gromit82's profile
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Saturday, August 10th, 2019

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Is "unable to verify" the right term to use?

I've noticed several recent threads here where people have received messages that IMDb was "unable to verify" their submissions:

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/review-declined-because-unable-to-verify-contribution
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/why-is-something-that-is-common-knowledge-and-has-been-known-for-aver-100-years-unverifiable
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/contribution-declined-without-reason-for-n-th-time

However, it doesn't sound like "verifying" -- that is, establishing the truth, accuracy, or reality of the submission -- was really the problem with any of these three submissions.

Now, in some cases, "unable to verify" might be a good reason to reject a submission, because it isn't true (such as changing a credit on a past movie), or because there's no evidence that it is true (such as making up a credit on a future movie). But in other cases, "unable to verify" seems to be the wrong reason to give for a rejection.

Perhaps IMDb should consider using a different reason for rejection where verification is not the problem.
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7 years ago

I have no idea of the ratio of staff to the volume of contributions, but it would seem more productive to have the editor actually type a few customized words to give the specifics of the rejection. It might reduce frustration and the volume of posts here on GS. 

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7 years ago

"Unable to verify" seems the default rejection, at least until very recently when I'm now getting "No reason specified" which is a terrible thing to see on a rejection of valid data.

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7 years ago

The thread at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/curious-need-to-know-how-declined-unable-to-verify-contributions-impact-submissions also relates to this issue of "unable to verify" rejections that are difficult to understand.