29 Messages
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396 Points
Are we allowing silent shorts to be submitted as "TV-Series" now?
Was using advanced search to find the earliest TV-series ever created... and discovered this:
Solser en Hesse (1900-1906)
Specifically, it compiles several short films together into one entry as a "TV-series," even though this objectively cannot be true because the first TV broadcast did not occur until 1926. Yes, the more serialized nature of theatrical shorts in that era makes them function similarly to a TV-series, but they're still independent works. Is IMDb flagrantly letting people submit theatrical short series as TV-series now? This has lead to literally thousands of duplicate entries for silent theatrical short and TV-series entries that refer to the same title, and its gotten to the point the site's accuracy of information listed about silent era films is now unacceptable, incompetent, and out of control.
What would happen if one day someone decided to merge the "short film" entry with its "TV-episode entry?" Thus effectively DELETING the original short film entry, by retroactively re-labelling it "TV-episode." One step further from that scenario, how long would it then be before we start listing "Star Wars" as a single TV-series, merging each of its 9 films into TV-episodes (thus deleting their respective film pages)? Continuing to let the site's submission policies be violated this fragrantly, without any reprimanding or enforcement of its rules, will only result in the permanent reduction of its accuracy and standards.
MrFargo
29 Messages
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396 Points
3 months ago
Similarly, absolutely NO ONE is following the recent policy change to allow podcast series to be submitted on the site. There doesn't seem to be any seperate category for radio serials, so people are just flippantly submitting them as TV-series (as can be seen in this example) when they would be more appropriately listed as a podcast.
In both respects, IMDb either needs to update its policy, add stricter regulations or enforcement of penalties for submitting information incorrectly or that's factually wrong, or simply cease allowing podcasts to be listed on the site. I would hate to suggest that latter option, but at this point it's lead to such a flood of incorrectly submitted entries that it renders the legitimacy or accuracy of all information listed on this website before 1951 questionable at best.
(edited)
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gromit82
Champion
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7.4K Messages
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276K Points
3 months ago
I don't understand how a supposed TV series could be accepted with a start date of 1900. Television broadcasting did not exist in 1900.
In fact, if one tries to submit a TV series from 1900, one will get the following warning:
So the truth about the history of television has been programmed into the IMDb software. The question is how this error managed to get through and not be removed yet.
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jay_spirit
1K Messages
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29.8K Points
3 months ago
There's a mania among contributors to create series where there are none, which suggests a need that IMDb is not addressing.
I hope the staff is considering my idea or coming up with a better one.
Idea: Collections
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gromit82
Champion
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7.4K Messages
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276K Points
3 months ago
Apparently if you start from the page for a theatrical film from before 1927, it is possible to submit a Title Correction to change it to a TV series or TV movie and get the form to turn green and ready for submission.
Currently, the contributor does not even get a warning that they are submitting a TV series or TV movie from before television broadcasting began, much less a rejection notice during the submission process. The software needs to be updated to reject such submissions in the Title Correction process -- not just in the New Title process.
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Michelle
Employee
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17.5K Messages
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313K Points
2 months ago
Hi @MrFargo & All -
Thanks for raising this issue and sharing your comments. The series title reported has now been corrected to the appropriate film type. I have also filed a ticket for the appropriate team to review improvements that address the loopholes that are allowing invalid title type modifications.
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