Add easier support for merging keywords

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

• marriage-problems (336 titles)  -->  marital-problems (48 titles)  -->  martial-problems (2 titles)  --> marital-problem (551 titles)

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.

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)