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Sunday, August 21st, 2016 1:23 AM

Keywords "historically-accurate" and "historically-inaccurate"

I noticed that there are two keywords "historically-accurate" and "historically-inaccurate". I would personally prefer to see both of these keywords removed from the database.

Even the films that try to portray historical events accurately tend to include some errors, so calling them "historically-inaccurate" may be an overly negative characterization. Furthermore, this keyword has been assigned to films that don't purport to tell true stories, such as Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012), The Three Musketeers (2011) (which is based on a novel), and Free Birds (2013) (an animated film whose main characters are anthropomorphic turkeys).

Meanwhile, the "historically-accurate" keyword is used much less often. But that's a high standard to live up to, because, as I said, even the films that try to portray historical events accurately tend to include some errors.

Ironically, Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party (2016) has both the "historically-accurate" and "historically-inaccurate" keywords, which makes no sense except to the extent that it reflects the supporters and opponents of the film's political views trying to push their opinions onto IMDb.

So I think we can do without both the "historically-accurate" and "historically-inaccurate" keywords.

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8 years ago

... So I think we can do without both the "historically-accurate"
and "historically-inaccurate" keywords.
BTW:
What about "political-correctness" and "politically-incorrect"?
Would you vote to keep those, or dump them?

I suppose some keywords could be considered "subjective".  There may be quite a number of questionable keywords that ought to be removed.  For example:

One dumb keyword is:  "dumb".
Currently, there are 10 "dumb" titles on IMDb.

Another silly keyword is:  "silly".
Currently, there are 6 "silly" titles on IMDb.

Another bad keyword is:  "bad".
Currently, there are 7 "bad" titles on IMDb.

Another questionable keyword is:  "masterpiece".
Currently, there are 7 "masterpieces" on IMDb.

Another unnecessary keyword is:  "popular".
Currently, there are 9 "popular" titles on IMDb.
I fail to discern the useful value of this keyword.

Yet another unnecessary keyword is:  "fantastic".
Currently, there are 22 "fantastic" titles on IMDb.

Yet another questionable keyword is:  "award-winning".
Currently, there are 28 "award-winning" titles on IMDb.
(Given IMDb's existing facilities for recording awards data,
there's arguably no need for this keyword.)

Another perfectly unnecessary keyword is:  "perfect".
Currently, there are 2 "perfect" titles on IMDb.

I'm not trying to hijack your specific topic, but given how easy it is to find numerous questionable keywords, maybe it is time to go through the entire list of keywords and compile a list of candidates for deletion.   ... Shall we begin?

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8 years ago

Nobo: If it were up to me, I would dump the keyword "politically-incorrect" because it is too subjective and vague. On the other hand, "political-correctness" would be an appropriate keyword for titles that actually deal with the phenomenon known as the political correctness movement as applied in the 1990s, such as Political Correction (1995).  (I've just submitted the keyword to that title; see https://vimeo.com/18898894 to indicate what I'm talking about.)

The keywords "dumb", "silly", and "bad" all seem inappropriate. Keywords should generally not be value judgments about the title (and in most cases, they should be nouns rather than adjectives).

The keyword "masterpiece" might be an appropriate keyword when referring to a masterpiece that is a significant focus of the title, such as a Rembrandt painting in Nightwatching (2007), a Van Gogh painting in Vincent & Theo (1990), or the movie Citizen Kane in RKO 281 (1999) (TV). The "masterpiece" keyword is currently used for all three of those titles. For the other four titles using that keyword, I'm not sure what it refers to.

I don't know what the keyword "popular" is supposed to mean. In the case of "Amazing Stories: The Main Attraction" (1985), whose plot is described as "Athletic teenage hunk Brad Bender thinks he is too cool for nerdy classmate Shirley, who is crazy over him, until, to his horror, a meteor shower's power suddenly turns him into a human magnet", the keyword "popularity" would probably be more appropriate than the adjective form. 

"Fantastic" might refer to the artistic genre known as the fantastic (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic). I don't know if it is actually being used that way.

I agree that "award-winning" seems unnecessary as a keyword.

"Perfect" doesn't look like a good keyword either, although I don't think it's currently being used as a value judgment about the titles where it is currently applied.

If you want to go through the entire list of keywords, that's fine with me (but I won't necessarily comment on all the ones you raise problems with, as I did in this post).

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Gromit82,

Thanks for your well considered response.

After downloading the list and browsing the vast number of keywords, I reluctantly withdraw my implied offer to examine the entire list.  (Apologies.  Henceforth, I'll avoid offering help when I'm unsure whether I really mean it.  Yeah I know I've done that before.  My bad, I admit.)

Some keywords might be controversial.  I'm not interested in getting into arguments about the finer points on such matters.

Is "retarded" appropriate for use as a keyword?  It's been used just once, can we lose it?  I'd say drop it, but some will disagree, and I'm not interested in getting into arguments about these things.  Life is too short.  ... How about "feminazi" and "feminazism"?  I guess those may be controversial for some?  Thumbs up or thumbs down, what say you?  Let the quarrels begin.  I'm not interested in arguing about it one way or the other.

You know, most of the keywords, probably a vast majority, are all right.  Probably only a very few are notably bad, and probably most of the bad ones have been applied to but small numbers of titles.  The easiest (we may say laziest) course is to simply let them be.  Sure, the list could use some cleanup; but perhaps a vast majority of IMDb users wouldn't really much care anyway.

The keyword "but-this-is-ridiculous-joke" has been applied to 19 titles.
Is the fact that such a keyword can get accepted a ridiculous joke?   (-;

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Nobo: Also, I have noticed that two of the "dumb"-keyword titles (http://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=dumb) appear to refer to a mute person: Tommy: The Interactive Adventure (1996) (VG) and Shuvaa (2006).

Since the word "dumb" is generally no longer considered appropriate as a description for a mute person, I've submitted corrections for the keywords for these titles (and also submitted changes from "blind" to "blind-person" and "deaf" to "deaf-person" where applicable for these titles).

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... "political-correctness" would be an appropriate keyword for titles that actually deal with the phenomenon known as the political correctness movement ....
Update:   At this time in December 2016,  only one title
[Silenced (2016)]  has the "political-correctness" keyword.

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8 years ago

Hi gromit82 and Nobo -

Thanks for reporting these title keywords.  I have passed along your comments to our data editors who will take a look as soon as they can.  Once I have an update on the clean-up I will let you know the status here.

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8 years ago

Hi gromit82 and Nobo -

I'm just following up here to confirm that the Keywords reported have now been cleaned up and deleted.

Cheers!

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At this time in December 2016,  three titles
still have the keyword "historically-inaccurate".