MovieChat Forums > The Sandbox > An Open Letter To IMDB

An Open Letter To IMDB

posted 8 years ago by Matt_Layden
9 replies | jump to latest

Hello there,

I've been a member of this site for just shy of 15 years. Since then, I have rated over 2,500 films, reviewed over 650 films and contributed to the numerous threads on the message boards. The most frequent that I've been here is when the television show LOST was on the air. I practically lived on these boards, posting and reading dozens of theories on what the island is, where the show is going and are they making it all up? Why? Because this place is (was) a community. A community of people who shared one common thing, the love of scripted formats. Be it movies or television, this was the place to go to in order to discuss, well...anything.

I may not have posted a lot in the last few years, but I am a constant reader of everything. One of the first things I do after seeing a film, is come to the movie page, check out the message board and see what people are saying. You are taking that away from me and the millions of other users on this site. You are destroying one of the core values this site had, communication.

I get it, there are negative people on the forums (trolls). Guess what, every site has these people. Get an admin team to clean that up. You think people are migrating over to social media? I call BS. I believe this is a power move (money) and I highly doubt you'll see the results you are hoping. People will leave, they won't comment on a 'post' that YOU post on Facebook or twitter.

How will this reflect the film ratings? Are people going to bother coming here to rate a film anymore when they can't discuss it? Why will be bother to write reviews?

You will lose traffic. This is only a guarantee. You are destroying a corner stone of the site. A part of the site where the people went to to help this site grow. You're essentially flipping those people off. They will not go to your social media sites, they will find message boards elsewhere. Movieforums.com is a place to discuss film and a place that I will now post, instead of here.

Will you read this? Probably not. You clearly have shown that you do not care what the users have to say.

Take care,

Matt.

[–] Mad_Monster_Party 8 years ago

Good post!



Sandbox Chief Commissioner.
Mad Monster Party for U.S. President 2020

[–] jpr1961 8 years ago

....spot on analysis. I have zero interest in Facebook ....and if they think 'trolls" are non-existent there ....then they're smoking something.

[–] Buzz_McCallister 8 years ago

I can just imagine the IMDb bigwigs sitting around a conference room going, "Matt_Layden's open letter really opened our minds, but... more importantly... it opened our hearts. Let's keep the message boards."

LOL all over you!

[–] Valerian (-273) 3 years ago

You were right.

[–] Matt_Layden 8 years ago

My job here is done.

http://onefilmadayreview.blogspot.com/

[–] LucusNon 8 years ago

Matt:

Staff might not be reading this board, so they might not see your comment.

You may want to repost your letter as a reply in the ongoing discussion at:

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/imdb-message-boards

(if you have an account on that site or are willing to make one).

[–] shadaif 8 years ago

Well said.

YOUR VOTE MATTERS! Please vote in every election. Thank you.

[–] thecalhouns 8 years ago

Closing down imdb is like the internet equivalent of saying "TV is canceled", for so long this has been the go to place for discussion of pretty much anything, not just movies.

I always liked that the fact that you had imdb to fall back on as an all purpose forum, it's just insane that they would shut it down.

[–] TerraFirma69 8 years ago

Amen sir. I love the message forums. So fun, useful and informative in spite of being infested with small nasty people.

I posted a short while ago about some kind of petition, but I have no idea how that works on the internet.

...then whoa, differences...