Re: General Chit Chat Season 23

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 5:56 pm

GymGirlJane wrote:Yes psyche you are mostly correct. DWTS is a contest (as opposed to a lottery) and limiting voting to US residents and people over the age of 18 just makes compliance with every applicable law and regulation manageable. International compliance is extremely difficult and costly. So you would want to limit participation so that only US state and federal laws/regs applied.

Its the same thing with age. There are all sorts of different state rules that apply to minors taking part in contests and you are better off limiting participation to those over the age of 18. Simple as that.

But I recall answering this same question on the old board. The answer has not changed. There are no big conspiracies. Although that will not stop folks from claiming that there are.

Thanks for the response, GGJ. Yes, I remember having the same conversation on the old board, too.

I think their policy has been the same for as long as the show has been around. But whenever the issue comes up, it seems to be prompted by something that is newly written. Perhaps they are just writing the rules in a clearer fashion.

In a sensible world, at some point, decades hence, I would imagine that there would be some call for carving out one set of simple international rules for TV "popularity contests" like DWTS so that everyone could participate in the show who wanted to. But this is not a sensible world. Heck, this isn't even a sensible country where "law creation" is concerned. So many agendas, so many turf battles, so much polarization over stuff that just seems like common sense to me. It boggles my mind.

by GymGirlJane Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:08 pm

Psychee22 wrote:

In a sensible world, at some point, decades hence, I would imagine that there would be some call for carving out one set of simple international rules for TV "popularity contests" like DWTS so that everyone could participate in the show who wanted to. But this is not a sensible world. Heck, this isn't even a sensible country where "law creation" is concerned. So many agendas, so many turf battles, so much polarization over stuff that just seems like common sense to me. It boggles my mind.

Well, lets see. Do you want to use our rules or the rules they apply in Saudi Arabia? Or the Soviet Union? North Korea perhaps? I'll stick with "not sensible" if thats what avoiding an outcome like that means. :-)

by **Lesallee** Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:31 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:How do you post pictures from the internet?

Glitters, I know how to do it but I don't really know to explain it succinctly and plainly. Hopefully someone more tech savvy will come to your aide. If no one does I will pm you and attempt to tell you what I do.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:40 pm

Lesallee wrote:Ah, but, Psychee, I voted for years on the ABC site and on FB right up to and including last season. As did thousands of other Canadians. Suddenly now it's a no go zone. Why did these legalities just become crucial now? Pretty strange and I am still cheesed off.

Was it three seasons ago that ABC required us to set up new accounts where they asked for our zip codes, and if the zip code was not in the US, people were given the "sorry" message ? It happened at the same time that Canada no longer carried the show on Canadian TV, I remember... we were still on the old board. To get around that, folks just put in a zip code that was in the US, if I recall. Do you remember that?

It was still possible then to vote via Facebook, though, if I recall. I don't do Facebook, so I can't speak to that issue, but it does seem to me that Facebook gets more sophisticated every year and that it might now have capabilities of excluding people that it did not have before. If that is the case, then that would explain this year's new blocking feature.

But anyway, when we researched the problem of excluding Canadians back then, we were told that the policy had always been the same, and that Disney was just closing avenues that internationals had been able to use with the old system.

Not that I don't understand and feel for your frustration. I do. But where there are laws, there are consequences for not abiding by them, and I don't see Disney taking any risks with international law that they don't have to. Folks like to sue them for the smallest things because they are perceived as having deep pockets. If a country sues Disney, for whatever reason, it is big news, it blows up into a big deal, and stock prices start to plummet. The risk for them is too high, I think.

I learned about this international contest problem about 20 years ago in a contest that was run by Twentieth Century Fox to publicize an animated space movie. It was an online thing. People "built" spaceships and got others to join them. A whole RPG world was built around the ships. I had a ship of my own and I had recruited 600+ young people into our fantasy. There were quite a lot of Ozzies and Kiwis on my ship, in officer roles, no less. They were working their butts off recruiting more. When the movie was a week away from being released, there was some kind of computer shooting game that we all had to do, and the winning ship, and the winning shooter from that ship, all were promised prizes. Fox had been totally aware that internationals were participating. The movie was being released internationally, so that was good for them. But the day after we did our shooting thing, while we were waiting for the announcement of the winner, Fox uploaded a new set of rules which stated that only residents of the US could participate! Can you imagine? All those kids, who had worked so hard, suddenly had the door slammed in their face. Worse is that my ship won and the top shooter, who was going to win a really terrific bicycle, was economically struggling and lived in NZ. I then became a righteously angry mama bear problem for Fox; I created quite a stink, and eventually they coughed up prizes for my crew. But I did learn about international contest laws being a problem and that when lawyers are brought in late into the process, a lot of feelings get hurt.

by **Glittersisgld** Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:59 pm

Lesallee wrote:
Glittersisgld wrote:How do you post pictures from the internet?
Glitters, I know how to do it but I don't really know to explain it succinctly and plainly. Hopefully someone more tech savvy will come to your aide. If no one does I will pm you and attempt to tell you what I do.

From looking on the internet, it looks more complicated than I thought. I thought you just right click and press something.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:10 pm

GymGirlJane wrote:
Psychee22 wrote:

In a sensible world, at some point, decades hence, I would imagine that there would be some call for carving out one set of simple international rules for TV "popularity contests" like DWTS so that everyone could participate in the show who wanted to. But this is not a sensible world. Heck, this isn't even a sensible country where "law creation" is concerned. So many agendas, so many turf battles, so much polarization over stuff that just seems like common sense to me. It boggles my mind.
Well, lets see. Do you want to use our rules or the rules they apply in Saudi Arabia? Or the Soviet Union? North Korea perhaps? I'll stick with "not sensible" if thats what avoiding an outcome like that means. :-)

I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. When I say that the law-making process is not sensible to me, I'm talking about simple rules -- like where a homeowner needs to place his trash container on the day of trash pickup in my hometown. In the street by the curb? Or on the sidewalk? Or the driveway? Six months of arguing about this stupid issue in town hall meetings to make the rule. HUGE turf battles!

Or... how about something like getting Congress to hand over the Zika funding? It should have been done MONTHS ago. Everyone in Congress had to have appreciated the need. But instead, turf battles.

These fights are not productive.

But if I were to come up with an international rule for DWTS involvement, it would involve finding a way to define shows like this as NOT being contests for the voters. After all, the voters can't win anything. They aren't risking anything. There isn't a means whereby some unscrupulous person can take financial advantage of them. They are just participating in helping to determine how popular the couples are. It is no different than "liking" something on Youtube. If there was a way to get international agreement that said that shows like this are not contests for the voters and that therefore "contest rules" should not apply (except for the couples themselves), that would be a good start. Then I guess that would have to agreed to on a country-by-country basis. We could start with the US, getting all the states to agree -- thereby allowing 14-18 year olds to vote for their favorite. If we were able to get that we could then see if similar things could be effected in Canada. Pie-in-the-sky thinking, I know, but that would be my route.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:16 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:How do you post pictures from the internet?

Glitters, a lot depends on what browser you are using and what the image is that you are trying to copy. But on a Windows system, you can often right click on a picture and choose "copy image". Then you can click inside a message here and control-V to paste that copied image.

It does not work all the time. It doesn't work for copying instagrams, for instance. And sometimes people upload images with protections on them so that no one can copy them.

Just in case you don't know: Control-V means you depress the Control key and the V key at the same time.

by **Glittersisgld** Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:28 pm

Okay. That's what I thought. I tried to copy into a Word document but that didn't work, but I will try to copy when I write a message. Thank you very much. I was hoping it was that easy.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:31 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:Okay. That's what I thought. I tried to copy into a Word document but that didn't work, but I will try to copy when I write a message. Thank you very much. I was hoping it was that easy.

To copy text, use Control-C. That's the copy command.

by **Glittersisgld** Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:32 pm

I think I did that before, but I haven't done pictures. Thank you.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:33 pm

Creative Arts Emmys 2016

Out of 8 nominations, DWTS only got one Emmy, and that was for Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control For A Series in one of the Finals.

I was hoping that Tom Bergeron would finally get his for the show, but he did not.

And I was hoping that Derek would get one for Choreography, but I knew that Quest Crew was better. So when Quest Crew got theirs, I was not surprised. It was well deserved. But then they ALSO gave a choreo Emmy to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which no one saw coming. That was a big surprise. When that got a nomination, folks were saying "what???". At first glance, the choreography in the nominated clips did not seem to be more complicated than, say, the background singer moves in a 60's pop group. But I guess there is more to it and it is a whole new genre of choreography --TV shows that tell a story through song -- and I think that was a big part of the Emmys this year: diversification.

So both Travis Wall (who poured his life story into one of the dances he was nominated for) and Derek, both who won Emmys last year, were not given Emmys this year. Their fans will be very sad.

Interesting note: They had Julianne Hough give out these awards.

Finally, I was hoping that the show would get best structured Reality Show, but Shark Tank got that!

The rest of the awards, like lighting, makeup, costumes, and whatever, all went to worthy adversaries. They were against pretty tough competition.

by **DeadManDancing** Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:54 pm

I thought Tom already had one? As for the rest of it, let's face the fact in spite of all the changes DWTS is vintage; so the honour of being considered for some nominations is probably all they'll ever get. Not that it matters for me.

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:04 pm

Didn't they get a bunch of nominations last year? And what about MASH that ran for 11 years? Didn't they keep getting Emmys? If shows run for a long time, I think they keep getting nominated.

by **DeadManDancing** Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:06 pm

Nominated, yes. Rewarded, no.

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:27 pm

MASH won Emmys until their last year. I'm surprised DWTS has only one nomination.

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:39 pm

I'm confused. Are Creative Arts Emmys different than Emmys? There are three nominations for DWTS, Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program, Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:42 pm

I guess they are different. That is confusing. What other Emmys would there be if they weren't creative?

by **Psychee22** Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:02 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:I'm confused. Are Creative Arts Emmys different than Emmys? There are three nominations for DWTS, Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program, Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

The "Creative Arts" Emmys consist of something like 94 categories that rarely make it to the big show due to time constraints. They cover categories like Lighting, camera blocking, makeup, hair, documentaries, reality shows -- instead of categories like "Best Actor in a Prime Time Drama Series", which more people are interested in (and which fills the theater with A-Listers). So they are like the awards that are relegated to the "children's table" at the holiday meal. And this year, there were so many of them that they had to be given out over two nights, instead of one, and someone is going to edit all that footage and carve it down to a one night's televised show next week on some cable channel.

This year, DWTS got 8 nominations (you listed three of the eight) , and that was quite a lot. Out of those nominations,. they got one trophy.

Tom Bergeron did get an Emmy for DWTS four years ago; I just wanted him to get another one! (He also has a Daytime Emmy for Hollywood Squares).

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:20 pm

Thank you for your explanation. He could get another one with the Emmys.

by **Psychee22** Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:32 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:Thank you for your explanation. He could get another one with the Emmys.

In future years, yes, but not this year. The Emmy for his hosting category went to RuPaul, who was off my radar, but who apparently hosts a show about drag queens called "RuPaul's Drag Race"?

by **Glittersisgld** Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:56 pm

Oh, they separate them. They already had these awards. They don't have time for all the awards on one night.

by **Psychee22** Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:59 pm

Glittersisgld wrote:Oh, they separate them. They already had these awards. They don't have time for all the awards on one night.

Exactly. There are probably 100 more categories today than there were when the Emmys were started, so they had to choose which ones they were going to broadcast on the big night.

by Oakma Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:08 pm

Too bad they cut back on who can vote.Seems people who are "engaged" in the process would be more likely to watch.

Wonder if the Canadian fans are/will still be watching ....

by **Lesallee** Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:52 pm

This Canadian fan is watching even though I'm disenfranchised and somewhat disgruntled! CTV is carrying the show here.

I'm contemplating getting a VPN, not just for DWTS because ABC isn't the only American network that doesn't allow any Canadian participation. A lot of extra video on Survivor is unavailable outside the U.S. It would also allow me to access UK shows like Strictly Come Dancing.

by **Psychee22** Sun Sep 18, 2016 3:47 am

Lesallee wrote:This Canadian fan is watching even though I'm disenfranchised and somewhat disgruntled! CTV is carrying the show here.

I'm contemplating getting a VPN, not just for DWTS because ABC isn't the only American network that doesn't allow any Canadian participation. A lot of extra video on Survivor is unavailable outside the U.S. It would also allow me to access UK shows like Strictly Come Dancing

If you do decide to use a VPN for DWTS, log onto Facebook via that VPN and change your location on your facebook account to US or nothing before trying to vote. It is apparently working for fans in Europe.

BTW, I once looked at VPN services for accessing Austrailian TV and discovered that the cost to me was very reasonable and something that could be done on a month by month basis -- it was something like $5 per month. But that might be because I only wanted Australian TV; presumably the cost would be higher to access a country with a greater number of TV programs. But free trials were also available.

by Sponsored content