Please help me to understand this as I am confused.

I was just about to download and install Coollector when I decided to take a look through the forum first. Looking through various user posts I stumbled upon a thread where users submit movies they wish to be added to the database.

My question is twofold.

1) Why do we have to submit something to you, and then have you add a movie to a database?
Every other cataloger I've ever used populated the db based upon movies it finds while scanning a directory and then querying a movie service such as IMDB or TMDB. So why are we (they) having to add movies manually?

And if it has to be done manually for some reason, why are users not able to simply add the movies they want to by themselves, without having to submit them to you for "approval".

2) Browsing through the posts I kept seeing submissions that were "Rejected". Why are you rejecting "erotic" movies?

I saw somewhere where you state that it's because children can use this database. But children can use IMDB and TMDB. Not to mention access everything and anything else that's on the Internet that's far, far worse. Is this a religious issue for you? I really don't understand.

What I do understand is that I don't like someone telling me what I can and cannot add to my movie database. Your views should not dictate what I can and cannot see. And they won't.

I have been collecting movies for nearly 30 years. I have over 8,000 titles that date back to the 1920s and every decade in between. Fewer than 10% of those titles would be considered erotic. But my collection would be incomplete without them, and any movie collection software that is going to block access to those titles simply fails at it's primary function - which is to catalog every movie within my collection.

Now I realize that you probably won't allow this post. That it will probably never make it's way onto your forum. And that's OK. It's you that I wanted to reach out to and perhaps get an answer as to why you feel the need to block these titles.

In the meantime I will install Kodi, or any one of a dozen other similar apps that don't feel the need to impose their repressive mindset upon their users.

This app is different as I maintain my own movie database. When I've started it, TMDB didn't exist (at least I had never heard about it), and scrapping the IMDb was forbidden (still is, while licensing the IMDb data https://www.imdb.com/licensing/ is very expensive and limited to tens of thousands of films). Miraculously the IMDb has never taken legal action against any of those apps, I suppose because they're all niche apps with few users, but problems would probably arise if one of them became big enough to catch their attention.



I monitor what's released in theaters, in video, on streaming services, etc... In most cases I add the movies before someone has to make a request.



I'm a single developper, I only have the resource to maintain a movies and series database. If one day I can afford to hire someone to help me, I'll be glad to maintain other databases (music, books, etc...). About an erotic movie database, I don't think there's a market for such an app. People don't collect porn movies, they go to porn websites. There's a ton of erotic/porn material out there, meaning a ton of work to maintain a database, and noone willing to buy an app for it...



My app isn't perfect, no app is. It's my proposal to you and I hope you'll like it, but if you prefer another app, I won't be offended. Use what's best for you!

Thank you for your reply.

Personally I don't consider any of the movies in my collection to be porn, as I would agree that there's no real need for someone to actually collect porn.

What I do have is a good collection of older vintage art films from the 60s and 70s. By the standards of the day these were not considered porn, but rather mainstream releases.

Think Corinne Cléry and Udo Kier in "The Story of O" or Keith Carradine and Susan Sarandon in "Pretty Baby".

Some others are vintage Italian erotic/horror movies that I grew up watching Saturday afternoons on UHF broadcast TV. Complete with truly horrible English dubs, I might add. But that's what makes them so memorable.

Sure I've also got just about every Russ Meyer film ever made, but again it's simply for the vintage value in that IMHO no real collection could be considered complete without at least one Russ Meyer movie.
Take Faster Pussycat for example - I mean who doesn't know the line "I never try anything, I just do it".

Just a thought, but have you ever thought about setting up something so users can add a movie directly to your DB? That would eliminate a ton of time consuming DB work for you.
It would be really easy to check for duplicates before allowing the record to be added, and it would grow your database a whole lot faster and make it more complete.

Or if you're not keen on the idea of allowing just everyone to add their own movies, how about a privilege based system where a few admin users can also add movie requests. This too would take a load off of you, while still readily expanding your DB.

Regardless, I will probably still give your software a try really just to see what it's like.
I'll be curious to see how it handles the movies that you have decided not to index, whether they simply will be ignored entirely, or if some generic indication of an unindexed movie will appear, but still be clickable to play the movie.

Take care.

When users request such movies, I close my eyes and I add them. Sometimes I avoid adding a poster if it's too explicit.



Those movies are already in the database, as well as the Russ Meyer films, the Tinto Brass films, the Joe d'Amato films, etc...

Until now I haven't been inundated with requests of this type so it's fine. In all these years I've only had to calm down a user or two.



All the movies you talk about are already in the database.



Maintaining the database can't rely on automation. The database would be fucked up in no time.



With admins or contributors, I'll inevitably spend a ton of time communicating with them. Maybe they won't live in the same time zone as me, maybe we'll have arguments, etc... I can assure you that I can't be more effective than I am right now doing all by myself. Those are blessed times for me as a developper and I quite enjoy it. Maybe someday growing will be inevitable and of course I'll be glad when this day arrives because it'll be a good sign, but it'll also mean a difficult transition. Delegating is great but it's hard. Handling payrolls, taxes, insurances, premises, financial pressure, etc... oh boy, I'm in no hurry. For the moment I'm fine working lean on my modest niche app with nothing to distract me. I'll wait as much as possible before changing scale. For example, I'm well aware that the day I can afford hiring a second developper to work with me on the app, it won't mean that the app will improve twice faster, very far from it!



I think the database is growing fine. It's quite complete. If a user happens to be missing a movie, the request system is there to correct that omission. As you can check, there's not that many requests each week, and a lot of them I would have added on my own anyway. Take a closer look at the database and I doubt you'll find a lot missing.



I hope you'll like it as it is, maybe you'll have some suggestions, but asking me to change everything from the ground up would be unrealistic