INTRODUCING: Contribution Updates to Release Date Attributes

Guide says:

"...we indicate it via a (premiere) attribute..."

Your examples show:

- (Los Angeles, California) (premier)

- (Toronto International Film Festival) (premier)

Can you fix the inconsistency? "premiere" (with e) should be the correct attribute.

Also your screenshots on "How to" section do not reflect the change.

The field browser with festival names is not there.

Edit: It's there now.

Hi @mbmb​ & @Peter_pbn -

Thanks for reporting, these guide updates have now been made and the changes should display shortly!

@Michelle​ Any info on availability to everyone?

Also like stated, this could be confusing: "For example, when submitting a movie, the following release types will be available:"

Because there's "TV Series" types listed right under "following release types will be available" when it says "a movie"

A wording like "when submitting a release date, the following release types will be available depending on the title type" could be better imo.

You can select "Other" and then enter a city.

After selecting "At a festival" you can enter the festival name.

If you are not seeing these options there could be a display problem.

Perhaps "A specific city" should be a separate option, though.

Dear Peter_pbn:

I just a few minute ago tried your advice for "Hang 'Em High" (1968).  IMDb has the date, and the country Canada, but did not have the city (Calgary, Alberta, verified by checking the actual newspaper announcement on newspapers.com).  I found that I could enter a city/province by selecting "Other", but then I could not *also* select a release type; I could do one or the other, but not both.

This showing, it turns out, was a very limited release -- only in Calgary, only for that special midnight holiday show (July 1st is the Canadian holiday, so after midnight June 30 is a holiday show), and nowhere else in the world on that date.  The general release in the USA was much later.  I can use your new category to indicate this limited release, but then I have to sacrifice the city and province information.

Now, compare the old way, where I could enter:

Canada          June 30, 1968              (Calgary, Alberta) (limited release)

Under the old system, I could show *four pieces of information*; now I can only show *three*.  So how is this new form an *improvement*?  

Further, most IMDb users are not going to realize that they can put the city in under "Other"; the category is "Release *Type*" nor "Release *Location*", and I would not have thought to enter the city by using "Other" if you had not told me.  The instructions in the new system are *not clear*.

There is a very simple solution to this.  Change the form so that it has *4* columns:

Country             Release Date            City/State or Province     Release Type

-- and use your new drop-down menu for the fourth column.

Simple.  Commonsense.  Easy for IMDb users to understand.  And it should not be hard to make the change -- no harder than making the change IMDb *did* make.

I urge you to adopt a modified, 4-column form such as the above, *or else* simply go back to the old system where "Release Type) was put in parenthetically after the City/State.

As the guidelines have always said, when the release is specific to one city you should put the city in the attribute, whereas "limited" is only for releases in "more than one or two geographical locations". So there was never any reason to use both.

You can choose "Broadcast on TV", although as mentioned above this adds the "TV release" attribute.

@mbmb​  There's a bug here at the moment, sorry.  Please keep an eye on https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/release-date-corrections-no-longer-accepted/63356870729bda7b5a102633 for a fix.

@Col_Needham​ Anything about the TV Movie/TV Episode issue Col?

Hi @jean_morel sorry for not responding to your original comment earlier. I have responded above

@VonPunk​ Why do you feel that's better?

It is odd that there is no attribute field there at all.

@jean_morel​ So I don't have to ignore that section and trigger the release date on the larger contribution form just to add the 'internet' attribute and so I don't have to edit the release dates about a 100+ times a month to add attributes for other people's contributions that didn't bother doing that. The more accurate the release dates from the episode addition to the site/less corrections that need to be made the better,

Thanks for your suggestion, I have passed this on to the relevant team.

Hi @Peter_pbn​ -

Thanks for the callout regarding this Contribution Form Warning, I filed a request with the appropriate team to request a review and make the necessary modifications.

@Peter_pbn​ The guidelines at https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/titles/release-dates/GVUUDEPJNAW6G35P# say:

When a title initially released via video, TV, or online platform subsequently receives a limited theatrical release, use the (theatrical release) (limited) attributes. 

That implies that if a made-for-video or made-for-TV title receives a wide theatrical release, just the (theatrical release) attribute would apply.

And either of those situations depends on selecting the choice for "Other (not listed above)".

That said, I agree with you that this information should be made more clearly available in the form and guidelines since the submitters in the example above were not aware of it.