tv.com

[Phil Reynolds]

Does anyone here know anything about the website tv.com? I've been vaguely aware of it for some time inasmuch as pages from it sometimes come up as hits when I'm Googling something. But yesterday I discovered something that really surprised me - namely, that it has an episode guide for what seems like every episode of Weakest Link that includes contestants' full names (which are almost never revealed on the show). At last, after five years, I've finally found out the full names of my fellow contestants and have been able to Google some of them and find out what they're up to these days.

Annoyingly, my own name is misspelled in the list, which is probably why I've never found the page until now. I registered with the site in the hope that I could edit the page, but you have to be a "Level 2 user" before you can do stuff like that, which means I have to start posting blog entries and shit. The site is insanely difficult to navigate around and there doesn't seem to be a FAQ or anything useful like that.

What makes me curious though is: how did the site get hold of our names?

[Jon Corby]

What makes me curious though is: how did the site get hold of our names?

People on the internet can find out everything about you. Beware.

How did they manage to misspell your name, out of curiosity?

[Phil Reynolds]

People on the internet can find out everything about you. Beware.

True but unhelpful in this particular case. I'm sure that if I saw a specific contestant on a specific show and decided I wanted to know more about them, then armed with their forename, occupation and home town I could probably find out quite a bit about them, including their surname. But the fact that tv.com appears to have all nine contestants' full names for every WL episode up to October 2007, at which point it abruptly stops, suggests that something more systematic was going on. I'm guessing that either the production company have sold this information to the website, or that someone working on the show during that period was leaking it.

How did they manage to misspell your name, out of curiosity?

They missed off the 's'.

[Matt Morrison]

I've been using the site for a long time - until a couple of years ago it was http://www.tvtome.com... I got so used to typing the address in lower case I've completely forgotten whether that was TV Tome or TV To Me.

I've always used it for keeping track of episode names, forthcoming airdates and so on (it was fantastic with such detailed information before Wikipedia caught up). I've never tried using the damn thing as a 'proper member', assuming most of the community aspect bit was restricted to ratings and comments on episodes, although I did realise it was all user-maintained - especially noticeable when you look around a bit and find some shows have way more info than you'd expect and others are surprisingly sparse.

[Phil Reynolds]

How did they manage to misspell your name, out of curiosity?

They missed off the 's'.

Without much effort at all really, I've been promoted to Level 2 so I've now been able to edit the page to correct the spelling. I've also tracked down email addresses for several of my fellow contestants and am contemplating emailing them a link to my account of the day, though I may chicken out when it comes to the scary woman who claimed I voted her off tactically in round 7...

[Phil Reynolds]

Does anyone here know anything about the website tv.com? I've been vaguely aware of it for some time inasmuch as pages from it sometimes come up as hits when I'm Googling something. But yesterday I discovered something that really surprised me - namely, that it has an episode guide for what seems like every episode of Weakest Link that includes contestants' full names (which are almost never revealed on the show).

Interestingly, since I posted a query about this on the site's forums, the contestant names have been quietly removed.

[Derek Hazell]

Interestingly, since I posted a query about this on the site's forums, the contestant names have been quietly removed.

Unlike IMDb, who have decided that they'd like contestant names for quiz/game shows.

inasmuch

I feel even more of an idiot now!

[Phil Reynolds]

inasmuch

I feel even more of an idiot now!

[Derek Hazell]

Does anyone here know anything about the website tv.com? I've been vaguely aware of it for some time inasmuch as pages from it sometimes come up as hits when I'm Googling something. But yesterday I discovered something that really surprised me - namely, that it has an episode guide for what seems like every episode of Weakest Link that includes contestants' full names (which are almost never revealed on the show). At last, after five years, I've finally found out the full names of my fellow contestants and have been able to Google some of them and find out what they're up to these days.

What makes me curious though is: how did the site get hold of our names?

Interestingly, in this week's new Radio Times it says that even the production team don't have records of the contestants' surnames or home towns.

This was in response to a reader's question about highest and lowest winning amounts (£5420 to Ravi, and £750 to Rob, incidently).

[Phil Reynolds]

Interestingly, since I posted a query about this on the site's forums, the contestant names have been quietly removed.

Since I posted the above, they've been quietly reinstated.