egafd.com

Len801 wrote:

> don't think it is done solely on physical review or
> rexamaniation of a movie. I am quite certain they get data from
> the larger distributors, it is the titles from smaller outfits
> that fall through the cracks.

We hardly have any contact with producers/distributors whatsoever -- not for compiling data anyway. The interest in this aspect of the IAFD is almost nonexistant with both producers and performers. Most of them just don't give a shit.
A very limited number of performers (I can count them on the fingers of 1 hand) care too much. They almost behave like stalkers. They want us to add their new titles the day they are shot (you may think I am exxagerating, but believe me, I am not). The trouble is that they are mostly or exclusively worried about their own records only. And that is not how we like to do things: we add movies. And most movies have more than 1 performer. The trouble is that many movies have 1 or 2 performers which are problematic from an ID standpoint.

Most of the data is compiled by using a mix of secondary sources. By far the most popular secondary source we use, are reviews. We favor them because they are supposed to offer more complete and more accurate information than can be found on box covers or on vendor sites.
Believe me, we are aware that by using secondary sources, we are jeopardizing our accuracy. That's why we are doing lots of crosschecking, by using as much sources as possible for one title.

Anyway, gaps in our records are more explained by the lack of interests on the part of reviewers in certain titles/series than by anything else. In a way, this offers an additional justification for our way of working. We have limited resources as it is, so we tend to focus on those titles that seem to matter most to the public at large.

We would like to be more complete, but really, we don't want to spend 2 hours researching a title almost nobody cares about. We tend to focus first on those titles that can be easily researched. And even with those alone, we can barely keep up.
Again, if you want to see more obscure movies added to the database, just provide us with all the information we need to add titles. You will be amazed how quick we are when we receive GOOD QUALITY data on titles we have missed. And I want to stress the GOOD QUALITY here. We often get submissions about a movie and all we get are single names of performers -- usually the credited names. How in the world are we supposed to know which Maria or Monica is meant when we don't have access to the video itself? Such submissions are not greeted with a big welcome because we know we have to go on another goose chase for an hour or so. The fact that most people that submit additions don't respond to our mails asking for more details is also very discouraging.

I have personally seen more than 6000 videos -- actually, it must be more or less around 10,000, but I have started keeping score much later than when I started watching porn -- on which I have kept score in a personal database. So, I also use my own viewing exprience as a source for cross checking data. But then again, I know there are many mistakes and gaps in my own database as well.

No, keeping score on porn videos is a big pain in the ass. I believe you have been working on filmographies of single performers. Multiply that by several thousands and you get the idea of what the IAFD is all about.

Walter, I did not say IAFD sucks or is a disaster area. I was just reporting on things that I have noticed and that are glaring. I know there are reasons, but that does not make it better.
IAFD is great and I have been reading it since I got on line in 1996. I do understand that with some +10,000 hc movies being released in the USA each year it is a daunting task to keep abreast of everything: titles and performers filmographies.
All I said is that if there were glaring gaps before Peter's death, now they seem to be worse. I have noticed that there are a lot of small outfits out there who are not as well known as Red Light, Anabolic, Zero Tolerance, etc. They do put out films with well known performers, and I am not talkling about pro-am stuff. Jadedvideo does not even have those titles, but they are there, and they are not reported. Even in the IAFD databse, let us say there is a well known series caled XYX that has 18 titles, IAFD may have just 16 even though the last two were released several months ago, and sometimes there are gaps even in the 16 that are there (no I can't give you any examples, because I don't write them down when I come across these).
I do filmographies for an Italian discussion forum called Super Zeta (mostly american performers as well as some european), which I have cited in my earlier post. When I try to check out titles, I find that that IAFD comes up short and a number of titles are missing.
What should I do, do I let you know everyt time I turn up a title you just don't have in your database? I do it frequently for EGAFD, but I do not do it for IAFD. Why? Because of personal experience and IAFD's reactions in the past (when I did on a few occasions bring up discrepancies in a performer's biography all I got was "we'll check it out and get back to you", and that was the end of that, with no change made. So I simply stopped, since I was just wasting my time, and IAFD probably assumed I was a crackpot) .
Just to give you an example, I recently worked on the filmography of an american performer called Ali Kat. I turned up 31 titles for her (in addition to 3 obvious compilations). IAFD has only 27 titles, that is 4 less than I found, and she does not really have an impressive list of moves to begin with.

SZ server is down right now, so I can't give you the relevant link of the SZ filmography.
No Database is perfect, and with +10,000 titles circulating every year, it is tough to keep up and I appreciate you taking the time to enumerate the obstacles. However, those problems are there and they need to be pointed out. I believe EGAFD and EBI make a better job in their database, but I do understand that they have less volume to work with in the first place. But identification (on screen and on box cover) of performers in Euro films are much much worse than their US counterpart.

Len801 wrote:


> The worst feature in including or excluding them in
> databases like IAFD, is in trying to determine the "active"
> years of a performer.

Not correct. Compilations do not count for our Years Active field. So, when a performer was active between 1998 and 2002, and we list a comp from 2005, her Years Active field will still say 1998-2002.

However there is another issue which does have an ill effect on the Years Active field. Many producers include scenes that were shot years before the release of the video and yet they are also 'new' scenes in the sense that they were never previously released. Randy West and Ed Powers are often guilty of this. So is Rocco Siffredi. Take Rocco's True Anal Stories 19. The video has 4 never previously released scenes. Only the second of these was shot in 2003 (or late 2002). Scene 1 dates back to 1999, as does scene 3. And scene 4 was shot during the Prague Erotica Festival of 1998. So, Mickaella May/Beata Dalle is listed as being active between 1999 and 2003 while AFAIK, she hasn't been active since 2000, all because of the Rocco flick.
Some of the bigger studios create a similar problem. It is wel known that Vivid has a big backlog in their release schedule. They sometimes release movies which were shot years before their release date.

Author: Walter Burns
Date: 04-23-07 17:08

Len801 wrote:


> The worst feature in including or excluding them in
> databases like IAFD, is in trying to determine the "active"
> years of a performer.

Not correct. Compilations do not count for our Years Active field. So, when a performer was active between 1998 and 2002, and we list a comp from 2005, her Years Active field will still say 1998-2002.

However there is another issue which does have an ill effect on the Years Active field. Many producers include scenes that were shot years before the release of the video and yet they are also 'new' scenes in the sense that they were never previously released. Randy West and Ed Powers are often guilty of this. So is Rocco Siffredi. Take Rocco's True Anal Stories 19. The video has 4 never previously released scenes. Only the second of these was shot in 2003 (or late 2002). Scene 1 dates back to 1999, as does scene 3. And scene 4 was shot during the Prague Erotica Festival of 1998. So, Mickaella May/Beata Dalle is listed as being active between 1999 and 2003 while AFAIK, she hasn't been active since 2000, all because of the Rocco flick.
Some of the bigger studios create a similar problem. It is wel known that Vivid has a big backlog in their release schedule. They sometimes release movies which were shot years before their release date.
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Thanks for the explanation Walter. But again it is all dependent whether a later (or any) title is authentic or not (by "later" I mean titles that crop up in someone's filmography, well after a rash of movies that were made during the period when performer was obviously "active"). So if an actress was apparently active in 1992-3 and all of a sudden you see titles in 2005, 2006, 2007 what are you supposed to conclude especially when you are unable to access those movies and can't find a decent box cover on line to physically verify.
Say for instance I want to check out the filmo of a supposedly one-day wonder called Jazmine (and there are plenty with that name, I know) that appeared in SEYMORE BUTTS AND THE HONEYMOONERS (1992). She is an attractive brunette with long dark hair. IAFD indicates she was in two Rosebud all-girl movies in 1993 (box covers are not helpful since only one or two girls appear in front/back of box cover, movie reviews are even less helpful). On top of that there is a fetish 1998 title called BITE 2 in her filmo. Was she really in that one, who can tell, as no box cover or review is available? Would it be logical to assume that she did one hc movie in 1993 (possibly but unlikely 2 other all-girl movies in 1993) and even more remote a fetish tape in 1998?
I just pointed out this name as an example, but I can raise similar questions of many fimografies in IAFD. I know it has nothing to do with you and the good work you do, and if performers keep using different names or same names as 20-30 other performers you are going to run in this problem. They (performers, producers, distributors) may not care about this, but it is vexing for all of us who are trying to be as accurate as possible.
With regards to the issue with movies being released several months or years after being made (Vivid and VCA have a long history with this issue) has IAFD ever considered indicating production (and release date) in its listing of titles? Is it too much work, not sufficiently relvant to the mass of people consulting the database? IMDB gives release dates (for a number of countries) for mainstream movies, has IAFD consdidering going the same route?

"No, keeping score on porn videos is a big pain in the ass."

A masterly summation, if I may say so :- ))

The simplest response to those who [unconstructively] criticise both
databases is this:
I have gotten far, FAR more out of them than I will ever be able to repay.

Len801 wrote:

> Walter, I did not say IAFD sucks or is a disaster area. I was
> just reporting on things that I have noticed and that are
> glaring. I know there are reasons, but that does not make it
> better.

No it does not. But your pointing out the deficiencies of the IAFD on a EGAFD forum doesn't make things any better either. In fact, it serves no other purpose except whining.

And some of the things you claim are just plain wrong. And that ticks me off in a MAJOR FUCKING WAY.

> IAFD is great and I have been reading it since I got on line in
> 1996. I do understand that with some +10,000 hc movies being
> released in the USA each year it is a daunting task to keep
> abreast of everything: titles and performers filmographies.
> All I said is that if there were glaring gaps before Peter's
> death, now they seem to be worse.

Well, Peter had it a lot easier in many ways than us. The number of movies released back then was a lot less. More importantly, the number of problematic releases was a lot less. Less European imports (which were often ignored by Peter any way -- he had his reasons and I understand them), less internet companies releasing videos and DVDs (mostly with completely bogus single name credits only -- do me a favor, and look up the distributor Pink Visual), way less companies releasing stuff (and we all know how different names/aliases are often tied to different companies).
Do you know how Peter compiled most of his data? He mostly relied on AVN reviews. He could do that because back then AVN reviewed every movie that was released in the States. They were still able to do so.
It's also true he had less resources at his disposal than we do now. But that still creates problems for us today as well, as it influenced the way he worked and what he could accomplish. Like I said in a previous reply, we are spending more time on corrections than on adding new movies. When Peter had to choose between being complete and being accurate he more often than not opted for being complete. In a way, we are still paying the price for that now.


> I have noticed that there are
> a lot of small outfits out there who are not as well known as
> Red Light, Anabolic, Zero Tolerance, etc. They do put out films
> with well known performers, and I am not talkling about pro-am
> stuff. Jadedvideo does not even have those titles, but they are
> there, and they are not reported.

Exactly. They are not reported. They are listed at a very small number of retailers. There are no reviews. IOW, HOW THE FUCK DO WE RESEARCH THEM? I am not saying it is not possible to research them. I am saying it's more likely than not that it's not the most efficient way to use our limited resources. If we have to choose between adding 10 titles per hour based on reliable reviews or user submissions (and that includes sex notes, scene breakdowns, aliases, an exact runtime, ...) or adding 2 titles which require elaborate research and only results in shaky or incomplete data anyway, what do YOU think we should do? Do you think it's any better if we backfilled series in this way just to be complete? Or should we add single named and unknown performers ad infinitum? At least we are not lumping these titles together in a big pile on existing performer's pages, right? RIGHT!



> I do filmographies for an Italian discussion forum called
> Super Zeta (mostly american performers as well as some
> european), which I have cited in my earlier post. When I try to
> check out titles, I find that that IAFD comes up short and a
> number of titles are missing.
> What should I do, do I let you know everyt time I turn up
> a title you just don't have in your database? I do it
> frequently for EGAFD, but I do not do it for IAFD. Why? Because
> of personal experience and IAFD's reactions in the past (when
> I did on a few occasions bring up discrepancies in a
> performer's biography all I got was "we'll check it out and get
> back to you", and that was the end of that, with no change
> made. So I simply stopped, since I was just wasting my time,
> and IAFD probably assumed I was a crackpot) .

When did you stop doing this? Before or after we installed the User Submission Queue? Did you personally mail Peter or Jeff?
We get about 100 user submissions per day. We deal with each and every one of them. Some are straight forward and will get dealt with almost immediately. Some others require research on our part and that may take awhile. And some we discuss amongst ourselves, before we do anything. When we have questions about a submission, we send an email to the submitter. And sometimes we simply don't agree with a submission. In that case you also should get a reply. There are members here that have submitted corrections/additions in the recent past. They can testify that what I say above is correct.

> Just to give you an example, I recently worked on the
> filmography of an american performer called Ali Kat. I turned
> up 31 titles for her (in addition to 3 obvious compilations).
> IAFD has only 27 titles, that is 4 less than I found, and she
> does not really have an impressive list of moves to begin with.
>
>
> SZ server is down right now, so I can't give you the relevant
> link of the SZ filmography.

First things first. We are missing a measly 4 of her movies? Did you check any other on-line database? Here is Ali Kat's listing on Adult Film Database. Here is Ali Kat on SearchExtreme. Yeah, I agree, the IAFD is terrible, with gaps as wide as the Grand Canyon.

Let's make a deal here. Use the correction button on her page to send us the information on the missing titles. Be sure to give us all the information we need. Not just, "add title X to Ali Kat". The IAFD is NOT and never will be a database for adult stars. Like our name implies, the IAFD is a database on adult MOVIES. The performer's pages only get added to because we add TITLES. You should at least include all (or most) of the other performers in the movie and make it clear to us who they are supposed to be in our database. Once you do that, let's see what will happen to your submission.

> No Database is perfect, and with +10,000 titles circulating
> every year, it is tough to keep up and I appreciate you taking
> the time to enumerate the obstacles. However, those problems
> are there and they need to be pointed out. I believe EGAFD and
> EBI make a better job in their database, but I do understand
> that they have less volume to work with in the first place. But
> identification (on screen and on box cover) of performers in
> Euro films are much much worse than their US counterpart.

No offense meant to either Alec or Sbando, but according to you, we are missing 4 movies for Ali Kat -- not a high profile performer at all. Do you want to take a guess how many movies are missing on the EGAFD for say Maria Bellucci? Adele Wissenthal?Laetitia [2]. To give you a clue, EGAFD lists 44 titles for Laetitia [2]. I have seen her in 84 videos and dammit, I certainly haven't seen all her videos.
It's true that identification on SOME European titles are worse than on SOME American titles. I even agree with you that generally speaking, the credits of American videos are better than on European videos. BUT, 1) IAFD lists many titles with European performers or of European origin as well and 2) this does not negate the fact that many titles we have to deal with on the IAFD -- both American and European -- have lousy credits. I even dare say that we deal with as many problematic titles as EGAFD and EBI combined, simply because we deal with lots and lots of more titles in total.
Ask Alec why he does not include the Private titles in the EGAFD. Take a look at most recent videos from internet sites who use single names only (often completely bogus) -- I already pointed to Pink Visual. Do you really think it's easier to ID a performer in a Mario Salieri flick than it is to ID a performer in an Assman flick? Ask J.J. how he and I have discussed the fuck ups of ]Rocco Ravishes Prague 3. And then I am not even discussing the many films and loop carriers from the 70s and early 80s. If you can tell us who the unknown performers are in Fantasy Girls or Slit Skirts, we would be most grateful.

No my friend, it seems to me that your work on filmographies of single performers has blinded you to the real conditions and even purpose of the IAFD. We can't afford to have the kind of tunnel vision that is needed to compile filmographies in the way you are doing -- or even the EBI boys are doing. What we can do, is to make use of your knowledge to better our more general purpose. But it's up to you to share your knowledge with us.

Let me end this discussion on what I believe is a real problem for the IAFD. We don't have a proper forum -- like EGAFD and EBI. We don't have a community that helps us and its members to make the site better. All we have is individuals whose additions/corrections often go unchecked by the community, leaving all the research to a handful of admins.

I need a vacation.

Author: jj
Date: 04-23-07 18:34

The simplest response to those who [unconstructively] criticise both
databases is this:
I have gotten far, FAR more out of them than I will ever be able to repay.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I have plenty of good things to say about IAFD, EGAFD and EBI. Each one does good work in their own sphere of interest.
But there are good and not so good things in each one.
I and thousands of others consult them frequently, and I have to concur with JJ that I have gotten more out of them than I can repay.
I would hope that my "criticism" was constructive in the sense that I pointed out a lot of the good and some of the bad things (which unfortunately are difficult to deal with within the context of the overwhelming volume, difficult material, general indifference of the major players in the industry, and worthy contributions of the "wise ones" who really care).

Hi guys,

I believe, best thing to do is :

1. prepare each of us a PRIVATE SERIOUS DATABASE.
2. send it to each other so that we can exchange informations.
3. make a cross checking with data coming from other SERIOUS EGAFD and IAFD members.
4. Dumping crap, stupid info coming from users which are totally new to hard-core movies history and state as a movie what, in fact, is a compilation.
5. Create a good SOLID database.

Shall we start ?

I think you have to be a little quixotic even to contemplate such a task.

The alternative is working as a painter on the Forth Bridge :- )