Minimum Number of Characters to Write a Review

@Michelle​ Hi, Michelle. Thanks for the response.  But that many characters to not define quality. There are dozens of big reviews that tell me so little about what really matters on the movie having lots of personal experiences or writing the film's plot, which is not the idea of a review. And short ones that tell me just what I need to know to build an opinion and watch the movie. I personally find long reviews so boring and a shame to be making people write them. 

@Michelle​ Interestingly, ballpark, half the movies produced themselves do not even contain the 600 character equivalent number of words that most of us would define as intelligent or worthy of remembering. 

@Michelle​ @Vic Imdb support staff

Why are yall deleting people's responses to this post? I've noticed that my comments and other users have been deleted, and my account blocked.

Your response is disappointing. These  actions and the decision to change the character minimum makes it seem as though you are trying to silence users. If people disagree, you delete and block them from commenting?

Please address the people who have taken the time out to voice their concerns with no less than 600 characters. Give us a qualitative response. 

@Michelle​ 😀

Add the Date here when changed to 600 characters ??

https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/contribution-information/user-review-guidelines/GABTWSNLDNFLPRRH#

User review guidelines
The minimum length for reviews is 600 characters 
to ensure the most value to our users. 
Reviews which are padded with junk text will be discarded.

- - -

Marco
Sat, Jan 27, 2018
Make sure reviews are reviews again (minimum of 50 words instead of 50 characters)

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/make-sure-reviews-are-reviews-again-minimum-of-50-words-instead-of-50-characters/5f4a7b3e8815453dbacfe95a

  

Current situation:

Recently, IMDb has decided that a user review should at least have 50 characters....

   

Reviewers: Quality and Quantity.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/make-sure-reviews-are-reviews-again-minimum-of-50-words-instead-of-50-characters/5f4a7b3e8815453dbacfe95a?commentId=5f4a7cb48815453dba1004b8.

.

@Michelle​ Then what's the point of those "Helpful" thumbs up buttons below the comments?

@Michelle​ longer reviews do not = better 

😆😆😆

@Michelle​ No one wants to read a bloated review. We have a myriad of websites for that. And none of us has the time or energy to write one. With community reviews, we want concise and to the point - whether the show or movie is worth watching or not. Whenever I see a long-winded opinion, I stop reading. For my part, I've been struggling with a review for three days because
a) Character count

b) I don't want to write spoilers
c) It feels ridiculous

Quite frankly it's giving me a headache.

@Michelle​ @Vic​ About that 600-character count. I wrote a review for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power the other day (3rd September). It was less than complimentary about the script, plot, acting, faithfulness to Tolkien and so on. But it was well written. And it was considerably over the now mandatory 600. To be precise: 852 (no spaces) - 1,035 (with spaces). Six days later and counting, my contribution is still 'pending'. I later read that IMDb is owned by Amazon - and that Amazon blocked reviews on its own site. So my question is: 600 minimum characters pass the test but only for reviews that you agree with and/or benefit Amazon? Or...

Unfortunately trying to argue here seems useless, imdb empolyees totally belittle and ignore the users.

@FilmCritic10​ What happens is they have to parrot company lines. Usually though, when there's much negative feedback on a specific topic, they'll pass it on. I know because I was Help Desk for a global social media company.

People mostly don't even know about this discussion's community I feel, misteriously another login is required to take part here.

Most users are gonna probably just give up, and we are gonna be forced to read inflated reviews what is disgusting.

@FilmCritic10​ Well if that's the level of grammar and spelling that your reviews contain I'll make a point of avoiding them even though they might be  - mercifully  - short. 

What do you mean? you can't write 3 lines, I just don't care about what you think, as I said I don't give a sight about long reviews or what you are gonna do.

You just can't see that this platform is defrauding because you are brainless.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/ring-of-power-review-question/6313d5a172837f15dbc02d35

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/i-need-to-know/censorship/6313c6f6c5eeb86e2c3ca973

@Michelle​ With all due respect, that’s ridiculous. I don’t have the attention span to even write a review with 600 characters, and I doubt most of your readers have the attention span to read a 600 character review. I love reading reviews of the movies and television shows that I watch, and specifically I like giving reasons why I like what I like. There’s no world that exists where I can write a review with 600 characters. I’m sure 99% of your audience feels that way, they just haven’t spoken up. How about a compromise? How about 300 characters? 

@rlwieneke​ Congrats on being someone who gets to decide what normal people do and don't. Can I send you a list of my interests so you can decide whether I'm normal or not? I've always wondered whether I'm normal or not, but you might actually be able to help me out with this.

@rlwieneke​ Well, that escalated quickly :) 

You do know that you don't know me right? I might be Jewish for all you know.

(Obviously, this post'll be the last time I respond to you.)

@Michelle​ We can understand the need to avoid the simple "I liked it" or "I didn't like it". Try to make us work a little has its value. I just believe that  600 characters is too long. The other day I was quite happy with my 400 or so word comment, but I couldn't post it, and unfortunately the result is that I had to "fill up" the remaining space to get to 600, wich is just the contrary to the intended goal - be relevant. 

@Michelle​ This is not a valid reason.

600 characters is crazy long and helps nobody.

does IMDB want to discourage user reviews?

after so many active years, it’s outragous to add such limitations.

Hi @Michelle​, how are you doing?

It seems that less than 10% of the interested members approved the change that should ensure the most value for US, in addition, the number of reviews is drastically reducing, many people are cheating and polluting the review session with double pasting or filling with crap to achieve the minimum.

I'm gonna ask did the platafform reached the alleged goal? 

Is there a reason why nobody answer a lot of participants here?

This topic is not really ANSWERED.

Why quadruple the lower bound instead of maybe doubling it?

@laduqesa​ are you familiar with the term, 'grammar nazi'?

@DrProfessor​ Of course. What is your point?

@FilmCritic10​ Well, you are acting like a littel child.

Try to write like a normally audult and I regard you like one. They have changed to 600 characters. And a rewive schuld be long or it is are something else.

@laduqesa​ Just making sure. For a minute I thought there's a warm wind blowing in from Minicoy, when I read the comment, "@FilmCritic10​ Well if that's the level of grammar and spelling that your reviews contain I'll make a point of avoiding them even though they might be  - mercifully  - short."

@narce​ 

they probably average out at about 200 characters - and even that can seem a little wordy.  

Thanks for bringing some much needed humor to this thread.

@Marco​, @narce, @laduqesa 

I totally understand your points of view guys.

Some can think the same about me and I respect their existence, but people who can't admit that 150 characters can explain or expose something better and in a more enlightning way than 600 are mental helpless.

In my opinion it's worse, this kind of people who want only their personal standards to be guaranteed are flagrantly, stingy, selfish, sectarian that don't stand diversity.

A mere film review for communal platform users should not necessarily need to be a full analysis or a professional article, but possibly be helpful content filters, indicators, or suggestions.

Again, there's a lot of stupidity and time wasting in most of large reviews that are almost always filled of plot, characters and scenes, spoilers. Apart from, lots of particular interpretation, biased views, implicit messages revelations, history or theories behind. 

Maybe I want to study about a movie after I watch it and get these data but I absolutely don't want them before and probably at all. And for sure I know IMDB is not the place to get the most trustable fact informations.

Even though I insist, I simply don't care about all this wordy garbage I just find the reviews that serve me, and I wish more people be like this, collectively tolerant and supportive, but you see how the word is f. up and try to realize why... grasping few individuals is the answer.

Hello there @teachersuw,

My name is Vic from IMDb Support, thanks for your feedback.

We've changed the minimum character limit for user reviews to raise the quality bar for reviews we get from customers. The intention is to make user reviews as helpful as possible for all our customers.

Reviews which are padded with junk text will be discarded. Our detailed guidance is available here:

https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/contribution-information/user-review-guidelines/GABTWSNLDNFLPRRH

Thanks for your support.

@snoots​ Interestingly, ballpark, half the movies produced themselves do not even contain the 600 character equivalent number of words that most of us would define as intelligent or worthy of remembering. 

Well, @Vic, I am not sure exactly which types of unhelpful reviews you are attempting to weed out with this new requirement, but for the 50% of people that found my concise reviews to be helpful, you will not hear from me any longer :-(​ 

@sbondi​ Long reviews are mostly boring and waste of precious time!

@snoots​ It's so radical to demand 4 times what is was!! Why not start with 300 what would be hard enough..

@snoots​ @Vic , @Michelle  when did quantity begin to mean quality??? 

This is insanity!

@Vic​ Thanks for our feedback and what???

Things are getting more than weird here..

@Vic​ "Reviews which are padded with junk text will be discarded" - that's exactly what you're making us do - Pad things out - "Am I up to 500 yet? oh no, still 100 characters to go." Have you ever heard of the expression Less Is More? Whenever I refer to community reviews, I want it in a nutshell, not a bloated exposition. For that, we have the 100s of websites and review writers WHO GET PAID for what is often nonsense.

@Vic​ your bosses are using the community which made the imdb, by discarding user experience for a nice, clean platform from which they can sell their products and services, and listen to this Vic, it's bullsheet.

@FilmCritic10​ it is really easy to make a rewivew in 600 characters. The hole point whit making a review is to get a big explation of what makes the movie great or bad. And if you can't do it whout out big spoilers. Then so have you tack a writing course

To make matters worse, the minimum limit doesn't even account for the running time of the movie, show, episode, special program, music video or public service announcement. How will anybody be able to submit a review for a picture that is only four minutes long? You'd think that the limits should only increase as the total running time increase.

@jeorj_euler​ if they want users to propagate content for them, they should pay them to do it. We are literally part of their business model. I am angry because this kind of behavior has become normal and widespread on the internet. I can imagine that in a board room somewhere the conversation we are having here has already been played out and once the decision was made, it was a done deal.

@Sandy​  I would love to read your reviews my friend, could you send your Imdb user profile for me to check and learn some writing skills???

I'd surely share mine.

@Sandy​ 5% of movies are great 5% of movies are bad 90% of movies are mediocre

how big is the explanation of mediocrity without repetition?

FilmCritic10, if you're looking for examples by which to form a writing model, I suppose you start with the two items visible at  https://www.imdb.com/user/ur1000000/reviews. Haha. I'm sure there also numerous medium-winded prolific reviewers by which to be inspired. Like I suggested before, there are tactics for becoming verbose. For instance, you wouldn't write, "600", but in lieu, "six hundred", perhaps "eight hundred seventy-eight" to exaggerate. Well, that is the formal way of writing anyway. When referring to something like weddings, just throw in that which is already implied, like engagements to become married. For divorce, separation may be involved. Characters and be both named and described. Is homicide involved? Might want to emphasize the taking/forfeiture of life. Acronyms can be avoided too. CGI is of course computer-generated imagery, for example. The compositing technique involving shooting against blue/green backdrops as the matte is chroma key composite imagery. Again, the situation is only really catastrophic in regards to short movies, shorter than five minutes maybe, or material that mostly consists of the footage of a fresh coat of paint drying upon a picket fence.

@jeorj_euler​ my review of a movie — two sentence about exactly what it is

but since it was unfairly review bombed on imdb i could not not write there, so i cringed added spoiler tag and just rewrote half of the plot

@Valentinasf​ Large critics are often full of spoilers!!

@sbondi​ I totally agree with you my friend, I just want to help people especially my friends to make good decisions about how to spend their time.. this habit was providing very nice talks and interactions from simple, objective and interesting reviews we wrote. 

@sbondi​ What other sites do you recommend? Let’s move on with reviews on better platforms!

@carmendiana, I suppose in terms of popularity, there is Rotten Tomatoes and Yahoo! Movie Reviews, but they have their own issues. So I gave up reviewing for the general community, and just point my friends and family to my personal reviews spreadsheet on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tu7xnsjo1jnb63b/Video%20Reviews.xlsx?dl=0

@carmendiana​ I'm not too familiar with rating sites, but Amazon, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes are possibilities. Although, some people have suggested that IMDb's character restriction at 600 was put into play by someone with ties to Amazon thus a supposed financial explanation for that change. I hope that's not true. 

@sbondi​ thanks, I’ll check your link.

I actually like the idea of making your own list very much!

@teachersuw​ then I’ll check rotten tomatoes as well.

@Valentinasf​ probably because the comments made valid points. There was nothing offensive, no bad language, it was just opinions that opposed their decision.

My old account was blocked and all my  comments erased.

I'm still trying to understand what is the reason for this community to exist..

@Valentinasf​ It's so frustrating to try to dialogue and be simply canceled!

FilmCritic10 wrote, "I'm still trying to understand what is the reason for this community to exist." I suspect a lot of newcomers to this forum feel that way, and perhaps if they stick around long enough, they'll notice that multiple boards are present on here, each having its own mission, orientation, customs and habits.

@teachersuw​ Is there any argument after this?? Does anyone want to refute those guys about writing?

The situation is that of policy change, mechanism change too, so the older reviews are grandfathered within reason.

In all the time that I've been observing this forum, the "healthy debate spirit" has rarely ever been present. Outside of the IMDb Poll board, most of the threads are about answering questions, solving mysteries, reporting glitches, uncovering contradictions or sleuthing, rather than trying to figure out the best recommendations for policy/functionality adjustments. We also see reports of fraud/predation/harassment, from time to time.

@jeorj_euler​ And mass merging duplicate keywords! 

Indeed there is merit is announcing certain submissions on forum, so that it is possible for the left hand and the right hand to know what each other is doing. Without a group communication venue of some kind, such a thing would be impossible. Sometimes debates (but more often brainstorm and error recognition) are had in that regard in order to arrive at consensus if possible.

Indeed there is also a minimum character limit for plot synopsis items, whereas there is a maximum character limit for plot outline items. For a very special reason, I already complained about limit being placed upon plot synopsis items, owing to how grandfathered items cannot be tweaked slightly (such as making grammatical corrections) without knowledge enough of plot to write a full item. Unsurprisingly, nobody was particularly helpful in mitigating such a problem. This why a lot of contributors believe (whether correctly or incorrectly) that the IMDb site authorities do not listen, contrary to what is stated in the IMDb Contributors' Charter. Many of the times, they are monitoring, but silently disagreeing, but once in a while, they (without even realizing the need to seek clarification) actually misunderstand specific problems being presented. Another interesting thing is that, often there are problems that only one contributor even notices, so other contributors don't really know how to react to those concerns.