Suggestions for Enhancements
By enhancements I do not mean fixes to problems with the system. The staff is well aware of CP/level update delays and lapses, phantom submission bugs, blank submission bugs and auto-accept bugs so there is no need to recount them here. What I would like to put into writing are ideas for ways to improve the site for those of us who like tv.com and want to make it better. I’ll reiterate some of the ones I have suggested in my previous blogs as well as adding new ones.
1. Have Submission Approval/Denial PM’s identify the TV show and episode involved. Too many times we are left wondering exactly which episode or even which TV show submission generated the PM.
2. Have the Moderation screen require Editors/Staff to input a Comment whenever rejecting a submission. Too often, I have received rejections only to wonder why. Perhaps there could be some check boxes for routine things like “the form was blank”, “your submission was a duplicate of another submission”, “proper format was not followed” so that Editors don’t have to type too much if they don’t want to.
3. Have the Moderation Approval/Denial PM’s always identify which Editor/Staffer handled it. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
4. Have the Submission Status screen identify the episode and blurb. This might take up some space on the screen so perhaps putting a link to click in order to see what the blurb looked like before and after the submission was worked would work without filling up the screen.
5. Have the Submission Status screen allow for sorting and/or filtering of displayed items. I now have 559 pages of submissions, so it would be nice to see only the submissions related to a particular show or only the pending ones, etc.
6. Have the Submission Status screen show more than 20 submissions at a time. I can’t tell you how much this would speed up my processing time, especially since there is no sort capability.
7. Have the Moderator Queue screen default to being sorted by date with the oldest submissions starting at the top. In my humble opinion, we should always work things in the order in which they were submitted. It’s only fair. So why not make the system automatically present us with the oldest items for approval, with the option to sort them another way if we choose, of course.
8. Have the system automatically notify users when they have been made or removed from being an Editor. I only find out by new items in my Queue that I have become an Editor for an additional show or by perusing the list of my Editor For: shows and seeing if I notice something different. I’m not sure if I would notice if one disappeared until some time had passed, or if I happened to go check on the show in question only to discover I had been ousted! There has got to be a better way.
9. Have the list of shows under Contributions Editor For: & Trusted Contributor For: sorted alphabetically. It’s not a big deal when you only have 5 shows but I have a few more than that. 
10. Have the All of My Friends/Watched People/Directory screen include not only their name and level/rank but also links to their latest blog, post and review. I can see only the last 5 ones without going to their profile pages to see if there are any updates. It would be nice to have it all in one place.
11. Have the All of My Friends, etc. screen show more than 10 people at a time. If you have that many, why not?
12. Have the All of My Friends screen have links at the top for letters of the alphabet rather than just page 1, 2, 3, etc. I have seen where folks have 5 or more pages of friends. If they wanted to see if so-and-so is already in their list and his name begins with an “M”, which page would he be on? I’d have to guess 3 or 4, but why should we guess and waste time?
13. Have a Search capability for another user implemented. I recently was looking for the Profile for a given user from whom I had received submissions but no PM’s. So I had no link to his Profile, so I had to do a search in Forums on his username and *hoped* that he had posted at least something, somewhere. I lucked out and found his Profile that way, but if he had not posted anything I’d be out of luck. I suppose I could send so-and-so a PM and then use the link there to look at his Profile, but what if I don’t really have anything to PM him about?
14. Have the Show Stars allow for manual updates to the character name assigned to an actor and/or allow for a change of actor name assigned to a character name. Currently, if the character name is misspelled, or the wrong version of an actor’s name was assigned to a character (there are duplicate actor people pages on tv.com with minor differences in the name!), the Editor must update the Show Stars and then go to each and every episode where the character was present and update the Episode Stars. That is way too burdensome! We should be able to change the name in Show Stars and have it carry over to every instance in the Episodes.
15. Have the system allow for more than one instance of an actor as a Show Star but as different characters. There are some show where the same actor plays different characters on a regular basis. But not every character that he plays appears in every episode. So when you come across an episode where it says that John Alvin Smith was in the episode playing Green Rhino/Mr. Tibbs/Arnold/Hyena Man… how do you know which particular character(s) actually appeared? This is especially the case with anime/cartoon shows where a voice actor will play multiple lead parts. A quick fix would be to pick one or more characters and list them as guest stars on all episodes where they appear, but that isn’t really correct.
16. Have the system allow for the same actor name to be deleted and added back with an updated character name in the same submission. Currently if you try to do this, only the deletion will take effect and a second submission will need to be carried out.
17. Have the search function for adding actors to a show/episode allow for a second, “narrow down/search within results” search. Many times, especially with older shows/actors, they went by nicknames and/or abbreviated version of their names. But the search won’t automatically give you the name you want. For example, if I put in Bobby Smith, but he now goes by Bob Smith, I may have to search thru literally hundreds of Smiths looking for the correct one. I could first search for all Smiths and then look within those results for all actors starting with “Bob” or maybe “Rob” and find the correct version of his name. I think this would cut down on the number of duplicate actor people pages out there.
18. Have the search function for adding actors to a show/episode include a link to the actors’ people pages instead of just static names. This would also help us quickly check if the actor is the correct Bob Smith out of 6 or more.
19. Have the system disambiguate TV Shows by something other than the displayed name. We have shows listed by incorrect names in the database in order to distinguish them from other shows with the same name. For example, The Tick (1994) vs. The Tick. The first one is the cartoon, which ran for 2 seasons and is very popular. It spawned the second one, which is a live action version that ran for only a few episodes before being cancelled. If anything, the second one ought to have the parenthetical date and the first one should have the unadulterated name, since it is the one that folks think of when referring to “The Tick”. In my estimation, as long as the URL/subdirectory is unique for each show, the name that is displayed on the top line or the Summary page and in lists will not matter to the system. Let the URL do the disambiguation and make the names exactly as they appear in the TV Guide, etc. A quick click to the Show Summary page will let the user know if they have the right show or not.
20. Have a link for reporting system problems that will be checked by a Staff member on call. That way, we don't have to guess which persons are around and PM them directly and it would give at least the appearance of "visibility" (thanks maritimer)
21. Have the system give full credit for each addition of a cast/crew member in a given submission rather than just one amount no matter how many persons were submitted at once. The only caveat I *might* want to make is that I would award more points for names typed in than where someone merely clicked some check boxes. One takes a bit more effort than the other. (thanks maritimer)
22. Have the system show us when users are online. In my Profile it says I can hide my online status, but how can anyone tell if I am actually online if I want them to know?
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