[mythtv-users] Let's get our heads straight here on listings solutions

[Joe Borne]

I usually try not to "top post" a reply, but I'll make an exception here.

David,

Thank you so much for posting a thoughtful, polite and most of all
LOGICAL response. Frankly, I was getting back pains from the logic
contortions of Mr. Ashworth and his Star Wars obsessed associate.

And yes, I am approaching this issue from an objectivist perspective.
Anyone who wants to succeed should approach a problem in this manner.

I have many, many issues with this proposal. Frankly, the risk
analysis on it is off the charts. We need an effective, accurate and
expedient solution. Finding a way to make this situation profitable
for the Zap2It people, or another vendor represents our best chance at
this. Failure is not an option.  (30 really, then 15 for a patch to be
coded, and another 15 for deployment. Then we will have to bug fix
while it's live - not the best situation).

So at this point I'm going to discontinue this conversation. The
MythTV project is near and dear to me and so I sought to lend my
knowledgebase to finding solution. As always, there are stakeholders
who take advocacy positions. Although they have the best intentions,
their efforts do nothing but slow the progress to a real solution. In
my opinion that is what we are seeing here.

So I'm going to put my trust in the core Myth team. So far they
haven't disappointed.


> On Friday 22 June 2007 Various MythTV Fans wrote:
> > Recent suggestions that we begin a modern day version of a 'letter writing
> > campaign" to all of the TV stations in the world to get listings posted for
> > free is just patently silly. I was frankly stunned anyone took it
> > seriously.
>
> That was my suggestion, and no offense taken. I'm trying to help brainstorm
> some ideas for a solution at this point, and nothing is close to being set in
> stone (Hell, it's only 2 days after the announcement :) ). The idea is naive,
> but it would be a rather diplomatic first step in the attempt to get accurate
> data. In my post I attempted to point out that the requests would not just
> be "Pretty please?" and batting eyelids. We would present several of the
> benefits to them (yes there are several benefits to them that are not obvious
> at first - see earlier posts).
>
> > They have ZERO motivation to help
>
> See earlier posts again.
>
> > Now, the folks who are discussing ways to get large vendors such as Yahoo,
> > Google, Amazon etc involved with the enticement of a commercial opportunity
> > are on the right track.
>
> If neccessary, yeah, things may go this way. But judging by the outpouring of
> concern on this list, we have a decent enough user base to have a chance.
>
> > The psychological fact is - every entity, whether an individual or
> > corporation is 100% selfishly motivated.
>
> Quite true (mind if I call you Ayn? ;) ). That's why we are going to explain
> how this will help them in the long run. We are offering to provide a service
> that they currently pay for, but we are offering to do it for free. It will
> require some action on their end, but we are planning on making it a painless
> as possible.
>
> Someone else with experience said:
> >Asking the TV-stations to provide data in a common format is useless.
> >I know because I have tried.
>
> But if we can convince some of them to, it will help our work load. If they
> don't want to, if they'll provide it consistantly in any way they can, there
> are ways for us to parse it and pull out what we need and then reformat it.
>
> If we can get enough of them to give data and we show success and build a high
> user base, the rest should follow. If they don't, we can always scrape them
> and make the best out of it.
>