Are there any rules that are actually enforced regarding Keywords?

@Marco​, last year I asked the same question in this thread.

Here are some titles that I am aware of with very high numbers of keywords:

1,381 keywords: The Directive (2019)

965 keywords: 75 (2017)

789 keywords: The Dark Knight (2008)

779 keywords: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

754 keywords: Wonder Woman (2017)

725 keywords: Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019)

700 keywords: Down River (2018)

I wouldn't be surprised if there are other titles with more than 700 keywords, but those are all I can think of at the moment.

The Batman, which was released less than a week ago, already has 583 keywords!

The Batman (2022)

I believe I have just found the title that deserves the world record for the highest number of keywords. This was a movie released just two weeks ago, and it already has nearly 2,000 keywords.

1,969 keywords: Aylan Baby (2022)

It is possible (indeed, likely) that some of these keywords were added as spam, but on the surface I can't prove that. Indeed, many of the keywords are very relevant to the plot. But some of the keywords are highly suspect (search for "alien," for example). 

And here is a title with nearly 1,000 keywords. This one has some obvious spam, but some of the keywords are valid, which would make it quite tedious to sift through these keywords to delete the bad ones.

992 keywords: Islamophobia (2022)

Regarding Aylan Baby (2022), many of its new keywords are indeed spam. Whomever added these keywords (probably someone associated with the movie) has included keywords like "avengers-infinity-war," "oscar-nominated-film," "the-dark-knight-rises," "the-matrix," etc. Ugh.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10449310/keywords

@jeorj_euler​ 

I'm not aware of a rule or guideline, but I try to treat the creation of new keywords as a last resort for tagging, labeling or describing a work, its content or circumstances thereof.

I very much agree with you on this. Like you, I consider the creation of a new keyword (as opposed to choosing a preexisting keyword) as a last resort.

As far as I'm concerned, the primary or most useful function of keywords is to allow for identification of titles through keyword searches, especially multi-keyword combination searches. But when keywords are scattered, bifurcated, duplicated, or orphaned (use whatever word or concept you want), these keywords can't be easily picked up in multi-keyword searches, thus sharply diminishing their usefulness.

Not to mention that when numerous "orphaned" keywords (keywords that will only apply to one title) are added to a title, this can essentially be spamming the keyword section for that title by diluting the keywords with marginally relevant material. Some users like to quickly scan a title's keywords to get a sense of what the title is about. When dozens or even hundreds of marginally relevant keywords pollute a title's keyword section, it makes it a lot more difficult to do so.

Because I agree with you that creating new keywords should be a last resort, I almost feel guilty when doing so. Even when I do reluctantly create a new keyword, I will do my best to figure out at least one other title to which the same new keyword can also be added, so that I won't be creating an "orphaned" keyword. 

My general rule of thumb is that no more than one or two out of each 50 keyword submissions should involve "orphaned" keywords. Any more than that and I am probably doing something wrong.

Apparently not all contributors share our philosophies and approach about keywords. Some folks seem all too willing to create massive quantities of orphaned keywords, many of them including highly specific or even unique plot scenarios, typographical errors, and/or odd grammar. I discuss that here.

When I create a new keyword, it is usually because something in a movie is a thing that can indeed be found in at least one other movie, but not always, like when there is an unusual word for an idea, or a concept in the movie the explains one aspect of a culture or something like that, so in those cases, only one might would indeed be tagged for long periods of time. I should note that I rely upon the suggestions provided in the submission form too, and rarely explore synonyms or spellings beyond those. I can't remember how often I've created new keywords, but it might have been under a dozen times in the past decade.

@jeorj_euler​

I can't remember how often I've created new keywords, but it might have been under a dozen times in the past decade.

I admire your restraint, Mr. Euler! I have created a lot more new keywords than that, but I would estimate that only 1% to 3% of my keyword additions have been new keywords.

Of course, we do have to consider that every existing keyword was new at one point. So in some rare cases it does make sense to add new ones, including when it makes sense to pave the way for fellow contributors to use the new keywords on other titles. 

All instances of the keyword "heterosexual-sex" might be best replaced with "heterosexual-intercourse" or "heterosexual-activity". The keyword "indignant" could be replaced with the "indignant-person", "indignant-attitude" or deleted altogether, if not redirected to "indignation". The keyword "pretty" could be redirected to "beauty". The keyword "young" could be redirected to either "youth" or "young-adult". The keyword "touch" could be redirected to "human-touch" or something. I don't know. The word "touch" is one of those that feels like it should be almost accompanied by an adjective or a prepositional noun, e.g. "magic-touch", "touch-of-spice". I'd leave the keywords "black-american" and "african-american" alone, but I certainly favor the former over the latter. Despite the fact that the latter is the official parlance of the United Starts government, it is somewhat alienating whenever used to refer to anybody who would aptly point out, "I'm not from Africa. My parents aren't even from Africa. I'm not African. I'm American." The keyword "drink" could be redirected either to "beverage" or "alcoholic-beverage". The keyword "money" is fine, but wherever it is attached ought to also have keywords attached specifying the context of the money, be it banknotes (cash, legal tender), bank account balances, trust funds, mutual funds or account balances of other fund types, unless the distinctions aren't necessary in a given case. The keyword "barbecue" could be redirected to "barbecue-food", "barbecue-cooking" or "barbecue-oriented-event". Apparently it is possible to show barbecue food without showing the process by which the raw material was transformed.

As always, some keyword editing decisions warrant watching the movie to whose title page they've been attached.

Just one day later, Inland Empire now has another 50 keywords. It is currently at 1,672 keywords.

Here are some statistics for Inland Empire:

Oct. 26, 2007: 31 keywords

Jan. 15, 2009: 76 keywords

Feb. 3, 2010: 41 keywords

May 2, 2012: 208 keywords

May 5, 2022 - 218 keywords

July 7, 2022 - 437 keywords

(unknown recent date, likely Jan. 8, 2023): 1,417 keywords

Jan. 10, 2023 - 1,622 keywords

Jan. 11, 2023 - 1,672 keywords

@jeorj_euler Feel free to make any changes you want to clean up these keywords. Although I saw this movie around the time it came out, I am not confident enough in my memories of it to be able to edit the keywords. 

I suspect we will see the keywords on this title continue to proliferate no matter what is done to remove or merge some of them.  Apparently someone is using this keyword page to play a game of adding as many keywords as they possibly can.

From Antony Todd, Authorship and the Films of David Lynch: Aesthetic Receptions in Contemporary Hollywood (Feb. 1, 2012):

Another annoying thing about the keywords being added to Inland Empire, which I am sure will irk @bradley_kent, is that the keywords are being added as "Other" rather than as "Plot Detail." 

Currently, 615 of the keywords on Inland Empire are marked as "Other."

I had not looked at the keywords for Inland Empire in several years, but, because of this discussion, did a quick scan, and found them to be the WORST list of keywords I have ever come across for ANY title. 

"arm? "chin"?"nose"? WHAT? "now". And the "Other" category designations just don't make any sense.

Surely, Shrley, IMDb can find out who made these ridiculous keywords and categorizations (some obsessed Lynch fan?), and ask them to cease and desist.  It would take weeks to begin to clean up the keywords on this one title.  

I have too many OTHER on-going IMDb projects to even begin to think about dealing with it. Someone else, have at it!

@bradley_kent​ 

I agree. My big gripe with the Inland Empire keywords is many of them are newly created, orphaned keywords (keywords that apply to only one title).

Some of these orphaned keywords are written in an odd style. For example, there is the new orphaned keyword making cinema, even though the title already has the keyword filmmaking.

I deleted the "out-of-sequence-story-line" keyword from Inland Empire because it already has "nonlinear-timeline."

And there were some other weird keywords, like "something-is-wrong," which I also deleted.

@keyword_expert​ Pretty sure Inland Empire (2006) will inevitably have all sorts of problems with all sorts of categorization. This movie defies one.