Quoting GSyren:

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Why would I use a "full substring filter" to search for a title if I know the title?

With that logic, you would have to always use full substring, or you would never be sure that you would find what you were looking for. And if that was the case, why wouldn't full substring be the default?

Once more for the record - I am not advocating the use of quotation marks where they are not needed.

I wish it was the default when I'm adding by title, I've quite often found ticking it has turned up the right result, I haven't been able to find without it.

It's also handy in my collection. I never remember X the Man with the X-Ray Eyes actually has correct quotation marks around the X. 

Quoting Lithurge:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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There are a lot of people out there just like my mother so, before you go and dismiss an argument as 'non-existent', try and look at things from a POV other than your own.

Wow I know I'm one of the better people for looking at POV other than my own here. 

How often have you seen me dogmatically stating a point of view in a discussion, something I haven't tried to do in this one either?

If I misunderstood what you were saying, I apolagize.  But when you say an argument is non-existent, when I know it does exist for some people, that tells me you haven't considered the other POV.   

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I'm still waiting on any of you people stating we should use the credit title but not exactly as credited to address my point about radically different titles. Which is another point of view that people seem to happily ignore.

Maybe I am thick or I am just not understanding what you are saying but I thought that is what the 'Modified Title' rule was for.

Quoting Unicus69:

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If I misunderstood what you were saying, I apolagize.  But when you say an argument is non-existent, when I know it does exist for some people, that tells me you haven't considered the other POV.   

Guess how I learnt the value of a substring filter. It was through using profiler. And I stand by my comment that it is non-existent as there is functionality to get around it. Even if people have to learn it's there.

I accept that this adds another layer of complication for the average user, but another point I've made in the past is there is far more other complexity now built in by the rules to put people off.

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I'm still waiting on any of you people stating we should use the credit title but not exactly as credited to address my point about radically different titles. Which is another point of view that people seem to happily ignore.

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Maybe I am thick or I am just not understanding what you are saying but I thought that is what the 'Modified Title' rule was for.

It's like the master title thread (which I referred to in this thread) never happened. It's simple:

Theatrical release in original country = The Titanic Terror
Credits in another countries release (and on the DVD film credits) = The 50ft Terror
DVD Cover = The Terror from Beyond

Quoting Unicus69:

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If you stand by your comment, then you have disregarded other points of view and my initial comment was spot on.  But you are entitled to that opinion...though I disagree completely.   

You seem to mistake disregarding for not considering. When you get conflicting views you can't go with both.

The rule does not say enter the film title exactly, nor does it say we can't add quotes where they appear. Until Terry raised it nobody thought there was a problem, so it seemed common sense had prevailed.

Now on the one hand we have people saying the rule is fine, no quotes needed, so substring can remain a mystery.

On the other we have someone saying the rule allows us to add quotes. This means the substring filter cannot remain a mystery.

These now come into conflict.

As far as I'm concerned you can solve this  'issue' one of two ways, you clearly define when quotes are to be used, or or you allow use and default substring filter to on. This has very little impact on those more 'advanced' users that don't use it, and will remove a possible issue for those that don't.

But as I've said there is a fundamental flaw with the rule beyond the use of quotations.

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Apples and oranges.  Ease of use, for the average user, should be the goal when we are talking about program usability.  The average user will use the program to track their DVDs and most will never contribute.  It is the above average user that contributes.  Because contributions affect the entire community, the contribution process should be a little more complex...note I said 'a little more complex' and not 'impossible'.

I'd juggle you're apples and oranges, is it really difficult to consider somebody ticking a substring filter box to see what happens if nothing else? Of course this is an argument for a much improved helpfile/manual for the program.

I don't know if I'm more computer literate than your mother, but I've only ever consciously used two databases in my life. Profiler and the one at work that was built in the late 70's for a very specific purpose. Whilst it does it's job it doesn't have anything like subfilters.

Personally I've seen more people stop contributing than I have start contributing as things have got more difficult.

I've also seen more and more people withdraw to providing just the basic info as they can no longer be bothered. As it's a user built database usability is equally as important for this as it is for people just to use it to track their collection. (PS I'm not suggesting Profiler is going to disappear due to lack of contributions, just that I hope careful balancing of the rules vs usability is always in Ken & Gerri's minds, for all I know Ken could turn round and say x0000 more people are contributing).

But this is getting wildly off track as it comes back to all sorts of things like capturing additional info on crew etc... which have been heatedly discussed elsewhere.

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I can't offer an opinion on this as it doesn't really interest me.  Theatrical release/film credits would go in the 'Original Title' field and DVD Cover credit would go in the 'Title' field. 

Whilst I agree 100% with your stance on this your point is  wrong as according to the title rules we do not use the dvd cover for the title. In fact the only time we can actually use the title from the cover is for a box set profile.

As I've said previously I believe this rule was created for a very specific reason, but as time has gone on other factors have come into play.

However somebody could legitimately change a title to match the film credits, and technically I could not vote no and Ken/Gerri could accept the change.

To date this is another area where common sense has prevailed in my experiece, but clearly it cannot be relied on to last and indeed may already have gone out the window.

Quoting Lithurge:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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If you stand by your comment, then you have disregarded other points of view and my initial comment was spot on.  But you are entitled to that opinion...though I disagree completely.   

You seem to mistake disregarding for not considering.

From m-w.com: disregard - to pay no attention to : treat as unworthy of regard or notice.  Sure sounds like it means 'not considering'. 

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When you get conflicting views you can't go with both.

No, but I can acknowledge that the other view does exist.  I don't have to understand it nor do I have to agree with it but I will never say it is non-esistent.  The fact that someone brought it up means it does exist...but I digress...

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The rule does not say enter the film title exactly, nor does it say we can't add quotes where they appear. Until Terry raised it nobody thought there was a problem, so it seemed common sense had prevailed.

On this we agree.  My point has always been that the rules were silent on this and we should use some common sense.

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Now on the one hand we have people saying the rule is fine, no quotes needed, so substring can remain a mystery.

On the other we have someone saying the rule allows us to add quotes. This means the substring filter cannot remain a mystery.

These now come into conflict.

As far as I'm concerned you can solve this  'issue' one of two ways, you clearly define when quotes are to be used, or or you allow use and default substring filter to on. This has very little impact on those more 'advanced' users that don't use it, and will remove a possible issue for those that don't.

But as I've said there is a fundamental flaw with the rule beyond the use of quotations.

Either way works for me.  Changing the rule, however, seems the easier of the two solutions.

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Apples and oranges.  Ease of use, for the average user, should be the goal when we are talking about program usability.  The average user will use the program to track their DVDs and most will never contribute.  It is the above average user that contributes.  Because contributions affect the entire community, the contribution process should be a little more complex...note I said 'a little more complex' and not 'impossible'.

I'd juggle you're apples and oranges, is it really difficult to consider somebody ticking a substring filter box to see what happens if nothing else? Of course this is an argument for a much improved helpfile/manual for the program.

I don't know if I'm more computer literate than your mother, but I've only ever consciously used two databases in my life. Profiler and the one at work that was built in the late 70's for a very specific purpose. Whilst it does it's job it doesn't have anything like subfilters.

My mother uses her computer for email, tracking her DVDs and little more.  She has used computers for work but was quite the fish out of water.

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Personally I've seen more people stop contributing than I have start contributing as things have got more difficult.

I've also seen more and more people withdraw to providing just the basic info as they can no longer be bothered. As it's a user built database usability is equally as important for this as it is for people just to use it to track their collection. (PS I'm not suggesting Profiler is going to disappear due to lack of contributions, just that I hope careful balancing of the rules vs usability is always in Ken & Gerri's minds, for all I know Ken could turn round and say x0000 more people are contributing).

But this is getting wildly off track as it comes back to all sorts of things like capturing additional info on crew etc... which have been heatedly discussed elsewhere.

I agree that we need to strike a balance between making the rules precise and making it easier for more people to contribute.  But that is a conversation for another thread.

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I can't offer an opinion on this as it doesn't really interest me.  Theatrical release/film credits would go in the 'Original Title' field and DVD Cover credit would go in the 'Title' field. 

Whilst I agree 100% with your stance on this your point is  wrong as according to the title rules we do not use the dvd cover for the title. In fact the only time we can actually use the title from the cover is for a box set profile.

Unless the title on the box differs from the title in the credits.  I had the 'modified title' rule in mind when I wrote that.

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As I've said previously I believe this rule was created for a very specific reason, but as time has gone on other factors have come into play.

However somebody could legitimately change a title to match the film credits, and technically I could not vote no and Ken/Gerri could accept the change.

To date this is another area where common sense has prevailed in my experiece, but clearly it cannot be relied on to last and indeed may already have gone out the window.

I hope it hasn't.

Quoting Unicus69:

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Quoting Rifter:

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Well, damn, Unicus, teach her how to use the bloody program then!  Why do we ALWAYS have to reduce things to the lowest common denominator?  Maybe we should make it so a blind, illiterate monkey can use it, you think?  Good grief!

I figure I have two choices here.

1. I could point out that we have already made it so a moronic neanderthal, who isn't capable of any form of civil discourse, can use it so why not blind illiterate monkeys?

2. I could be the bigger man and just ignore the post.

Since the first choice would mean lowering myself to a level that would require me taking several showers to get clean I believe I will choose option number 2. 

Glad to see you went for option 1.

Quoting Unicus69:

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Quoting Rifter:

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Well, damn, Unicus, teach her how to use the bloody program then!  Why do we ALWAYS have to reduce things to the lowest common denominator?  Maybe we should make it so a blind, illiterate monkey can use it, you think?  Good grief!

I figure I have two choices here.

1. I could point out that we have already made it so a moronic neanderthal, who isn't capable of any form of civil discourse, can use it so why not blind illiterate monkeys?

2. I could be the bigger man and just ignore the post.

Since the first choice would mean lowering myself to a level that would require me taking several showers to get clean I believe I will choose option number 2. 

You need to get your sarcasm detector fixed then.  I suppose expecting you to understand the use of  hyperbole to make a point is out of the question as well.

Just a note to those who think that using full substring doesn't impact usability:

In the main database (R1) there are 19 titles containing Mister, but only 12 that start with Mister (also counting "Mister Roberts" with quotes).

So if you are forced to use full substring to search for titles, you get a wider selection (obviously), and that means that it's harder to find the film you're looking for.

But the main drawback to using quotes is of course that many people will not realize that they need to use full substring, and will assume that the title they are searching for is not in the database. They may then spend time creating a full profile, not realizing they are doing all the work for nothing until they actually try to contribute it.

If someone has a good explanation as to how using quotes adds something that outweighs these drawbacks, I would be really interested to hear that.