Big Beta Bugs + IMDb update

Beta Testing continues. We fixed the producer/aspiring-producer ID# issue but have discovered another big bug; somehow our producer credits and donation amounts are being deleted when our testers update their profiles- and their producer ID#s are changing too- which should not be happening. Jason will be trying to track this down. It's good to be finding these bugs- we will have to fix them before we can launch. Other than that major issue, everything else seems to be working fairly well, and it is exciting to be sharing it. Meanwhile, an open conversation continues with IMDb. I sent them a long post with 4 win-win suggestions for IMDb to accurately and efficiently deal with our data management challenge. The suggestions were basically as follows:

1. Do not continue to enter our producer credits individually, as they have done.

2. Continue to list the producer credits that had already been entered on IMDb.

3. If media coverage warrants the attention, allow updates of our new producers who‚ have existing IMDb pages.

4. Once our film is completed, allow a one-time bulk upload of all our credits.

IMDb's data manager Jreeves replied two days ago:

This thoughtful post requires a more detailed response than I can give it just now. I promise to come back to this no later than next week; right now, I need to finish catching up on this board and some of my other tasks (Oscar night approaches; no, I won't be there, but there are tasks that must be completed). A few quick thoughts for the interim: We clearly have no problem with Nirvan's suggestions 1 and 4; they are essentially what I already said. The others will need more thought. If we accept item 3, it would probably be only through bulk uploads. It's far more practical for us to simply lock off all updates and make them only through a back door; we don't have a mechanism today to lock off new names for a given title, and the whole point is to reduce the amount of time we spend on this title. In a way, I really wish we already had proper handling of group names in place. That might provide the best solution of all, but the software changes certainly won't be ready in time (it's not being actively worked on yet).

So in a way that is good news as IMDb is not completely shutting us out. They are simply tring to find a way to address data management. The more accurate data IMDb can get, the stronger their database will be. In some ways, IMDb and T1SF are similar- we both value the smallest and seemingly trivial contributions; IMDb would not be what is if not for the thousands of individual updates it receives from volunteer contributors, and nor would our film be possible if not for the thousands of small individual contributions of our volunteer producers. In any case, I'm feeling positive that something will be worked out, either in the short term or the long term. Obviously the sooner we can launch the new site and start doing publicity, the better.

Meanwhile producers continue to trickle in via word-of-mouth, wikipedia, youtube, etc. The loss of our IMDb producer listings has slowed down the traffic our site receives from people browsing our celebrity producers. But in a way, the temp slow down is good as we can focus more on finishing the website and less on entering so many new producers everyday.

Can't wait until this is automated and we can start to move. That's the news.

best,

n