OT: Changes at IMDb

[fiamme red]

I'm a movie fanatic, and IMDb has long been one of my favorite websites. I've used it countless times to help decide whether I should go see something, and then afterwards I really enjoy reading reviews and comparing my reactions with those of other viewers.

I'm so disappointed by their recent changes, especially not allowing a user to sort reviews by chronological order or "loved it" or "hated it." Now, the reviews are only sorted by "helpfulness." So if you post a new review for a movie that already has several hundred reviews, the likelihood is that no one will ever see it, because no one has yet voted it as "helpful," and who wants to scroll down so far?

The IMDb message boards were disabled earlier this year. It's sad to see a great website destroy itself. How many people continue to use Photobucket after all their old links were disabled?

It makes me appreciate Keith A and the other Paceline moderators, who have never made any changes to the forum that detract from this user's experience.

This was posted by the IMDb CEO:

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-user-reviews

As explained on https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 this is part of an essential technology migration -- there is no option to go back. We appreciate that changes to familiar interfaces are always difficult, and there are some painful casualties in terms of feature / sorting / filtering losses. However, we need to start with a common review platform across the main web site, the mobile site and the iOS and Android apps. Once we have this, we can build a better review experience for everyone more quickly than ever, providing review features consistently and everywhere instead of only on the web interface.:mad:

[Bostic]

This is something that really irks me as well. I want the option to see things in chronological order but it seems those days are numbered as up or down votes ala reddit is what is hip. Message boards in general are going away as I guess they don't generate worthwhile revenue vs bandwidth consumed.

What you mention about reviews is similar to posting a response to something on Facebook that already has 20k likes, 15k responses. It's pointless to add something because no one will be able to find it with the way it's currently implemented.

I'm a movie fanatic, and IMDb has long been one of my favorite websites. I've used it countless times to help decide whether I should go see something, and then afterwards I really enjoy reading reviews and comparing my reactions with those of other viewers.

I'm so disappointed by their recent changes, especially not allowing a user to sort reviews by chronological order or "loved it" or "hated it." Now, the reviews are only sorted by "helpfulness." So if you post a new review for a movie that already has several hundred reviews, the likelihood is that no one will ever see it, because no one has yet voted it as "helpful," and who wants to scroll down so far?

The IMDb message boards were disabled earlier this year. It's sad to see a great website destroy itself. How many people continue to use Photobucket after all their old links were disabled?

It makes me appreciate Keith A and the other Paceline moderators, who have never made any changes to the forum that detract from this user's experience.

This was posted by an IMDb rep:

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-user-reviews

:mad:

[MattTuck]

Create your own movie ranking site. If it is better, people will choose it over IMDB.

[thegunner]

Create your own movie ranking site. If it is better, people will choose it over IMDB.

it somewhat exists w/rotten tomatoes.

imo this just makes imdb useless aside from finding the names of the cast.

[MattTuck]

it somewhat exists w/rotten tomatoes.

imo this just makes imdb useless aside from finding the names of the cast.

Isn't that what IMDB is for, finding the names of the cast? ;)

I wasn't being dismissive or flip in my response, if that is how it came across. A site like that is not overly complicated, and could be created on a fairly small budget. And if it taps into a passionate base of users, could be a viable business.

And if the recommendations are mostly user generated content, it would (in theory) be cheap to populate once you get the system built.

[fiamme red]

This is something that really irks me as well. I want the option to see things in chronological order but it seems those days are numbered as up or down votes ala reddit is what is hip. Message boards in general are going away as I guess they don't generate worthwhile revenue vs bandwidth consumed.The chronological sort was very useful. Sometimes I'd revisit a film after a number of years and want to see what reviewers said had about it since the last time I looked it up.

I admit that reading reviews sorted by "hated it" for films that I disliked was one of my guilty pleasures.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the latest Star Wars movie. It has an overall rating of 7.7 out of 10, but the first ten user reviews are 1, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1. :confused:

[MattTuck]

The chronological sort was very useful. Sometimes I'd revisit a film after a number of years and want to see what reviewers said had about it since the last time I looked it up.

I admit that reading reviews sorted by "hated it" for films that I disliked was one of my guilty pleasures.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the latest Star Wars movie. It has an overall rating of 7.7 out of 10, but the first ten user reviews are 1, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1. :confused:

I can't imagine that they don't capture the date of every review. It is sitting as a field in some database somewhere. it is a user interface decision to not include that as a criteria to sort on.


On the topic of star wars... I actually thought it was pretty good. A little long, and a few parts made me roll my eyes, but over all, I thought it was a pretty good modern interpretation of the tone of a new hope and empire.

[fiamme red]

I can't imagine that they don't capture the date of every review. It is sitting as a field in some database somewhere. it is a user interface decision to not include that as a criteria to sort on.Of course the date is there. But IMDb is catering to the lowest common denominator, and since it's easier to create a mobile app without a sort function, they decided to eliminate it for desktops as well.