TV.com
You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|December 2006|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
 |
 | |
| File:TV (web site).PNG | |
Type of site | Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Owner | CNET Networks, Inc. |
| Created by | CNET Networks, Inc. |
| URL | http://www.tv.com/ |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
.PNG){kind=link}
TV.com is a website belonging to the CNET Games and Entertainment family of websites. The service replaced the popular TV Tome website.
The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Ireland. In addition to episode guides, it includes US-oriented news, reviews, photos, trailers and TV listings.
The site shares the same accounts as other sites within CNET Games and Entertainment. Users maintain a personal profile page and the ability to track shows. Members can contribute to the site by adding information about the latest episode details and cast members.
TV.com provides show descriptions, cast and crew listings, and detailed episode guides for many TV shows. Episode guides may include synopsis information, a complete recap, notes and trivia, quotes and more. Information is dependent on volunteer contributions so some shows, particularly more recent ones, are extremely detailed while others may have minimal information.
Editors and Trusted Users
While much of the information is submitted by general users, most guides have Editors and sometimes Trusted Users. [1] A guide Editor has immediate control over all aspects of the guide and any changes they make to a guide they edit appear immediately. Editorship is determined by the Points system — a user becomes Editor for a show when they have at least 80 points for that show. (40 points for people) If the show / person has an existing editor, then that editor will be replaced if another user gains 80 / 40 more points than they currently have. The Show / Person editor has direct approval capability over all information submitted. Submissions are sent to their queue (if they are over Level 5), where they may choose to approve (with edits if necessary) or reject them.
The editor may also designate up to two other contributors as Trusted Users. Trusted Users also have immediate submission power, but do not handle submissions and do not have the power to edit show descriptions. It is recommended that this setting be used with care, as anyone designated as a Trusted User can much more easily gain enough points to become Editor.
Discussion
TV.com has three types of forums -- general, people-specific and show-specific -- as well as live chats.
General Forums
This forums are used for discussion that isn't related to a specific program.
- TV.com ideas (Site suggestions)
- Welcome New Users (Place especially designed for "newbie question" to avoid the excessive amount of topics)
- User to User Help: Hints and Tips (Users post tips that may be useful to other users, particularly new ones)
- TV.com General User Support
- TV.com User Submission Support
- About the Forums - Ask the Mods (The site Mods answer the questions posted on this board)
- TV.com Technical Support Board
- General TV Discussion
- Off-Topic
- Shows in Development
- TV Show Fun & Games (if a show forum has more than four game threads, they are moved to this board)
- Drama
- Comedy
- Science-Fiction
- Reality
- Animation
- Soaps
- News/Documentary
- Talk Shows
- Children
- Sports
- Ask the Editors
- Editor's Lounge
- Television Hardware
- Downloading Television
Show Forums
Additionally, every show has its own forum. Some of the most popular show forums are WWE Raw, 24, Code Lyoko, Teen Titans, Danny Phantom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xiaolin Showdown, Charmed, Grey's Anatomy, Alias, Angel, The Simpsons, Kyle XY, Lost, Smallville, Desperate Housewives, Inuyasha, and SpongeBob SquarePants. As of July 2006, TV.com added the ability for users to add polls to each thread they created.
People Forums
People forums have to be created by users. Any registered user can create a person forum by clicking on the "Create Forum" button on a particular person's profile.
Forum Moderation
According to Gislef, one of the five forum moderators, forum moderation works in two stages:
- The forum users can report threads that they believe violate TV.com's forum policy, using the pulldown tool at the lower right of each thread.
- These reports go to a central queue which a volunteer team of five moderators have access to, although staff can look in as well. Reports are essentially randomly assigned and the moderator who fields the case determines if the report requires action. Such action can involve doing nothing, deleting the post (which replaces it with an automated message), deleting the entire thread, locking the thread, suspending the user, or giving a full report of all violations to TV.com staff and letting them determine if a ban is necessary.
As of July 2006 the five volunteer forum moderators are AngelandSpike, Gislef, GeorgeFergus, Grailwolf, and VillaFan. TVCom_Moderator is an account used by staff and the five forum moderators. It is primarily an "automated account" used to send warnings of forum violations and notifications of suspensions.
As of early 2006 the show editors can moderate their own show forums, even if they have less power than a forum moderator. Editors can pin (make sticky), lock or delete threads without asking a mod to do it.
Forum moderators also moderate blog entries, reviews, profile and news comments.
Live Chats
In 2006, TV.com introduced live chats to the site. The chat rooms open at the same time that the program which the chat is about start, so it's a chat-and-watch experience. At April 19, 2006, four chats were held: Lost Chat, 24 Chat, Huff Chat and American Idol chat. During the week of approximately May 17-24, 2006, a "Finale Spring Fling" was held with chat rooms for many shows with finales in or just before that period. On August 27, 2006 they held a live chat for the 2006 Emmy Award ceremonies. There was another live chat for the season 3 premiere of Lost, which was held on Thursday October 5th, a day after the actual premiere.
Levels
Each user on TV.com has their own level. At the website's "Help Center", one of the "Top Questions" concerns levels.
"I just joined the site, and it won't let me submit information because I am not level 2. What does this mean?" All registered users on the site have a level attached to them. Levels are a fun and fair way to reward and identify prominent community members. All users start at level 1 and must reach level 2 to gain the ability to submit content to the site.
Not only are members at level 1 blocked from submitting info for entries regarding the television series contained in TV.com's database, but they also do not have access to post new messages or even replies to existing messages on TV.com's various message boards. This is a fairly unusual practice for internet sites with user forums. The system was put into place as a way to keep users from abusing the site by creating multiple accounts.
Since high-leveled users were complaining about the difficulty of leveling up after reaching level 50, the staff tweaked the difficulty of levels 50 and beyond in April 2006.
Blogs and profile emblems
TV.com users have the ability to write blogs on their profile page which can be read by any internet user and commented on by any registered tv.com user. Blogs are normally written daily, but this varies from user to user. Each member of tv.com also has the ability to gain emblems, which are displayed on their profile page. They include emblems's for; over fifteen reviews, over 500 message board posts, 50 blog entries, different emblems for participating in live chat's, different emblems for Emblem's for 1, 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000 contributions and level emblems.
Online Reality Games
TV.com was the birthplace of the TV NAIE Online Reality Games. Started with Survivor 1, it soon expanded into games such as Big Brother, The Amazing Race, The Mole, Mixed Game (Combination of all games), and The Biggest Loser. These games were very popular with the site, having many reality fans. However, the game creaters wanted to expand their horizion, so they created TV NAIE.
Criticisms
Since the transition from TV Tome the site has received a lot of criticism, particularly from old TV Tome members. However, many newer members have complained too. The most common criticisms are:
- TV.com has a lot of advertisements, which interferes with navigation and slows down the site.
- The graphics of the site slow it down, taking up to one minute for the site to load when using slower dial-up connections.
- The moderation of contributions for guides without an editor can take numerous days, weeks, or even months and can be rejected without an explantion as to why it was rejected
- Forum moderators can, at times, be strict in their moderation process.
- Approval and denial of shows can take up to months.
- The site has a lot of mechanical bugs, some of which can disable the usage of the site for short periods.