andrew_d_9l5vxfe8q7ypf's profile

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140 Points

Friday, December 30th, 2022

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Much of update history missing

https://contribute.imdb.com/updates/history?start=1150

At least half of my update history is missing. Please restore.
I want my full history to use in a data analysis project.

Briefly :
I joined IMDB in 2000, chiefly to update large gaps in the credits of Japanese movies. I added thousands upon thousands of data items, mainly actor credits.

As well as the form, there was another update method : by email, which I used extensively. It appears that data entered by this method has been excluded from my update history.

As just one example, I updated the full cast lists of most of Hideko Takamine, Japan's top actress from the late '40s to the early '60s.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0847301/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1
The update history records 2005 as the first instance of updating one of her movies,
yet when I was in Japan in 2004, I updated the full cast lists of about 40 of her movies.

I can cite a few other examples. Please add the missing data and keep me informed of progress.

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Employee

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8.3K Messages

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191.6K Points

3 years ago

@andrew_d_9l5vxfe8q7ypf  Sorry, but the old email and forms submissions systems were not compatible with the replacement system which launched in August 2003 (and which continues to power the update history to this day). Nobody’s update history goes further back than 2003 and it is simply not possible for us to restore data from records which we no longer even have, sorry.  

As to your 2004 updates, those should be in your update history so the only explanation is that they were made under another email account.  If you had a different email in Japan and you can remember it, along with the associated password, you should be able to login and access the update. 

Hope this helps. 

Champion

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15.8K Messages

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345.5K Points

Email contribution was still available until 2008 (I have receipts), so perhaps those 2004 submissions were emails.

Champion

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15.8K Messages

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345.5K Points

@Col_Needham​ 

There must have been some older records when you made the all-time top contributor lists?

(edited)

Employee

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8.3K Messages

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191.6K Points

@Peter_pbn​ Yes, but those are locked inside the database itself, stored with the data items and they cannot really be exported nor even easily extracted (and definitely not back-loaded into contribution histories).  We also cannot reconstruct the original contributions as made at the time anyway because those are all against the database exactly as it stood on the date the contribution was made (even the 2003-onwards history drifts out-of-sync in this respect).  As you note, each person's own email contribution receipts are the best way to track this from the early days. 

When we made the initial all-time list from (effectively) 1995-2015, that was generated from live items assigned to each account vs. from a true total of every edit.  We can and do track deletetions/corrections from the late 2000s onwards via a different logging mechanism, but we had to make the best guess from live items for those earlier years for the all-time list.  Since contributions were not centralised until April 1994, we have no records even in the database itself until the mid-90s.  All the filmography data I collected from 1981 to 1994 is in the database, but unallocated to me, which is why my profile badges are not a true reflection, especially the filmography total :-).

Hope this helps. 

7 Messages

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140 Points

Good to see you still monitoring the forums, Col.

10.7K Messages

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226.1K Points

I think, Col might have a red telephone in his bedroom, and it rings whenever the teams working for him require his assistance, because it seems like he is almost always monitoring the forum. Haha.

7 Messages

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140 Points

3 years ago

Nope. I have had the same email since well before 2004.
Disappointing.
However, thanks for the prompt and precise response.

This is my profile https://www.imdb.com/user/ur0642841/?ref_=tt_urv
My username is sharptongue. For some reason, my username is not attached to posts in this forum.

Champion

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15.8K Messages

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345.5K Points

There isn't a chance that you still have your emails from back then?

7 Messages

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140 Points

Nope ::!