First, to Jaxie, I thought YOUR "tome" in the forum was well written and informative. Yes, this is a business venture where TvTome was just a fun website run by a TV enthusiast for TV enthusiasts. Obviously, that is no more. This is about money. So the site must evolve and become competitive with other sites that are doing similar things.
Does this mean that the database will eventually go away? I think, IMHO, that it eventually will. I only hope that before that part of the site goes dark, that someone will archive it, and sell it back to the fans, those of us who would like to see it go back to just a fun database, for tv fans, by tv fans. I'd love to see it become TvTome again, as MovieTome has. All of this gathered data is just too valuable to television fans to one day go away. I would hope that a site like EPguides or EpisodeWorld would start copying the information to a hard drive, instead of just linking to Tv.com's episodes. To lose this information would be a crime.
That may not happen right away, but what is happening right away is the site page design. While the overall appearance of the guide pages looks okay at first glance, the tab/link idea is horrible. I personally like it when everything is on one page and scrollable. The design we had before this was pretty good, even though it did not show all of the actors and crew on one page, you still had to click to see all. But this design is the worse that Tv.com has had since it's inception. Jaxie said in her forum post that they're hearing us loud and clear? I asked if this was LOUD ENOUGH? And what about some lines? Even this page I'm writing on now has soft, light lines around everything. I really can't stand a page that has NO lines on it. Content needs to be separated and just the soft light gray lines like are on this page are all we need. The episode pages have a few horizontal lines, but no vertical lines and it looks very messy just having print floating all over the page, stopping and starting for what appears like no reason.
Having the episode page split into three general sections is okay, Tv Buzz on the left, the Summary in the middle, and the Tv Listing, Also on, and the Contributors on the right. But with a typical short summary in the middle section, now all by itself, looks terribly awkward and very unattractive. When the cast, crew, trivia and notes were there, it gave each page a nice balanced and full look. The page today looks unfinished and downright unprofessional.
So if Jaxie does have the designers ears, they need to tell the owners that the previous design was much better. And to bring back some boxes or at least some vertical gray lines.
I don't mind evolution of design and even purpose, as long as the original purpose is not lost. If that is going to happen, let us have the original site back, and Tv.com can go on with it's evolution and commerce, without me, without us, who just like TV.
...by you, for you - about the TV shows YOU love!