bradley_kent's profile

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Wednesday, January 27th, 2021

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Keyword Problems: Well, here I go.....

I've been sitting on this for a long time, but I truly believe that many of the problems with keywords originate with one, two, three... just a few contributors who keep ignoring the guidelines and are  "going on their merry way" because they are not aware that they continue to make the same mistakes again and again.  Some of this may be due to language differences, but may just be that they have gotten into a habit of submitting certain incorrect keywords and just continue to do so.  I realize that keywords have a low priority, but I also fault the keyword list manager(s) for continuing to accept keywords that do not meet guidelines and decisions made on this page.  

I could give you many, many examples, but I'll start with just a few:

At lease twice on this page, there have been discussions about "looking-at-self-in-mirror" being incorrect while "looking-at-oneself-in-a-mirror" is the preferred keyword.  Yet, "looking-at-self-in-mirror" keeps getting submitted -- and accepted.

"drinking-from-a-bottle" is the preferred keyword, yet someone keeps submitting "drinking-from-bottle" and "drinking-from-the-bottle"   -- and usually ALL THREE are being submitted and repetitiously accepted for the same title.

There continue to be many duplications.  "cigarette-smoking" is the preferred keyword, yet someone keeps submitting this as well as the lesser duplicate "smoking-a-cigarette."  

I understand that IMDb is working on intercepting plural keywords, but the guidelines are very clear that singulars are preferred. (There are, of course, always some exceptions.). It's "failed-expectation,"not "failed-expectations."

Relatedly, there seems to be an attempt by a couple very valued contributors to try to circumvent the guideline preferring singulars over plurals.  As a partially hypothetical example, someone(s) keep submitting, as keywords, "multiple-deaths," "death-more-than-once," "death-multiple-times," "more-than-one-death," etc., and these "plurals" keep getting accepted.  If this continues, we could soon see "multiple-soldiers" rather than, or in addition to, "army."

I could give many more examples (and may in the future), but I would like to know what other contributors and the staff think.  I am assuming that there is no way for a contributor to contact other contributors about such problems, but perhaps the staff could intercede.

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5 years ago

Well, when I submit keywords, I never create a new keyword when there is already one equivalent (fortunately, there is a warning in the interface, but I usually search for existing keywords first). IMHO, editors should refuse new keywords in such a case, and perhaps new keywords should automatically corrected when this makes sense (there should probably be a database for such automatic corrections).

BTW, I've just submitted a question concerning fireworks (plural) vs firework (singular), as the plural is used in general (according to my dictionaries) and in the IMDb, fireworks has much more occurrences than firework (1258 vs 216). I was surprised to see my submission fireworks changed to firework in the current status.

Champion

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5 years ago

The previous thread was about keywords with "one's-self" instead of "oneself". No mentions of "looking-at-self-in-mirror" are found.

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The discussions on this topic go way back, so earlier postings may not be searchable.  The result of those discussions:  "looking-at-oneself-in-a-mirror"  has 2895 titles, followed by others like "looking-at-oneself-in-a-hand-mirror," "looking-at-oneself-in-a-mirror-while-naked," etc.  

When searching for the correct keywords, many "old," "unpreferred" keywords still appear, even though they have no titles listed whatsoever.  I never understood why these keywords with no listed titles still appear, and why they have not been deleted, as an option.  That "opens the door" to "unpreferred" keywords, once again, being submitted and accepted.

P.S. At the time of the early discussions, I argued for "looking-at-one's-self-in-a-mirror," but I was overruled, and, therefore, accepted the preference as now used.

(edited)

Champion

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One possible solution to deleted keywords being resubmitted is automatic rerouting, but when another contributor asks for rerouting you wish to edit each title yourself based on your own preference.

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No, I actually think that IMDb should do the keyword auditing, and I want to trust them to do so without destroying specifics and intricacies of individual keywords by overgeneralizing.  The audits I do are almost all based on the "preferred" keyword based on number of titles that already have a particular keyword as well as IMDb guidelines.  If they were based on my preferences, ALL subjective keywords would not exist.  However, that is far from what is.

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I have already corrected this, but here's a recent keyword submission for Angels with Tethered Wings (2014):

looking-a-one's-sell-in-a-mirror

looking-a-ones-self-in-a-mirror

looking at oneself-in-a-mirror

The last, of course, is the preferred one.

Talk about duplications!  Instead of submitting the preferred keyword, just submit different variations.  This is like "throwing he proverbial on the wall and seeing what sticks."  

Here's another duplication that I keep seeing: "deceit," "deception" and "duplicity." (I have even seen "deceipt"!). I realize that there may be subtle differences in the definitions of these three words (which I doubt most submitters, including myself, would know), but the preferred keyword is "deception."

Duplications should be avoided.  This should not become a game of "how many different ways can I say the same thing."

Employee

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5 years ago

Hi bradley_kent -

 

Thanks for your report.  I have cleaned up the keyword violations and inconsistencies you reported in this thread, the changes should be live on the site shortly.

 

I have also rerouted these keywords in our Update form to prevent any further additions of invalid keywords from being listed on the site.

 

Thanks again!