The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online The terms online and offline have specific meanings with respect to computer technology and telecommunication. In general, "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state. In common usage, "online" often refers to the Internet or the World Wide Web database A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. The structure is achieved by organizing the data according to a database model. The model in most common use today is the relational model. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of of information related to movies Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects, actors The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of sex, while actress refers specifically to a female person who acts; therefore a female can be both. The Oxford English Dictionary states that originally "'actor" was used for both sexes. The English word actress does not derive from the Latin actrix, probably not even by way of, television shows A television program , television programme (in most Commonwealth countries and Éire) ), or television show (USA/UK) is something that people watch on television. It may be a one-off broadcast or, more usually, part of a periodically recurring television series, production crew personnel, video games A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to, and most recently, fictional characters A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a work of art. Along with plot, setting, theme, and style, character is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. Characters may be entirely fictional or based upon real entities, contemporary or historical. They may be human, supernatural, mythical, divine, featured in visual entertainment media. IMDb launched on October 17, 1990, and in 1998 was acquired by Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the internet sales revenue of runner up Staples, Inc.

Contents

Overview

The IMDb website consists of one of the largest accumulations of data about films, television programs, direct-to-video A film that is released direct-to-video is one which has been released to the public on home video formats (historically VHS) before or without being released in movie theaters or broadcast on television. The term is also at times used as a derogatory term for sequels of films that are not expected to have financial success. They have become products, and video games, reaching back to each medium's respective beginning. In many cases, the information goes beyond simple title and crew credits, but also includes data on uncredited personnel, production and distribution companies, plot summaries, memorable quotes, awards An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons. An award may carry a monetary prize given to the recipient, for example, the Nobel Prize for, reviews A review is an evaluation of a publication, such as a movie, video game, musical composition, book, or a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer. In addition to a critical statement, the review's author may assign the work a rating to indicate its relative merit. More loosely, an author may review current events or items in the, box office A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall, or at a wicket. The term is frequently used, especially in the context of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a performance, filming locations, technical specs, promotional content, trivia Trivia are unimportant (or "trivial") items, especially of information. In the late 20th century the expression came to apply more to information of the kind useful almost exclusively for answering quiz questions: a perfect "trivia question" is one that initially stumps the listener, but the answer subsequently sounds familiar, and links to official and other websites. Furthermore, the IMDb tracks titles in production, including major announced projects still in development.

The database also houses filmographies for all persons, cast and crew, identified in listed titles. Filmographies include biographical details, awards listings, external links, and information about other professional work not covered by title entries in the database such as theatrical and commercial advertising appearances.

The IMDb also offers ancillary material such as daily movie and TV news, weekly box office reports, TV listings, cinema showtimes, user polls and ratings, and special features about various movie events such as the Academy Awards The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is one of the most prominent award ceremonies in the. The website also has an active message board system. There are message boards for each database entry, found at the bottom of each respective page, as well as general discussion boards on various topics.

All of the basic database information is available without registration and without providing any personal information. However, to submit information, to use the message boards, to search for information about adult movies or to use some other of the site's features requires registration. Some advanced features require verification which can sometimes require some personal financial information such as credit card details. IMDb has 57 million visitors, 17 million of which are registered.

History

History before website

The IMDb originated from two lists started as independent projects in early 1989 by participants in the Usenet Usenet, a portmanteau of "user" and "network", is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It evolved from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name newsgroup A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to rec.arts.movies. In each case, a single maintainer recorded items emailed An electronic mail message consists of two components, the message header, and the message body, which is the email's content. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually additional information is added, such as a subject header field by newsgroup readers, and posted updated versions of his list from time to time. The founding ideas of the database began with a posting titled "Those Eyes", on the subject of actresses The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of sex, while actress refers specifically to a female person who acts; therefore a female can be both. The Oxford English Dictionary states that originally "'actor" was used for both sexes. The English word actress does not derive from the Latin actrix, probably not even by way of with beautiful eyes. Hank Driskill began to collect a list of attractive actresses and what movies they had appeared in, and as the size of the repeated posting grew far beyond a normal newsgroup article, it soon became known simply as "THE LIST". (The first code to manage this list was a Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987, as a general purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely program written by Randal L. Schwartz Randal L. Schwartz , also known as merlyn, is an American author, system administrator and programming consultant. Schwartz is the co-author of several widely used books about Perl, a programming language, and has written regular columns about Perl for several computer magazines. He popularized the Just another Perl hacker signature programs. He to "invert the list", organizing the list by movies instead of actresses.[1])

The other project, started by Chuck Musciano, was briefly called the "Movie Ratings List" and soon became the "Movie Ratings Report". Musciano simply asked readers to rate movies on a scale of one to ten, and reported on the votes. He soon began posting "ballots" with lists of movies for people to rate, so his list also grew quickly.

In 1990, Col Needham Col Needham is the one of four founding partners of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and has served as General Manager of IMDb since its acquisition by Amazon.com in 1999 collated the two lists and produced a "Combined LIST & Movie Ratings Report".[2] (His first posting of the database scripts is not available.) Needham soon started a (male) "Actors The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of sex, while actress refers specifically to a female person who acts; therefore a female can be both. The Oxford English Dictionary states that originally "'actor" was used for both sexes. The English word actress does not derive from the Latin actrix, probably not even by way of List", while Dave Knight began a "Directors A film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making of a film. A film director visualizes the script, controlling a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of his or her vision. A film producer may also be considered a filmmaker List", and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST, which would later be renamed as the "Actress List". Both this and the Actors List had been restricted to people who were still alive and working, but retired people began to be added, and Needham also started what was then (but did not remain) a separate "Dead Actors/Actresses List". The goal now was to make the lists as inclusive as the maintainers could manage. In late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects and television series A television program , television programme (UK), or television show (USA/UK) is something that people watch on television. It may be a one-off broadcast or, more usually, part of a periodically recurring television series. On October 17, 1990, Needham posted a collection of Unix Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations shell scripts A shell script is a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system. It is often considered a simple domain-specific programming language. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manipulation, program execution, and printing text which could be used to search the four lists, and the database that would become the IMDb was born. At the time, it was known as the "rec.arts.movies movie database".

On the web

By 1992, the database A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. The structure is achieved by organizing the data according to a database model. The model in most common use today is the relational model. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of had been expanded to include additional categories of filmmakers and other demographic material, as well as trivia, biographies A biography is a description or account of someone's life, which is usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography is a biography by the same person it is about. A biography is more than a list of impersonal facts (education, work, relationships and death), it also portrays the subject's, and plot summaries In fiction, the plot is a sequence of interrelated events arranged to form a logical pattern and achieve an intended effect. Along with character, setting, theme, and style, plot is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. Aristotle wrote in Poetics that mythos is the most important element of storytelling; the movie ratings had been properly integrated with the list data; and a centralized email interface for querying the database had been created. Later in the year, it moved onto the World Wide Web The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a Web browser, one can view Web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them using hyperlinks. Using concepts from earlier hypertext systems, the World Wide Web was started in 1989 by the English (a network in its infancy back then) under the name of Cardiff Internet Movie Database. The database resided on the servers A server is any combination of hardware or software designed to provide services to clients. When used alone, the term typically refers to a computer which may be running a server operating system, but is commonly used to refer to any software or dedicated hardware capable of providing services of the computer science department of Cardiff University Cardiff University is a leading university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities in the UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with. Rob Hartill Robert Hartill is a computer programmer and web designer best known for his work on the Internet Movie Database website and the Apache web server. Notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web was the original web interface author. In 1994, the email interface was revised to accept the submission of all information, meaning that people no longer had to email the specific list maintainer with their updates. However, the structure remained that information received on a single film was divided among multiple section managers, the sections being defined and determined by categories of film personnel and the individual filmographies contained therein. Its management also continued to be in the hands of a small contingent of underpaid or volunteer "section managers" who were receiving ever-growing quantities of information on films from around the world and across time from contributors of widely varying levels of expertise and informational resources. Despite the annual claims of Needham, in a year-end report newsletter to the Top fifty contributors, that "fewer holes" must now remain for the coming year, the amount of information still missing from the database was vastly underestimated. Over the next few years, the database was run on a network of mirrors In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads. Mirroring is a type of file synchronization across the world with donated bandwidth.

As an independent company

In 1995, it became obvious to the principal site managers that the project had become too large to maintain merely through donations and in their spare time. The decision was made to become a commercial venture and in 1996, IMDb was incorporated in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with, becoming the Internet Movie Database Ltd, with Col Needham the primary owner as well as identified figurehead. The section managers were offered "shares" in the company in exchange for the amount of work-time they put in, and sometimes for monetary donations by them. A couple of these went to work full time for salary, which Needham had already been drawing. General revenue for site operations was generated through advertising, licensing and partnerships.

This state of affairs continued until 1998. The database was growing every day, and it was again reaching a critical point in terms of quantity of data versus number of personnel, and the need for more full-time managers, who would of course want to be paid. Most revenues were being spent on equipment. The system was also suffering noticeable slowdowns both in accessing the site and in having new data posted. Offers were solicited from academic institutions but they were not interested; private enterprises with interests in the entertainment industry were also solicited, and from some of these offers were forthcoming to purchase IMDb. However, the shareholders were unwilling to sell if it could not be guaranteed that the information would be accessible to the internet community for free. None of this activity was made known to the several hundred volunteers who were contributing the vast majority of information now incoming to IMDb.

As a subsidiary company

A screenshot of IMDbPro in June 2008

In 1998, Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos is the American founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com. Bezos, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, worked as a financial analyst for D. E. Shaw & Co. before founding Amazon in 1994. He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1999. In 2008, he was selected, founder, owner and CEO of Amazon.com, struck a deal with Col Needham and other principal shareholders to buy IMDb outright and attach it to Amazon as a subsidiary, private company.[3] This gave IMDb the ability to pay the shareholders salaries for their work, while Amazon.com would be able to use the IMDb as an advertising resource for selling DVDs DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc," is an optical disc storage media format. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs but store more than six times as much data and videotapes In most cases, a helical scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions, because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and static heads would require extremely high tape speeds. Video tape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs or, more common, video cassette recorders and video cameras. Tape is a. Volunteer contributors were not advised in advance of even the possibility of IMDb—and their contributions along with it—being sold to a private business, which created some initial discord and defection of regulars.

IMDb continued to expand its functionality. In 2002, it added a subscription service known as IMDbPro aimed at entertainment professionals. It provides a variety of services including production Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story idea or commission through scriptwriting, shooting, editing and finally distribution to an audience. Typically it involves a large number of people and can take anywhere between a few months to several years to complete. Filmmaking takes place all over the world in a huge range of and box office A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall, or at a wicket. The term is frequently used, especially in the context of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a details, as well as a company directory. IMDbPro's features are very US and UK centric—thus are of limited use to many significant entertainment markets like Latin America, East Asia and South Asia. Most information contained in the IMDb database proper continues to come from volunteer researchers.

As an additional incentive for users, as of 2003, if users are identified as being one of "the top 100 contributors" in terms of amounts of hard data submitted, they receive complimentary free access to IMDbPro for the following calendar year; for 2006 this was increased to the top 150 contributors, and for 2007 to the top 175. This incentive however is for overall contribution—not contribution on a nation by nation basis. Thus non-US and non-European contributors are effectively excluded from ever achieving complimentary IMDbPro membership via this incentive scheme.[4] In 2008 IMDb launched their first official foreign language version with the German IMDb.de.

TV episodes

On January 26, 2006, the long-awaited "Full Episode Support" came online, allowing the database to support separate cast and crew listings for each episode of every TV series. This was described by Col Needham as "the largest change we've ever made to our data model", and increased the number of titles in the database from 485,000 to nearly 755,000.

At present, the database entries for TV series are in a state of flux, as listings are migrated from series titles to individual episodes. The maintainers anticipated "a couple of months for data to settle down and bugs to be ironed out", but inaccuracies were still present one year later.

Characters filmography

On October 2, 2007 the characters filmography feature was launched. The feature is similar to the existing title, name and company feature, except now users can see by whom a certain character was played and can read a biography about the character and memorable quotes from them. All data in the characters filmography is submitted by regular users and is largely not verified by the IMDb staff, in contrast to most other data submitted to the site, which is first verified and might be rejected by the staff. This lack of oversight is acceptable, however, because very little new data is sent in; the majority of submissions consist of existing data being connected together.[5]

Instant viewing

On September 15, 2008, a feature was added that enables instant viewing of over 6,000 movies and television shows from CBS, Sony and a number of independent film makers, with direct links from their profiles.[6] Due to licensing restrictions this feature is only available to viewers in the United States.[7]

Ancillary features

User ratings of films

IMDb top 250 films, plotted by year and the sum of the ratings for movies from that year.

As one adjunct to data, the IMDb offers a rating scale A rating scale is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative or a qualitative attribute. In the social sciences, common examples are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales in which a person selects the number which is considered to reflect the perceived quality of a product that allows users to rate films by choosing one of ten categories in the range 1–10, with each user able to submit one rating. The points of reference given to users of these categories are the descriptions "1 (awful)" and "10 (excellent)"; and these are the only descriptions of categories. Due to the minimum category being scored one, the mid-point of the range of scores is 5.5, rather than 5.0 as might intuitively be expected given a maximum score of ten. This rating system has also recently been implemented for television programming on an episode-by-episode basis.

In adopting this method, IMDb is following its widespread usage; the method is the same as rating in the range of a half star to five stars. The simplicity of this method makes it popular, but in terms of psychometric Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the study of measurement instruments such as questionnaires and tests. It involves two major, statistical and other criteria, the method suffers shortcomings (see online rating scales A rating scale is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative or a qualitative attribute. In the social sciences, common examples are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales in which a person selects the number which is considered to reflect the perceived quality of a product).

Filters and weights

IMDb indicates that submitted ratings are filtered and weighted in various ways in order to produce a weighted mean The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The notion of weighted mean plays a role in descriptive statistics and also occurs in a more general form in several other areas of mathematics that is displayed for each film, series, and so on. It states that filters are used to avoid vote stuffing Ballot stuffing is the illegal act of one person submitting multiple ballots during a vote in which only one ballot per person is permitted. The name originates from the earliest days of this practice in which people literally did stuff more than one ballot in a ballot box at the same time. In a government election, this is a form of electoral; the method is not described in detail to avoid attempts to circumvent it. In fact it sometimes produces an extreme difference between the weighted average and the arithmetic mean. For example, Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience is a 2009 American concert film from Walt Disney Pictures presented in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3D. It was released in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico on February 27, 2009 with the release in other countries later on. The film stars the musical Jonas Brothers trio is considered to be the worst film with a weighted average of 1.3 as of March 2009, but has a rather ordinary arithmetic mean of 4.6.[8][9]

Ranking

The IMDb Top 250 is intended to be a listing of the top 'rated' 250 films, based on ratings by the registered users of the website using the methods described.[10] Only non-documentary theatrical releases running at least forty-five minutes with over 1300 ratings are considered; all other products are ineligible.[11] Also, the 'top 250' rating is based on only the ratings of "regular voters". The exact number of votes a registered user would have to make to be considered to be a user who votes regularly has been kept secret. IMDb has stated that to maintain the effectiveness of the top 250 list they "deliberately do not disclose the criteria used for a person to be counted as a regular voter".[12] In addition to other weightings, the top 250 films are also based on a weighted rating formula referred to in actuarial science Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries. Actuaries are professionals who are qualified in this field through education and experience. In the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and several other countries, actuaries must demonstrate their as a credibility formula.[13] This label arises because a statistic is taken to be more credible the greater the number of individual pieces of information; in this case from eligible users who submit ratings. IMDb uses the following formula to calculate the weighted rating:

where:

= Weighted Rating
= average for the movie as a number from 0 to 10 (mean) = (Rating)
= number of votes for the movie = (votes)
= minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 1300)
= the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.7)

An extended listing of the Top 500 - following the same formula - is available to IMDbPro subscribers.

The IMDb also has a Bottom 100 feature which is assembled through a similar process although only 650 votes must be received to qualify for the list.[14]

The top 250 list comprises a wide strata of films, including major releases, cult films, independent films, critically acclaimed films, silent films and non-English language films.

Criticisms of IMDb ranking

The validity of the Top 250 has come under scrutiny. The skepticism includes accusations of ballot-box stuffing or voting ambiguity, as well as considerable objections about the overall placement of any given movie in the Top 250.[15]

Soon after its release, WALL-E WALL-E is a 2008 computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. It follows the story of a robot named WALL-E who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. He eventually falls in love with another robot named EVE, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that garnered high ratings from users, eventually pushing it to #6 on the list. Soon afterwards, WALL-E's message board became filled with posts from users urging others to vote it a "1", after which its rating dropped significantly. In IMDb's earliest days, websites for the teenage fans of the sarcastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 TV show urged their members to vote a "1" on IMDb for each film incorporated into the show's episodes, creating a Bottom 250 Films list composed mostly of the relative handful of films skewered by this one TV series, some of which may still be found there.[citation needed]

Another example occurred in July 2008 when The Dark Knight temporarily took the number one spot away from The Godfather. CNET's Harrison Hoffman theorized that the hype surrounding the movie outweighed clear thinking, and noted that the number of "10" votes for the film corresponded with a large number of "1" votes that suddenly appeared in The Godfather's voting bin (that knocked that movie down to #3 at the time) were the markings of a "drastic shift" that "hardly seems the work of a wise crowd." A "mob mentality", he maintains, can "greatly skew a product of its collective wisdom."[16]

Dave Thomas, blogger on E-Gear, says that he believes IMDb's Top 250 to be a better list than AFI's Top 100. Thomas notes that his admiration of the "always shifting" list is because it recognizes modern movies (giving the example of WALL-E currently standing at #41) and mixes them in with all-time greats which is a product of the Top 250 being "updated every ten minutes instead of every ten years". However, Thomas admits that the list is "imperfect", saying that users can "cheat like crazy", further adding that there is "no guarantee anyone who voted ever actually saw The Dark Knight, much less liked it."[17]

Plot-related features and spoiler warnings

IMDb main pages for each film include one or more of the sections titled Plot outline, Plot synopsis, and Plot keywords, and separate pages for Plot summary and Plot synopsis. The Plot synopsis pages are accessed through links that notify the reader a spoiler may be included.[18]

The plot outline is a short summary of the premise with a general overview, usually not including details that may be considered to be spoilers. The plot outline is presented on the main page for the film if short enough, and if it extends beyond a couple of lines includes a "more" link that opens to the Plot summary page for the film.

On the Plot summary page, IMDb includes the full text of the plot outline, along with the first few lines of the plot synopsis, followed by a link to a further more detailed page, with the link text written as "more (warning! contains spoilers)".[19]

The plot synopsis is a more complete summary of the plot that can be edited by readers of IMDb, often including twists and turns that some readers may consider to be spoilers and may not want to know about if they have not yet seen the film.[20] IMDb places the synopsis on a separate page, with a link on the film's main page using text that advises the reader as follows: "View full synopsis. (warning! may contain spoilers)". The separate Plot synopsis page includes the headline "Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers. See plot summary for non-spoiler summarized description."[21]

The IMDb User's Guide advises user contributors to avoid revealing spoilers outside of the synopsis section where they are covered by the spoiler warning in the page headline. IMDb also provides a spoiler warning template for use when spoilers occur in an unexpected location, for example, according to their help page, when a synopsis includes a spoiler for a different movie.[20] In the IMDb Submission Guide for the "Trivia and Goofs" page section and for their message boards, the guide states that spoilers should be avoided in general in those sections, but that if a spoiler is included, it must be preceded by an announcement, such as using the word "SPOILER:" or their provided spoiler template.[22][23][24]

Plot keywords are keywords that contributors to the IMDb submit. These are keywords regarding objects and occurrences in each film on the IMDb.[25] By adjusting one's preferences, users can have these keywords hidden if they have not rated the film. Otherwise, the keywords are revealed by hovering the mouse over the hidden text.

Message boards

One of the most used features of the Internet Movie Database is the message boards that coincide with every title (excepting, as of 2009, TV episodes) and name entry, along with forty-seven main boards. This section is, ironically, one of the more recent features of IMDb, having its beginnings in 2001. As the IMDb expires older posts from all message boards variably, it is difficult to precisely measure traffic according to individual board, but the Soapbox and the Sandbox and Oscar Buzz are amongst the highest traffic boards on IMDb.

Both the Sandbox and the Soapbox are general purpose discussion boards, with the Sandbox intended for relatively civil discussions, while users can go for "their more heated discussions" to the Soapbox, though its contents are still subject to the site's Terms and Conditions regarding language and content. Dedicated boards for popular current films or TV shows, performers, and political figures may also have a high usage rate. These message boards have been known to have people who frequent them often enough to have created a community of their own, seemingly detached from the actual Database. One can often find personal stories and anecdotes from board users, who may receive support from others - even in the rugged environs of the Soapbox.

[26] The Sandbox is a general purpose, anything-goes board designated for test messages and off-topic posts.[27]

Content and format

Copyright issues

All volunteers who contribute content to the database technically retain copyright to their contributions but the compilation of the content becomes the exclusive property of IMDb with the full right to copy, modify, and sublicense it.[28] Credit is not given on specific title or filmography pages to the contributor(s) who have provided information (giving the impression that it is generally the work of Col Needham and his small staff of "data managers"). Conversely, a credited text entry, such as a plot summary, may be "corrected" for content, grammar, sentence structure, perceived omission or error, by other contributors without having to add their names as co-authors. Due to the process of having submitted data or text reviewed by a section manager, IMDb is different from database projects like Wikipedia or Openstreetmap, contributors cannot add, delete, or modify the data or text at their whim, and the manipulation of data is controlled by IMdb technology and salaried staff.[29] The advantage is, there is less incentive for vandals to attack the system, although incidents have been reported. The fact that the primary qualification for section managers is their knowledge of programming, rather than film or the parts of film with which they deal, also allows for addition of misinformation, urban legend, rumor and human error by relative novices.

A Wiki alternative to IMDb is omdb (Open Media Database) whose content is also contributed by users but licensed under CC-by and the GFDL. Since 2007, IMDb has been experimenting with wiki-programmed sections for complete film synopses, and FAQs about titles as determined by (and answered by) individual contributors, without any management oversight whatsoever, with mixed results.

Foreign-language films

Although the IMDb is written completely in English (but does have other versions in Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish), the IMDb lists the titles of foreign-language films in their original country-of-origin language. Users in other countries must look at the AKA (Also Known As) list to find the title used in their country on the title's page, although a search by the AKA will find the film.

Conversely, on IMDb Pro, the American-language titles for non-American films released in the USA become the primary titles for such films, with the original-language title stored as an AKA.

See also

References

  1. ^ The LIST inverted (05/30/90)Randal Schwartz (Jun 1 1990, 4:58 am)rec.arts.movies, Google Groups
  2. ^ "MRRLIST: Combined LIST & Movie Ratings Report". Google Inc.. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies/msg/0203e8ba735348fd?dmode=source&hl=en. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  3. ^ "News Release". PR Newswire Europe Ltd.. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=37602. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  4. ^ Col Needham (2008-01-01). "IMDb announcement: Top 175 Contributors for 2007". IMDb Contributors Help message board. http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/thread/93579520. Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
  5. ^ "Character Help Overview". IMDb. http://imdb.com/swiki/special?CharacterHelp. Retrieved on 2007-10-02.
  6. ^ Hoffman, Harrison (15 September 2008). "IMDb now serves full-length videos". cnet. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10042280-26.html?tag=mncol. Retrieved on 2008-09-17.
  7. ^ Modine, Austin (16 September 2008). "IMDb adds full-length streaming movies (Show your US ID card at the door)". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/16/imdb_adds_streaming_movies_and_tv/. Retrieved on 2008-09-17.
  8. ^ http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom?tt1229827
  9. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229827/ratings
  10. ^ "Top 250 movies as voted by our users". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/top_250_films. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  11. ^ "Types of titles excluded from the Top 250". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/help/search?domain=helpdesk_faq&index=1&file=notintop250. Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
  12. ^ The user votes average on film X is 9.4, so it should appear in your top 250 films listing, yet it doesn't. Why?
  13. ^ Ragnar Norberg, Department of Statistics (.PDF). Credibility Theory. London School of Economics. http://stats.lse.ac.uk/norberg/links/papers/CRED-eas.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  14. ^ "Bottom 100". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/bottom_100_films. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  15. ^
  16. ^ When the 'wisdom of crowds' turns on itself - - CNET.com
  17. ^ Why the IMDB Top 250 Is Better Than the AFI Top 100 (or Most Film Lists) - - E-Gear.com
  18. ^ "example of IMDb main film page, with plot outline, plot summary page link, and full plot synopsis link with spoiler warning". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  19. ^ "Plot summary page example with spoiler warning". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/plotsummary. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  20. ^ a b "synopsis user editing instructions". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/swiki/special?SynopsisHelp. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  21. ^ "Plot synopsis page example with spoiler warning". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/synopsis. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  22. ^ "Handy Hints - Trivia and Goofs section". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/help/search?domain=helpdesk_faq&index=2&file=tgq_hints. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  23. ^ "Submission Guide: Goofs section". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/help/search?domain=helpdesk_faq&index=2&file=goofs. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  24. ^ "Message Boards Etiquette". IMDb. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_Movie_Database&action=edit&section=12. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  25. ^ "Submission Guide: Keywords". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/updates/guide/keywords. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  26. ^ "The Soapbox". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000044/threads/. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  27. ^ "The Sandbox". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000043/threads. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
  28. ^ http://www.imdb.com/help/show_article?conditions
  29. ^ http://www.imdb.com/interfaces#plain

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