Proof that this is popular…
350k ratings on IMDb, 5k reviews. Anyone who says otherwise is a pathetic loser!
shareAmazon owns IMDB, it is really just a matter of finger moving and typing, reviews these days can even be created by AI.
I remember the IMDB comment section of this show was frozen for weeks, due to the rapid downward spiral of ratings.
I was an IMDB member for more than 10 years, but since Amazon took over 2 of my reviews were not rejected (they can't seem to find the excuses), but not approved either, just left there for months, until I finally had enough and deleted my account.
I tried TMDB, which was supposed to be independent, not much better.
Let's face it, those sites either controlled by or take money from movie studios, otherwise how do they make money at all?
So what do you say to the people actually believing those numbers?
I tried TMDB, which was supposed to be independent, not much better.
Eh? You'd have to elaborate on that...
As far as I recall, tmdb was run pretty much as a one man show. They have a few power hungry users, who re-edit information about shows for some reason - not sure what benefits came from their points for edits system - but I'd find it hard to believe they'd actually block user reviews. share
I wrote reviews on TMDB, weren't approved or denied for weeks.
After that I deleted my account.
That's what you said about IMDB above. Are you saying the same thing happened on tmdb - i.e. rejected reviews? I thought the reviews just went live there...
shareNo, apparently it does not, at least it did not in my case.
If my reviews were rejected because I said something offensive I would have accepted that, but no. They were not rejected.
And you might have read my reviews before, I don't think they could find excuses to reject them, they just don't approve them.
That happened in the exactly same way on both IMDB and TMDB.
I'm surprised by that - I thought tmdb was all just user based self service.
Mind you, I never put any reviews on there. I did used to put occasional edits to shows / films to improve descriptions. They went live right away but what annoyed me was that these users - chasing points for whatever reason - would come along afterwards and change them again. That annoyed me so I gave up on that...
Who pays for the servers? who pays for upgrades for browser compatibilities? Who pays for new features? They are not .org kind of non-profit organisation, they have to make/take money from somewhere.
The fact organisations using volunteers or asking donations does not mean they are not for profits.
I looked into charities before that I wanted to donate, was kind of an eye opener, so far I haven't found any honest ones.
FUN FACT: If you buy juices labeled "Cranberry Juice", it does not mean it contains any cranberry. If you buy chicken nuggets, it does not mean they contain any chicken meat, at all.
Can't remember who took it over.
I didn't say it was a charity or non profit but as far as the work went there was one guy - Travis something? - who set it all up.
I haven't really spent much time on there for a long time now but when IMDb first went tits up, I do remember him having a thread on there saying someone had invested and he was going to be able to work on it full time.
But it's more used for media tagging and an API for open source guys. The message boards were incredibly quiet and I'm not sure many people would even see reviews there. Hence my surprise at the bureaucracy around it...
I just did some quick research and there is a discussion on TMDB on who owns it: https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/58c2e078c3a36812090009eb
So far it is clear that it was created in 2008, and sold to Fan TV in 2010, according to its wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Movie_Database
Fan TV was bought by Rovi, along with TiVo Inc., and Rovi renamed itself TiVo Corporation in around 2016.
In 2019 TiVo merged with Xperi, and it's wikipedia page also confirmed the ownership of TMDB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xperi
According to the wikipedia page in 2022 Xperi Holdings Corporation spun-off its product technology operations as Xperi Inc. (NYSE: XPER), and renamed the intellectual property licensing business Adeia Inc. (Nasdaq: ADEA). I have no idea which one owns TMDB now.
But it has been in corporate ownership for some years that is for sure. So I am not surprised with all the bureaucracy.
They are as for profit as Amazon owned IMDB that is also for sure, but they are not producing shows themselves, so I think they take money from all the major movie studios.
Good research!
I think that was probably the same thread I remembered from years ago!
Just thought I'd share a wee update:-
After talking about your tmdb review problems I basically just copy and pasted something I'd written on the message boards and submitted it as a review.
As I was saying above, I've never done any reviews there before and, as you said, it didn't go live right away but just looked again just now and 24 hours or so later it is live!
They didn't send an email or anything to confirm it had gone live, I just saw it was there. So maybe same thing happened with yours but you just didn't see them...
I think if it were for commercial reasons, which I suspect it was, they probably only not passing the negative reviews during the critical period, like the first 4 ~ 6 weeks, for the movies they took money, when well written reviews could make or break a movie.
Not all movies or studios pay them money, probably mostly the block busters.
What you experienced shows they have the man power, so the reviews neither passed nor rejected for long period of time have to be for some other reasons. The commercial reason is the only one I could think of.
at least we got moviechat - aside from a few trolls, I've not spotted any bots here yet
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