fxreyman

Don't feel to bad Fedya. This is a sore topic around here.

Don't you know that the cruises and the film festivals are only for those high brow Hollywood types? We average Americans/Canadians would never ever think about doing something like that!

I would agree with you that there is much unhappiness about what occurs on Saturday evenings in regards to the Essential series. But where I would disagree with your statement here is that I would say that the unhappiness is really from a core group of posters who when given a chance to vent, will do just that given the opportunity whenever anyone creates a thread complaining about the Essentials in the first place. And I think if one is to go back and look at any or all of the threads that mention the so-called issues with the Essentials, there is a core group of posters who do most of the complaining. There will always be dissatisfied posters here who complain about any number of topics related to programming decisions, choice of guest programmers, decisions related to who appears with Robert Osborne on the Essentials, Ben's lack of facial hair, you name it. But the posters doing most of the complaining are pretty much the same people over and over again. There are new posters who complain as well, just not as many of the posters who come here often to complain who have been here for a while. It's as if nothing TCM does is good enough for them. I wish TCM was less costly and that it was available as cheaply as AMC is so I would not have to pay a premium price for it. I would hope that after time the posters who complain the loudest about the Essentials realize that the series is about introducing films to new viewers who have never watched TCM before. The Essentials has never really been about pleasing the typical, long-time standing TCM viewer. Most of those viewers probably have seen whichever film does appear on the Essentials several times, if not several dozen times or they own the movie themselves and therefore can watch it whenever they want to watch it. And until the posters who complain often or the loudest realize this, then maybe people won't be elevating the discussion about the Essentials into the general discussion about how often a film is repeated but will instead start writing about why the film is considered an Essential in the first place.

It was not meant as a "slam" against Nipkow. It was meant as an accurate statement of what goes on here on this thread and for that matter many other threads. Some like his style of posting, some do not. As far as me "dictating" terms about posting..... You are way off the mark. I was suggesting what in my opinion was the purpose of message boards. To bring people of different backgrounds, beliefs and thought processes together to share their love for whatever a message board is for. In TCM's case a message board about the movies. Thats all I was attempting to say. As far as being more proactive than reactive.... Maybe you should follow your own advice.....

Again, I am very curious to find out if you think that having more view counts are more important to you than actually having more replies/responses to any thread you create? You seem to place a lot of emphasis on the amount of views you get on your threads. Is this really that important to you? I would think that you would want to engage with the posters who come to your threads and have conversations with them about the subject you have created, or at least engage with you on thoughtful conversation.

I agree, especially with this thread in particular. There are a select few individuals who love to come on here and write insipid remarks just to bump the thread up the daily listing of threads. It is clearly an ego thing for them, since they obviously can not engage in otherwise thoughtful conversation. Clearly, many here are smart enough to engage in thoughtful conversation, but some folks seem intent on creating threads just so that their name is out there. Just look at the total amount of threads some folks have started since the message boards underwent their transformation this past spring. I am NOT saying that anyone does not have the right to do this. But what I am saying is that when someone creates as many threads as some do, then I would have to agree with you that they are looking for or craving attention. Many are intent on creating threads and then they seem to want to add useless posts just to bump the threads up. If I have something worthy to write I will do just that. But when all you can do is reply with some sophomoric comment then you really know what or who you are dealing with. Again, not every comment made on this thread or many others are like this, but there are folks who come here everyday to hopefully become engaged in thoughtful discussion which at times leads to healthy debates. This is exactly why a message board is created in the first place.

Again.... Is the purpose of starting a thread to garner as many views as you can or is it more important to have more responses than views? Clearly you and several others here on this thread seem to think that having over 23,000 views is clearly more important to you than having more responses which to me is more important that total views. You write about the quality of the thread and how that influences how you judge it. Okay then..... Does the quality of the thread mean more to you in the number of views or by the number of responses it generates? Forget about the negative communication. Overall are you satisfied with just over 3.55% of the total amount of responses on this thread so far? Wouldn't you love to have far more than 3.55% response rate? Clearly the more views a thread gets means more to you than does the amount of responses. What about this?

I have not failed to acknowledge something that you and a few others here seem to think is an important number…. the amount of views a thread receives. Or the fact that you place such importance on that figure over the amount of replies. I think what all of this importance placed by you and a few others on the total amount of views of threads you have started really just means one thing and one thing only. You have to be at or near the top of every forum as often as you can. I think in many ways this is your way of letting the community know that you are alive and well. It does not matter that many of the threads you start go by the wayside after a few days or weeks, for you it is most important to continue to create as many threads as you can. And keep them at or near the top of every forum you participate in. Some of us just do not have all the time in the world to post several hundred threads per year like you do, or want to post that many in the first place. Some of us are intent on commenting on other people’s threads without making our own. That is the key word that often goes missing whenever you or others tries to explain the value of views…. commenting. As far as I am concerned I think in the eight years since I have been a member here I have started a grand total of three or four threads. One of my threads has been inactive since March of this year. That would be the LISTS thread over on the Favorites Forum which I started way back in January of 2011. And I am sure that you have never written anything on that thread, although I wish you would have over the years. Your comments would be welcomed there. Since the restart of the TCM message boards this past spring the thread had many views but for some reason that number was placed at just over 1100 views where as the actual number of responses is at 1,535. Not bad considering the thread does not get as many visits as some of your threads do. But this is NOT a competition. Speaking of numbers again I refer you to the numbers I used about your thread here. You seem to be inthralled with the idea that a thread you started has amassed over 23,000 views. That is an astonishing number. But again is this the number that really impresses you? Should not a number that equals 10% or more in total responses impress you even more? Would not a total number of response approaching 2,300 be as important as the total number of views? This begs the question….. What is the purpose of a thread on a message board? To garner as many views as possible and to keep it at or near the top of a forum? Or is it to garner as many responses as it can so that the conversation is always growing? I would venture to say that the more responses a thread receives is definitely more important than the amount of views. Even though over 23,000 is quite impressive. Still I think that the main purpose of a message board is to engage with other posters. Share ideas and thoughts. Debate topics for weeks on end. Involve others and get them involved with the discussion. What you have here is a stagnation of thought and ideas. Sure you have a lot of people viewing the thread. But don’t any of them have anything to add to the thread? And isn’t this the most important reason to come to a message board….. to communicate with others with back and forth debate and discussion?

This is test.

This is the first accurate statement you have ever written.

Yes, we the TCM flag waivers just get sooo upset and have foam at our mouths whenever anyone dares to speak against the holiness that is TCM..... There is just one problem with your opinion. It is flawed. We, the supposed flag waivers of TCM aren't so much getting upset whenever anyone disparages TCM, but in fact try to set the record straight for many of you who constantly complain about the goings on at TCM. One way we do this is we try and bring a sense of order and logic to the conversations here. I don’t know how often I have copied and pasted remarks made by the programming chief of TCM, Charlie Tabesh who has clearly gone on record to explain just how TCM goes about acquiring films and how they must conform to the demands of the distributors whom TCM gets their films from. Its not just how TCM must agree to purchase a certain amount of films, but also not every film is available. This has been written several hundred times here on the boards. People complain as if TCM can just go down to their video store on the corner and rent whichever film they want to. It does not work that way, and by now all of you should know this. Tiki is right. TCM purchases blocks of films and in many cases in that one block of films, there might be several stinkers that TCM must show multiple times throughout the year just in order to show one or two films that they wanted to show in the first place. That is what’s so discouraging about some of the complaints on this thread. No matter how much actual factual information that is given out there is still a core group of people who are willing to believe that TCM is not living up to the standards that they believe the channel should be adhering to. No amount of facts or logic will persuade some folks from believing what they believe. As far as a second Classic TCM channel, again that topic has been discussed at length. Several reasons suggest that it would never happen. Especially now that Time Warner has instituted severe cuts at their corporate channels. As far as the comments I wrote in my original post to Top Billed, I apologize for what I wrote. But still the message is clear from several others here. No amount of factual information will ever be believed simply because some folks do not live in reality. And this is sad. So whenever you folks who believe in what you think is going on at TCM, go back and dig up those comments made by Charlie Tabesh and or read Will McKinley’s fine blog post about what he learned at the TCM festival in 2013… http://willmckinley.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/10-things-i-learned-at-the-tcm-classic-film-festival/ Of course, the naysayers will still not be convinced. Oh well, I tried yet again.

The only indication that people are upset with the programming on TCM is on the message boards. Which if I understand correctly usually has no more than about 20 people making comments at any point during the day. Yes, there are times when that number swells, probably to about 30 at most. But most of the people doing the complaining here abouts are the same people who complain most of the time. Otherwise there is NO clear indication from ANY source just how many people watch TCM or why they leave TCM to go to other channels like Me-TV. And until TCM starts showing commercials, we may never know what those numbers are.

I am just going to post this one reply to you and you'll just have to argue with yourself, okay? Obviously I was not quick enough to make my edits to my post to you. Having said this now I wished I had left well enough alone and just left my comments the way I originally wrote them. I am NOT being rude. In fact I think what I wrote originally could be considered a compliment of sorts. You do stroll around here looking to make the most ingenious comments than anyone else can or would make. And for some reason you think that a thread with almost 23,000 views is a great accomplishment. It would be a great accomplishment if your thread here had more than 10% actual comments instead of the paltry 3.55% the thread has as of now. I wonder why there aren't anymore replies to this thread than other threads with far less views have? What do you think? Do you really subscribe to the point of view that creating a thread just to gather the most views is more important than gathering the most responses?? I wonder.

The whole idea behind the Essentials from the beginning was to showcase certain types of films TCM and their programming staff thought would be guides to classic films. Of course as the channel has gotten older some of the Essentials shown are from more recent decades. This has always been the case. And that for the everyday viewer of TCM, the Essentials was not really meant for that kind of viewer. It was meant to show newer viewers what film essentials were all about. As far as the repeats are concerned, I may be wrong about this but I do seem to recall reading that most essential films only get shown no more than twice a season.

Truly amazing to me how some people seem to think that what TCM has done trying to expand their audience while at the same time giving many fans a chance to meet old time movie stars, and others involved in the movie making process and see wonderful classic films on the big screen in Hollywood and go on wonderful cruises would stoop so low as to indicate that they are somehow misguided in these attempts. I think that whenever TCM gets a chance to do whatever they can do to expnad the appeal of their channel, whether that be cruises or the film festival, I say that is a good thing. The programming can only do so much as evidence by comments made by Charlie Tabesh time and time again.

You are forgetting the folks over at MSNBC. I do agree that some in the supposedly irresponsible so-called MSM has had some bad actors of late but what violent acts are you speaking of?

Be careful James, soon TB will place you on ignore.....

Hey, Buck was a good, campy show, especially the first season with Tim O'Conner as Dr. Huer and Colonel Wilma Deering played by the very sexy Erin Gray. I agree no comparison to the original Star Trek, but hey it was the late 70's.

Oh yeah. I forgot you are a Canuck. Sorry about that.

If it weren't for those a-holes, you would not be sitting here right now taking part in this conversation. Not all the founding fathers were slave owners. I hope everyone realizes that.

1910’s: Intolerance 1916 1920’s: The Gold Rush 1925 1930’s: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 1936 1940’s: Double Indemnity 1944 1950’s: On the Waterfront 1954 1960’s: The Sound of Music 1965 1970’s: All the President’s Men 1976 1980’s: Ghostbusters 1984 1990’s: Toy Story 1995 2000’s: Harry Potter series

This is why they still call it "Medical Science". Everyone has seemed to forgotten that whenever any doctor goes into a surgery anything can happen when the human body is being operated on. My wife Annie had a complete ankle replacement surgery on her left ankle almost one year ago. The surgeon told us up front that based on the MRI and other imagery tests that her ankle was in really bad shape and that just removing the old ankle would take over two hours and then another two hours to install the new titanium ankle. When he got in there he found that her old ankle was completely depressed and it only took a 1/2 hour to remove the old ankle and just another 2 hours to place the new ankle in it's place. So a 4 to five hour surgery was averted simply because the surgeon did NOT have all the answers from what he was seeing on imagery scans.

Maybe she can get her old face back now.

I really do not understand why some people are having problems searching. As has been explained by others, the simplest way to perform a search is to go up to the top menu bar where it says: WATCH TCM SCHEDULE MONTH HIGHLIGHTS COMMUNITY and then TCMDB Click on the TCMDB and select Database Movies. This then takes you to another window where at the top is a search window. Be sure to select ALL. Type in your inquiry and hit SEARCH. What happens next is several pages of articles related to what you search pops up. This is what happened when I typed in The China Syndrome. See my screen shot. So I still do not understand why people are having problems with this. As far as the film being shown again, I am not really sure that info will be found during a search. Your best bet is to check the online schedule each month to see if it is there. The only other option you have is to see if the film is available for rent at your local video store, library, on YouTube, NetFlix, HULU or any other downloading service. Of course if you are really interested in the film you could always buy the film.

JOHN WAYNE: THE EPIC COLLECTION Warner Brothers $108 or lower if bought online Movies included in John Wayne: The Epic Collection: 1930s Big Stampede, Ride Him Cowboy, Haunted Gold, Telegraph Trail, Somewhere in Sonora, Man from Monterey, Allegheny Uprising 1940s Reunion in France, Tall in the Saddle, Back to Bataan, They Were Expendable, Without Reservations, Tycoon, Fort Apache, The Three Godfathers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon 1950s Flying Leathernecks, Operation Pacific, Big Jim McLain, Trouble Along the Way, Blood Alley, The Sea Chase, The Searchers, The Wings of Eagles, Rio Bravo 1960s Hatari, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, How The West Was Won: Special Edition, Donovan's Reef, In Harm's Way, The Sons of Katie Elder, El Dorado, The Green Berets, True Grit 1970s Chisum, The Cowboys: Deluxe Edition, Cahill: U.S. Marshall, The Train Robbers, McQ, The Shootist John Wayne - John Ford Film Collection (7-Pack) $99 or lower if bought online The Searchers Ultimate Edition Stagecoach Two-Disc Special Edition Fort Apache She Wore a Yellow Ribbon The Long Voyage Home They Were Expendable 3 Godfathers The Wings of Eagles) The John Wayne Movie Collection $31 or lower if bought online The Big Trail The Barbarian and the Geisha The Horse Soldiers North to Alaska The Comancheros The Longest Day The Undefeated