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Implementation of new genres
Back in July 2010, there was a discussion about new genres to be added to IMDb. After a discussion, eventually the following five genres were approved by the IMDb staff:
Soap Opera
Erotica
Awards Show
Experimental
Lifestyle
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/165524169?p=3&d=167577501#167577501
In December 2010 and January 2011, contributors discussed definitions for each of the five new genres, which were in turn approved by the staff.
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176453004 (Awards Show)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176843542 (Erotica)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176800928 (Experimental)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/175322002 (Lifestyle)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176453288 (Soap Opera)
On January 31, 2011, then-staffer jaimie-k wrote that he was working hard to make the implementation of the genres happen as fast as possible.
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/174139769?p=2&d=177533770#177533770
However, it has been almost three years since then, and none of the new genres have been implemented yet.
We haven't even gotten an explanation for the delay since May 2012, when we were told, "It is difficult to add new genres because it requires coordination across multiple sites, multiple mobile applications on multiple platforms and multiple languages."
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/198586611?d=199705646#199705646
But that explanation doesn't sound right, because regardless of what application we use to view IMDb data, the underlying data is still stored the same way. The IMDb App for iPhone or Android or Windows Phone needs to know where to display the genre for a film -- but the app shouldn't need to be reprogrammed just because there are more genres that can be selected from. We're not talking about adding a new field of data -- we're just talking about adding new values to an existing field of data.
Or to put it another way, the Country of Origin field is another field where there are a finite number of choices that can be selected from. Suppose that Scotland or Catalonia or Flanders or Quebec became independent and started producing films and television shows. It wouldn't take years to add those new countries to the Country of Origin field. It would be done pretty quickly after the first new title was submitted with an "Explanation for missing information" identifying the film's Country of Origin as not being listed in the drop-down box.
In short, on a programming difficulty scale, where creating a program that prints "Hello, world!" is a 1, and getting Healthcare.gov (the "Obamacare" website) to operate properly is a 10, implementing the new genres should be no more than a 3. The IMDb programmers have done some much more complex programming than that in the last three and a half years. Please have them go ahead and implement the new genres without further delay.
Soap Opera
Erotica
Awards Show
Experimental
Lifestyle
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/165524169?p=3&d=167577501#167577501
In December 2010 and January 2011, contributors discussed definitions for each of the five new genres, which were in turn approved by the staff.
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176453004 (Awards Show)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176843542 (Erotica)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176800928 (Experimental)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/175322002 (Lifestyle)
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/176453288 (Soap Opera)
On January 31, 2011, then-staffer jaimie-k wrote that he was working hard to make the implementation of the genres happen as fast as possible.
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/174139769?p=2&d=177533770#177533770
However, it has been almost three years since then, and none of the new genres have been implemented yet.
We haven't even gotten an explanation for the delay since May 2012, when we were told, "It is difficult to add new genres because it requires coordination across multiple sites, multiple mobile applications on multiple platforms and multiple languages."
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/198586611?d=199705646#199705646
But that explanation doesn't sound right, because regardless of what application we use to view IMDb data, the underlying data is still stored the same way. The IMDb App for iPhone or Android or Windows Phone needs to know where to display the genre for a film -- but the app shouldn't need to be reprogrammed just because there are more genres that can be selected from. We're not talking about adding a new field of data -- we're just talking about adding new values to an existing field of data.
Or to put it another way, the Country of Origin field is another field where there are a finite number of choices that can be selected from. Suppose that Scotland or Catalonia or Flanders or Quebec became independent and started producing films and television shows. It wouldn't take years to add those new countries to the Country of Origin field. It would be done pretty quickly after the first new title was submitted with an "Explanation for missing information" identifying the film's Country of Origin as not being listed in the drop-down box.
In short, on a programming difficulty scale, where creating a program that prints "Hello, world!" is a 1, and getting Healthcare.gov (the "Obamacare" website) to operate properly is a 10, implementing the new genres should be no more than a 3. The IMDb programmers have done some much more complex programming than that in the last three and a half years. Please have them go ahead and implement the new genres without further delay.
rob_sabel
9 Messages
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244 Points
7 years ago
Indie (preferably limited by production cost)
Slasher (as a distinct genre from horror)
added to the list of genres if it is ever expanded.
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Marco
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7 years ago
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Marco
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7 years ago
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gromit82
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6 years ago
Eight years is a decent amount of time in which to accomplish a project. A U.S. president is only allowed eight years in office even if re-elected. The Beatles managed to sign their first recording contract, then have their entire career, and break up, all within the space of eight years. Eight years is nearly twice as long as World War I, and longer than World War II.
I suspect that the problems are that (a) nobody at IMDb has been working on implementing the new genres, and (b) nobody at IMDb is even assigned to work on implementing the new genres. Hopefully this will change soon.
Thanks to ljdoncel, Kristin, Sann, and Marco for their support, in addition to the other people whom I have thanked before in this thread over the years.
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m_j_477nss27p1mgc
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precumbrium_iwdbx6ox64zze
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6 years ago
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m_j_477nss27p1mgc
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precumbrium_iwdbx6ox64zze
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6 years ago
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gromit82
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5 years ago
In June of this year, in the thread at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/supernatural-genre, Col Needham referred to the "embarrassing nearly 9 year delay on already promised genres".
Unfortunately, I suspect that nobody has been assigned to work on implementing the genres for quite a while, and that's why the project hasn't gotten done.
For comparison, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." And despite the difficulty of accomplishing that, the goal was accomplished in eight years and two months.
I don't think that adding five new genres to the Internet Movie Database is a project that should have taken longer than the project of sending people to the Moon, but nonetheless it has indeed taken longer than that.
And I'd like to thank Jeorj and Vincent for their support of this idea, in addition to the other people whom I have thanked over the years since this thread began.
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m_j_477nss27p1mgc
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5 years ago
Cheers.
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m_j_477nss27p1mgc
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5 years ago
* Concert
* Stand-up Show
* Martial Arts
* Awards Show
Are more important than:
* Soap Opera
* Lifestyle
Why? Because they're more represented in the database.
Also, maybe we can create a democratic strawpoll in which people here and the actual contributors can all have a say in which genres we want to be added the most?
Cheers!
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gromit82
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4 years ago
"Ten years come and gone so fast, I might as well be dreaming ..." -- Paul Simon
Yes, it's time for my annual bump of the request to implement the new genres that were approved on July 25, 2010.
The amount of time that has gone by since these genres were approved, and have not yet been implemented, is longer than it took to fight World War II or to accomplish John F. Kennedy's goal of sending astronauts to the moon. And the project of implementing the new genres should have been a lot less difficult than that. This should probably be a project that takes hours, not years, but I assume that nobody at IMDb is assigned to work on it.
Since the new genres were approved by the IMDb staff as something to be done a long time ago, they ought to be very high on the priority list.
Also, I recognize that there are other genres that some people would like to see added as well. I recommend that if any other genres are to be added, there should be a poll of contributors to see which ones should be added.
Thanks to the additional contributors here who have signed on to this idea over the last year -- Ed Jones, M J, precumbrium, Nick Burfle, Shape5, and Phil G -- as well as all the others who signed on before that and whom I thanked in previous years.
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gromit82
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4 years ago
I'm going to bump this thread again, because posting just once a year hasn't been frequent enough to keep this issue in front of the IMDb staff. So for now, it will be semi-annual bumps, but in the future I may bump the thread more often than that.
Yes, we still need new genres to be added, and, just as important, we need to have the possibility of being able to add yet other genres in the future if there is enough support for them.
Also, I used to thank all the people who had voted in favor of this idea each time I posted an update here. Unfortunately, with the switch to Sprinklr, the old votes have disappeared -- yet another problem with the switchover. Furthermore, I can see that there are 4 votes in favor of this idea now ... but I can't see who they are. If anyone knows how to view the usernames of the people who have voted in favor of an idea such as this one, please let me know.
Ironically, I can view the names of the 10 people who liked my post above with the Paul Simon quote, for example, but not the names of the 4 people who like this whole idea/topic.
(edited)
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gromit82
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4 years ago
I see that this thread has gone from 8 upvotes to 36 upvotes in the last 5 days. That's more than the number of supporters this idea ever had on the GS board, as far as I can tell.
Thank you to all 36 people who are supporting this idea. If Sprinklr ever makes your identities publicly known, I'll be happy to thank you by username later.
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Col_Needham
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4 years ago
@marco Pointed out (thanks) that I should share the update from https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/why-does-robert-minkoffs-filmography-consist-of-playing-the-same-uncredited-character-of-bit-in-everything/6067ab0fe9d6176949861ef7?commentId=6068203b439e980adff75a91&replyId=60682936439e980adff75b36 here:
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