Major keyword problem that needs attention

I am a male feminist, and there are many keywords that should NOT be allowed. Now, I am not in favor of banning, but these keywords are so sexist and subjective that they DO NOT meet IMDb requirements,

Although almost all keyword that includes the words "feminine" and "masculine" are suspect, I am referring to keywords like: pretty-woman, attractive-woman, thin-and-attractive-woman, slim-and-attractive woman,. sexy-woman, sexy-legs, pretty-legs, thin-legs, shapely-legs, woman-with-masculine-hair, woman-with-short-masculine-hair, thin-and-attractive, slim-and-attractive, etc., etc., etc. And there are often "masculine" versions of such keywords.

With IMFDb's commitment to the f-rated keyword, and with the sociological evolution of our times, such keywords should not be allowed -- if for no other reason than they are so subjective. Not only is beauty in the eyes of the beholder, but so are attractive, thin, etc., etc. etc.

I hope this receives some serious attention, and that those who contribute such keywords are notified that they do not meet IMDb standards and should not be submitted.

Responses

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

The problem is that keywords are meant to be objective . . . not subjective, not evaluative, nor opinionated, but factual.

What is beautiful? What is pretty? What is attractive? What is handsome? What is sexy? etc. These are opinions, not facts.

MykolaYeriomin

Champion

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4K Messages

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244.1K Points

One of the reasons why threads like this always end up being controversial is appealing to objective. Pretty much nothing can't be objective and keywords are no exception. That's why there are so much of them: there's something for everyone to make-up one's mind, filter movies etc.

6 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Here's another "goodie": creamy-legs.

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

6 years ago

I stopped reading at "I am a male feminist"

jeorj_euler

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225.4K Points

A supporter of equality of the sexes is oddly often described as "feminist", whether such a supporter is male or female. The term was not really intended to mean "female supremacist" or misandrist, but some females who describe themselves as "feminist" may subscribe to a kind of bigotry toward males. Regardless, people who describe themselves with such a term are probably setting themselves up for problems.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

while proudly wearing his #metoo shirt Ed

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

exactly Jeorj
there is nothing wrong with stepping up for female rights (although i wonder why those who permanently do focus on the industrial world and not those parts that really need more gender equality)
but if somebody starts a post on a movie-themed board with these words, it's pretty much the equivalent to "I am not a racist but...". you know immediately all that follows afterwards is nonsense

6 years ago

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

6 years ago

It doesn't matter what our subjective opinion is; it only matters what point of view the movie is taking. Maybe some oddball finds Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak or Elizabeth Taylor to be ugly, but it's clear that CASABLANCA, VERTIGO and CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF present their characters as beautiful.

The same oddball might find Margaret Hamilton to be gorgeous, but in THE WIZARD OF OZ both her characters are meant to be seen as ugly. Keywords like attractive-woman and ugly-woman are not subjective if the movie makes it clear how we're supposed to view the characters.

The keywords would be subjective on most nonfiction titles, such as THE VIEW, ELLEN, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW, JUDGE JUDY, etc.

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

"if somebody starts a post on a movie-themed board with these words, it's pretty much the equivalent to "I am not a racist but...". you know immediately all that follows afterwards is nonsense"

Wow! We will see what the future brings. Guess IMDb better start eliminating the" f-rated" keyword.

Thanks, he said, cynically, for calling me "nonsense." That's obviously "subjective," and not "objective." "Nonsense" would be a terrible keyword.

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Please... look in a mirror, and say these same things to yourself.

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

How did you like LvT's Nymphomaniac duology, Bradley?

6 years ago

MykolaYeriomin

Champion

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4K Messages

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244.1K Points

6 years ago

Bradley, although that was not touched upon yet in this thread, many feminists think that "male feminist" is an oxymoron and a rather offensive one. I, for one, can't bring myself to call me as such. Mainly because I simply think I'm not doing enough (yet) to counter-act causal discrimination in Post-Soviet countries where it is still a very common problem, because USSR, as we all know, was not a definition of progressive state. I also think that concentrating on small victories like removal of certain keywords might not be the best way to do something about a problem. Your views on that subject are far from extreme and have a lot of reason in them, but vector in which this thread is heading demonstrates well enough that your approach might be a bit heavy-handed.

That said, some of these keywords definitely need trimming and reconsideration.

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Would love s response from the IMDb staff on this issue (Not feminism, but keeping keywords objective rather than subjective.)

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Bradley Kent, since you've brought this up time and time again, we might have to reasonably believe that it is an ongoing issue or perhaps chronic issue.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

Yes, it is an ongoing, perhaps chronic issue. What is IMDB's position on the issue?

Is there a position? Is there a decision? Or, is it just a case of laissez faire?

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

It's keywords. They don't need to be 100% objective.
Look at reviews. Those that do not receive an approval rate by other reviewers of above 50% are not deleted either.
imdb is busy enough dealing with all the factual errors when it comes to cast lists etc.
By the way there is also a subjective approach to key words that may not be gender-related. Nobody (including you) is complaining about these either. Luckily. I just came across "old man" as a key word. Isn't that age-related discrimination? Political correctness is so embarrassing these days. And who says these "dreamy legs" you are referring cannot be the legs of a strong muscular man spoken from a female audience member? Damn there's keywords like "Austrian", "crying" and "map". Do these tell us anything about the movie? Will these make us watch the movie? I don't think so. At least not more than "dreamy legs" may. Keywords are one section on imdb that honestly for all I care could be really cancelled altogether. So if you want to change something towards perfection on the gigantic website that imdb is, then keywords may not be your best pick.

6 years ago

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

Do non-contributors even use the keywords?

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

I never watched that show Ed. But how about Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd?

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

absolutely

you don't see their legs, but I bet they are as dreamy and creamy as it gets. where is Mr. Kent to agree? just realized he shares his name with Superman, shame he is nowhere near as superb

6 years ago

Marco

2.7K Messages

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83K Points

Ed, Horst. Might I ask you to try and behave like adults? Obviously, you don't have to agree with Bradley regarding this specific issue, but why you both feel the need to behave as childish as you do while he's just trying to make the database better is beyond me.
(for the record, I won't respond to any more of your posts on this thread because I don't want to get sucked into some verbal ping pong game with you guys, but I did feel the urge to say something regarding your behaviour.)

6 years ago

Marco

2.7K Messages

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83K Points

6 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Hi, Marco. Thanks for asking them to be less mocking of the creator of this topic. Describing their behavior as "childish" probably has or probably will upset them just slightly, so everybody please be cool.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

oh marco dont be a party pooper
I tried to reason with Bradley on a genuine level and his reaction was either non-existent or resulted in more nonsense
lets just have a bit of fun here :)

6 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Well, I certainly am a contributor, and I use keywords for many things. As a film researcher, writer and former teacher of film history, I am often looking for films about a certain subject, for myself and at the request of others. For example, I curate a film society at a community center, and am often looking for films about a particular subject for particular programming, like the magna carta Japanese cuisine, parental abuse, world war two in Italy, deception, vikings, film-noir, Abraham Lincoln etc. I view IMDb as an archive used for research. As such, I want keywords to objectively represent the content of a title. I also think of film students who may want examples of titles that utilized split screen, blurry vision, subjective comer, slow-motion, etc.

If I want subjectivity, I go to user and eternal reviews. There, one can express a opinion about anything -- content or aesthetics. But the keywords are an objective index to the content of a title, and are, therefore, an excellent research tool.

If you don't need or like the keywords, don't use them.

MykolaYeriomin

Champion

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4K Messages

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244.1K Points

Bradley, being a researcher myself (political studies in international relations with movies being one of my research areas) I admire your point of view, but what makes you think that these keywords are not in use with other researchers, for example, psychologists? Considering that nowadays we have a vote system in which people judge certain keywords as being useful (or not), they can provide valuable data in some areas. Data on how people perceive other people might be valuable to someone and might be way more on second sight then idle sexist remarks. I used to think that keywords in general are ineffective myself, but I came a long way since then. When I'm adding keywords to the title I'm trying to add as much as I can, ranging from specific objects to generic situations, because I know that someone, somewhere, might require sufficient data in that regard.

6 years ago

keyword_expert

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

@nikolay_yeriomin said:

Considering that nowadays we have a vote system in which people judge certain keywords as being useful (or not), they can provide valuable data in some areas.

I generally agree, but even the keyword voting system can easily be hijacked, which is why the keywords still need good monitoring from the community.

Case in point here. (And by the way, the vote hijacker was the same contributor responsible for the "creamy-legs" keywords.)

3 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

You are making so many facetious statements and false assumptions that I will no longer respond to you, other than to say that I was captain of my debate team, too, and even taught Debate as a college professor. You don't know me. You don't know my students. You don't know my commitment to diversity, personally and professionally. Goodbye and Good Luck.

P.S. I still would like a response from the IMDb staff.

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

you can be the Godfather of debate with 3 Nobel Debate Prizes under your belt, but that won't change a thing if you see something as fact while everybody else considers it factitious Bradley. and rightfully so.

6 years ago

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

6 years ago

On fiction titles, attractive-woman, sexy-woman, etc. are objective, as are other keywords with value judgements, such as wise-priest, brat, mad-scientist, ugly-cat or stupid-cop.

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

What?

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

Marco

2.7K Messages

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83K Points

6 years ago

Quite some years ago, the keyword beautiful-woman was deleted. I think it was because the keyword was pointless as it could be added to literally hundreds of thousands of titles in the database (but was actually mainly added to porn flicks for some reason). I feel the same goes for a keyword like pretty-woman (https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=pretty-woman). It's currently attached to 27 titles, it's subjective as hell and could be added to about 98 per cent of the titles in the database, making it useless to have around.
For me, this whole discussion doesn't have anything to do with being politically correct or not. It has to do with trying to decide whether or not IMDb should want subjective keywords. I would say IMDb should not want subjective keywords because I don't see what purpose they serve. For every instance of the keyword 'pretty-woman', the keyword 'ugly-woman' could also be added, making both keywords pointless.
Regarding females that are considered sexy or pretty by a character in the film: I don't see the purpose because I feel it could be added to the lion's share of titles in the database. But if IMDb wants to list is, perhaps something like 'character-feels-another-character-is-sexy' could do the trick? I agree it's not a sexy keyword, but at least it's way more objective than 'sexy-woman' and it's also less ambiguous

PS: there already is the keyword 'smitten-by-a-beautiful-woman': https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=smitten-by-a-beautiful-woman .

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

Pretty-woman is an objective keyword. It is always clear whether or not a movie has a woman we are meant to view as pretty.

But I agree with you, Marco, that the keyword is useless. As you suggest, it could be applied to nearly every fiction title in the database.

I don't agree that ugly-woman is useless. It is much less common that a movie has a woman we are meant to view as especially ugly. I'm looking at Hitchcock's filmography, just for reference, and I can't think of a single one of his movies where the keyword fits. Stage Fright has Joyce Grenfell, the "Lovely Ducks" woman at the carnival, but she is meant to be viewed more as eccentric than ugly. Saboteur has the fat lady and the bearded lady in the circus troupe, but they are meant to be seen as bizarre. Frenzy has Anna Massey, who many view as Hitchcock's least attractive leading lady, but at no point are we encouraged to view her as ugly.

Ugly-woman would apply to:

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), where Margaret Hamilton plays two characters that are ugly;

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), where James Bond is put off by a woman he finds unattractive;

SWING SHIFT CINDERELLA (1945), where the wolf is pursued by an ugly rich grandma;

and "Eye of the Beholder" (1960), an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE where the protagonist is so ugly that the state threatens to banish her if surgery doesn't cure her ugliness.

If I ran the keywords, I would keep ugly-woman and banish pretty-woman, attractive-woman and sexy-woman. The bot would tell contributors: "IMDb finds this keyword to be redundant, as nearly every fiction title has a woman the audience is meant to view as attractive."

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

" I think it was because the keyword was pointless as it could be added to literally hundreds of thousands of titles in the database (but was actually mainly added to porn flicks for some reason). "

And? There are many other keywords that can be added to hundreds of thousands of titles and they would fit. Nobody complains about these. Or about many other subjective keywords. And don't even try to deny that you are all about political correctness and the stupid idea that a woman should only be cast because of her talent, not her looks. Is there sexism in Hollywood? Absolutely? But if you are stupid enough to censor completely harmless stuff like "beautiful woman" in a desperate attempt to make actresses seem like "lookless" creatures, then clearly you are overshooting the mark. And if you are complaining about keywords fitting literally every movie, then my suggestion is you start correcting these first:
https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=man&ref_=ttkw_kw_3
https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=woman&ref_=ttkw_kw_3
https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=boy&ref_=ttkw_kw_3
https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=girl&ref_=ttkw_kw_3

should take a little while and then you can move on to your political-correctness-induced idea of removing beautiful women from imdb

6 years ago

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

"perhaps something like 'character-feels-another-character-is-sexy' could do the trick?"

man that reference is really reaching new levels of embarrassing lol why are you so scared of saying a woman is beautiful?

6 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Finally, there are postings that are addressing the issue I was raising. Thanks.

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

6 years ago

Excellent suggestion:

If I ran the keywords, I would keep ugly-woman and banish pretty-woman, attractive-woman and sexy-woman. The bot would tell contributors: "IMDb finds this keyword to be redundant, as nearly every fiction title has a woman the audience is meant to view as attractive."

Similarly, handsome-man could be banished, while, in certain cases, retaining ugly-man.

What does the staff think?

There are other "general" keyword (i.e., man, woman, etc.) that could be applied to almost every title and could also be banished. An exception (as there always is) in certain cases would be "human-being," especially when humans are not the norm (as in some science-fiction titles).

Horst

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

"If I ran the keywords, I would keep ugly-woman and banish pretty-woman, attractive-woman and sexy-woman." that is really the most absurd thing I have read in this topic and if you had only the slighest point with your suggestion here, then now it is gone for good.

6 years ago

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

My point is that pretty-woman, etc. applies to nearly every title, while ugly-woman applies to comparatively few. I agree with you that man, woman, boy and girl are even more useless. I would ban those, too.

6 years ago

bradley_kent

1.3K Messages

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23.4K Points

While very general, "boy," "girl" and even "child" have value. For a character whose age is below 5, I use "little-boy" and "little-girl." I use "boy" and "girl" for those 6-to-12 years of age," and "teenage-age-boy," "teenage-age-girl" and "teenager" for those 13-to-19 years of age. I sincerely do not mean to raise any more political hackles, but "girl," in particular, seems to occasionally get used for females over 19. Others may do so, but I also do not submit "pretty-girl," "cute-boy" or "beautiful-child" -- never "beautiful-baby," since some surely feel that EVERY baby is beautiful.

6 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Ah...

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

Well, it is just that I apply the keywords "boy", "girl", "young-boy", "young-girl", "little-boy" and "little-girl" slightly differently from the way Bradley Kent does, so it should occur to us all that the adjectives "young" and "little" are subjective to a degree or at the very least ambiguous, because the cutoff points are unspecific. I do not even use the keywords "teenage-age-boy" or "teenage-age-girl", but rather "teenage-boy", "teenage-girl" and "teenager". Interesting.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

Marco

2.7K Messages

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83K Points

6 years ago

I really hope a staffer will respond to this thread. Questions I'd like to see answered: Does IMDb feel a keyword like 'pretty-woman' or 'sexy-woman' is subjective? If so, is that a problem? Can a keyword be subjective?
Does IMDb feel a keyword like 'pretty-woman' or 'sexy-woman' serves a purpose when it can be added to about 90 per cent of all titles in the database?

jay_spirit

1K Messages

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29.9K Points

I'm not sure many contributors, or even staffers, understand the function of keywords.

In the old days, the contributor guide even asked us to submit the keywords in order of importance, as if the order wouldn't be destroyed the minute a second contributor added his own list. On the contributor board, staffers would often make statements showing they didn't understand how keywords worked, and the contributors would have to correct them. Jon Reeves seemed to think that the most important word in a phrase (such as knife in eats-with-knife) had to appear at the beginning (e.g. knife-eaten-with) so that users could find all the related terms in alphabetical order.

Before we debate whether this or that keyword is necessary, we may want to make sure that everyone—contributors and staffers alike—understand how keywords work.

6 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

To go further, keywords should be object oriented, as in one keyword being able to belong to another keyword and inheriting the parent keyword's properties, in such a way as to account for holonymy, meronymy, hypernymy and hyponymy, and whereby synonyms represent the same object, and whereby polysemes are represented by more than one object. However, this would extremely hard to implement, especially considering how no existing electronic dictionary/thesaurus/encyclopedia necessarily has it all adequately sorted out.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

6 years ago

keyword_expert

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

@jay_spirit said:

In the old days, the contributor guide even asked us to submit the keywords in order of importance, as if the order wouldn't be destroyed the minute a second contributor added his own list.

It actually does matter quite a bit the order that the first contributor submits keywords to a title -- at least for the first dozen or so keywords, and in particular the first 5 keywords.

Whichever keywords are submitted first, the first 5 keywords will "influence" everything else. It is those 5 keywords that will be displayed on the landing page for each title, and it is those 5 keywords that other users (particularly non-contributors) will see first and will be most like to vote for as "relevant" (rather than scrolling or searching through all keywords to find helpful keywords). So those 5 keywords can kind of become a self-fulfilling prophecy on which keywords are most "relevant."

Also, the voting on "relevant" keywords can often take place before a second contributor submits any keywords to that particular title. By then, some of the keywords may start receiving votes as "relevant," and will continue to be displayed at the top, taking the same order as they were originally submitted for each level of relevance (e.g., 1 of 1 votes, 2 of 2 votes, etc.).

Finally, when you look at a title in "reference view," there is an apparent glitch in the system that continues to display the top 5 keywords based on the order originally submitted by one or more early contributors, regardless of the subsequent "relevance" voting.

For these reasons, I always take special care to submit the most relevant and most important keywords at the top of my contributions list.

Submitting keywords is both an art and a science. This aspect of keywords (choosing which keywords to put at the top of the list) is an art in trying to find the right balance in keywords that are compelling, most relevant to the title, and most relevant across the IMDb site. And it is a science in determining the logistics behind why the first keywords entered are the most important.

Finally, have you noticed that the IMDb keyword algorithm automatically orders certain keywords to put them at the bottom of the list? These include "spoiler" keywords like "happy-ending," "surprise-ending," "death-of-father," etc., as well as certain keywords that some people love, while some people hate, like "title-spoken-by-character." I like the fact that someone at IMDb is thinking about the ordering of the keywords.

Jon Reeves seemed to think that the most important word in a phrase (such as knife in eats-with-knife) had to appear at the beginning (e.g. knife-eaten-with) so that users could find all the related terms in alphabetical order.

Now that is funny!

3 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

I try to make sure spoilerific keywords are not added anywhere near the first keywords to be attached to a title entry.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

3 years ago

bradley_kent

Major keyword problem that needs attention

bradley_kent

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