Another green bottle fell from the wall...

@ljdoncel​ Understandable, I've had a "dry February" from January 20th-March 15th in which I submitted literally nothing. I can't promise there won't be more of those in the future, given some of the current policies.

@ljdoncel​ 

You know that you will eventually hit this in every department, right? It's not a department problem but an overall change to the "as" attribute. We haven't really gotten an explanation of why in the cases highlighted that IMDb thinks this policy change is a good idea. I wonder if the people running these IMDbPro profiles even know what is going on.

You know that you will eventually hit this in every department, right?

I do, Adrian, I do. I have thought, like Marco, about giving up completely. However, it is a difficult decision considering all the love and time I have dedicated for so many years. There will come a time when, indeed, the effort of auditing a film will not compensate me because the number of credits I will leave unsent will represent a significant percentage of the work.

I imagine that, at this rate, that day will come soon (for instance, I audited Below (2002) a couple days ago, and 19% of the edits remain unsubmitted; it would have risen up to 23% counting stunts -- you are well aware of all the time that it takes). Until then, I will have to continue reading with sorrow threads of users complaining about not being able to find in our beloved information that was available less than 2 years ago...

...and now it's at first hand only in TMDb or Letterboxd (something that I didn't think would ever happen)...

... because IMDb has gotten rid of it... even worse, now it shows incorrect data...

Yes, I'm sad, that's the word...

@ljdoncel: Thanks for this very concrete example of other databases being more complete than IMDb thanks to this policy change.

I think there'll come a time when IMDb realizes this was a very bad idea. The question is how much data has gotten corrupted and how much contributors have left by that point....

That being said, at least for now, the monthly list of top contributors seems to suggest most (top) contributors don't care (too much) about this issue.

Hi, @Ozzy :

Thank you very much for explaining the reasoning behind this decision. I deeply respect it, because after all it is the decision of a private company that can set the limits it wants. And I must accept that.

However, I joined this project with the illusion of contributing to a complete and objective database, based on nothing more and nothing less than what is undoubtedly captured on a screen (like a name in a credits roll). Safeguarding the facts, the history... that was my motivation. Now it turns out that we are asked to ignore reality because some people can't handle the truth.

Avoiding discrimination and misrepresentation is done by educating people in values and informing with transparency, not by preventing access to such information. What is shown is normalized and embraced, not what is hidden. We are not protecting anyone that way. We love movies, the objective and the subjective part of them. I don't care (to a certain extent) that IMDb wants to condition the subjective part (like the unavailability of negative emojis when reacting to videos [thumbs-down doesn't count as an emoji] for fear of "hurting" someone), but for me the objective part is an inalienable aspect.

It has been a nice trip, but for the moment I'm going to say goodbye. I enjoyed the trip when I could look at the landscape freely, take a picture and share it with the world, that's all. I'm sorry for this.

Thank you very much to all, staff and fellow contributors, for these beautiful years. I wish you all the best.

P.S. You are free to take advantage of my saved contributions and use them if you want. A last legacy. Thanks again.

@ljdoncel​ We are so sorry to hear this and so sorry to lose you.  Thank you for all that you have contributed to IMDb over the years (including the lovely video you made for the team meeting many years ago). We will miss you, and if you ever change your mind, we are only an "Edit page" button away.  You know how to press, don't you? 

From our perspective, the display changes we support are small and they only affect a small number of credits out of more than 200 million in IMDb. We also retain the tag that the credit is different than on-screen without displaying the actual difference.  Yet at the same time, for the impacted individuals, the changes have a disprorportionately large positive effect, to not only their careers and career prospects, but also their own well-being and personal safety outside of their profession. I am proud of what we have done to support a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable entertainment industry. We believe we have struck the correct balance.  

Thank you for acknowledging your respect of our position above, likewise the same respect is reflected back to your position. 

Col (on behalf of the whole IMDb team). 

So, the IMDb data editors aren't even able to use the saved submission forms to make sure that the data is represented correctly non-publicly (internally)?

Thank you very much for your beautiful words, Col.

I have to admit that my message this morning was greatly influenced by the fact that I had a horrible shift yesterday (without going into details, a patient for whom we were fighting for several hours ended up dying...).

After sleeping (badly) a few hours I have meditated a bit. An absolutely perfect database is a utopia, and giving up on participating in it because a negligible percentage of items are not 100% accurate would likely be succumbing to a Nirvana fallacy.

Deep down I hate the reasons why this all started. I have the deepest respect and support for people who abhor their previous name, but hiding it in an unbiased database when it is public information in plain sight in the credits of a movie, may generate more backlash than acceptance, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Being one of my favorite directors, using the Howard Hawks card was very smart . I'm going to give myself a couple of days of deliberation, recover from yesterday's upset and decide what I do in the end. I love this project too much (and it takes up too much fun of my free time) to throw it all away so easily.

Maybe the solution of convenience of (as a different name) is not so bad at the moment. Just because you as a company for legal reasons can't have a record of all NAKAs, doesn't mean I can't have one. And, if at some point all this nonsense ends, I could restore the correct attributes that now the system does not allow me to send.

I will think about it and, if that solution convinces me, I will send all the updates I had saved (it would be a whistle of more than 2500 entries, so it will be heard well... ). In any case, many thanks to you personally and to all the team, because I also understand that it must not be easy to deal with pressures from so many fronts.

Happy weekend to all.

@ljdoncel​ We are so sorry to hear about your patient. It does not seem appropriate to write anything else today.  We are thinking of you and their family and friends. I will reply again on Monday and we wish you a peaceful weekend. 

@ljdoncel​ Thank you reconsidering and it is good to have you back.  I hope all is going well.