No one is replying to this type of issue, because there is no one who can fix it.

The episodes of these series are listed as per our "Early Cancellation" rule. As they have not be broadcasted on the original network, they have been moved to the Specials season. If you want them listed differently, you can use an episode group.

I quote the rule: "If the remaining episodes are not broadcast on the original network and/or are only released digitally, they will be moved to the Specials."

I'm writing here to formally request an exception to the rule quoted for "Early Cancellation", as the show was not cancelled prior to these episodes being completed. Please have the admins and mods consider making an exception for the community - thanks!

I'm writing here to formally request an exception to the rule quoted for "Early Cancellation", as the show was not cancelled prior to these episodes being completed. Please have the admins and mods consider making an exception for the community.

Thank you in advance.

Agree with others, it leads to incorrect metadata and honesty doesn't make much sense especially for The Nevers. For that show it's supposed to just be the second half of the season but because of this rule being strictly enforced it's messing up the metadata on Trackt and other apps.

This rule is absolutely ridiculous. The episode should never be considered special unless it is explicitly labeled as special by the network (think Doctor Who Christmas specials for example). Especially considering that special episodes are treated completely differently by the TMDb system (e.g. they do not affect appearance counts, and do not appear in the actor's or crew's filmography). And not you, nor your users have a way to separate regular but unaired episodes from BTS interviews, featurettes, after-show episodes, and other "special" crap.

TMDb does not exist in a vacuum. Instead of misappropriating the term "special" you should just comply with industry standards and use it as it is intended to be used. Do not abuse it by slapping it on something you simply don't know how to treat otherwise, or by using it to plug the holes in the system logic.

If the episode is produced as a part of the regular season, if it is intended to be shown as a part of the season, if it continues the season story arc, if it has a specific place in episode order and can't be watched arbitrarily, for the sake of the data this episode should be listed within its season, along the regular episodes, in the order they were broadcasted. Ideally, the network should be tracked on the episode level, so you can track the network change in the middle of a season, but in any case, the regular episodes should stay regular.

Please see in more detail why this rule is in place in the topic here. And don't get hung up on the label Specials. It's sometimes convenient to use that season to resolve certain issues (Money Heist is one notable case).

@lineker said:

Please see in more detail why this rule is in place in the topic here. And don't get hung up on the label Specials. It's sometimes convenient to use that season to resolve certain issues (Money Heist is one notable case).

Sometimes, maybe, yes. In rare complicated cases. But using the way it is used for The Nevers (or Firefly now after someone eagerly mutilated it in a similar manner) is plain wrong. There's not a single advantage to this approach. It simply makes half of your data for this show incomplete and misleading, and the other half absolutely useless.

By all means, this rule should rather be made an exception, applicable only when there's literally no other way to deal with some complicated scenario. Moving the show to a different network after it was canceled by the original broadcaster is not that complicated and happens all the time.

@lineker, we're actually here on this thread because we were told on the other thread (the one you mentioned) to come here so that the admins would read our request to have this changed. I full agree with every member of the community that has posted here - while none of us agree with the rule or the Specials label, the problem is that it is ruining our use of the metadata in other applications (in my case Plex, but others are using other things). We're asking for an exception, which @raze464 confirmed was possible, so that the TMDB becomes more compatible with the narrative intent from the creators, rather than a need to keep a database clean or a rule that simply doesn't apply to the show we're all concerned about. Can we ask that this is brought up directly with the admins?

Any update on this?

Are we completely being ignored? Is there no formal grievance process?

This is another example where a minority of overly motivated mods try to follow badly designed rules creating problems for everyone in the community for no good reason. Here again TheTVDB and IMDB list the episodes correctly as episodes 7-12 and not as Specials as common sense dictates. I think this should be escalated and hopefully will be corrected by someone higher up soon.

The other issue that should be corrected as soon as possible is air dates for Late Shows that air past midnight (e.g. Late Night with Seth Meyers). Setting the air-date to the next day goes against established conventions and creates inconsistencies with every other data source.

Most people who use the data on this site just want to have a good experience while watching their media collection. They are not interested in details like "did the show air before or after midnight" on a monday night. Or "Did all episodes air on the same network". You have to stop making the community pay for issues that are caused by limitations of your current database structure. Both problems can be easily solved by updating your database. There is no reason all episodes of a Season/Show have to air on the same network. There is also no reason why an episode can't have an air-date (following the networks air-date information) AND an "air-time" information that follows the actual physical time and date of the first broadcast (GMT). So users can select which information they want.

So please fix your overly restrictive database structure BEFORE you start causing all those problems for the community. Absolutely NOBODY benefits from having those 6 episodes listed as Specials. It simply creates a lot of manual work for us and complaints for you.

As I wrote here:

The rationalizations being offered and the digging in of heels about some reified "rules" in this thread are egregiously and wildly inappropriate, and, quite frankly, disgraceful. Philosophically, this is just about the same thing as defending some kind of horrifically immoral act, just because it is permitted by law. I am in favor of strong rules and consistent loyalty to them. But they have to be rational rules that serve the purpose of the rules. The rules are not an end in themselves; they exist to support and enhance some further end. In this case (and it seems in at least a handful of others), the rules frustrate their intended purpose, and I'm struggling to come up with a legitimate, beneficial reason for the rules as written. We can be consistent about the application of the rules and avoid one-offs by having more carefully crafted rules that reflect reality.

Another deeper issue here is the utter intransigence I'm observing. I would have been much more accepting of a response that was along the lines of "You're totally right that this is an example of where the rules lead to a really unintuitive result that ends up conflicting sharply with other data sources. For now, we need to be consistent about applying the rules as written, because one-offs create a lot of administrative problems, but this is really good feedback, and we'll consider how we might be able to change the rules to be more useful in the future. Thank you so much for surfacing this!". Instead, we got some condescending "But them's the rules.", accompanied by legalistic intellectual gymnastics, and that really doesn't sit well with me. As a product manager in tech myself, I know that I can't always give my customers what they're asking for (especially not right away), but when they're right, I'm absolutely willing to validate and acknowledge the correctness of their feedback.

I'm writing here to formally request an exception to the rule quoted for "Early Cancellation", as the show was not cancelled prior to these episodes being completed. Please have the admins and mods consider making an exception for the community, and all shows that release the rest of a season as it was "Originally" planned.

Thank you in advance.

I'm writing here to formally request an exception to the rule quoted for "Early Cancellation", as the show was not cancelled prior to these episodes being completed. Please have the admins and mods consider making an exception for the community, and all shows that release the rest of a season as it was "Originally" planned.

Thank you in advance.