egafd.com

You raise a good point [not that the other points are bad !] about the lack of an iafd-linked forum- are RAME/adultdvdtalk no use in this respect? [I ask because I rarely visit either, due to the inevitable time-constraint].

Aside from Private of course, the other unploughed biggie here is AVN/Seventeen. That would be the work of several lifetimes.

BTW, send us a postcard :- )

tintoretto2 wrote:
> 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.
This is, in essence, how bgafd/egafd began, I believe. There's only so much
a small group can do, however- so many women/films, so little time....and
who decides who is 'serious'? A relative neophyte can make as valuable a
contribution as an old crusty as long as the submitted material is accurate
and is available publicly for emendation- that's the point of the
forum, as opposed to a more or less secretive cabal who garner all
knowledge to themselves before making ex-cathedra pronunciamentos on matters
Europorn-related.

> 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.
Mistakes made publicly can be swiftly amended. Get the material out
there for as many eyes to see as possible, and sort the finer points after.

> 5. Create a good SOLID database. Shall we start ?
Already done, and done.

Len801 wrote:

> 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").

I'm not sure what you mean with authentic. I do know it's not always a straightforward term. This thread offers very good examples -- remember, the topic was doubles. Joe D'Amato has made a number of films in the States. They were released in the US by Moonlight (if I remember correctly). So, are the Moonlight titles the originals, or the versions released in Europe? Same is true with Christophe Clark's titles, which were made for Evil Angel. Yet, they are listed on the EGAFD as French originals released by VMD, while VMD is nothing more than the French distributor (with awful French dubbing or voice over, yuk).

> 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.

Well, the conclusion I would make is that it is suspicious at the very least. That's why we have added a new function in our Data Entry Tool. The tool gives a warning every time we add a title to a performer's list that is removed more than 3 years from the current active years of the performer. We have to confirm that we want to add the title after all. So, at least the last couple of months, we have only been adding titles which seems out of synch when we are really, realy sure.

>
> 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?

Yes, I know of many of such problems. That is why I have been saying all this time that we spend about twice as much time making corrections to the database than adding new titles.
There are several issues at stake here.
1) We are careful when we make corrections. We like to be really sure about what we are doing. If something was done in the past, we have to assume first that there was a reason. So, we tend to leave old entries alone, unless we have almost 100% proof that the entry is wrong.
2) While it's often not that hard to establish that something is wrong, it's often a lot harder to put it right. It might be easy to assume that the girl from the fetish tape of 1998 is not the Jazmine from the Seymore Butts title of 1992. But we don't even know that for sure, let alone that we know at this point who the girl in the fetish video really is. So, in fact we might as well make a mistake now by either moving the title to a different performer or by creating a new perfid for her. We would in fact replace on old mistake with a new one. Since there are many other mistakes in the database that needs our attention, we again tend to focus on those mistakes that can be solved completely, where we can not only establish that something is wrong, but where we can actually put it right, instead of possibly creating a new mistake.


> 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.

I know. All of our admins know. I am certain that Alec knows as well. We all try to be accurate. But boy, it does not come easy, does it.

> 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?

We are having discussions all the time about what kind of information we should list in the database.
At the moment, we are listing release dates -- which are often but not always copyright dates. These can differ from the actual production dates, as being listed in the 2257 statement for American movies.
This discussion is in fact part of a bigger discussion -- and IMO a bigger and more important problem. How do we deal with different versions of the same movie. This discussion has been ongoing in the admin forum for at least a year, and while we all agree that we have a problem, we can't find an easy answer. Not within the current structure of the database. It would mean a complete overhaul of the coding behind the database, something Jeff is understandbly not looking forward to.
Let me try to clarify with some examples.

- How should we treat European versions of Max Hardcore movies? Do we create seperate listings? Or should we clearly mark the differences on 1 title page? In this case, the runtime might differ. And certainly also sex acts. The cast list and the scene breakdown would be the same however.
At this moment, we simply can not mark differences of any kind between the different versions on one page. The structure of the database is not equipped to handle this. Also, which version should we regard as the authentic one? The American version, which could be described as being censored, or the European version?
- How do we treat European movies released in the States? Since all our vendors are American (at this moment), we have to use the American titles as the main title. Otherwise our automatic linking to the vendors will not take place. Yet, we want to make it clear that the video is in fact European. So, we have come up with a compromise of sorts. We use the American title and distributor, but we mention the original title, distributor and country of origin in the title aka field. Also, we list the release date of the original instead of the American release date, so we don't fuck up the Years Active field.
I am relatively satisfied with this system -- I am used to using original titles only in my private database though. It is adequate for many videos. However, not for all. What if there are significant differences between the American release and the 'original' European release (which is often problematic to establish anyway, as the EGAFD has shown so often). Take a look at our page for Une femme honn?te. Disregard for a moment that this title is still listed in the old style (with the original title as the main one and the American title as AKA). Even more problematic is the fact that the data we list is only correct for the heavily edited American version released by Classic X. The IAFD lists a runtime of only 35 minutes (instead of the 60 of the French original), probably because the rape scene at the beginning of the film is completely missing (as is the girl-girl scene with Pierac and Saint Clair).

All of this shows that many, many things of the IAFD are unsatisfactory in many ways. We are working on most of them, but some changes are easier to implement than others.

Author: Walter Burns
Date: 04-23-07 19:25

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.
>
> http://www.iafd.com/person.rme/perfid=A ... li-Kat.htm
> 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.
-------------------------------------------------------
Walter, Walter relax. I am not suffering from tunnelvision. It's just that I can and do dedicate more time on a particular performer's filmography. I usually spend dozens and dozens of hours tracking down info on a (female) performer's filmography than IAFD or EGAFD can perhaps (and no I just don't list titles and that's it, I try to determine exact title as it appears on video box cover, distributor, year/date of release, date of production, director, co-star, running time, sites where they are avaiable, box covers, etc.)
I am not working on a database of 50,000 titles, or 30,000 performers. That is not my goal. I do on an average 4 filmos per month. So obviously I can afford to be more thorough. That hardly qualifies as "tunnelvision".
I often share info with EGAFD and Alec, often in private and on occasion publicly in this forum. I am not greedy with information. I have not shared as much lately with IAFD for reasons already stated, but if you welcome and solicit info, by all means I will put it to the test.

Ali Kat was just an example, I did not mean that to be a general indication of discrepancies with ALL filmographies. All I was pointing out is that some titles escape you because they are under the radar and because they may be produced by smaller outfits. The other problem is that you cannot know whether "Jane" billed in a movie is Jane (1), Jane (2), Jane (3), Jane (24). I know you have to "park" it somewhere, and years later when movie is out of cuirculation, no box cover or review is available, no one can tell anymore what movies Jane (1), Jane (24) did with great certainty.
I understand all the points you have pointed out. There is nothing there I did not hear before.
When Peter was I alive I did on a few occasions e-mail IAFD with some discrepancies in the database. I usually got a response from him with some indication that he would look into it. I know how busy he was, so I did not pester him with follow-ups, and so when I heard nothing further and database was not corrected, I took that to mean that my input was of no great importance, and so I stopped.
You are saying IAFD reacts better now? If that is the case I will try you out and bring to your attention some discrepancies I recently found, and perhaps we can be of mutual help.
With regards to a proper forum, is RAME newsgroup dead now (it was full of spam and everyone had fled the place). EBI just lost their forum and they are re-setting it up. There was a suggestion many made when RAME n/g became "robotic", and the administrators at IAFD were not in favor of a forum where you had to register to post messages, etc.

We are having discussions all the time about what kind of information we should list in the database.
At the moment, we are listing release dates -- which are often but not always copyright dates. These can differ from the actual production dates, as being listed in the 2257 statement for American movies.
This discussion is in fact part of a bigger discussion -- and IMO a bigger and more important problem. How do we deal with different versions of the same movie. This discussion has been ongoing in the admin forum for at least a year, and while we all agree that we have a problem, we can't find an easy answer. Not within the current structure of the database. It would mean a complete overhaul of the coding behind the database, something Jeff is understandbly not looking forward to.
Let me try to clarify with some examples.

- How should we treat European versions of Max Hardcore movies? Do we create seperate listings? Or should we clearly mark the differences on 1 title page? In this case, the runtime might differ. And certainly also sex acts. The cast list and the scene breakdown would be the same however.
At this moment, we simply can not mark differences of any kind between the different versions on one page. The structure of the database is not equipped to handle this. Also, which version should we regard as the authentic one? The American version, which could be described as being censored, or the European version?
- How do we treat European movies released in the States? Since all our vendors are American (at this moment), we have to use the American titles as the main title. Otherwise our automatic linking to the vendors will not take place. Yet, we want to make it clear that the video is in fact European. So, we have come up with a compromise of sorts. We use the American title and distributor, but we mention the original title, distributor and country of origin in the title aka field. Also, we list the release date of the original instead of the American release date, so we don't fuck up the Years Active field.
I am relatively satisfied with this system -- I am used to using original titles only in my private database though. It is adequate for many videos. However, not for all. What if there are significant differences between the American release and the 'original' European release (which is often problematic to establish anyway, as the EGAFD has shown so often). Take a look at our page for Une femme honn?te. Disregard for a moment that this title is still listed in the old style (with the original title as the main one and the American title as AKA). Even more problematic is the fact that the data we list is only correct for the heavily edited American version released by Classic X. The IAFD lists a runtime of only 35 minutes (instead of the 60 of the French original), probably because the rape scene at the beginning of the film is completely missing (as is the girl-girl scene with Pierac and Saint Clair).

All of this shows that many, many things of the IAFD are unsatisfactory in many ways. We are working on most of them, but some changes are easier to implement than others.
----------------------------------------------
I am glad you have cooled down a bit, Walter. I thank you again for your feedback and comment, and do appreciate you taking the time from your busy schedule.
There are two main differences difference between the EGAFD and IAFD database, i.e. information contained in the film title and what type of activity the female actress performs (anal, DP, etc).
IAFD lists the main (pertinent) information: title, year of release, running time, director name, male and female cast and for some time now scene breakdown. EGAFD is able to add additional information (plot breakdown, general comments). IAFD does not. So if you were trying to make a distinction between the Euro uncut version of a Max Hardcore title (pissing, fisting, vomiting, etc) and its severely cut American version, IAFD does not presently have a place to highlight such information. Would you really need to list these as two different titles? Not if you could raise an additional space to highlight the difference between one version and the other. The same could be said for the older American classics which contain supposedly "difficult" material which has been cut from videos in general circulation now (rape, fisting, pissing, etc).

I understand that for some of you these different titles listed for the same movie don't bring anything new. But on the other hand to me it is helpful.

I don't see this database as only a directory or a listing. To me it is a tool that help me find movies.

There are movies that I have been able to see because I found them using the title of a version in another language or an alternative title instead of the original one.

For example Dolly Buster made a movie titled Casting by Rita. I could not find a site where I could see scenes. Recently I saw that movie in Deltadivenere with an italian title: Sbattimi in tutti i buchi (this title is not listed in egafd). With that title I was able to find some scenes.

There are numerous exemples of that and if Egafd has not been listing these titles in other languages or compilations or alternatives, there are many scenes I would not have been able to see.

So to me this is not a database for scolars but a helpful tool that allows fans of a girl, a director, etc.. to fnd the movies he is looking for. The more infos, even redundant, the best it is to me.

This may not be the mission of this database, but I am sure that I am not the only one using this database partly or uniquely for this reason.

I really can't understand how users of this database or IAFD can even start to think to criticize the work made (FOR FREE) by the people there. We don't pay for the infos we pick, if not by contributing with more infos. I think one should make only suggestions or express a preference as to how the two db work: keeping in mind though that the administrators must have had their reasons to organize the db like they did and so that the last word is theirs: and rightly so. We have just to thank the people here and there for their dedication, patience and assiduity (which I wouldn't have). Of course the information both here and there is partial and imperfect. But that's a given issue with porn. Nobody's got the truth here.
Thank you folks!