@superboy97 said:

@ZelKami said:

Could you at least change the number of the season to 2 and not just the name, so apps using the API can display the episodes as 2x01 etc?

If we do this, the series will appear without dates, as the date is determined by the date of the 1st episode of the 1st season. So, this will be worst.

OMFG... Seriously?! So, the site's own database can't handle the repercussions of its own rule? 🤦

"Our rule says we can't have a season 1, but we can't handle no season 1, so we'll call it season 2 and number it season 1."

Any admin with half a brain would realize just how stupid this looks. Books and courses have, literally, been written for companies, specifically to help them break out of the "We've always done it this way" mentality.

I'm beginning to wonder if TMDB truly has any administrators or form of leadership. Maybe they all left and the mods are the only ones remaining...

@skirge01 said:

@superboy97 said:

@ZelKami said:

Could you at least change the number of the season to 2 and not just the name, so apps using the API can display the episodes as 2x01 etc?

If we do this, the series will appear without dates, as the date is determined by the date of the 1st episode of the 1st season. So, this will be worst.

OMFG... Seriously?! So, the site's own database can't handle the repercussions of its own rule? 🤦

"Our rule says we can't have a season 1, but we can't handle no season 1, so we'll call it season 2 and number it season 1."

Any admin with half a brain would realize just how stupid this looks. Books and courses have, literally, been written for companies, specifically to help them break out of the "We've always done it this way" mentality.

I'm beginning to wonder if TMDB truly has any administrators or form of leadership. Maybe they all left and the mods are the only ones remaining...

TMDB - The Mods Data Base....

Just chiming in to say that this is indeed ridiculous. Was having Plex to update Groot season 1 but faced TBAs because it was pulling from TMDB and has no season 1 in the TV section!

Humans are living beings, the rules are dead, humans can make exceptions to the rules according to the situation.

@superboy97 said:

As per our rules, we always list things as they were originally released.

form this rule, make me crying ... and very nonsense.

@tmdbwasabii said:

Was having Plex to update Groot season 1 but faced TBAs because it was pulling from TMDB and has no season 1 in the TV section!

I'll not comment on the on going debate but I did want to make the point that speaking strictly from a plex viewpoint there should be no problems getting accurate metadata. You can choose to do the following ...

1. place the 5 originally aired shorts within a movie library and match them as movies and then place the season 2 episodes in a TV library naming them only as S02Exx etc...
2. name the 5 originally aired shorts as S01E01 -> S01E05 and under the advanced settings of the I am Groot show in plex set the episode ordering to TheTVDB (Aired). This will force plex to use TVDB episode ordering for that show.

While both of these may not be ideal for you they WILL work and WILL give you accurate metadata within plex. If you have any problems with either of the above post a thread in the plex forum and that community will help you with the naming. At the end of the day we may not agree with what TMDB have decided but we do need to accept it once the final decision has been made.

@skirge01 said:

this rule has left the database in an almost ridiculous state

I cannot agree more with this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s essential to have rules, but refusing to bend rules ever so slightly to make sure content stays in a relevant order is becoming ridiculous and quite frankly, extremely frustrating. We had this problem with Money Heist before and plenty of other shows. I’m just hoping having a literal hole as Season 1 for this shows start to open eyes to some admins running this place that they need to be more flexible, otherwise it will happen to this exactly the same thing tvdb went through, a complete exodus of their contributors.

Aghast at this solution.

Perhaps someone should update the episode description of the S01E01 "Placeholder" to explicitly state that "it is TMDB's policy that a streaming television service which fails to specify at the exact time of their simultaneously releasing (to their streaming television service) five clearly-related short animations that what they've actually just done is release the first five pilot episodes of a potentially brand new television series (should the shorts be well received) can not at any point later in time retcon those five pilot episodes into a complete first season of a television show they didn't officially greenlight as a series until approving the production of five more short animations they intended to release as 'season two' of the series they never previously officially announced was in fact a television series (notwithstanding that they exclusively released them on their streaming television service under the collective title 'I Am Groot') ... but if said studio wishes to later retcon those shorts as season 1, it is TMDB's policy to do very confusing things to our database like create false entries that don't represent ANY actual releases in order to allow us to number first season episodes (per us) with their second season episode IDs (per the studio releasing them) while at the same time ignoring that perfectly logical, perfectly legitimate EXISTING releases could have filled those false placeholder places instead."?

@markcurrancavan said:

While both of these may not be ideal for you they WILL work and WILL give you accurate metadata within plex. If you have any problems with either of the above post a thread in the plex forum and that community will help you with the naming. At the end of the day we may not agree with what TMDB have decided but we do need to accept it once the final decision has been made.

Thanks for the very detailed walkthrough, I have managed to just map the Groot's folder (categorized as TV Shows) to use TVDB's metadata instead of TMDB, and it works flawlessly, just waiting for posters now.

I'll refrain from talking more about Plex, and once again stand the ground saying that this TMDB rule while the intention is good and makes sense to the world of thousands and thousands of movies, but is indeed ridiculous in this situation if no exceptions are made.

Please add me to the list of people who thinks this is a ridiculous situation. IMDB.com and pretty much every other database lists the first season as separate episodes. Those are listed under Disney's own supervision.

Let the community decide - they've already made their wishes known.

Can someone even explain whats the advantage of the rule? Who wants outdated information? Disney thinks it was a mistake to release them as shorts. So whats the point of keeping a mistake in the database. If Disney had a typo in the name for the first few days of the release, would you keep a typo in your database just because it was originally a typo? NO! So just add them as season 1.

@superboy97 said:

As per our rules, all our data are based on the original release.

It is so incredibly annoying, even for those of us who use other websites that obtain data from TMDb, that we are affected by this inconclusiveness.

In Spanish we say "You can't be more papist than the Pope", that is, how can TMDb contradict the content creator himself? If Disney+ says it is a series, and there is a season 1, why does TMDb continue to rely on a rule that does not apply here, when there are other rules that would allow the error to be corrected. Isn't it obvious that how the rule is being interpreted now harms all users?

How can TMDb contradict the content creator himself? How come IMDb and TVDB have corrected the content, and TMDb continues to stubbornly contradict what is obvious?

Furthermore, when this rule has tons of exceptions, I am tired of seeing duplicate content, because it is a compilation of episodes, because it was released on DVD, because it was rebroadcast in another country, because the presentation was modified...

Please have the capacity for reflection and self-criticism to improve TMDb.

This stubborn behavior is just ridiculous. I understand why rules exist and that they are important. But what would be the advantage of a series where the first season is listed as separate shorts on TMDb, but every other database and even Disney+ lists it as a regular season? This way, problems arise if you want to retrieve the metadata via the API, for example. Why wouldn't it be possible to make exceptions for rules if the rule obviously causes problems and it only brings disadvantages for the end user? In this case, doesn't it make sense to go with the majority?

In the end, TMDb is still a collaborative platform, driven by the community. Why shouldn't the community be able to have an influence on this? Can't we let the community decide this case?

@Kinqdos said:

Can someone even explain whats the advantage of the rule? Who wants outdated information? Disney thinks it was a mistake to release them as shorts. So whats the point of keeping a mistake in the database. If Disney had a typo in the name for the first few days of the release, would you keep a typo in your database just because it was originally a typo? NO! So just add them as season 1.

For every elements, we need a fixed reference to describe them. As per our rules, this reference is the original broadcast in the country of origin. This original broadcast is the only thing that will not change once the first broadcast took place.

• There are multiple networks that have an history of multiple seasons reorganisation over time. Keeping the initial organisation is the simple way to manage this.
• There are multiple series that are cut differently when they are broadcasted in other countries. Keeping the initial organisation is also the simple way to manage this.
• There are separate movies that are later grouped in a series. For the same reason, we keep the initial organisation. A recent French example is "La Doc et le Véto" were the first 2 parts were released in 2020 and 2021 as 2 separate movies and which is now considered by the network as a series of 4 episodes with the addition of 2 new parts in 2023. "I Am Groot" is also a case of this situation.

In each of these cases, keeping the initial organisation, let the existing users who already have the elements in their database, to keep them as they are, and to avoid for them the need to do changes every time a network decide to do changes.

@superboy97 said: In each of these cases, keeping the initial organisation, let the existing users who already have the elements in their database, to keep them as they are, and to avoid for them the need to do changes every time a network decide to do changes.

Where are these users who asked for it to be that way? Can you point to the discussion threads where they asked for this and which led to this decision to appease them?

Clearly, you don't have any power to make exceptions. Let's ask again... who does? Is there someone above you or are you the last say and nothing can ever be changed?

@skirge01 said:

Where are these users who asked for it to be that way? Can you point to the discussion threads where they asked for this and which led to this decision to appease them?

This is the silent majority. Usually only users who have criticisms come to the forums. The others don't come.