Need to delete "Alternative Titles" of a film

I'm glad all of these useless blindly duplicated bad AKA entries are easily deleted for this user. I asked what's the deal with these blindy duplicated bad AKAs with certain regions (like UAE, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore) popping up on most titles almost instantly on a few threads, like on this thread for example, which is still waiting for an answer and solution for 3 months, last time I reminded it, Michelle said "I will follow-up on the status and will reply shortly" and that was a month ago.

So I still have no idea what's the deal with these seemingly bot-added AKAs popping up everywhere but whenever I try to correct inaccuracy on them when I notice on a title, they are treated like they are untouchable sacred godsent and most valuable data items of the imdb of all times and they should be protected at all costs and always declined which is very frustrating so I'm glad  they were not treated like they are godsent things here and deleted easily because we see how it can even affect a filmmaker seriously on this thread.

Anyway, besides that, I just wanted to point out that (original title) should have remained the "The Whooper Returns" here as that was the correct original title.

When it premiered and had its festival releases, its title was "The Whooper Returns", they apparently decided to change their title to "The Occupant" when having their VOD release in 2022. So "The Occupant" can't be the original title here.

See these links please:

https://www.facebook.com/panicfilmfest/photos/4356414827720306

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410221426/https://panicfilmfest.com/theatrical/

https://watch.eventive.org/panic/play/6063ae49452e5f006315304c

It's even clearly mentioned at the start of the on the only "news" item on title page which also appears on the main page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11151162/news/

So can you make the "The Whooper Returns" original title again please?

@mbmb​ This title and its AKAs have been fixed now, thanks. 

One the wider point on AKAs I can give some more context. First for background, please see https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/alternate-title-policy-change/5f4a79f78815453dba933419

The whole area of which local title to display to which customers in which locations and when is much more complex than it appears on the surface. You might think it would be easy to define a set of rules to always do the right thing, but variables including international co-productions or some title texts being in an unexpected language make things significantly more complex.   We tried the rule based approach in the 2010 redesign and it did not work.  I expect there are still threads on Sprinklr through to the above AKA policy change in 2018 where you can see the types of customer complaints which used to arrive daily (although we did try and delete / clean-up the old posts once the new AKA policy lanuched; I recall a large "Idea" thread into which many of the problem cases were merged which we likely deleted once the policy changed and the problem was solved). 

In an added IMDb specific complexity, there are some deep technical issues whereby we cannot easily store the language of the primary title in our core database systems without significant rework.  For example, as English-speaking humans, you and I can see that The Shawshank Redemption is clearly an English title, however, our systems cannot (easily) represent this fact at the primary title level. Prior to the AKA policy change,  a customer in, say, Denmark might opt to see US English titles via the content preferences page, however, since previously we did not record the US title explicity since it matched the primary, in this example our systems would fall back to display the Danish title En verden udenfor -- quite frustrating when the customer can see the primary title text is actually in English. Yet if we changed the rule, a whole different set of titles would "break" instead.  As I recall, the cascading rule set had something like 12 different clauses.  The software engineers who designed the system could sometimes not easily explain why a specific AKA was shown to a specific customer.  The whole thing was an over-complicated mess.  Our advice used to have to be for the customer to switch to the "original title" display option, which instead would "break" a different set of titles, for example, Per un pugno di dollari

We realised that a simple solution existed and hence the 2018 AKA policy change.  If we directly store the AKA of every title in every country, even when it matches the primary title, we can eliminate all of the complicated rules.  Under the new 2018 policy, if we are displaying the wrong local title because of a lack of a local AKA, then it can be added.  If we are displaying the wrong local title because of a bad local AKA then it can be corrected.  Yes, there's some perceived redundancy, but it is better than the alternatives given we are an international service trying to be relevant and accessible to every person in every language and in every country. 

It is important to note that this AKA policy does not mean that a title needs to have secured a distribution deal in each country in order to have a local AKA listed.  In these days of global news coverage via the Internet or even via a listing on IMDb, someone in one country may learn about a title from another country and become interested in watching it or talking about it long before any local distribution is secured.  The following is a slightly contrived example, but I am just back from the Cannes Film Festival where one of the films I saw was Forever Young which is a French film with a primary title of Les Amandiers.  AFAIK it has no UK distribution as yet, but IMDb is correct to list a UK English AKA for this title. 

I cannot speak to the contents of the other linked thread as it sounds like the wrong local AKAs have been added to the title cited there.  It should have been possible to replace the bad AKAs with the correct ones.  I will flag the thread to Michelle tomorrow when the US team are back in the office. 

Hope the above helps. 

@Col_Needham​ Thanks a lot for all of this insight and such a detailed reply. I appreciate it, it definitely makes things way more clear and makes one understands things better. I just want to say this: I understood everything you explained but I still think it shouldn't be abused with automated tools blindly without any care for its accuracy, because I think that just creates issues and more work for both staff and frustration for people who's trying to correct their auto-copies. I make this an issue only when I notice an inaccuracy and when having difficulty correcting or deleting it (when it's not possible to correct because of character encoding limitations).

I mean when a contributor (a thinking human being) notices an AKA is missing for their region and they feel it's needed, sure they should add it. But just duplicating the original title to other regions in automated ways for whatever reason (just to get more points?) creates more work for everyone imo.

I assume these popping up AKAs with certain regions are automated because I'm seeing examples like this: For example, an USA title which is in-production and does not even have a title yet, so it's listed with a placeholder title like "Untitled X Project", then a few AKAs listed for these certain regions:

United Arab Emirates - Untitled X Project
Indonesia -  Untitled X Project
Singapore -  Untitled X Project 

When I see something like this it just bothers me, because it means they will need to be corrected later, the film does not even have a title yet and it's listed with a placeholder name on the database, there is just no need to blindly copy that placeholder name at that point. I mean if that's OK, then the software of IMDb could add an AKA for every region after a title is created after all and then ask contributors to correct these AKA entries added for all regions by IMDb software if any of them is inaccurate. IMDb engineers probably do not need someone else's automated tools to fill title pages with some blindly copied entries randomly. If they need it they could code it after all. Bottom line of my point is I just feel it should be added when it's needed, when someone feels like contributing it instead of kinda spamming every title and creating more work for corrections.

It is important to note that this AKA policy does not mean that a title needs to have secured a distribution deal in each country in order to have a local AKA listed.

Yes, this makes sense as well with all of your explanations, but I have a suggestion for a little tweak on wording of something on IMDbPro site which I think would reduce the issues like the OP here was having with some potential buyers.

I'm using your Cannes example here and checking it on IMDbPro and this is how Details section looks:

@mbmb​  Thanks for the follow-up ...

I still think it shouldn't be abused with automated tools blindly without any care for its accuracy, because I think that just creates issues and more work for both staff and frustration for people who's trying to correct their auto-copies.

These AKAs are not the results of an automated process though. Do you have some recent examples where you have seen this and we will be happy to investigate, particularly the "Untitled X Project" cases which you mentioned?  I am asking for recent examples because there were some issues briefly in 2021 with an internal process which may have created some bad AKAs, although it was my understanding that we cleaned-up afterwards. It is possible you are observing some echoes of this experiment. If you have recent examples, we can trace the source and follow-up with the staff members who are processing them and/or the people contributing them. 

These AKAs are listed under something titled "International Release Details", so I think it's understandable some people (potential buyers) may think it had a release in these countries when they check the title's IMDbPro page.

Do you have a suggestion for another label? We would say that the hyphens in the "Release Date" column serve to better make it clear the title has not been released in those countries. 

Col

@Col_Needham​ Something more straightforward or something which emphasizes AKAs could be better. Something like "International Release Details and AKAs" perhaps? "and" there may help to realize what's listed under it is not all about a "release"

These AKAs are not the results of an automated process though. Do you have some recent examples where you have seen this and we will be happy to investigate, particularly the "Untitled X Project" cases which you mentioned?

Thanks for that info about internal experiment, it's possible I observed some of them when thinking there is some bot spamming happening. I tried to remember recent examples. There was this when it had "Untitled the Rookie Spinoff" title (fixed now): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18076310/releaseinfo

There is this Brie Larson project as a live example (similar pattern to the Rookie one): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9893350/releaseinfo

(That newly added "Lindsey Reiser Reports" AKA looks like a mistake too, articles I found indicate it's still untitled (1), or call it "Life Undercover" which likely is the correct working title (2) (3) )

Besides obvious things like that, what's more common is things like that: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7945440/releaseinfo

"Between Earth and Sky" was only a working title while filming here, it never had a release with that title. Both TIFF premiere and Amazon Prime VOD release was with "The Lie" title (my attempt at correcting it with evidence links here failed I think).

I just can't believe it's "primarily known" with that title in United Arab Emirates, Philippines and India regions here, the film never had a release with that title, even festival premiere was not with that title. What happened here is original title listed on IMDb at that moment (which was erroneous) was copied carelessly which did nothing other than duplicating a mistake.

I hope I was able to explain myself, thanks again for all the clarifications here, it was so helpful.

@mbmb  Thanks for the examples.  For the Untitled CIA Project case, what happened is that local contributors in these regions added AKA titles too early (and there's a similar pattern on other titles).  Attempts to delete these AKAs have likely then (sadly) been rejected because the AKA matched the current original title.  This may explain why there have been clean-up difficulties in the past until the original title moved off it's Untitled label.  We will follow-up with the contributors concerned to remind them to hold off such submissions until an actual title is announced. 

The Lie is an unfortunate mix-up which you may have noticed has now been addressed (we accepted your latest correction). I was at the TIFF world premiere of this film back in 2018 and I submitted a correction myself to move it from the working title to the actual original title of The Lie (likely live during the Q&A afterwards). My correction was incorrectly rejected, but I did not notice at the time.  There's a record of my rejected correction in the system, so since the correction had already been rejected, newer team members had been assuming that the working title must have been correct as-is (not noticing it was my correction which was rejected :-).  Hence your issue in trying to correct it, sorry. 

Let us know if this happens again. 

@Col_Needham​ Yes I noticed The Lie was fixed, thanks for the explanations here, it was interesting to hear even you can get rejections, I guess knowing this makes me more understanding of rejections now. I will tell myself "Even Col Needham gets them, calm down" :)