Talk:IMDb/Archive 5

OK, I'll template this now with {{request edit}} -- from Archive 4, minus a few sections no longer relevant, and with some improvements to the reflist and other updates to make the requests more concrete:

As a former employee/co-founder, I probably shouldn't make these edits, but let me point out a few problems with this article that someone else may care to fix:

• History before website: Last sentence makes it sound like IMDb was desperately looking for a buyer, but in fact Amazon approached them. In fact, the way the current last sentence is written I find highly objectionable and a complete misstatement of history. True, Amazon's purchase allowed IMDb to go to the next level, but it's not something IMDb was actively seeking. See various references below.
• [Second request already acted on]
• Arguably, the last 'graf of "History before website" should become the second graf of "on the web" to maintain chronology. The last sentence of the graf duplicates some of the material in the Amazon.com section, particularly the parts I'm disputing in my first bullet above. Admittedly, some of the allegations (particularly the background one marked cn) are still unsourced.

I have some other quibbles, but I probably can't discuss them in public without violating confidences.

Some references for early history from my (paper) archives; these should answer several of the "when?" and "citation needed" tags, and hopefully get rid of that whole "Unreferenced section" box. All italics and brackets in originals, as well as all strange capitalizations of IMDb.

• (history before website / On the web) "The site developed as part of a USENET discussion thread in 1989 and grew to the point where it became a sponsored (and therefore potentially profit-making) site in 1996." -- ^[1]
• Sites in various locations (cn at end of current "On the web" first graf): "Our experience with the site in South Korea was very negative. The best sites are the original Cardiff host ... and the one at the University of Mississippi ..." ^[2] [the problems were with response time and timeliness of updates]
• (history before website ref) "...having originated in August of 1990 in the rec.arts.movies newsgroup... The IMDB moved to an FTP site in 1991. Then in July of 1993, the IMDB moved again, to the Web..." ^[3]
• (Second cite for On the web cn as well as my disputed point in the intro): "The Web traffic soon overwhelmed Cardiff's server capacity, and Needham put out calls for more universities to host. He ended up with sites in Mississippi, Germany, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Korea, Japan and Iceland. ... In January 1996, Needham launched IMDB.com as a commercial Web site. ... By January 1998, IMDB was becoming one of the most popular Web sites in the world... Next thing Needham knew, he was contacted by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos (one year before Bezos was named Time magazine's Man of the Year). ... The two men talked about potential partnerships and decided that acquisition would be the best route. 'Amazon was looking for someone to help build out the video store. And we were a scrappy little start-up looking to grow bigger,' Needham says." ^[4]
• (Date, additional detail -- maybe too much detail) "In February 1996, the hobby turned into a business. IMDb sold its first banner ad for $25,000 to Digital Equipment Corp., which was testing software that predicted which movies people would like based on what they had seen -- similar to what Amazon does now." ^[5]
• (On the Amazon acquisition, Needham): "We had been approached before, but we were not interested. We had a very clear direction that we wanted to take the company, and we were profitable, so we didn't necessarily need to be in that position where we needed to raise capital. [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos explained how Amazon was moving from, at the time -- don't forget, this was 12 years ago -- from selling just books into music and then into VHS tapes and these shiny new things called DVDs. He could see that it would be beneficial for Amazon to partner with a movie-related site, and how IMDb data could be used in the Amazon Video Store." ^[6]
• (Again, on the buyout) "By 1998, the database had established itself as a favorite on the early Internet, and Mr. Needham was amused to receive a number of buyout approaches. One was an invitation to a London hotel in January to meet with Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Mr. Bezos told Mr. Needham that he thought the movie database could help Amazon sell VHS cassettes and DVD's -- Mr. Needham points out that it was in that order in those days -- but also recognized that the site would need to be run separately to maintain its personality." ^[7]

I hope these references are useful for someone to improve the history section.

I don't happen to have a copy, but as far as I know, the first published article about IMDb was in Database, about a year before the one quoted above, cited in that article as ^[8] Floatjon (talk) 06:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll add that ebscohost.com has the Database articles, though they're behind a paywall/library wall. Also, there's a TOC of the Internet Underground issue online but not the actual article as far as I can find. LJ only goes back to about 2008 online, unless there's another host for older issues. Finally, the Database referenced above is not Database (journal) as that one has a much narrower focus and is much newer.

I'll note that there were fewer dates in the history section, or at least a lot of "when?" tags, when I posted the earlier version, so some of the refs above are to provide sources for timeline. Feel free to ignore as superfluous.

--Floatjon (talk) 22:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

And since I made my earlier post, a new error has been introduced, in the first graf of the Amazon history section. IMDb was not bought for $55 million; that was the total value of Amazon's purchase of two European booksellers plus IMDb (this is detailed in the source linked there). Amazon has never broken this figure down further, though clearly IMDb's portion of that was less than $55 million. --Floatjon (talk) 11:33, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I have just removed this (uncited) text from the "History before website" section:

...but by 1993 had been moved out of the Usenet group as an independent website underwritten and controlled by Needham and personal followers.

Other website users were invited to contribute data which they may have collected and verified, on a volunteer basis, which greatly increased the amount and types of data to be stored. Entire new sections were added. Needham also promulgated "guidelines" for the form acquired data should take in screen display, some of which (such as cast ordering) are explicitly and rigidly enforced while others (such as credits ordering) are in rudimentary form and subject to wild variations.

Other demographic data, full production crews, uncredited performers were also added as the site grew. Needham's group allowed some advertising to support ongoing operations of the site, including the hiring of full-time paid data managers. All the primary staff came (and still come) from the burgeoning computer industry and/or training schools and did not have extensive expertise in visual media. In 1998, unable to secure sufficient funding from limited advertising and contributions, and unable to raise support from the visual media industries or academia, Needham ultimately sold the IMDb.com site to Amazon.com, on condition that its operation would remain in the hands of Needham and his small cadre of managers, who soon were able to move into full-time paid staff positions.

Clearly this is not "before website". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:36, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The Movie Database is currently up at AFD, because that article has a total lack of reliable sourcing. Given that there are no reliable sources, I don't see how similar content here could possibly be appropriately sourced - indeed those citations which are to reliable sources don't mention The Movie Database at all, unless I'm missing something. Without reliable sourcing, we really should not have this content. - MrOllie (talk) 21:27, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The section is not about TMDb it's about "Comparisons" of which TMDb happens to be just one. There are reliable sources in there including from Letterboxd mgmt, Plex, The Guardian, BBC, IMDb itself, et al, so plenty of reliable sources. Jimthing (talk) 21:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

It definitely should be removed. At best, these sites would be mentioned in a "see also". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Because...? Comparisons are valid content and exist throughout WP articles, giving information about how sites compare to others within their market sector. Jimthing (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

And just to reinforce the original post, while the section cites to various reliable sources, the most reliable of those sources mention only IMDb and not the other sites at issue (making them irrelevant with respect to those sites). The AfD faces the same issue. --Floatjon (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

+1 for removing the section for WP:SYNTHESIS. Betty Logan (talk) 01:47, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see that at all, but if you think so then we edit, not delete the whole lot. Jimthing (talk) 03:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

If there is going to be a section called "Comparisons" then it should be sourced to independent secondary sources that explicitly make an objective comparison between the IMDB and these other sites. In reality, what we do have is citations to a Reddit (not reliable), TheMovieDatabase (a primary source therefore not appropriate for claims about the IMDB) and secondary sources (which do not mention the other websites). Betty Logan (talk) 06:40, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with Betty. The comparison proposed is pure WP:OR. It would be okay with citing a reliable source that made comparisons, and summarizing them here; but editors should not be doing that ab initio. (All of which is a longer way of saying "Yeah, WP:SYNTH") TJRC (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Concur with both of you. Original research is unacceptable under WP:NOR. That kind of comparison is utterly inappropriate unless it is adequately backed up by citations to multiple reliable sources that compare and contrast IMDb with the competition. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• In all years here on this site, I have never seen a greater waste of space, and valuable time, as seen in the previous discussion. If Betty Logan would have simply put a true edit summary in the IMDb article to begin with, I wouldn't have reverted her. I would have gone to her page and asked her why she eliminated a certain sentence. However, since she deleted a sentence, and didn't mention it in her summary, and taking into account that her name is in RED, which is a vandal flag in many cases, I reverted her edit, and in my summary, I said the previous editor lied in her edit summary. This led to a 'backlash by her, and a waste of time and effort for all involved. All the facts are true, and easily verifiable in "view history", if you go back far enough to see the events that lead up to this mess. I regret that I said she lied in her edit summary, because even though it is true, I could have worded it differently, like: Omitted part of her edit facts. Then perhaps this entire affair wouldn't have occurred. I believe we all had good intentions in this mess, but miscommunication, and ego got in the way of it never happening.

I try and keep ego out of my edits, and summaries, and now I've learned another lesson: It is just as easy to lie in an edit summary, as it is to be blatantly honest. Pocketthis (talk) 17:44, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

• It's obvious to me that Pocketthis must have had the phrase "to sound more encyclopedic" in their clipboard, and accidentally pasted it into your comment here, Betty Logan — actually into the middle of a word — while posting. Of course they didn't mean to change your comment, as they said when apologizing, they would have had no reason to. Pocketthis, when Betty Logan used the edit summary "[ Undid revision 774459655 by Pocketthis (talk)]", you'd have done yourself a big favour by looking at the diff (which showed all she did was indeed remove your accidental insertion), instead of exploding into inappropriate personal attacks ("BETTY LOGAN LIES right in your face.. Betty Logan must be Drunk or crazy"). I hope you have already realized this. Also, it's none of your business who Betty Logan is. You simply shouldn't ask questions like that. The log of the moves of her userpage have no business here, and neither does it show any shady dealings on her part. Floquenbeam has already removed that part, I'm too late as so often. Anyway, I'm going to close both these regrettable threads. Pocketthis, next time think twice, three time, four times before using the word "lied" in any context. It's likely to come back to bite you. Bishonen | talk 16:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC).

|}

Currently, the first sentence of the article starts: The Internet Movie Database (abbreviated IMDb) is an online database of... However, searching through the website, nowhere does it currently state that the name stands for the "internet movie database", even in the About IMDb, What is IMDb, and IMDb history sections. Should we change the lead to IMDb (formerly the Internet Movie Database) is an online database of...? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• I have been a member of IMDb for 13 years. When I first joined, there was a small Internet Movie Data Base on the bottom of the Logo. It was removed long ago, because it was too long to be "catchy". If you check the site: http://www.abbreviations.com/, and enter IMDb, they show both what it means, and what others think it means. Many folks believe it means "International Movie Data Base", but that wasn't the original meaning. Even though today, the site is really known as simply IMDb, I think our opener is fine to mention what those initials originally stood for.→ Pocketthis (talk) 22:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

When it was acquired by Amazon in 1998, the company name was "Internet Movie Database Ltd." . Today, it's a Delaware corporation, "IMDB.COM, INC." The all-upper case is the Delaware SOS's, see and search on "imdb". You'll also see an "IMDB MOBILE LLC" and "IMDB SERVICES, INC.", which I assume are related entities (but you never can tell for sure).

I think I'm fine leaving the article as-is; the subject of the article is the database, the Internet Movie Database, not the company. It could be changed to be about the company, in which case we'd use "IMDb.com, Inc."; that's the casing used in the Hoang v. Amazon.com, Inc. litigation, in its complaint, which is presumably correct. Note that that pleading says "Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, IMDb [which is previously defined as short for "IMDb.com, Inc."], Amazon provides free access to the world’s largest 'Internet Movie Database' at the website www.imdb.com.", so there's another potential source for "Internet Movie Database". TJRC (talk) 00:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The footer of the website uses "Copyright © 1990-2017 IMDb.com, Inc.", so I would assume that is the canonical formatting of the company name. However, company name aside, I can't find any indication that the database itself is still called the "Internet Movie Database", as that term is no longer used anywhere on the website. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

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I'm not sure we should link Wikipedia guidelines from this article, as we are in this edit. This is a self-reference that is not really useful outside of the context of Wikipedia itself. That may sound a bit odd, but consider that Wikipedia's content is frequently forked or included into other projects, including printed books. Many people encounter our content outside of the context of this website, and including references to our guidelines is meaningless to them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:21, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

How can i add details on IMDb about our new movie???

Saam zeas (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Start at https://contribute.imdb.com/updates?update=title, answer as many questions as possible -- SteveCrook (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

How come the casting in some movies are not complete Baallabder (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not connected to IMDb RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 18:12, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Because nobody's submitted the data. The data on the IMDb is mainly provided by their users, these might be the film-makers or just fans. any registered user can submit information (including cast & crew). The submissions wil be checked & if accepted, will be added to the database -- SteveCrook (talk) 11:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

The usual IMDb URL format is https://www.imdb.com/title/tt########/. There are optional words you can add after the last / that will take you to a particular section of IMDb's information about a movie or TV show or other media. These words can be added by editing the URL in the address line. One is fullcredits which takes you to the full cast & crew page. Another is quotes which takes you to the page that users post quotes they think are important or very good. You could then bookmark that page in case you wanted to return to that page, such as the full cast & crew page or quotation page. It used to be that you could add the word complete to get a sidebar listing all of the categories of a media's information and it was always present so you did not have to go back to the media's home page. That was changed to reference a few years ago. But now reference does not work. Can a list of all of the words that can be added to the end of the IMDb URL for the media product your are looking for or viewing be added to this page? With a reference to where those words were found so the Wikipedia page can be updated as needed? I would but have not had much luck, so far, at finding a treasure trove of these words. I ask because I usually bookmark the IMDb page with the Complete/Reference modifier for every media product's page I visit if there is a possibility I will return to that page. And since I watch some movies over and over on DVD or TV shows on DVD, I am always returning that media product's page on my tablet or computer. Skeptic50Skeptic50 (talk) 06:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

These are not command line options, at most you can call them a rudimentary API. Such content may be removed from Wikipedia articles on the grounds that Wikipedia is not a software manual. There are various software libraries which collect this information in various ways and may be interested in a plain text description, for instance https://imdbpy.github.io/ (others were removed). Otherwise, https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=The_Internet_Movie_Database could use expansion too. Nemo 09:46, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@Canterbury Tail: What's wrong about mentioning an important IMDb feature and comparing it to a similar feature from a Wikimedia project? (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IMDb&type=revision&diff=986905351&oldid=986900559)

This can be useful information for people who did not know the feature. I think it is better to keep this contribution instead of doing censorship or vandalism by removing content that can help other users. There is also nothing wrong when people mention the new PlayStation on the new Xbox Wikipedia article. --Baptx (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe it's encyclopaedic. I fail to see how it improves an encyclopaedic article about IMDb to talk up Wikimedia searches on the IMDb article. Anyway we're not a how to guide, we don't get to tell readers how to interact with something. There are thousands of ways of interacting with IMDb's open dataset, and there's no reason to call out a Wikimedia project over any of the other forms. Additionally please read what WP:VANDALISM is. My reversion of your edit is most certainly not vandalism or censorship and your accusation is definitely not appropriate. Do not accuse other editors of censorship or vandalism like that. Canterbury Tail talk 22:44, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I am requesting an edit, since I have a conflict of interest. In the section "As Amazon.com subsidiary (1998–present)" it says IMDb was acquired for "approximately $55 million" and cites to a page that is currently down, but is presumably the relevant portion of this page: . However, a careful reading of that page will show that $55M was the total purchase price for not just IMDb, but also a German bookseller and a UK bookseller ("The company will incur total charges of approximately $55 million in connection with all three transactions."). The prices of the individual components were, to my knowledge, never broken out publicly (and frankly, I've long since forgotten just how much was IMDb's portion). If a price is to be mentioned here, it needs to be qualified with the fact that it's an aggregate price for the three entities.

This is probably getting into the weeds, but note also that this was not an all-cash transaction; as it says, "Consideration was comprised[sic] of cash and common stock, and the company anticipates issuing an aggregate of approximately 540,000 shares of common stock as a result of these transactions." (As an original-research-using-public-data aside, note that this is before various splits, which means it's 12x540k or 6.48M equivalent shares of current stock; very roughly, $45M at the time, or at the current price of the stock, over $21 billion - though I'm sure some of that stock has long since been sold.) Floatjon (talk) 09:25, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

While I'm here, I'll also note that the section on Data Format and Access is outdated; most of the software referenced was for an earlier format. See the page referenced in that section. Floatjon (talk) 09:40, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Apologies, I hadn't done this before. So here's the more formal version:

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

• What I think should be changed: In the section "As Amazon.com subsidiary (1998–present)" change ...buy IMDb outright for approximately $55 million..." to "buy IMDb outright; Amazon paid $55 million for IMDb and two other companies..."; alternatively, you could delete the price, but that risks someone re-adding it incorrectly in the future.
• Why it should be changed: See above. In short, the price for just IMDb was never broken out publicly.
• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button): ^[1] -- note that this is the same document currently cited, but the version cited is currently offline.

I may come back and do one of these for the data format issue, but I need to look into the supporting software more before I do. Floatjon (talk) 19:48, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:34, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Government of Indian please Help 117.194.249.71 (talk) 03:02, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Your comment appears to be misplaced. This is the Talk page for discussing improvements to the IMDb article. Cheers. DonIago (talk) 03:06, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

In view of the recent Rings of Power release, a new section is needed as IMDb is deleting legit reviews on their page. As IMDb is owned by Amazon, it is a clear attempt to control the narrative. This is not acceptable and should be made public. 2A02:810D:8FC0:2C23:1CBE:C8DC:BE19:DAFB (talk) 13:53, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Removal of bad-faith content is a business-as-usual task for any website with user-generated contributions, so I'm not sure IMDb sets itself apart here. That the series got "review bombed" seems to be better brought up over at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Which it is. EditorInTheRye (talk) 14:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

There is a difference between actual content moderation (i.e. removing bad-faith reviews based on content) and removing any review with less than 6 stars--which is what they did in this case. --Kraligor (talk) 21:46, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Internet movie and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 5#Internet movie until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:23, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lvmcintire (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Moillet, Brandon Figaro, BuffEditorFall2022.

— Assignment last updated by Mmonday17 (talk) 03:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Wondering if the word "abbreviation" (In the lead paragraph), should be substituted with the word acronym? JakeJakubowskitalk 01:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if this would be a good idea, but would putting this as a "British-founded American" subsidiary of Amazon be a good idea? Also, would you say the place was founded in the English city of Bristol? I was just asking in case, seeing as it was founded in the UK and now owned by Amazon? MrDragonBoi (talk) 13:29, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Seriously, if Wikipedia is supposed to maintain even an iota of credibility, do your work people! IMDB is quite openly manipulating the displayed average rating of the newest Disney reboot disaster, calling it "weighed". IMDB has been known for being a target of review botting for a long time, but now the site itself (subsidiary of Amazon) has categorically lost all credibility by faking average ratings (which is the primary factor people are going to notice when looking up a movie to decide whether they should watch it or not). Don't let this happen to Wikipedia too by being oblivious of important developments in internet culture!

No clue why the update to my post didn't get posted, but just check the user ratings of Rings of Power, the Little Mermaid and Netflix's Queen Cleopatra (not weighed), and do the math and add it to the IMDB article! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.86.132 (talk) 10:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

It's a system that seems easy to exploit, I agree. If you wanted to add a sentence or two about this, it would be good if you provided some reliable sources, though. EditorInTheRye (talk) 11:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)