/45950-high-school-dxd/edit/episode_group/5ad845d20e0a26434200dcb6 > https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/45950-high-school-dxd/episode_group/5ad845d20e0a26434200dcb6 (New OVA should come before BorN)
https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/37854/edit/episode_group/5ad0df1cc3a36825ac00c087 > https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/37854/episode_group/5ad0df1cc3a36825ac00c087 ("Arlong Park" should be at #6)
Also the "Edit" button should take you to the edit options of that group directly (r/n only goes to "edit primary facts").
Reply by Travis Bell
on April 25, 2018 at 7:09 PM
Reply by irkillroy
on June 10, 2018 at 4:31 AM
I see the groups are active; I fail to see how they help sort episodes when they don't show up in the main page. I half expected the new groups to appear where "seasons" are.
I'd recommend renaming that section of the main pages something to the effect of 'Sorting'; each format that is created could be clicked/drop-downed to access unless there was only one created.
I'd also imagine that the group creation option would be how a new season would be made too.
Just some thoughts to support the different capabilities you built into the database.
Reply by Banana
on June 10, 2018 at 5:02 AM
They do appear where the seasons are when a group is created. The original season group is called "Original Air Date" and you can hover over it to see the alternative groups.
Reply by irkillroy
on June 10, 2018 at 5:08 AM
Whoa, sexy! ...not very intuitive.
Reply by sp1ti
on June 10, 2018 at 7:08 AM
Yes, I also previously suggested to either have them button style next to each other or just with the current one in a row.
Ex. https://i.imgur.com/9S2nlhX.png
https://i.imgur.com/MT8jFq6.png (second button in neutral background color but I was too lazy)
Reply by irkillroy
on June 10, 2018 at 8:17 AM
1st one looks cleanest. Another route would just to list them as a view preference from settings if it's not too complicated to prioritize an initial view.
Reply by irkillroy
on June 23, 2018 at 1:44 AM
I have a suggestion about how the different sorting drop down could be easier to identify for new users. Instead of it just being the name of the current format "Original Air Date", could it have a object to the side that is where the drop down pops out of? People would be more inclined to go for that rather than hover over an underlined set of words.
Reply by Travis Bell
on June 23, 2018 at 9:59 AM
Ya, I can look at tweaking the dropdown. I haven't had any time to look at things like this in the past month but will see if I can find a few minutes this week.