Add easier support for merging keywords

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.

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.

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.

@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. 

@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. 

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.

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". 

Hi kristin-

Unfortunately, due to resource constraints we are unable to process manual requests. However, when you observe inconsistencies such as those you reported, you are welcome to submit the applicable keyword corrections/deletions through our contribution form which will be reviewed and handled directly by our editors.

Cheers! 

@Maya​ That answer makes no sense? In not sure you understand what I ment, I am not talking about manually adding or removing key words from a title, I have done 10K edits, I know how to do that myself.

I am taking abut this section in the help pages:

https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/titles/keywords/GXQ22G5Y72TH8MJ5#duplicate

It says:

"Duplicate Keywords

 

A duplicate keyword is one which offers no additional or differentiating value to a keyword already listed. This could be the result of a spelling error or alternative spelling being used. To report a duplicate keyword please go to our contact form and let us know the details of the keywords you think should be combined."

Example:

reference to emmy award is used on  7 titles

https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=reference-to-emmy-award&s=kw&exact=true&ref_=fn_ex

reference to an emmy award is used on 10 titles

https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=reference-to-an-emmy-award&s=kw&exact=true&ref_=fn_ex

These 2 should then be merged in to one keyword, so that if someone search with the keyword they will find 17 titles, and not 7 or 10 depending on which keyword they use/search for...

I as a contributor can not merge keywords (or delete keywords) from the database thru the contribution form?

Also your answer does also prove that IMDb does not have good enough internal routines for this since you also don't know how to do this/where to send it?

2/2:

Did som more digging, and here is the response I got in september 2025, to the same type of case. Where I did what the help page says:

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Fra: IMDb.com <support-imdb@imdb.com>Sendt: tirsdag 14. oktober 2025 05:44Til: Emne: IMDb message   HelpIMDb.comMessage from Customer ServiceHello there,

Thank you for bringing the duplicate keyword to our attention.

We've merged the keyword 'reference-to-manchester-united-f.c.' into 'reference-to-manchester-united-fc'.

We appreciate your help in improving our system.

Best regards,Kath Ch.IMDb Customer Service

@kristin- Thank you for the information! We'll pass this to the relevant team for review.