IMDb Staff: When adding keywords, the system should auto-convert two hyphens (--) and one hyphen plus a space (- ) to one hyphen (-)

@dan_dassow​ I'm fully aware of the differences between hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes.

Can you please explain why you're raising this? Are you suggesting that contributors are trying to enter en-dashes or em-dashes as part of their keyword entries (rather than spaces as I suggested in my post), and that the system is converting these punctuation marks to double hyphens?

Or are you suggesting that you are opposed to my suggestion, i.e., you believe that the ability to type two hyphens together should remain available to contributors when entering keywords?

If the latter, then your suggestion would not make sense for IMDb keywords. En-dashes and em-dashes are used within sentences as part of grammar. They are not used within words themselves.  (Edit: to be fair, an en-dash might be used within a term, but for IMDb keyword purposes an en-dash is functionally the same as a hyphen. It is common in writing outside of IMDb to use two hyphens to indicate an em-dash -- sometimes set apart by spaces, like I am doing right here in this sentence --  but I don't ever see writing outside of IMDb use two hyphens to indicate an en-dash, and I don't recall ever seeing it on IMDb, either.) And in none of the examples I included in my post would an en-dash or em-dash ever have been grammatically correct to include.

The bottom line is that the double hyphens within keywords are causing problems on IMDb, they are undoubtedly created inadvertently by people accidentally including an extra space within their keywords, and the system should prevent such accidents by never creating keywords with two hyphens side by side. That has resulted in many unnecessary, improperly formatted and/or duplicate keywords over the years that should never have been created in the first place.

@dan_dassow​ p.s. I tested the keyword system by trying to input both en-dashes and em-dashes into new keyword entries. The system converts each of these punctuation marks to single hyphens (not double hyphens). So if you are suggesting that some of the double hyphens within keywords are intended to be en-dashes or em-dashes, those double hyphens would have been entered manually by contributors, not through auto-conversion by the IMDb keyword system. 

If you were suggesting that it would have been legitimate for someone to use double hyphens (rather than a single hyphen) within a keyword, can you provide examples of where this has happened before with keywords? Or if not, any examples of where you believe it might happen in the future? 

I continue to believe that em-dashes simply would never occur within an IMDb keyword, and en-dashes are functionally the same as single hyphens for IMDb keyword purposes, so I can't think of any situation involving keywords where double hyphens would make sense. Double hyphens could grammatically imply an em-dash, but not an en-dash.

@keyword_expert​ ,

I misread your original post. I'm in violent agreement that only hyphens should be used as part of keywords.

@dan_dassow​ Thank you for clearing that up. I also misread your response at first, and then I made a bunch of edits after the fact as I tried to decipher it.

@keyword_expert​ ,

At one time, IMDb Champions could change whether a thread is classified as Question, Problem, Idea or Praise. Now only IMDb staff and Sprinklr staff with Sprinklr admin rights or the original author of a thread can change the type of thread.

@Pencho15​ Thank you for the vote of support. Don't forget to upvote the "idea" post.

Hi @keyword_expert​ -

I have filed a ticket for the appropriate team to review/consider this request.  As soon as I have an update on the status I will let you know here.

Cheers!