tbrainerd's profile

71 Messages

 • 

2.6K Points

Sunday, January 11th, 2015 8:32 AM

20

Add easier support for merging keywords

There needs to be an easy way to merge keywords when there are entries which are basically duplicates. Plenty of mere synonyms such as "marriage-problems", "marital discord" and "marital strife" would be more effective if there was a single entry. Only more specific entries like "marital argument" need to remain.

Currently, the only way to merge is to edit each title page, remove the old and add the new keyword. An extremely inefficient process. Is there a way to contact staff for individual keyword similarities? I suggest an automated way of managing the corrections.

Champion

 • 

14.2K Messages

 • 

327.8K Points

6 years ago

Please vote for this idea if you too would like a tool to merge and clean up keywords.

Champion

 • 

3K Messages

 • 

72.5K Points

6 years ago

Absolutely needed. Otherwise, we are stuck with editing potentially hundreds of titles are posting here to fix things.

Champion

 • 

3K Messages

 • 

72.5K Points

6 years ago

They also need to support chaining of similar keywords. For example, if you merge all of your examples into "marriage-problems" then the system should automatically convert "marital-discord" and "marital-strife" into "marriage-problems" because they are all chained together.

15 Messages

 • 

470 Points

5 years ago

When I started this post I received this message.

"We found 2071 similar conversations Do any of these match what you're looking for?"

Oh, good.  It's been answered already. NOPE!  My idea is to include a "Merge Keywords" button or and option in edit page that will list all the keywords with check-boxes to select those words that should be merged and to chose the most appropriate keyword to keep, deleting all the others after being merged.  It could even suggest other active similar keywords to be included in the merge but not linked to that title.

This was inspired when I checked out the keywords for Becoming Astrid (2018).  Many of the keywords were redundant:

These could be merged into one keyword, maybe two.
older man attracted to younger woman
younger girl older man
older man younger girl relationship
older man young girl relationship
older man young woman relationship
older man young girl romance
older man young woman
older man younger girl
older man younger woman relationship


These may or may not be included in the above.  Your ideas?
old young relationship
young girl seduces older man


I separated these because a sexual relationship could be separate from a non-sexual one, but these should be merged into a separate keyword from those above.
older man younger woman sex
older man younger girl sex
lder man has sex with young woman
older man young girl sex
older man teenage girl sex


I didn't look up similar keywords that were not used for this title.  Maybe I should have, but I didn't know what to search for, that would give keywords not listed already.









Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Merging Keywords

189 Messages

 • 

6K Points

Question: is there perhaps a good reason why there are so many arrangements of what seems like a single concept; for example, people searching for movies via keywords might have a lot more trouble finding them if they had to guess the one merged format?  I suspect most searches don't have sophisticated AI to check for alternate formats.

2.4K Messages

 • 

81.2K Points

Good point.

My understanding of the proposed idea is to retain the corresponding keyword but leading to the same film list.

189 Messages

 • 

6K Points

Ah.  That would make sense.

Champion

 • 

14.2K Messages

 • 

327.8K Points

We do have this previous thread, but I like your ideas for implementation.
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topi...

189 Messages

 • 

6K Points

If this is done, and we search using an old variant, or something similar, is IMDb's look-up table smart enough to find the film that now has the new, merged keyword?  Or do we have to try 20 variations until we hit upon the right one?

I understand the annoyance that the suggestion is trying to fix, but I'm not sure it won't cause more problems.

10.6K Messages

 • 

225.1K Points

I've suggested that the keyword system be object oriented with set theory applications.

Champion

 • 

14.2K Messages

 • 

327.8K Points

If you use the keyword search in the search bar (or here) you will get various close or not-so-close matches, but hopefully not old ones that don't exist anymore.

The converse problem of what you describe is just as bad: if you look at a title's keywords and click older-man-young-woman-relationship to see other titles with that topic, you only get 4 results, not the 1200+ listed for older-man-younger-woman-relationship.

Champion

 • 

14.2K Messages

 • 

327.8K Points

Also, we can already request that keywords are merged, but only through this forum or the contact form, which is not very efficient.

Some contributors manually merge keywords by correcting each listing, which is also not very efficient.

1.3K Messages

 • 

23.1K Points

Could you expand on this.  I'm not sure what you mean.

189 Messages

 • 

6K Points

That will certainly eliminate the recurring dilemma of which keywords to rate as "relevant" for a given title.  If automated merging is allowed, will the relevance counts be added, as well?

10.6K Messages

 • 

225.1K Points

Sure, Bradley Kent. I want a way to deal with synonymy, troponymy, holonymy, meronymy, hyponymy, and hypernymy, as they pertain or could pertain to keywords, while also being able to deal with redirection, migration, merging and splitting of keywords. One way to do this might be to have unique pages for specific ideas that particular "keywords" represent, whereby every of such pages has a primary "keyword", which when referenced by a title entry, automatically all of the keywords synonymous with that keyword are automatically referenced, as a matter of inheritance.

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

I agree that many or most of these keywords could and should be consolidated. In fact, I believe all of them could probably be consolidated into this single keyword:

man-girl-relationship (44 titles)

Then, additional specificity could be added with these keywords:

man-teenage-girl-relationship (2 titles)

man-young-girl-relationship (not currently a keyword)

When a romance is involved, I would recommend this keyword:

man-girl-romance (not currently a keyword)

When sex is involved, in addition to the sex-related keywords that you pointed out, we also should not forget the "rape" keywords, because in most situations, sexual contact between a man and a girl is deemed statutory rape, even if the girl thinks she is "consenting":

man-rapes-a-girl (11 titles) 

adult-man-rapes-a-teenage-girl (10 titles)  (this one could just be "man" instead of "adult-man")

man-rapes-a-young-girl (not currently a keyword)

I wouldn't worry too much about people not being able to find the titles. If the keywords were consolidated, then the new keywords can be used to find the titles. Problem solved.

Finally, I should point out that I have used the term "young-girl" in several of these keywords. I think that is the best term for a girl who is younger than a teenager (i.e., 12 and younger). But I am apparently the minority in this thinking. Most contributors seem to prefer "little-girl" rather than "young-girl." To me, "little-girl" implies physically little, rather than young in age. But I do realize my opinion is in the minority on this point.

1.3K Messages

 • 

23.1K Points

As I've stated before, I use:

 little girl/boy for someone 5 years of age or younger (not their physical size);

girl/boy for someone 6 to 12 years of age;

teenage girl/boy for someone 13-to-19-years of age;

woman/man for  someone 20 to 59 years of age; and, 

old woman/man for someone 60 years of age and over.

The use of the "young" adjective has always mystified me since it is so subjective (as is "old," of course.  Same with "youth" and "adolescent," which I avoid.

It seems that "girl" and "boy" are often used for teenagers, and even for those in their 20s, 30s, etc., which seems like an unacknowledgement of reality.

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

@bradley_kent Your distinctions fail to acknowledge the overlapping nature of the word "girl." To me it makes no sense to limit the keyword "girl" only to girls aged 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.  A girl aged 3, 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 is also a girl. 

Champion

 • 

4K Messages

 • 

244.1K Points

@keyword_expert I've seen a lot of people of ages 20-45 referred to as a girl, especially if they look young(ish), so there's that. 

@bradley_kent I can cerainly agree that something doesn't add up in public uses of certain age-group codifier words such as "young" and it gets weirder once you also consider local variants. In Ukraine people of ages up to 35 are officially considered 'young'. It is kind of mind-boggling for me since neither physically nor psychologically this doesn't add up at all. 

10.6K Messages

 • 

225.1K Points

Perhaps he meant to designate children aged six to twelve years old as young boys and young girls, rather than simply boys and girls. We can figure that people's ideas about what ages correspond to which terms may vary. I tend to refer to children younger than twelve years old as little boys and little girls, since they are not particularly close to being fully grown, but I can also understand how it would make sense to reserve adjective for kindergarten-age children and younger. Whereas "boy" and "girl" are vague enough to refer to any minor and perhaps charming grownups younger than twenty years old. I find, "adolescent" to also be vague, as it may refer to somebody as young as twelve (maybe eleven) years old and as old as eighteen years old, as similar with "young". When I refer to "young boys" and "young girls", or "adolescent children", I'm referring to minors for whom it may be somewhat hard to tell whether they are eleven, twelve, thirteen or fourteen years old, transcending the teen-preteen barrier. As for young men and young women, to me, they are aged eighteen years to about twenty-nine years, and I would, given adequate knowledge, account for emancipation status or age of legal majority, so to that end, there could be sixteen-year-old men and women.

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

I included many of the keywords mentioned in this post in the following list of duplicate keywords, which were mass merged and set up for auto-conversion:

Duplicate Keywords - List #43 (Proposals for Permanent Merger and Auto-Conversion) ("-relationship" keywords)

Many of these keywords have been merged into "man-girl-relationship" and "older-man-younger-woman-relationship". 

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

3 years ago

I agree that it is incredibly inefficient to manually edit large numbers of duplicate/synonymous keywords. 

The most efficient current process is to post such keywords on this forum with a request for a permanent keyword merger and auto-conversion. I have been doing a lot of that, focusing my efforts on duplicate keywords applied to at least 50 titles (for efficiency purposes).

As of 2021, IMDb staff are looking into even more efficient ways for contributors to report these keyword issues and even potentially make these types of changes ourselves. It may be a while until such options are available, but at least we know the issue is being looked into.

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

2 years ago

It is now 2022 and I have continued to post lists of keywords for mergers and auto-duplication (or blocking), which is still the best available way to accomplish keyword edits on a mass scale.

Regarding the "marital-problems" keywords given by @tbrainerd as an example, I included them as proposed mergers in this currently pending list.

I decided not to include keywords like "marital-strife" and "marital-discord" and "marital-strain" in those mergers, because they can all mean slightly different things.

For example, I believe it is technically possible to have a problem in a marriage without having strife or discord. That would include especially situations where such a problem is one-sided (only one spouse perceives something as a problem, while the other spouse is blissfully ignorant of the problem and there is no apparent strife or discord). For example, a man might have gotten married a second time without ever getting divorced the first time, and although this is a "marital-problem," if the second wife is unaware of it, it may not necessarily cause "marital-discord."

Also, "strife" implies a more severe form of "discord" according to the dictionary definitions, so merging those two particular keywords together did not seem warranted either, in my opinion. Maybe I am splitting hairs here, but that was my thinking.

2.7K Messages

 • 

47K Points

2 years ago

Regarding the "marriage-problems," "marital discord," and "marital strife" keywords, I have proposed even more mass mergers of some of these keywords here:

Duplicate Keywords - List #48 (Proposals for Permanent Merger and Auto-Conversion) (marriage keywords)