keyword_expert's profile

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Monday, January 2nd, 2023 8:39 PM

In Progress

Another film falls victim to political "hate rating"

IMDb staff:

It appears that this film has been the victim of "hate rating," where politically motivated users downvote the film en masse without even watching it.

The campaign against this film is so strong that it is currently rated #74 on IMDb's Bottom Rated Movies.

Can you please look into whether the ratings on this video have been botted, manipulated, and/or hate-rated?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reference/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/ratings

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/movies/polands-divide-over-smolensk-film-on-2010-air-crash.html

On a foggy April morning in 2010, the Polish president’s planecrashedover Smolensk in western Russia, killing him and 95 other members of Poland’s political and military elite, traumatizing the nation and opening a bitter political divide over what caused the disaster. Now the fissures have spread to the cultural realm, as filmmakers, writers and artists fiercely debate how — or even whether — to portray this still-visceral history.

Some leading Polish actors have refused to participate in “Smolensk,” a feature film to be released next year, andAntoni Krauze, its patrician 73-year-old director, fears that his views challenging the official version of events, and suggesting a cover-up, could cost the movie millions of dollars in state financing.

Borys Lankosz, a filmmaker whose 2009 film, “Reverse,” depicted Polish life in the 1950s, said that conservative artists were adroitly tapping into deep-seated feelings of victimhood formed during centuries of occupation and subjugation. And he argues that supporters of the previous president are intent on mythologizing him.

“It’s a cultural sickness,” he said. “We are always taught that we are the messiah nation. This cult of martyrdom, reflected in films like ‘Smolensk,’ is dangerous because it is based on a lie.”

Others, including the Polish culture minister, Bogdan Zdrojewski, have warned that it is still too early to portray the events surrounding the plane crash. “It’s hard to get rid of an impression and fear that this will be a movie with a strong political message,” he told the Polish news channel TVN24.

But Mr. Krauze says he is undeterred, even if making the film costs him lifelong friends and requires him to make do with a modest $3.5 million budget. “I feel I need to make this film, even if it is me against everyone else,” he said. “I intend to show the truth.”

Employee

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2 years ago

This is not new -- the film has attracted negative sentiment since it was released back in 2016, likely because to its subject matter (ostensibly due to most people considering it to be propaganda and violently rejecting it).


The fact is that often there's a fine line separating the expression of actual strong sentiment and the desire to influence the rating as a reason to vote for a title.

Our voting system is focused and optimized to identify attempts to skew the rating via ballot stuffing, automated voting, fake accounts and several other tactics, but when a title receives an overwhelming number of organic votes (e.g. votes cast by real users) pointing only in one direction, we have to reflect what seems to be the predominant opinion towards it. 

Or, as the saying goes, sometimes a duck is just a duck, and the rating activity does indicate universal contempt for a title rather the reflection of a hidden agenda.

I'm sure that there are folks out there who don't think this is such a terrible film; unfortunately they don't seem to have opted to share that opinion through our site.

This type of behavior is another reason why we publish the detailed vote breakdown on a title instead of simply showing the aggregate rating: people can and should look at both when considering whether a title is worth watching or not, because the rating by itself sometimes doesn't tell the whole story.

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

Our voting system is focused and optimized to identify attempts to skew the rating via ballot stuffing, automated voting, fake accounts and several other tactics,

Apparently the system failed to do that on this other title that was recently hate-rated. Not until I reported the hate rating, IMDb staff including @Maya looked into it, was the weighted rating corrected and increased (from 1.5 to 3.4 at last count).

I have also read numerous threads on this forum where the system failed to detect vote manipulation until it was reported in the forum and only then was the weighted rating corrected. Let me know if you want me to cite the specific threads, because there are a lot of them.

Are you unwilling to even file a ticket for further investigation on this film, based solely on your speculation as to what you believe did or did not happen here? 

but when a title receives an overwhelming number of organic votes (e.g. votes cast by real users) pointing only in one direction, we have to reflect what seems to be the predominant opinion towards it. 

Even in situations where the user accounts who rate the film expressly admit they did not even watch the film?

I am currently going through the published reviews on this film, and I have already found more than a dozen reviews that admit exactly that. Are ratings and reviews allowed on IMDb from people who did not even watch the film?

I understand your point that people should be allowed to express their political views through ratings. However, there have to be limits, including centrally orchestrated mass campaigns against or in favor of content on IMDb, situations where users rate and/or review without watching the content, and the use of sock and bot accounts. Is IMDb unwilling to look into whether any of that happened here?

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

I'm sure that there are folks out there who don't think this is such a terrible film; unfortunately they don't seem to have opted to share that opinion through our site.

That isn't true, either.  While such people are outnumbered, some of them have in fact shared their opinions through your site.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=9

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=8

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=7

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=5

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

Has any of this ever been looked into for this film?

which on Polish social media has been called out to review at lowest level to discredit that movie.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/smolensk-movie-vs-political-agenda/5f4a79948815453dba81fe37

So either this is proof that this is the worst movie of all time or it is proof that IMDb leaves their voting system open for manipulation.  I wonder how many ‘popular’ movies at the other end of the spectrum are allowed to slip into the top 250, with suspect votes?

So, it may be the worst movie ever, but it could also be rigged.

http://www.manlymovie.net/2017/01/looks-like-the-imdb-has-a-new-worst-movie-ever.html

But I was reminded of this phenomenon not long ago when I watched Smolensk, a 2016 Polish film that currently has a 1.2 average and is in the bottom 100. Now, it's not a particularly good film - I think most 'objective" viewers would see it, as I did, as a mediocre piece of agitprop - but it's extremely low rating is clearly due almost entirely to pro-Putin trolling, as the film suggests (with plenty of reason) that Russia was behind the downing of Polish Air Flight 101 in 2010 which killed almost 100 people, including the then-President of the country. And there have been plenty of other examples like this over the years, often politically motivated, as well as plenty of Indian films and, somewhat less commonly, Turkish and Russian films that have gotten scores of 9.5 or above.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IMDbFilmGeneral/comments/tefz4b/the_shenanigans_surrounding_the_unusually_high/

When you see a film with a rating this low - on almost 40k votes - and it's NOT one of the usual suspects like Friedberg/Seltzer or Uwe Boll, and especially if it's from some country that doesn't have a rep for modern schlock (like Turkey or India), you know something's up. In this case it's because the film has a political point of view about a recent, tragic, contentious event. In this case it's the 2010 crash of Polish Air Force Flight 101 near the Russian city of Smolensk, which killed all 96 on board including the President of Poland, his wife and several high-ranking civilian and military officials. The disaster was ruled an accident due to poor ground conditions (fog) by both Polish and Russian authorities, but conspiracy theories from various sides in the political realm started appearing immediately, and this film is apparently the result of one such conspiracy - that the Russian government had the plane destroyed because President Lech Kaczyński was a progressive figure - at least in terms of keeping Poland and the other former Warsaw Pact countries from Putin's grasp. I'm sure there's more to it than that but I think that gives the nutshell. So the film has been trolled heavily by those who are either pro-Russian or who just reject any kind of conspiracy notions.

So to my mind this is more a 4-5 kind of film - 1.1 just shows the typical IMDb trolling, par for the course.

https://forum.icmforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5571

In Polish cinemas there is a new movie called Smolensk about the real plane crash with their president onboard. Because of its serious propaganda narrative suggesting that Russia took down the plane, the movie is considered to be total garbage and its IMDb page is full of hilarious trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/51zrr9/in_polish_cinemas_there_is_a_new_movie_called/

(edited)

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

As I continue to look into the reviews and ratings on this film, the more I discover shocking patterns of trolling and vote manipulation.

The film currently has 285 user reviews

Of those 285 reviews, 264 are 1-star reviews.

And of those 264 1-star reviews, no less than 256 of them were all posted in April 2021 (five years after the film was released!), the vast majority of these 256 reviews were written by IMDb user accounts that were created in April 2021 and never had any other activity on IMDb except to leave a 1-star review for this film.

In other words, 90% of the reviews on this title were written all in the same month, five years after the film was released, and the vast majority of these accounts never did anything else on the IMDb site.

How could these patterns not be blatant trolling and vote manipulation through the use of sock/bot accounts? 

(edited)

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

If you subtract the 256 blatant sock/bot "reviews" that were all written in April 2021, that leaves only 29 reviews, only 8 of which are 1-star reviews.

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

p.p.s. As I go through the fake reviews all written in April 2021, I am also spotting patterns in the content of these reviews. Whomever wrote the fake reviews did a very good job of making the content appear unique, but I am spotting some reviews from among the April 2021 reviews that copy and past certain phrases, or use similar phrases, from other reviews (also written in April 2021).

Here are some examples:

1. The phrase "worst movie" was used in 94 of the 256 reviews.

2. Three (3) of the reviews use the exact phrase "Joke not a movie" (without any intervening punctuation).

3. Three (3) of the reviews refer to the film as "disgusting."

4. Ten (10) of the reviews refer to the film as variations on a "piece of s....t," "piece of garbage," etc.

5. Six (6) of the reviews suggest to the reader "It is better to go for a walk," "Better to stare at the wall," "It's better to watch like the grass is growing," "better to poke holes in your clothes," etc., than to watch this movie.

6. Sixty (60) of the reviews use the word "waste" (as in a waste of their time to watch the movie).

I could go on, but it is blatantly obvious that those 256 "reviews" left on your site in April 2021 were all written by the same person or small group of persons.

Based on what I have been reading about the likely orchestrated trolling of this film, my money would be on Russian trolls as the bad actors who wrote all those "reviews" in April 2021. We already know that Russian troll farms have infiltrated American political discourse through the use of social media -- a Russian oligarch who paid for this activity recently admitted this on the record. Would it be impossible to believe that the same is happening here with regard to Polish political discourse through the use of IMDb?

I am currently flagging the fake "reviews"that were mass posted on this film's IMDb page in April 2021. All of these reviews should be removed given the blatant orchestrated campaign behind them.

(edited)

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@Giancarlo_Cairella@Maya 

It took me a little while but I figured out exactly what happened with the ratings on this film.

As of September 2019, there were only 17 reviews of the film. 

Then, on 10 April 2021 (which was the 11th anniversary of the plane crash that is the subject of the film), Polish political "meme" website "Tygodnik NIE" (translation: "Weekly NO") made this post on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TygodnikNIE/posts/2147260958749017

„SMOLEŃSKOWI” BRAKUJE LEKKO PONAD 2000 NEGATYWNYCH OCEN, BY ZOSTAŁ NAJGORSZYM FILMEM ŚWIATA NA LIŚCIE IMDB. NIE MUSZĘ CHYBA MÓWIĆ, CO Z TYM ZROBIĆ.

Google Translation:

"SMOLENSK" IS SLIGHTLY MISSING OVER 2,000 NEGATIVE RATINGS TO BECOME THE WORLD'S WORST MOVIE ON THE IMDB LIST. I DON'T NEED TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO WITH IT.

The fans of this satirical website got the message. Immediately, they started "hate-rating" and "hate-reviewing" the film. Over the course of the next several days, they left tens of thousands of 1-star ratings and hundreds of 1-star reviews. Many of them created IMDb accounts just for this purpose, and some of them created multiple accounts for this purpose. Many of the reviews use inside jokes from the Weekly NO website. 

Just four days after the "Weekly NO" Facebook post, the number of reviews for this film had been increased by over 1,800%, to a total of 334 reviews. And the number of ratings had also increased massively. Almost all the new reviews and ratings were 1 star reviews. 

These dates and numbers tell the story:

Feb 22, 2021: 7,669 ratings, 1.4 weighted rating

Apr 11, 2021 (first capture that day): 7,835 ratings, 1.4 weighted rating

Apr 11, 2021 (third capture that day): 10,653 ratings, 1.2 weighted rating

Apr 17, 2021: 37,451 ratings, 1.1 weighted rating

Sep 22, 2021, ~38,000 ratings, 1.1 weighted rating

Today (Jan 02, 2023): 39,736 ratings, 1.2 weighted rating

The Weekly NO's Facebook post was even picked up and amplified by multiple media. 

https://film.wp.pl/smolensk-najgorszym-filmem-swiata-w-serwisie-imdb-to-efekt-akcji-polskich-internautow-6628313260436320a

https://www.facebook.com/notesfrompoland/photos/a.265560586952492/1944908552351012/?type=3

https://rozrywka.radiozet.pl/Filmy/Smolensk-najgorszym-filmem-swiata-Wielki-sukces-polskiego-filmu-w-miedzynarodowym-serwisie-IMDb

https://www.brytfmonline.com/smolensk-is-the-worst-film-in-the-world-on-a-popular-website-he-posted-the-lowest-ratings/

https://jastrzabpost.pl/newsy/smolensk-najgorszym-filmem-na-swiecie-wedlug-imdb_1030558.html

https://www.o2.pl/film/smolensk-najgorszym-filmem-na-swiecie-przebil-zombie-ss-i-ludzka-stonoge-6628030232021792a

The success of the ratings sabotage was celebrated by the trolls on social media sites like Facebook and Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Polska/comments/moxo7h/we_did_it_reddit/

In many of the comments, the trolls admit they never watched the film and joined in with the ratings just to get the film into the bottom 250.

We did it boys smolensk is no more

Mnie by bardziej cieszyło normalne 2 bez przeprowadzonej akcji. Wiadomo, że nikt nie ocenia obiektywnie jednak ocena bez obejrzenia filmu psuje idee całego serwisu. A może gdybyś obejrzał to dałbyś 2 za efektowne wybuchy?

Translation:

I would have been happier with a normal 2 without the action. It is known that no one evaluates objectively, however, the evaluation without watching the movie spoils the idea of the entire website. Or maybe if you watched it, you would give 2 for spectacular explosions?

This evidence definitively proves that nearly 80% of the 1-star ratings and 90% of the 1-star reviews on this film all came about in a single week in April 2021 (five years after the film was released) as a result of an orchestrated reviewing-bombing operation. 

And apparently this mass troll action was not the first time the movie was "hate rated."

This previous post here on Sprinklr from back in 2016 also refers to a sudden influx of 2,000 votes of 1-star ratings. 

So now, I will repeat my previous questions: does IMDb allow orchestrated review-bombing and ratings brigading?

Will IMDb open an investigation into the massive influx of 1-star ratings and reviews that occurred on this film over the one-week period between April 10 and 17, 2021 and the resulting catastrophic impact on the film (including knocking it into the Bottom 250) and any other unusual patterns that can be perceived in the ratings and reviews on this film?

(edited)

Employee

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Will IMDb open an investigation into the massive influx of 1-star ratings and reviews that occurred on this film over the one-week period between April 10 and 17, 2021 and the resulting catastrophic impact on the film (including knocking it into the Bottom 250) and any other unusual patterns that can be perceived in the ratings and reviews on this film?

We looked into the rating for this title at the time and took all the appropriate actions. Nothing has substantially changed in terms of vote activity since then. 

Your conclusions are based on the theory that _all_ the low votes for this title are part of an orchestrated campaign that occurred at a specific time. I'm telling you that this is not the case. 


I can even tell you that there was another spike in voting activity one year after the first. Those have also been treated as needed.

I don't want to give the wrong impression: your interest in this (or any other cases of potential rating abuse) is appreciated, but not all reports will produce the result that might be expected and not all cases may produce appreciable changes in the rating itself. This is not due to lack of interest on our part, or to some secret agenda, and we can't get into details about each case.


(edited)

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1.7K Points

"Your conclusions are based on the theory --that _all_ the-- low votes for this title are part of an orchestrated campaign that occurred at a specific time. I'm telling you that this is not the case."

Where did he specifically state "all the votes" he pointed out very specific information that keyword even mentioned not ALL of the votes are sock/bot.  just above this reply he says 80-90% of the total number of votes within a WEEK , there are plenty more votes outside of that specific WEEK.  he targeted a very specific date range.


There were some that were justified as legitimate users who have actual time on IMDB, and he clearly pointed them out based on account status and key behaviors in the reviews. 

Now - granted, you guys handled most of this, there seems to be a bit of arrogance here.   This is MORE than enough evidence to present the votes as shown were in fact targeted.  but it took multiple requests and instances of proof before you even acted.

You are also right, yes, in these days social media is a political firing squad.

For the sake of sanity and dragging this out - we are not here to defend changing the rating, we are here to fight political collusion and vote stuffing, removing bot votes and the likes.

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

Your conclusions are based on the theory that _all_ the low votes for this title are part of an orchestrated campaign that occurred at a specific time. 

Not necessarily. I do understand that there have been lots of 1-star ratings on this title from the very beginning. But the 30,000+ ratings that came in in April 2021 are very suspicious, and they may have even helped clear the minimum number of ratings to get the film into the Bottom 100. (According to social media posts at that time, the film was only 2,000 votes away from getting into the Bottom 100. Did 2,000+ unique humans rate the film that week? Possibly. But I really don't think 30,000+ unique humans rated it that week.)

I can even tell you that there was another spike in voting activity one year after the first. Those have also been treated as needed.

When you say one year after the first, which spike are you counting as the first? The one in 2016, or the one in 2021?

Employee

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The one in 2021 -- there were a substantial number of votes cast on the same day in April 2022 by accounts created at the same time.


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@Giancarlo_Cairella

Interesting. Thanks. So if I am interpreting all this correctly, when the most recent spike happened in 2022, those ratings from that spike are no longer reflected in the raw number of votes for this title (unless the spike involved less than 2,000 votes).

Given the partisan/political and international aspects of all the drama over this movie and its rating, I would not be surprised if the ratings spikes were coming from bad actors like the Internet Research Agency

I am still not 100% convinced that this film appropriately belongs in IMDb's Bottom 100, but that is up to IMDb to decide, and I won't quibble about it any further.

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2 years ago

I would like to request that this post be unmarked as "solved." 

@Giancarlo_Cairella has speculated as to what he believes "likely" may have happened, but there have been no assurances by staff that this title has ever been actually referred and investigated for possible ratings manipulation. 

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Thank you to whomever marked this thread as "no status."

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2 years ago

nice research @keyword_expert - definitely worthy of praise into exposing wilful intent of manipulation. 

@Giancarlo_Cairella clearly you refuse to accept the fact the evidence is there.  

Sorry, but I agree with keyword here, I went over all the links he provided, and its definitely what he says it is.  

I'd even recommend Keyword be made a IMDB Staff member for doing this kind of work to better help the system here on IMDB. 

(edited)

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@CapStar362​ 

nice research @keyword_expert - definitely worthy of praise into exposing wilful intent of manipulation. 

Thank you. 

@Giancarlo_Cairella clearly you refuse to accept the fact the evidence is there.  

I am willing to give @Giancarlo_Cairella the benefit of the doubt, at least until we hear from him again. He has not yet responded to all the corroborating evidence I have provided.

I do have to admit I did not expect his initial response. When I have previously come across vote brigading, other IMDb staff members have filed support tickets, and usually at least some of the manipulation was ultimately reversed. I am still hoping and expecting that will happen here.

For me this has nothing to do with the merits of the politics. (I don't even quite even understand the nuances of the political alliances here on this issue, involving Russo-Polish relations and heated political divisions within Poland.)

Rather, it's all about the purity of the IMDb website. I would hope that IMDb would do everything in its power to investigate and prevent manipulation of its ratings, including when vote brigading and review bombing are involved.

I'd even recommend Keyword be made a IMDB Staff member for doing this kind of work to better help the system here on IMBD. 

Maybe some day I would be interested in that. For now, I do have a day job that I still love. 

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@keyword_expert​ 

"Rather, it's all about the purity of the IMDb website. I would hope that IMDb would do everything in its power to investigate and prevent manipulation of its ratings, including when vote brigading and review bombing are involved."

This, and i apologize i looked back and yes,  that was the only response for the entire conversation, ill retract that statement 

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Thus far, the conversation has roughly played out like a lot of screenplays. You know, those kinds where the protagonist is summoning the proper authorities (parents, cops, whatever) to report a problem, and the authorities respond as though the situation at hand may indeed be problematic but that it isn't really out of the ordinary. At least, in this case, we don't have to worry about the demon emerging from the shadows, snatching up agents of the authorities and devouring them before they have a chance to react. (I recently watched the original Die Hard, by the way.)

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@jeorj_euler

I literally LOL'ed when I read your comment. That was funny. 

As for whether this is a case of no-one-believes-the-protagonist (152 titles), only time will tell. 

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2 years ago

I found another social media thread where this mass ratings brigading campaign was organized.  This Reddit thread was posted on 11 April 2021, shortly after the original "Weekly NO" Facebook post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Polska/comments/mop5vu/przyczy%C5%84my_si%C4%99_do_kolejnego_ju%C5%BC_sukcesu_polski_na/

As the brigading proceeded, the Redditors (both Polish and Russian) tracked the position of the film in the bottom 100 and debated whether they should try to get the film down to the #1 worst film or just the #2 worst film (the latter was advocated for because the #2 position would attract less attention). They also theorized that IMDb's ratings algorithm was counteracting their brigading by discounting the value of votes from newly created accounts.  

And there are comments like this:

Given the massive number of votes involved (~30,000 1-star ratings over six days), it is very likely that bots and sock accounts were used over that one-week period in April 2021. I still call on IMDb staff to investigate this.

But let's assume that all 30,000 of those ratings came from unique individuals who were acting as part of a "hive mind" in responding to the call for action, and downvoted the film, most of them without watching it. 

Is that allowed? Would it still count as "organic votes (e.g. votes cast by real users)?"

If the brigading of titles' ratings on IMDb for political purposes is allowed so long as each vote comes from a living human being (as if that part can even be proven), then that would really open the floodgates to similar campaigns and raises questions about which other films' ratings have been affected. I sure hope IMDb doesn't condone ratings brigading. 

(edited)

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@keyword_expert​ 

Could this response please be unmarked as "private?" It was auto-flagged as private because of the Reddit link included. 

(edited)

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2 years ago

Could my recent response on this thread please be unmarked as "private?" It was auto-flagged as private because of the Reddit link included. 

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Thank you for unmarking this comment as "private."

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2 years ago

Other frequently recurring phrases in the April 2021 one-star "reviews" on this film:

- The word "distorted" was used in 2 of these reviews.

- The phrase "I've ever seen" (as in the worst movie I've ever seen) was used 12 times.

- A very prevalent theme is encouraging readers not to watch the movie. The phrase "don't watch" was used 9 times, "do not watch" was used 10 times, the phrase "to watch" (e.g. "do not even attempt to watch") was used 12 times, and similar phrases were used throughout.

- The phrase "complete disaster" was used 2 times, and the word "disaster" was used 21 times.

- The phrase "poor acting" was used 4 times.

All of this can't be a coincidence. Either users were copying each other's "reviews," or (more likely) a handful of people each wrote multiple reviews using sock accounts (which was easy enough to do back then, especially because IMDb was still accepting very short "reviews"). 

(edited)

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2 years ago

Toward the end of the ratings brigading on this film, two "users" said the quiet part out loud.

I will copy and paste the contents of their "reviews" because I am sure these will eventually be removed (along with the dozens of other fake reviews).

jatoon-72500

IMDb member since April 2021
 1/10

I don't get it

13 April 2021
How it's possible to be on #44?

Please we need more negative votes.
2 out of 2 found this helpful. 

kamilb-90715

IMDb member since April 2021

1/10
Movie rate
14 April 2021
Why the movie on the movie page is rated by 35 978 people for 1,1/10 and while viewing bottom rated movies is 42th with rating 3,4?
2 out of 2 found this helpful.

(edited)

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664 Points

2 years ago

Stop being the imdb's Karen... a film can be bad even if you disagree.

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@jimmy_simard

99 out of 100 bots and socks agree with you.

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@jimmy_simard​ even if the film was good, would you still condone this behavior? 

the point he is making is not about the quality of the film, its about collusion and altering the true rating.

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@CapStar362​ Not only that, there is a difference between a bad film and a truly awful film. This film may very well be a bad film -- I don't even take a position on that. But it has no place in IMDb's Bottom 100. Yet that is where it is, solely because of an orchestrated campaign to put it there. Anyone who can't see that is in denial or can't be bothered to examine the evidence that I have presented. 

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@keyword_expert​ exactly - and IMDB would be outright flooded with this nonsense if left unchecked by its community.  The Staff are not gods, they cannot be here 24/7. 

a community is best powered by its people who help spot things like you are doing.

Do opinions vary? of course
are people going to disagree? absolutely

That does not mean certain behaviors and actions should be allowed or disallowed, but when it comes to the IMDB policy and the purity of strictly factual information?  absolutely NOT

Even myself, I disagree with a few things on certain elements of movie and TV goof's when presenting information, certain things cannot be kept short, nor can information be readily found which leads to declining a goof submission.

Is that annoying?  Yup - Does it mean I'm going to leave IMDB?  Nope.

I've added goofs, gotten them declined, approved, ive edited prior goofs and even those declined and approved. 

I even brought up an issue about the spelling database.  it flags words that are 100% legitimate words. it was partially fixed, but it still needs work. 

(edited)

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2 years ago

Update:

180 of the 256 one-star "reviews" written in April 2021 have now been removed.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=asc&ratingFilter=1

However, ~76 of these April 2021 "reviews" remain. When I get a chance, I will go through them and do another round of flagging. [Edit: I realized that many of my flags of these "reviews" are still pending. It may take a day or two yet for all flags to be acted on.]

Most importantly, the rating has not been adjusted at all. There is now one more rating than yesterday (for a total of 39,737 ratings), and the film is still ranked #74 in the IMDb Bottom Rated Movies.

(edited)

Employee

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2 years ago

We do not 'adjust' ratings for films. The rating is based on calculations applied to the individual votes cast by users. When votes change, or the weight assigned to them, the rating will change. 

Nobody is arguing against the theory that a lot of votes were cast as part of an organized campaign, but that's unfortunately something that happens from time to time, especially against films that deal with certain topics or which feature people who are the target of social media ire.

In this case, all the appropriate steps necessary to deal with this kind of phenomenon have been taken and will continue to be taken as circumstances require.

 

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@Giancarlo_Cairella​ 

I understand your distinction about how ratings are (ultimately) adjusted through the adjustment of the input factors, and I'm glad you clarified that point for anyone following along.

In this case, all the appropriate steps necessary to deal with this kind of phenomenon have been taken

Meanwhile, the film remains ranked as #74 in IMDb's Bottom 100 movies as a direct result of this organized campaign. Apparently IMDb is okay with that outcome. 

I sure hope IMDb has recently looked at whether vote stuffing and/or botting occurred with any of the 30,000+ ratings that popped up on this title in the second week of April 2021.  Although I have seen evidence of up to 500 individuals taking part in the ratings brigading that week, that is a far cry from 30,000+ people. Plus, the fact that there was definite sock account activity on the reviews during that week (as evidenced by IMDb's takedown of most of these reviews) may be a red flag that the ratings were also stuffed.

Thanks for the response.

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Do the calculations that determine the Bottom 100 work the same way as the calculations that determine the Top 250?

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@jeorj_euler​ 

That has never been entirely clear to me. The official page for the Bottom 100 just says "the list is ranked by a formula" without stating whether it's the same formula as the Top 250. Wikipedia describes the Bottom 100 formula as "similar" to the Top 250. 

The only thing I know for sure is that the minimum number of votes to be in these lists is very different: it's 25,000 ratings for the Top 250 and only 10,000 ratings for the Bottom 100. (The minimum threshold for the Bottom 100 used to be 1,500 ratings, but that was changed to 10,000 in Aug. 2018.) 

BTW, in my research on this topic in answering your question, I came across two prior posts on this forum, from back in Fall 2016, when new users popped up in this forum to ask why a certain movie was not included in the Bottom 100. I'll give you one guess which movie they were both asking about. Here are the threads I'm referring to:

Lowest Rated Movies - Bottom 100 missing movies

Why is this movie not in Lowest Rated Movies?

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@jeorj_euler​ 

I am not sure what happened to you response referencing moviechat -- it was probably flagged because of the link and marked as private.

At any rate, I received a copy of your message in my email inbox.

Thanks for the reminder about moviechat. I often consult the archives there, but totally forgot to do so for this title.

A couple of threads there show that certain people have been singularly focused on getting this movie in the Bottom 100 from the day it debuted. I guess they should be proud of accomplishing their goal.

Why isn't it on IMDb Bottom 100 yet?

Worst movie ever?

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@jeorj_euler​ I wonder if IMDb staff have the ability to whitelist moviechat, or if that can only be done by Sprinklr.

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When I expressed the thing as a non-hyperlink URL, the message containing it interestingly didn't get caught in the spam filter. Just to note, sometimes the filter is triggered by messages that contain neither hyperlinks nor gibberish, e.g. Sprinklr reply 637957825ce5a035bfec0cee.

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(Well, the message I had mentioned as an example does contain a hyperlink, so maybe that had been the culprit.)

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2 years ago

An archive of the threads containing exchanges of words had by IMDb members about this movie and its IMDb title page can be found at https://moviechat.org/tt6038600/Smolensk.

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2 years ago

Another update on the reviews on this title:

Only 29 reviews remain live, only 13 of which were part of the "review-bombing" campaign in April 2021.  I have re-flagged about half of those 13, either because they were part of the review bombing and/or because they don't really comment on the actual content of the movie. 

Thank you to IMDb for swiftly cleaning up all the fake "reviews" on this title.

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2 years ago

@jeorj_euler 

Do you know anything about aspect ratios for movies?

The discussion here seems to indicate some trolling against the aspect ratios listed on IMDb for Smolensk.

Translation of their discussion:

Mandret-
·
2 yr. ago
Warsaw
Which joker was changing movie formats in imdb?


Pafnucy123
·
2 yr. ago

This would probably be the first feature-length film that can be viewed on a smartphone in a vertical position.



QN3RD
·
2 yr. ago


Oh no, I was hoping it would be watchable in 9:6 :(( apparently I have to settle for it

 21:37

But with that said, there appears to be no difference at all in the aspect ratios listed on IMDb when you compare the 2016 version to their 2021 screenshot to the current 2023 data.  So if there was trolling, it happened back in 2016 around the time the film was released.

Any idea what went on here? Were these aspect ratios sabotaged?

Aspect Ratio 1.78 : 1
1.85 : 1
16:9 HD
21:37

(edited)

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I've no idea, as I know almost nothing about Smolensk, but I doubt the accuracy of the "21:37" item, as I've never ever heard of a bonafide professional movie, even a bonafide professional music video, having a width-to-height ratio lower than 4:3 ≈ 1.33:1, since professionals (and usually amateurs too) either don't use cell phone cameras or wouldn't even consider video-recording something in portrait mode (regardless of the type of camera), for obvious reasons like being put in the position of cropping the top or bottom of the portrait in order to avoid null (black) bars too wide on the left and right portions of the presentation screen. I'm open to the possibility that there may be some scenes in the movie that appear in portrait aspect.

I notice that 21:37 is very close to 9:16 in value, so I do wonder that 9:16 may be more appropriate than 21:37, but again I don't know. Even a vast majority of contemporary found-footage movies (like involving smartphone recordings) don't entertain the notion of this hypothetical art style.

I'm also curious to know how such an extreme change in the width-to-height ratio like this would be encoded, because in this o-so computerized world that we live in, there should be a way for the video medium feed to signal to the video player that a given set of frames of footage with a low width-to-height ratio should fill the view port when situated in portrait mode, yet I've never observed this.

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@jeorj_euler​ Thank you. Your response compelled me to look further into 21:37. Indeed, this was trolling. I will submit a correction request to IMDb.

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O, excellent work, keyword expert. The Urban Dictionary is one of my favorite dictionaries too, on account of the scope of coverage, but I don't always think about it. Darn! Now, I'm reminded of a somewhat ridiculous documentary known as Room 237, and how the hotel in Stephen King's novel had room number 137 as the most ominous room in such an ominous hotel, whereas the hotel in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of the novel in question had room number 237 instead for that purpose. Lots of superstitious could be built around the number 37, kind of like the number 23.

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2 years ago

Review bombers 0

IMDB Community 1

nice work keyword :)

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@CapStar362@jeorj_euler 

Thank you. Both the reviews as well as the aspect ratios for this film have now been fully corrected. 

Of course, nothing has been changed with the ratings, and the film remains in the Bottom 100, but IMDb is unwilling to do anything further on that. 

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2 years ago

I realize this thread is considered "solved" but I just came across one more piece of evidence that further corroborates that the ratings on Smolensk were brigaded and likely botted. 

Smolensk is currently listed #73 in IMDb's Bottom 100 films. Here is a link that shows not just IMDb's Bottom 100 films, but its Bottom 250 films, sorted by "Popularity" with the least popular film first. 

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?groups=bottom_250&sort=moviemeter,desc&count=250

Interestingly, even though Smolensk is supposedly the 73rd worst film on IMDb according to user ratings, it is dead last in "popularity" among the bottom 250 films. In this context, "popularity" means how much attention users are giving the film through visits to its page. In IMDb's own words, a lower popularity ranking means the film has a relatively lower "level of public awareness and/or interest in the title." 

The fact that Smolensk is the least "popular" of all the Bottom 250 shows that the public is not very interested in this movie. Yet a small number of people have used bots and sock accounts to sabotage the film's ratings at different points in time to try to make it look like there is a high level of public interest in the film. The tens of thousands of "1-star" ratings on the film are artificial and fraudulent. 

(edited)