Hard to tell. Some years ago Invelos claimed DVDp had millions of users, but the site doesn't provide actuals. With only a one-time fee it is harder to tell if someone abandons the product.
The only way to find out by Invelos is to monitor how many different users regularly update their database with the "Refresh Updates Profiles" option. But a diminishing user count is not something any company likes to advertise... The one thing I do see the people on the fora are by and large the same (fairly small) group of people throughout the years.

Can't tell for Canada but for UK profiles --as I do import a lot from the UK-- the volume of fast available profiles just after release dropped sharply after one or two very regular contributors were diverting their attention to other hobbies. And it hasn't been supplanted by others AFAIK.

Which means that the on-line database content depends a lot more on just a few contributors than you might imagine.

Quoting eommen:

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Which means that the on-line database content depends a lot more on just a few contributors than you might imagine.

Many people who were used to contribute in the past have stopped when rules asked to recopy errors, and in certain cases, asked to add errors (especially spelling mistakes in names). People who want to have correct profiles, and also want to contribute, have to build profiles with incorrect data, then correct them for their own database.
So what did, in fact, people who want to have correct profiles ? They just stopped contributing...

That's kind of what I was thinking, whether we lost a couple of the primary contributors here in Canada. Makes me sad to think it relies on so few people. I also think we may have lost some of these hard core users just this last year with the LONG delay in getting 4K support out. It certainly felt like an abandoned product for a while and I really did find it hard to recommend it to people.

I haven't been doing it long, maybe 2 years since I started doing regular contributions, so I only have a couple hundred, but that would probably be 80% new profiles. I have looked at other tools, but they tend to be expensive and last time I did comparisons, their databases seemed no more complete, at least for what I collect. Like some others here, I've been using DVDP since version 1.0 I think, back in the Intervocative days.

I hear ya on the rules, clear direction on some things would be nice. I know Ken is basically a one man show, and he's not charging very much for the software, so we can't expect a great deal of support, but not maintaining this stuff or not making decision on contentious issues isn't doing anyone any good. Does Ken do all the document maintenance himself? What does the "Contribution Rules Committee" do? I, personally, would like to see a minimum set of required data. (I'm an Oracle DBA by profession and these empty contributions drive me up the wall.) The thing I care about most are the visual aspects, things like cover scans, features, rating, technical details, etc. should be required, otherwise the profile automatically rejected. I'll admit, I'm guilty of never doing cast/crew myself. If I can't copy another profile, I leave it blank. I do everything else, but the rules surrounding the sourcing of cast/crew information just make it too time consuming. My wife would have my head. I understand why the rules are there, but I just don't usually have that kind of time.

As you say, it is tedious and time consuming though. I think it took me 40 minutes to do that Paranormal Activity box set (So, 7 new profiles) last night and most of the technical information was already correct in the profiles I chose to copy. Would have taken much longer if I had to enter all the technical details such as audio tracks and special features. I don't know what the answer is or how to better streamline things, but there are things in the software itself that make me scratch my head, like why changing region/UPC is only in the pull-down and not on the right-click context menu. Same with copy and paste, which I only JUST discovered even existed, because I never go to the pull-downs if I can help it. That should be in the right-click context menu. In reality, the right-click on title menu and DVD pull-down should be identical.

Out of curiosity, I downloaded the Collectorz demo and it's database appears to be even more incomplete. I checked 3 box sets I recently submitted to DVDP, one didn't exist in their database and the other two were incomplete.  It also doesn't appear to do box sets very well. Of the 6 or so box set I randomly looked at NONE of them listed the contents in any logical way, so DVDP is still, by far the superior product.

Quoting 69samael69:

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I submit the correct data to the best of my ability, and will fix errors on profiles I find to have errors...if it's violation of the rules, then the rules need to be fixed, otherwise they can choose to decline the submission, but I'll not submit data I know to be incorrect, no matter what the rules say.

In fact rules ask to recopy exactly data on covers or credits. So if there is a spelling mistake in an overview, you "must" keep it in profile you contribute. And if the overview for a space opera describes a peplum, you "must" keep the peplum description. And when credits list GERARD DEPARDIEU, you "must" enter Gerard Depardieu, even if everybody knows it is Gérard, and even if it will break the linking for this actor. So, I agree with you that contributors should correct incorrect data, but a majority here decided that contributing errors was the thing to do. That is the reason why I stopped contributing, though I was in the past considered as a good contributor by Invelos (shown by near my name).

Quoting 69samael69:

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Why should that be any different for mis-punctuated names or spelling mistakes?

Just because rules say that, and many people here agree. I asked many times to change those nonsenses, but the majority here voted against proposed changes.

Quoting surfeur51:

Quote:


In fact rules ask to recopy exactly data on covers or credits. So if there is a spelling mistake in an overview, you "must" keep it in profile you contribute. And if the overview for a space opera describes a peplum, you "must" keep the peplum description. And when credits list GERARD DEPARDIEU, you "must" enter Gerard Depardieu, even if everybody knows it is Gérard, and even if it will break the linking for this actor. So, I agree with you that contributors should correct incorrect data, but a majority here decided that contributing errors was the thing to do. That is the reason why I stopped contributing, though I was in the past considered as a good contributor by Invelos (shown by near my name).

I agree.  The rules need to be changed.  Invelos loses many good contributors because of incorrect rules.  We should be allowed to change obvious mistakes.  There is a lot of corrected data in local databases that can't be contributed because the rules are wrong.

Quoting surfeur51:

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And when credits list GERARD DEPARDIEU, you "must" enter Gerard Depardieu, even if everybody knows it is Gérard, and even if it will break the linking for this actor.

That's not actually spelled out in the rules, is it? I know there was a lot of discussion about it, and the most fanatic opposition came from Skip, who could not wrap his head around how turning Gérard into GERARD was actually common in French, so reversing it should be acceptable. But have you tried it lately? See if the screeners accept it, even though it may get a No vote from somebody.

Otherwise, using Gérard Depardieu credited as Gerard Depardieu is definitely correct according to the rules, and that maintains linkage. Or is that not good enough for you, Yves? There may be other names where that wouldn't work, though.

Spelling errors is a bit more tricky. Some errors may seem obvious, others not so much. Would you correct US spelling on a British release (or vice versa), for example? Some apparent errors may actually be puns, which perhaps not everybody gets. I would say that copying the overview exactly is the best compromise, and then you can correct things locally if you wish.