Thanks for finally fixing this... it made my day.

It's a bit messed up because some of the cast text is mixed up with the title "Episode Cast and Crew" and "View All." Plus, you need to re-add the crew too (writers and directors).

I'd say regular stars definitely need to be shown, even though they rarely change from episode to episode. Rarely is not never. I've hated not being able to see these while they were missing.

I have no particular preference on executive produers.

Cameos and Special guest stars should be shown on the main page. I don't think Special guests need to be at the top though - I'd suggest putting them between stars and guest stars.

p.s. Have a great time in Hong Kong! Travel safely!

This is a great step Jaxie. Nice to see these changes coming back. Personally I don't care about all the 'crap' (writers, directors, all crew) I am mostly looking at who I am gonna see. Although the cameo's may spoil a surprise...so might the forums and reviews that you have listed on the front page. Main cast, guest stars, cameo then special guest...just my two cents.





So jealous about Hong Kong, have a nice trip enjoy the family time. How long of a flight is that?

I would actually get rid of the producer credits on episode pages. I have some shows that have producer, executive producers and even supervising producers displaying and it makes a long list with the cast. Directors and writers worked for me.

You certainly deserve to get away from CBS hell. Have a wonderful time; savor every moment-- May 11th and your return to The Inferno will be here before you know it.

I think "special guest stars" belong on the episode overview page along with the other guest stars. They are usually most important character in the particular episode, so they shouldn't be hidden away.

I think it'd be nice if the editor could CUSTOMIZE displaying cast and crew positions on a per guide basis. You can make the default settings point to everyone for CAST and writers, teleplay, story, and director for CREW.

I edit a lot of animated shows, so for crew the main ones I want are Writer, Storyboard, Director, and Animation Director. Someone who doesn't have animated shows wouldn't care about Storyboarders or Animation Directors at all.

Something like a talk show wouldn't care that Stars be listed up front, but would focus on Guest Stars and Cameos.

thanks for finally doing as we asked as for the guest star etc I'd like them on the main page as well but they don't need to be at the top also it is essential that the cast are on the main page thats what the outcry has been about!
having said that enjoy your holiday - just don't let them do a new redesign before you get back or we'll "send out the dogs of war" when you get back

Thanks once again to the community staff for their efforts in once again (almost) giving us back what we had before developers took it away! Would I be correct in thinking that the current selections are generated at random? There are some eccentric selections out there!

The display of show stars on the main page is essential, not least because these do change from episode to episode, particularly on ongoing shows with ensemble casts. There is no particular need for producers to be shown front and centre, as these do tend to remain unchanged across a season or for a show's entire run, nor minor crew because, frankly, noone cares.

You say there's not room for everyone (obviously) but what was wrong with the arrangement that served us so well at TVTome and TV.com over the years (stars, guest stars, writers and directors) and which is now aped by the likes of IMDb? Remember that we only have "recurring role" and "special guest star" categories because someone on staff decided it would be a good idea to subdivide the traditional guest star category.

For me, it's stars, supporting cast ("recurring roles", if you will), guest stars (including "special guest stars"), writers (including story and teleplay, appropriately credited) and director.

If we must list minor crew members on the front page (and I'd suggest that we not do so) can I plead with you to ask someone with English as a first language to proofread the categories? While most categories would not normally need plurals (better to have a "Writer" category and two credited writers than a "Writers" category and one credited writer) some role types should never have plurals. I whined for months about the use of the word "Crews" on some pages, but one guide is currently crediting "Musics".

I vote all stars + guest stars and special guest stars. I would like to see cameos listed as well, but that would be what I would drop if space is an issue. For crew, I think director and writer is enough.

Thanks for bringing these listings back. I think regular stars should definitely be kept on the overview page. I am going through and editing one show, and of the five people who received star billing, only one appears in every single episode while two others only appear in about 2/3. I think stars should also go first before guest stars/recurring roles, since stars are always (in as many examples as I can think of) credited first onscreen. Directors and writers should definitely go either before all the cast or after (right now I'm seeing directors and writers listed in between stars and recurring roles). An edit cast/crew link on the overview would be nice too, since now you still have to do the extra step of clicking on the "Cast and Crew" tab then "edit/add".

Special Guest Stars - ABSOLUTELY they should be highlighted above the regular cast. That's why they're called "Special". When someone like Paul Newman makes an appearance in an episode (not that he ever did) it would certainly be noteworthy and should not be hidden away.

Cameos - I'm ambivalent there. I'll leave that to the popular consensus.

Executive Producers - No. Writers and directors are far more directly responsible for the quality (or lack thereof) of an episode. Execs can remain in the crew section.

Stars - Leave them as they are on the main page. They may not change episode to episode, but many shows change their lineups season to season.

Why not get rid of the 'recurring' designation, since it's a made-up tv.com thing anyway? No show that I know of credits anyone that way, and I've read lots of complaints in the forums about how when someone is listed that way, you don't know what episodes they appeared in. So that would make room for the "Special Guest Stars" to be added to the main page display, along with the "Stars" and "Guest Stars" as well as the Writer and Director. I don't think most people are interested in Exec. Producer.

Thanks to all involved in working to fix things after the last, er, most recent "makeover". Special hugs to you and your family, Jaxie. Have a great vacation.


Stars : Absolutely have to be listed and should be first. They change from season to season, and on some shows (Maverick, for example, episode to episode).


Special Guest Stars : Maybe. If so, they should appear between Stars and Guest Stars (could be eliminated, however, and listed at the top of the Guest Stars).


Guest Stars : Should be listed and should be properly ordered by editors.


Director/Writer : Should be listed (w/o plurals as Bill pointed out). While they could be placed above the Stars, it's the facetime talent which drives the traffic.


Executive Producers : No, there's too many anyway (8 on Spectacle).


Cameos : No, why not leave this for Trivia postings?


Recurring Role : No. I'd also like to see this category deleted. I do a lot of Duplicate Guide work - and we have a lot more to do. Searching to make changes is overly arduous when one has to search every single episode to find a few random appearances.

Thanks Jaxie, I'm starting to regain hope for this site. For me every character field should be listed, although I think the cameo section should be deleted and that can just be put in notes. Special Guest Stars should never have been hidden as they are 90% of the time the main character in the episode. For crew, just writers and directors are fine with me. Also, on the episode pages, I think the fan reviews should be moved to the column alongside the right side of the page.

Thanks Jaxie! Great work! For the crew I think it should Writers, Directors, Story, and Teleplay on the front page then have a View All option for the minor crew members. I think this would be a good order for the cast on the main page... Stars, Recurring Roles, Guest Stars, Special Guest Stars and then Cameos. If spacing were an issue then I would put a View All in and put the Cameos there.

Have a great trip and be safe.

Scott-

main cast and crew should ALWAYS come first.
Then highlight the special guests.

Cameos should remain mentioned in Notes or Trivia, it would spoil things for me.

I want
Directors
Writers (or teleplay and story)
Stars Special guest stars
Guest stars
Cameos all showing on the episode overview.

The rest of the crew can stay on the crew pages.

We shouldn't have to click multiple times to get this info and you still think fan reviews are more important. IT's nto neither for us the people who make tv.com what it is nor it is important to a visitor who will only come either to watch the episode (though why here instead of the network website is beyong my understanding) or have the info we've requested back. And considering that the tv listing take 2/3 of the page, maybe you should those fan reviews there !

As of now, crew does not show AT ALL on the episode overview.

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Thank you, Jaxie, the episode pages look so much better now, and it'll be much easier to make episode guide submissions. While I do agree that reviews should go back BELOW the cast/crew, trivia, etc, it's still much better than it was before. I'm very glad that our feedback was listened to this time.

I agree with Angus_Mac, I think it would be great if you could customize how cast and crew is shown. If that doesn't happen, though, I would at least like to see stars stay on the main page, and be first and foremost. After all, they are the stars, and like more_ncis_now said, they rarely change, but rarely is not never.

Have a great vacation in Hong Kong, Jaxie, you certainly deserve it. Have fun and travel safely.

I don't know if this has already been bought up but stars should remain on episode pages, because in some soap operas, different characters won't appear for weeks on end.

FYI-Special guests are duplicating in regular guests. Also, we need more space. The complete starring cast of The Office is getting cut off. Finally, move reviews to the bottom like they were before.

Hi Jaxie, Much better although I don't really see the need to display (Director of Photographys, Story Editors, Musics, Art Directors, Set Decorators and Assistant Directors) that's a bit much plus it looks awful especially since photographys and musics are gramatically incorrect. I also would like to see it framed like this set up here, right now it's wide open and looks incomplete.

Writer, director, story, and teleplay are fine for the main episode page. Special Guest Stars should be listed just because it tends to be confusing when they're not listed: the casual viewer wonders why who is sometimes the most important person isn't visible. There's also not usually so many that they interfere with page display or take up too much space. Get rid of Recurring. Cameo is also to some degree a "made up" category, does it really come up that often, and often overlaps with Special Guest Star.

Thanks for fixing this, it really helps! Yes special guest stars should be displayed first. The executive producers don't need to have the sae priority as writers and directors, because they don't change. I don't think show regulars needs to be shown.

Hope you have fun in Hong Kong

What I would do is have just directors, writers, main cast, recurring and guest cast show by default in that order. All other crew should be on the next page, however crew like producers, editors, maybe even music people, could be listed on the show's front page. Cameos, possibly even guest stars, if it's considered to be surprise-worthy enough, could maybe have a checkbox on the add cast form to select whether to show or hide it on the episode page until a pre-determined time after that episode has aired. Regulars should be on every episode if they're in them all.

Thanks again for putting everything back on each episode page though!

Please don't remove recurring cast keep it on the episode pages. I edit CSI:NY and it has alot recurring characters.

Upon consideration, I'd list Cameos as well on the episode pages. Really, nobody who is an actor on the show should be "hidden." This just confuses people trying to find the info. But you definitely don't need to list crew like "Castings."

I would prefer guest stars first. And I hope they'll be as a simple list (as before). You can still have another page with photos and scores. I want to see the guest stars at a glance. The regulars can follow them. You could put cameos that are spoilers in a collapsed list if it can be expanded without having to reload the page.

Posting again here because the redesign/bugs thread has been locked! You ask us to "(keep) in mind that we can't show everybody on the main episode page". I see now that you have restricted the display to 15 names, that the actual categories displayed are randomly generated, that individual categories are restricted to 10 names and that, if the last category would take the total display beyond 15 names, it is further truncated. This really isn't what we wanted. Even if you stop showcasing minor crew credits ("musics", "director of photographys", indeed!) 10/15 entries is not enough. Many (most?) shows regularly have more than 10 guest stars and 15 actors in an episode.

Thanks for showing the info on the episode page again. However, randomly selecting which categories to show seems very odd. I'd stick with Main Cast, Recurring and Guest stars plus Directors and Writers (including teleplay, etc.) Personally, I can live without cameos and special guest stars on the main episode page, but I would like to move the reviews back to the bottom of the page again.
Ejoy your mini break!

I would like to see the stars and guest stars on the main page. I don't like the guest stars listed before the stars. I like the recuring option, but would like to see it listed as indivdual episodes on the actor's page. I don't really think we need cameos at all. Also, special guest stars should be listed on the main page if we are keeping that sud-catergory. I don't think the executive producers need to be on hte main apge, but I like the writers and directors there.

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Stars: Of course they should be on the main page and should be listed first.
Special Guest Stars: Yes but please fix the display problem on the person guides that lists them in "Other Credits" with producer credits. They get lost in the shuffle and make it hard to find. Also if an actor who qualifies for recurring is listed as a Special Guest Star in the episode credits where should they go? I think recurring should take priority and a note should clarify.
Crew: Only Writer, Directer, Story, and Teleplay with the last 2 being specified as such. (And fix the grammar so it appears to be created by a someone with a reading level above 3rd grade)
Cameos: Don't really have an opinion on this because I have never encountered this on an episode before.
Recurring Role: They should be listed and in no way should it be eliminated as some have said because some recurring roles have hundreds of credits in them making the person guides an overcrowded mess like directer Hal Gurnee. His credit page won't even fully load for me. A simple solution would be a tree function that would expand once to show seasons and then again to show episodes in order. This should be done for Stars as well.

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It Doesn't Work???

Have a great vacation. I'll be looking forward to some pics from your trip!

Well, it looks like Show Stars are now listed on the episode pages, but it's pretty random. So that's something, and someone in Development must be reading here. But the limited display thing still seems to be in play.

lowrider: third-graders everywhere feel insulted!

Thanks Jaxie. I'd like it the way it was, but add cameos and special guest stars. I think these should be placed between stars and guest stars above recurring. I also think only the writers, teleplay, story and director need to be displayed on the episode main page. Enjoy your trip!

LOL too true Bill

Regarding hidden cameos, that could be coded in for episodes that have posted future airdates but not 0/0/0 ones. But at this point, we'd be happier knowing all our Cast categories are all listed.

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Hey Jaxie. First, thanks to you and the Dev team and management for listening. These are a great improvement and a step in the right direction. I say a step as it's not there yet.



Here's my radical thoughts for further improvement:



Stars should be listed first, each episode, and NOT limited to a certain number or truncated.



Guest Stars should be next with the same as above.



Recurring Roles don't really matter to me. I would just as soon see these be listed under guest stars but I know that won't happen so list them third, no limits.



Cameos can go away totally. Who thought this one up? List them under guest stars and we'll tag them as "themselves".



Special Guest Stars was an old 50s and 60s credit that they used on someone who was more well known. It's antiquated and obsolete and should be done away with as they don't use it on shows today. Just list them as Guest Stars. This would help clean up the episode page.



For Crew, what we had before worked with Producer, Director, Writer on the front page and everyone else found with a tab or a link like before See All Crew.



Fan Reviews This should not even be on the front of the episode page. Put this on a tab or at the very bottom of the page under Allusions (another useless subcategory). If you get ten people writing their "reviews" of an episode, this will force all the other info way down the page. So the Reviews should come last on the front page, or not even be there. Put them on a tab for the occasional person who actually reads that stuff.



Thanks again for listening!



Rob

sounddude

Much thanks for fixing that. It's still a little random as far as the cast/crew listing on each episode, but still much, much better than it was before. Kudos to you and the others for fixing this. Thanks again.

Hm... I think guest cast, recurring roles, regular stars, writers, and directors should be on the main page.

I don't see why we can't show all the cast (but not crew) on the main page. We had the whole cast on the main page in all previous designs. Meanwhile, less useful items, like reviews take up the whole page. Reviews often contain spoilers and should be hidden.



Please go back to the old design re cast, with reviews placed at the bottom of the page or on another page. When adding cast, we need to check to see that they show up, which you can't do easily if they are all on separate pages. Adding cast is too much work for too few points--don't make the job more of a chore.


Also, don't double-space the quotes. It makes them harder to read and takes up more space.