Minimum Number of Characters to Write a Review

@ejimie​ if someone hasn't the wit not to repeat themselves in a 600 word review then the shouldn't be bothering to review at all.

@laduqesa​ You're sweet. This new rule will cut the number of reviews way down. They should just do away with User Reviews and stick to the paid ones.

@ejimie​ This new rule will cut the number of reviews way down. As you can see upthread, this new rule has been around since the end of August. The new series about LotR has premiered September 1st. It currently has 3,765 reviews: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/reviews Dahmer premiered September 21st and currently has 343 reviews: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13207736/reviews Even if the new rule does cut the number of reviews way down, how many reviews do you need for a particular title? How many do you read before deciding whether or not you wanna see a certain title?

@Marco​ Well, I rarely read a review containing spoilers. I tend to look at a reviews rating and title first and then the text. If I don't like a program I don't write a review and I won't take the time for 600 characters explaining why I don't care for a program. This rule should reduce negative reviews. A good to great program is easier to write about. I'm not easily impressed by linguistic prowess.

@ejimie​ A good to great program is easier to write about I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Note that I don't write reviews but I feel it's always very easy to say/write something I feel strongly about, whether it be positive or negative. I find it the hardest to say something about films that are very middle of the road and therefore of no real interest to me. But perhaps that's just me of course.

@Marco​ Agreed indeed. You might as well write reviews if you're taking an interest in these matters. Writing details about something I don't like reminds me of the Bob Dylan lyric.. "and he went of sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet"

@Marco​ , @Michelle , @Vic , Dear imdb users (Marco) and employees, if you want to rethink it can be healthy. Let’s see, everyone knows that it’s possible to choose what kind of text you want to read just by glancing at the rate, title and even first sentences to define which are the most valueable, interesting, intelligent, well written and TRUSTABLE for your personal criteria. I’m gonna repeat myself here in case it’s not clear yet: No one here wants to ban or prohibit the big reviews, people probably don’t care about that, there was never a discussion about that, the only thing most people here want is a simple thing, to be allowed to read and write objective, concise, medium or short reviews something around 150 - 450 characteres. But some people are so selfish that can’t comprehend and accept diversity, and prefer only their singular taste to be satisfied with large, detailed, emotive, boring, tiresome, spoiling, very intimate point of view. Again you can have them but look around there are more than 20 people complaining for short reviews here while only 2 are defending the absurd prohibition. It’s a fact that this measure is drastically reducing the number of reviews and the sample mentioned by @Marco is kind of 10 times less, this logically reduces substantially the information’s integrity or consistency. Of course people will not read all 3000 reviews but for sure there will be less variety of all kinds of reviews short, large or medium ones. What is very hard and unpleasant to try to understand is why some people would waste time arguing to diminish others interesting and valuable content production just because it doesn't fit their particular preferences.

@laduqesa​ @Marco​ , @Michelle , @Vic , Dear imdb users and employees, if you want to rethink it can be healthy. Let’s see, everyone knows that it’s possible to choose what kind of text you want to read just by glancing at the rate, title and even first sentences to define which are the most valueable, interesting, intelligent, well written and TRUSTABLE for your personal criteria. I’m gonna repeat myself here in case it’s not clear yet: No one here wants to ban or prohibit the big reviews, people probably don’t care about that, there was never a discussion about that, the only thing most people here want is a simple thing, to be allowed to read and write objective, concise, medium or short reviews something around 150 - 450 characteres. But some people are so selfish that can’t comprehend and accept diversity, and prefer only their singular taste to be satisfied with large, detailed, emotive, boring, tiresome, spoiling, very intimate point of view. Again you can have them but look around there are more than 20 people complaining for short reviews here while only 2 are defending the absurd prohibition. It’s a fact that this measure is drastically reducing the number of reviews and the sample mentioned by @Marco is kind of 10 times less, this logically reduces substantially the information’s integrity or consistency. Of course people will not read all 3000 reviews but for sure there will be less variety of all kinds of reviews short, large or medium ones. What is very hard and unpleasant to try to understand is why some people would waste time arguing to diminish others interesting and valuable content production just because it doesn't fit their particular preferences and exclusionary way of being.

@FilmCritic10​ Sorry for the late response. the big reviews, people probably don’t care about that Well, some people do: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1132475/ + https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3115164/. But some people are so selfish that can’t comprehend and accept diversity, and prefer only their singular taste That's not the issue. The issue is the lack of quality that perhaps not always, but very often goes hand in hand with reviews that are short. Again you can have them but look around there are more than 20 people complaining for short reviews here while only 2 are defending the absurd prohibition. IMDb has literally millions of customers and they get their input on what their customers want via several ways, so I'm afraid the 20+ people complaining here are not a big percentage of IMDb customers. Apart from that, when a change is made, it's logical for people who are unhappy with the change to speak up and let others know about it. People who don't care one way or the other are much more likely not to speak up, because why should they? After all, they don't really care. And people who are happy with the change have (finally) got what they want, so why would they say anything? So the fact there are much more people in this thread complaining than people agreeing with the change seems completely logical to me. It doesn't mean most customers of IMDb (millions and millions of them) hate this change. the sample mentioned by @Marco is kind of 10 times less I mentioned the number of reviews for the new LotR series and the Dahmer series. First of all, their numbers have risen quite a bit: 25 days ago they had respectively 3,765 and 343 reviews. Now they have 4,622 and 612. I wouldn't be surprised if LotR has 5,000 reviews within a few weeks. Secondly, you talk about this sample being 10 times less. How do you know these shows would have had about 46,220 and 6,120 reviews if IMDb hadn't changed its policy? Actually, I happen to know the answer: they simply wouldn't have. I just checked and Game of Thrones, one of the biggest and famous series of this century currently has 'only' 5,579 reviews: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/reviews . And that is a series that has been around since 2011 so a lot of short reviews have been added to it. And yet, the number of reviews for both GoT and LotR are about the same, if you take into account that LotR is very new and GoT has had 10+ years to accumulate its reviews. Breaking Bad, the current number 2 on the Top 250 for TV shows has been around since 2008 currently has 4,554 reviews (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/reviews), which is even less than LotR (!). To me, this suggests that this new policy of IMDb doesn't have a big influence on the number of reviews. What is very hard and unpleasant to try to understand is why some people would waste time arguing to diminish others interesting and valuable content production The reason I'm happy with this new policy is that, IMHO, the number of interesting and valuable reviews will increase, something I feel all customers of IMDb will benefit from.

At the very least, it does seem that more reviewers will be under pressure to compete with the few reviewers who write detailed reviews, lest the give up entirely. I do recall being one of the people to suggest that the minimum number of characters (or alternatively minimum number of words) be increased, but I never expected it to be quadrupled. I never mentioned there being anything inherently wrong with short reviews, but I certainly did complain about allowing reviews to be submitted through the IMDb App, since the feature would appeal to the types of moviegoers who are too impatient to wait to boot up an actual Web browser (even a mobile one) before submitting a review, in that basically they were eager to be able to write reviews before even leaving the auditoriums of the cinema buildings.

@Marco​ Like you, I am also happy with the new policy. Thank you for speaking out in support of it. I have been reading your comments in this thread and I feel the time has come to publicly express my wholehearted agreement with everything you have said. The new 600-character minimum is helping eliminate the frivolous, unnecessary so-called "reviews" that were proliferating on IMDb and that did little more than simply say whether the person likes or doesn't like the film or show in question. If that is all someone has to say, they shouldn't be posting it in the form of a so-called "review." Instead, they can post their Internet comments (because let's be honest, that is what they are--comments, not reviews) at places like Reddit or moviechat.org (which as I'm sure you already know is one of the websites that was created to discuss movies in the wake of IMDb closing its own forums). Some of the comments in this very thread prove, in an ironic fashion, why some of these folks are apparently not qualified to "review" titles in the first place. Sloppy and unclear wording, grammatical errors, and misstatements abound in these comments. I, for one, am thankful for IMDb's new policy. Any policy change or action that will help weed out so-called "reviews" devoid of any meaningful content is welcome in my book. And by the way, 600 characters is still pretty short. I find it amusing that anyone would complain about this as a minimum limit.

Agree with ever word. Thanx for this comment.

@keyword_expert​ please accept this challenge: write a "spoiler"-free review about The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies that is longer than 600 characters not all movies have anything to say about them without reciting wikipedia plot or going wildy off-topic. especially all the by the numbers biopics, like what is there to say about the star is born remake or queen biopic

Did you see my remark about short movies, keyword expert? The fact that there is no scaling of the limit is a shame.

@keyword_expert​ the other problem is that google has killed the internet. IMDB is the only place where you can see the negative reviews for popular things and positive reviews for unpopular things. not even in the first 10 pages of google will you find a review for some less known movies, it all will be ads and aggregators that steal content from imdb there is no such thing as "reddit" it's all separate unrelated fan css feeds of bad fanart where no one cares about what you think and where you can never see the non mainstream opinions. people love to talk about confirmation bias, but everyone forgets about sanity check. you know like in the dick's the hanging stranger sometimes you just really need to see if other people also noticed the hanging stranger

@agof​ @keyword_expert​ please accept this challenge: write a "spoiler"-free review about The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies that is longer than 600 characters Why are you asking me to do this, when there are already a bunch of reviews posted on IMDb that meet your criteria? https://imdb.com/title/tt0057181/reviews

@jeorj_euler​ That's true about shorter movies. But 600 characters is still very short. Perhaps the mandatory minimum should be 600 characters for shorts, video games, music videos, episodes, etc. and 1,200 characters for feature films.

@keyword_expert​ because you claim that you can do it and because you linked reviews that talk about anything but movie, or retell the plot that's is exactly why 600 is too much, it mostly means there will be padding and offtopic and nothing about the film itself. your link shows people talking about the director, about their life stories, about other directors, about other shows or other movies. some people can be actually passionate about that movie. but not everyone who wants to write a review. 600 limit is a negative selection for off-topic. here's my review: There's about 15 minutes of an actual generic "hypnotized killer" movie. The rest of the short runtime is a pure filler made of some questionably diegetic carnival numbers, that only remind you that the past was the worst. It's just some people singing, some people dancing, non-nude non-acrobatic striptease and shaky videos of the rides. The nearest things to monsters in this movie are several abused and tortured victims of a kidnapping ring. And i can't post it because it's 155 characters short, and there are already some inside jokes that should be cut out before posting to IMDB. Did you watch the movie do you really think there's anything more to add that won't be offtopic, wikipedia plot or padding?

@keyword_expert​ 600 characters for shorts? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21222702/ which 600 would you chose? where can i see your 1200 characters long reviews? your imdb profile is not linked

@keyword_expert​ Thanks … But 600 characters is still very short. We agree. It seems some of the other people commenting here have not appreciated that the limit is 600 characters and NOT 600 words. In English, 600 characters falls somewhere between 90 and 150 words. It’s hardly an essay. Including this paragraph, this reply itself is over 600 characters, which is essentially just over the size of two 280-character full-length tweets. A little bit of context to even a brief review is helpful in understanding the author’s position. At the same time, the quantity of “drive-by” trolling has been significantly reduced whilst also improving overall review quality.

@Col_Needham​ well this doesn't address the cookie cutter movies. it's easy to write about some big movies, innovative or broken and weird. the movies that already have thousands of written reviews but the things that have no reviews at all will all be left with no reviews. for example thousands chinese streaming movies are released per day, they pay great artists to create great posters. but almost all of them are ironically a live action kungfu panda. all of them are the same, what more is there to write in a spoiler free review? if there is a barrier that allows only for passionate essays or graphomania hundreds thousands of movies will never get nay reviews usefully explaining the contents behind the posters. and imdb already has a policy of not explaining which paragraph you need to delete from your review so the mods will allow it to be published instead of declining. and there is no discernable pattern anywhere the same things can be allowed the next time if there was any way to check what IMDB users actually read and what they don't it would be very interesting data of how all the likes-dislikes are assigned without even ever reading anything

Hi, agof. You wrote, "but the things that have no reviews at all will all be left with no reviews." That is exactly what I'm worried about. Maybe folks will find a way to simply write cookie cutter reviews and disguise the fluff with big words, spelled out numbers, compound adjectives and with every sentence being its own paragraph, rattling off the designations of every crew department and assigning an arbitrary score to each one, as if to mock the IMDb guidelines.

@Col_Needham​ 😀 Back in the Old Days... The A-Team (1983-1987) (97 episodes) 1 hour Action, Adventure TV Series https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084967/reference/ bevo-13678 https://www.imdb.com/user/ur76062573/ 30 March 2020 The best ever Nobody does cars flipping over as well as this show. Bravo 4 out of 4 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5590074/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Mexican Slayride (1983) Season 1 Episode 1 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Awesome One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 7 out of 10 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589752/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Children of Jamestown (1983) Season 1 Episode 2 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 The best One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 4 out of 7 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589754/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Pros and Cons (1983) Season 1 Episode 3 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Good One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 2 out of 4 found this helpful https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589757/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) A Small and Deadly War (1983) Season 1 Episode 4 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Two thumbs up One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 2 out of 3 found this helpful https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589761/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Black Day at Bad Rock (1983) Season 1 Episode 5 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Action One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 4 out of 8 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589763/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas (1983) Season 1 Episode 6 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Glitzy One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over. 2 out of 3 found this helpful https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589768/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) The Out-of-Towners (1983) Season 1 Episode 7 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Mobsters I like the way they dish out justice in a way they can only do 4 out of 4 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589772/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Holiday in the Hills (1983) Season 1 Episode 8 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Better than Magiver I like how they built a plane. Long before magiver ever did stuff like that 3 out of 4 found this helpful https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589774/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) West Coast Turnaround (1983) Season 1 Episode 9 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Woohoo This episode contains trucks and water melons. I won't spoil the ending 2 out of 4 found this helpful https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589776/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) One More Time (1983) Season 1 Episode 10 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Monster Not the best episode but it had a really good car chase 2 out of 4 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589781/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) Till Death Do Us Part (1983) Season 1 Episode 11 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 Boom boom One of my all time favourite episodes. I like the bit where the car flips over 2 out of 3 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589786/ - - - The A-Team (TV Series) The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing (1983) Season 1 Episode 12 bevo-13678 29 March 2020 BA what are you like??? Ha ha. I ain't getting on no airplane. We'll see about that 2 out of 5 found this helpful. https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5589788/ and many more... .

@ACT_1​ Thank goodness this sort of rubbish posted from intellectual pigmies will grind to a halt. One can't even call these comments much less reviews.

@ACT_1​ these reviews you posted aren't 150 characters long though. I think many users would agree that these are not "reviews". 600 characters can be excessive for a 30 minute TV show especially when trying to avoid spoilers.

@keyword_expert​ 600 characters isn't short enough for individual TV episodes. And the longer reviews MUST be, the more "samey' they are, either for fans or detractors. With shorter (but reasonable) reviews, you get more variety and it makes a larger selection of the reviews worth reading. When I read three or four long reviews, I tend to be reading the same thing over and over again, so I stop. Other contributors then don't get any attention. 600 characters is typically three short or two medium paragraphs. I don't always have enough to say about a TV episode to justify two paragraphs, nor do I want to read that for an episode. What's ironic is that Amazon years ago abandoned minimum length for product reviews (which destroyed the value of their product reviews), but allows IMDb to increase their minimum length to an onerous requirement that's just a bit too long.

The movie reviews submitted to IMDb are subject to being screened for approval, so more submissions means a higher workload for the IMDb staff, whereas the product reviews submitted to Amazon don't ever have to be evaluated by a human being before being published for the whole world to see. Also, as near as I can tell the two companies have very differing attitudes/styles in certain areas of operation. I do believe that the policy/mechanism change on IMDb is very much intended to decrease the influx of new reviews, for the time being. Maybe it is to buy time to implement a sophisticated machine learning algorithm that can screen out reviews that violate guidelines, regardless of how short they are. Who knows? Amazon, on the other hand, was probably aiming to do the opposite. One key thing to remember is that Amazon also faces slightly different kinds of problems than IMDb, such as a larger quantity of paid shills or incentives being awarded to customers who write positive reviews of products. Truth be told, there may not be an easy solution to any of this stuff, and whenever there is, maybe the easy solution doesn't last very long.

@Laura_B​ most movies don't deserve 600 characters 300 maybe. like, if you don't want to copy the plot that is already written in wikipedia, try to describe any biopic in more than 600 characters without padding every biopic is exactly the same movie every underdog film is exactly the same movie every talking animal film is exactly the same movie not also take into consideration that a movie can have absolutely stale cinematography not bad not good utterly unnoticeable and similar invisible soundtrack what there is left to write about when the movie had less effort put into it than 600 characters

@DrProfessor​ all forums and friends and discussions were removed

@agof​ If you haven't found it, moviechat dot org archived and recreated the IMDb forums. The participation, of course, is lower than it was on IMDb, but it's better than nothing. You may even be able to establish your same user name. Unfortunately, everything you contributed that was archived from here is locked off, so you can pretty much only find your old threads if you remember where they were. Hard to believe the boards here have been gone for six years, huh? I enjoyed them a lot. At their worst, yes some threads could be trollish. However, at their best there was a lot of camaraderie among fans sharing memories and interesting information that just doesn't happen without them.

@KarthikKrtk​ Those are older reviews submitted before the new limit was imposed.

Right, but it seems that the IMDb site authorities aren't bothered at all by people being discouraged from writing reviews for material that is shorter than thirty minutes of running time, and in the case of material that is not even five minutes long, such a minimum bound could be dire, unless the content is so spectacular that its demands a lot to be said, without boiling down to a frame-by-frame analysis.