Duplicate Keywords Proposed for Permanent Merging and Auto-Conversion - A Formal Proposal

Thank you, @Michelle.   

And thanks again to @bradley_kent for his ongoing work in manually editing many of these keywords. His ability to slice through thousands of keyword revisions at a time, like a knife through butter, is unparalleled.

@Michelle @bradley_kent 

I just did some checking and tests on these keywords, and I noted some substantial changes for the better. I can't tell whether the changes were done by Mr. Kent or by IMDb staff, or some combination thereof. But substantial progress is already being made, which I do truly appreciate. 

Here is what I have observed:

1. Most (the vast majority) of the individual keywords have been moved over in the directions of the arrows in my list. This is great to see! We are talking about more than 3,000 individual keyword entries, so this is a massive shift to improve the functionality of keyword searches on IMDb. Bravo!

2. As far as I can tell, only a single entry on my list was not changed ("psychotic-killer" and "psychopathic-killer," both of which I had recommended should be merged into "psycho-killer"). I cannot tell whether this proposed fix was declined or just overlooked.

3. As far as I can tell, the keywords are not (yet?) set up for future autoconversions. For example, when a contributor tries to add the plural keyword "environmental-issues" to a title, that keyword will be accepted, instead of automatically converting to the singular keyword "environmental-issue." I tested this and was able to add "environmental-issues" to a title.

4. I did note one typo in these mass mergers. The keyword japanese-school-girl was merged into the new keyword 'japanese-schoolgirl, instead of japanese-schoolgirl. Please note the apostrophe at the beginning of that new keyword; that was a typo. 

Mr. Kent, if these mergers were done by you, I am once again impressed with how you manage to edit such large numbers of keywords in short order. You make it look easy! It would have taken me many days, possibly weeks, to make all these changes through manual editing. If this was you, and if you are willing, at some point I sincerely hope you will divulge your editing methods to the community, so that other contributors can replicate them with their own keyword cleaning. Please do not mistake my sentiments as sarcasm; I am genuinely in awe of your work. 

@Michelle @bradley_kent 

After some further thought, I believe I was wrong to recommend that both 

"psychotic-killer" and "psychopathic-killer" should be merged into "psycho-killer". So it is actually a good thing that this specific proposal of mine did not happen, either because it was overlooked or rejected. 

As it turns out, there are important differences between a psychotic person and a psychopathic person. Psychotic persons have lost touch with reality and may hear things or have visions. Psychopathic persons have no regard for others. As applied to killers (murderers), a psychotic killer might kill because voices in his head are telling him to do so. But a psychopathic killer might kill because he enjoys killing. 

If my proposed keyword merger was rejected on purpose, then kudos to whomever rejected it for spotting the problem! I apologize for not thinking this one through more thoroughly before suggesting it.

I do think I will look more closely at the "psychotic-killer" and "psychotic-murderer" keywords on IMDb. As noted in this article, "the killer is rarely psychotic" but rather is "psychopathic." In some cases where people have used the keywords "psychotic-killer" and "psychotic-murderer" on IMDb, they probably meant psychopathic-killer" and/or "psychopathic-murderer" instead.

But as it turns out, the most famous "psycho-killer" of all cinema history, Norman Bates, was in fact a "psychotic-killer" rather than a "psychopathic-killer." Was Norman Bates a psychopath? - Quora

Hi keyword_expert -

No worries!  Yes, I left those keywords as-is as each seemed applicable as standalone keywords.

Cheers!