What was the real reason IMDb killed their forums?
Things were never really that bad over there, and the forums were one of the main reasons to use IMDb.
shareThe site has become worse in other ways. I've been a member for 15+ years, and I started submitting goofs, trivia, et cetera 11 years ago. To the best of my knowledge, not one item I've ever submitted has been found to be incorrect. I had also corrected a number of wrong items submitted by other users. I assume that a few years ago they were processing submissions based on users' reliability, because at that time my submissions usually were approved and put up in minutes, despite the notices that processing might take days; I thought my account and some others might be tagged as "proven trustworthy" or something similar.
Now? Half the time my submissions are declined and I get this idiotic "cannot verify" message. Here's an example. This item was in the Goofs section of Rambo (2008):
Towards the end of the film as Rambo makes his way through the police station, there is an air vent swaying back and forth after having being shot. As the camera pans,a crew member is visible manipulating the object to create the effect.
I edited the page, tagged this item for deletion, and submitted the edit with this explanation:
There is no scene in a police station in this movie. Except for the final scene in which Rambo arrives at his family's home in Arizona, the entire story takes place in jungles in and near Burma. On the other hand, the original movie in the franchise, First Blood (1982), had its climax in a police station, during which Rambo thoroughly shot up the place with the result being lots of broken glass, things hanging awkwardly from the ceiling, et cetera. It is likely the submitter of this goof intended it for that film and mistakenly entered it for the wrong movie. (I cannot attest to whether or not First Blood contains such a goof.)
The edit was rejected with this explanation, which I've seen repeated verbatim on other rejections:
Your contribution has been declined.We have been unable to verify your contribution. Unfortunately we were unable to accept your submission as we were unable to verify the information provided. If your submission was placed via the IMDb.com Desktop title or name page submission form, you now have an option to provide evidence with your additions, as well as corrections or deletions. Please go to your Contribution History, re-load the submission reference and tick the box “provide an explanation to assist in processing this submission” and “check these updates”. The field will become available in the submission form. For all other submissions, please see our Help Site for further information or details on how to contact us.
I'm starting to think what that really means is that the worker processing the submission (a) was too stupid to understand words of more than one syllable; (b) was behind in workload and just flushed a lot of submissions down the proverbial toilet; (c) was intoxicated; or (d) all of the above.
Furthermore, another user posted a complaint about this same issue in IMDB's discussion area and asked what he was doing wrong. I replied and said, "I can't answer your question, but I want you to know it's not just you; the same thing is happening to me and I'd also like an answer." An IMDB moderator immediately jumped all over me, essentially saying if I couldn't answer the question I should stay out of it and STFU.
Fuck IMDB.
I can understand the frustration after contributing to that site for so long, I looked it up and am now one of the 17 people that now find that inaccurate piece of info uninteresting!
What annoys me most is that their Community forum looks so much better than the old forums everyone used, I would have loved some of its features a few years ago when IMDb had a thriving community.
The reason they gave for declining it is idiotic. They don't say specifically what they were unable to verify, nor what sort of evidence would be helpful. And they ask me to “provide an explanation to assist in processing this submission” when I already did exactly that!
> I looked [the Rambo goof] up and am now one of the 17 people that now find that inaccurate piece of info uninteresting!
It might not be up for long. I submitted that in early February and it was rejected. I resubmitted it two days ago, using exactly the same explanation. It might get deleted this time. I've seen that happen before.
I just wish they'd be consistent one way or the other. Here's a trivia item I added two months ago, for The Woman In Green (1945):
When Dr. Watson is lured away with the false story of a patient in distress, as he leaves Holmes plays his violin. The composition is "Melody in F," written in the 1880s. The identity of the composer is unclear; various sources attribute it to Anton Rubinstein and to Michael Watson. Later someone (identity unknown) added lyrics to create the song "Voices of the Woods," alternately called "Welcome Sweet Springtime." Fans of The Andy Griffith show might recognize the song, as it was used several times during the series, including with great comic effect in the episode "Barney and the Choir."
They accepted that one readily enough, and I didn't present any supporting evidence.
I also added two cast members for Hustle (2004) and they added those, but when I tried to add two for Casino (1995) they demanded I attach screencaps. One day they take your word for it, the next day they don't. Well, I'm not going to go to the effort of assembling evidence for them; they're not paying me.
Only on IMDb. At least with Wikipedia you can have some form of discussion over edits. I really am surprised the website has survived this long if these sort of practices are how they treat their long trusted editors.
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