Ongoing changes to several IMDb features

Thanks for this. We will post a reply in a moment and tag it as an official response. 

This is located at http://www.imdb.com/search/common

You can reach this via the advanced search page at http://www.imdb.com/search/ which in turn can be accessed from the search menu at the top of any IMDb page (see red highlight below):

Thank you, kind sir!

Not many Users like the changes

Like all changes, the people most motivated to comment are those who are having the most trouble adjusting to the change or those people who have not yet spotted what is on the short-term bug fix lists.  You know this yourself from observing pretty much every redesign we have ever launched -- funny how "worst change ever" in 2007 becomes a "perfect design" by 2010 -- change is always hard. Please note many of the perceived negative comments are justified constructive criticisms which we are reading, recording and acting upon where appropriate, whether short or long term. Unfortunately we cannot do much with "yeah, everything now sucks" or "just put it all back" type comments (and surely people would not want all the bugs back too :-).  

The numbers we are watching here are all showing improved customer engagement, with even more potential as things like review sort orders and ratings filtering are added back in the New Year.  We now have: a consistent design across all core pages on the web site; list editing on the Android app; all user reviews readable everywhere; consistent (and automatic) character pages; news available everywhere; all data published  everywhere as it is processed and available for instant editing (not random sections running 24-36 hours out-of-sync); an easier data cross-linking format; a better help system; a faster suggestion search powered contribution system; more visible core box office information; more modern list editing (okay yes, drag-and-drop on web is an unfortunate casualty, but the rest is better IMHO); the end of the unmanaged wiki systems (open for all contributors, with FAQ coming soon). This had led to new registrations at an all-time high across 2017; data contributors and data contributions similarly on all-time highs, yet (ignoring temporary holiday backlogs this week) the fastest ever overall processing times plus with the smallest ever backlogs.  Behind-the-scenes almost everything is now on the same modern software platform with simpler, faster paths for future changes; hundreds of (sometimes) years old bugs have been resolved; scores of longstanding requests / suggestions have been implemented; consistency has improved hugely between the nine "on platform" sites and apps which our team directly supports (with more work to do here in 2018).

Of course, not everything today is perfect nor in its desired end state. As mentioned, we had to make some awful short-term trade-off decisions to ensure we completed the technology migration in 2017, but we are confident the short term pain is worth the long term gain. 

Sonny: "Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end." from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1412386/quotes/qt1645298 :-)

@Col Needham; Reading your post makes me a little more optimistic for IMDb in 2018. I'm sure the changes you've rushed out now are great news for your team, but as a user I really can't buy things like "and surely people would not want all the bugs back too", as a matter of fact I can't remember the site ever having as many visible bugs as it does right now. We want our old, faster, less buggy IMDb experience back.... That shouldn't be hard to understand. Rushing out not thoroughly tested new solutions is never a good idea, and does not make you look good or professional, regardless of motivations or long-term intentions.

funny how "worst change ever" in 2007 becomes a "perfect design" by 2010 

Isn't it also funny how the 2007 complaints died out relatively quick, yet now nearly 8 years after the 2010 change, people are still complaining about that? Maybe the 2007 design wasn't perfect, I don't remember the design before it too well, but compared to the 2010 design even a Notepad (from Windows) simple text document of a movie's information looks nearly perfect. As such, I really, REALLY hope that now that you've achieved your dreams of unifying all platforms into a single software (which I'm not really sure is as good an idea as you think, but that's a different discussion), that a new and actually better design is in your plans. Considering you're still on a much-hated and complained about 8 year old (a lot in the computer world) design, it is really well overdue! And when doing so, please take all complaints and suggestions (which as I read them are mostly disguised complaints) into consideration, as well as trying to understand why so many users, pretty much all who actually care enough to comment, preferred all previous designs to the 2010 design.

I second that as well. Look, I can understand that you wanted a new "backbone" and an interface that looks everywhere the same but from a contributors point of view this new design is just... strange (and I'm saying that as somebody who has been contributing for almost 20 years and remembers the fist design). It is non-intuitive (why are the selections like trivia on the right) and shows topics by default that should be in the background (like the entire "Did you know" section or plot summary at the bottom). By changing line spacing, pages for larger films are now so much longer. And due to bad formatting, only about 40% of the screen is used to display information (look at any movie, scroll down, after "Share this page").
I really hope that you will start making changes ASAP. The contributors view does not necessarily need to be pretty - it needs to be functional.

I'm not sure that the number of new registrations should be the indicator of the website's growing success... but on an economical level, it makes sens if it does.

I just miss the old IMDb, I used to be very active on the Daily Poll board, and I remember one poll by the end of the day could garner something between 17.000 and 20.000 votes, the lower on the page it got, the less votes it had, but it still managed to make something between 11.000 and 13.000.

Now, you have one lucky poll among many dozens that gets on the frontpage but it is at the extreme bottom with at least 20 sections before you get to it, making 20.000 votes in one week, while the other polls are lucky if they get 300 votes at the end of the day, so I don't know if IMDb has more users but they sure care less about the polls (or the polls lack so much visibility they're almost useless)

I could do without the polls but the reviews' changes were hard to accept, I trust there will be positive changes in 2018, but I'll never consider 2017 to be IMDb's finest hour, the removal of the message boards was like a "beginning of the end" to me.

@Jeff Beachnau
I'm not having a problem with pages loading. What browser/platform are you running? I'm on Windows 10 and Chromebook, usually with Chrome, sometimes with Firefox (on Windows).

When I follow your James Cameron > Awards > Oscars 1998 directions, I'm able to get to the Oscars page with no problem. Are you running some new userscript or extension that maybe interfering with links/loading?

I'm not sure what you mean by a User Review Comment. Is that something in addition to a User Review? I remember that we were NOT able to comment on Reviews before, as we can at Amazon. Are you running Reference View, because 1 User Review still appears at the bottom of a "regular view" Title page? On Reference View, there's a link to Reviews in the second chunk of info, right before the Photos/Videos section. (Also a link to User Reviews at the top of a "regular view" page.)

I don't use the TV episode stuff much, so I can't comment about that. But the main series page still shows the most recent 3 seasons/years in Reference view (seasons right under the poster, and years off to the right), and all seasons/years in "regular view". (I checked on Friends.)

On a person's filmography, I don't remember the titles being numbered, although I do remember the character filmographies being numbered. You still get numbers when you use the Filmography choices under Explore More (right column), which I use a lot because you can Refine & Sort.

Don't get me wrong, I have my own list of grievances about the changes to the site, especially since Dec 6. But some of what you list here is not what I see. So perhaps you have a technical issue that can be resolved.

well, I used Windows 10 as well, and I still used the old IMDb format until this recent forced changed, so maybe I've been using an old format of IMDb for a while.  Though when searching on my phone, it's sometimes forced to search on the IMDb app (which I'm not a fan of, that's where a lot of the issues take place, such as the Awards complaint I made).

And yet, both on my computer and especially on my phone, I have issues loading the pages (and no, i don't have issues on other sites, so it's not my internet acting slow).

What I mean with the User Review, is that before these changes, when you looked up a film, on the main page, under the cast list, there would be one of the User Reviews listed at the bottom of the page.  I know on the side of the page you can click on User Reviews to read them all, but it was helpful to have a quick review to get an idea how people reacted to the movie, rather than clicking on multiple things to get to the reviews.

Which reminds me, another problem I have with the changes, now on these film pages, it lists the entire full cast and crew on the main page, so you have to scroll down extremely far to get to the bottom of the page to even see what country the film takes place or what language it is in (which is helpful when searching for foreign films).  Compared to before when you would click on "Full cast and crew" in order to get the endless list of names and positions.

That's the new Title Reference View, by the way.

@Jeff Beachnau
So you answered some of my questions, but not which browser, and whether you have extensions/add-ons running. They could be in conflict with something the IMDb pages are doing, and causing your slow response time. (I have some running, but see no slowness).

And you introduced a new wrinkle: the Awards problems you are having is on an App. Which one: Android or iOS? If you want IMDb staff to fix things that are broken, you need to be specific.

The new Reference View is supposedly designed for Contributors who want to see the whole cast/crew in 1 shot.  Over on the thread Updates to Title Reference View you can see some explanations of what they had in mind. Just search for Official responses.

Given that they lengthened the Cast/crew stuff, scrolling down to the bottom of the page to read 1 review doesn't sound as good as clicking a link at the top of the page to me. But I use the standard view, which DOES have that lone review, and I frequently scroll to it. 

If you don't like the App, why not uninstall it, so the browser on your phone doesn't have the option to go there? And I suggest you try the standard view. There's a link at the top of every Title page to "Change View", which takes you to your Site Settings. Just uncheck the dot for reference view, and see how you like it. You can add titles to lists and see the short cast list in the standard view.

@bderoes; the person filmography numbers were part of the Name Reference View, and was indeed a very neat, and simple, feature, which I really hope they'll bring back in a future name view. The "Explore More" option you mention is not a poor "replacement", requiring a lot more clicks to refine a list down to specific job types (also needing to unselect one type to watch the next), and even in Compact view taking up a lot more space, not to mention being split up over several pages, than it used to.

@Jeff Beachnau; it seems you're using the Title Reference View, which does show entire cast and crew. IMDb decided that people didn't want to have options like showing or not showing the ENTIRE cast and crew on the reference view page, so they combined the two reference views we had before into a new one, also re-arranging useful fields that used to be at the top to the bottom, etc, which is what you're seeing. If you want to see the movie page without the entire cast and crew you must go to the default view, by clicking the "change view" link just below the title field.

Thanks for letting me know about the Reference View, that did fix a couple issues, but I'm still having trouble with the site loading.  I guess I'll have to try work my way around it.  Anyway, overall, I really liked the old format much better.

Oh well.

Maybe the developers feel underappreciated, and companies like Facebook and Google are all too happy to "steal" them. I don't know. There is no telling what goes on behind the scenes.

What's happening behind-the-scenes is we are celebrating the end of a huge successful software migration project.  Hundreds of flaky old unmaintainable systems have been replaced with a modern, smaller, simpler, more consistent platform which can be maintained and extended more quickly.  Hundreds of difficult-to-fix customer facing bugs have been eliminated; scores of new features have been added already  -- we have more content more consistently available and editable in more interfaces than ever before. Millions of lines of up to 17 year old code has been eliminated in under a year.  We are proud of what we have achieved to make IMDb better, faster and more scalable for the future.

We are now working our way through some of the more painful cuts to restore lost important functionality at a faster pace. Keep watching the announcement threads for progress at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb?topic-list[settings][type]=update 

Sorry, we have to do our best to balance the needs of different customer sets.  You may find the mobile site at http://m.imdb.com/ more suitable to your needs and it works fine on a desktop browser. 

Alternatively please see "Title Reference View" on https://www.imdb.com/preferences/general (also see https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/site-preferences/GDL9NWJRKWRH5L6K)

We have already surveyed the customer set for reference view and they are happy with it, sorry. 

We are sorry you do not like the new design. If there are specific ideas for changes which you would like to see, you are welcome to post on the relevant idea threads or start fresh ideas at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/categories/imdb_imdbcom?topic-list[settings][type]=idea so other people can comment and vote.  Please note that returning to a 2007 design is not a viable option, and neither are changes to reference view which violate the principles under which it was designed (this is a data-centric view for top contributors); anything else is fine to suggest. 

Happy with the new reference view... looking at this forum, that is a bold statement.
Which users did you ask and how did you ask them?

"The index on the right should have the features of the index on the left." And almost no feedback thus far, implying satisfaction with the new platform.

Which users did you ask and how did you ask them?

We started on Contributors Help; then here; then email to select top contributors; and then early previews of what we just built.  While there are still bugs which we are addressing, it's mostly a case of people getting used to: the new layout; the extra information; the lack of fatal flaws (like 404 on image upload); and speedy updates (vs. 24-36 hours behind) synchronized with the update system. What you see is what you get when you click "Edit page" 

We have already surveyed the customer set for reference view and they are happy with it, sorry. 

@Col; point of interest: did anyone in the customer set you're talking about actually use the old reference view? Wouldn't it be better to survey the actual users of the old reference view if they like the new one? It's not hard to do; the datas about who used and uses the reference view, along with their e-mail addresses, are all in your database, why don't you send US a survey e-mail? And send us the results when they are in. Then perhaps we'll believe you.

Okay but posts here are subject to https://contribute.imdb.com/charter

Yes, all were key users of the old reference view. 
(Col Needham, in a now deleted comment)

What, in your, opinion, constitutes a "key user" of the old reference view? It is already clear, from how your now calling it a "contributor view", in many places, rather than a "reference view", that your opinion of what the view "should" be, and what it actually was to a lot of users, are two very different things. I do believe that you've screened to a select group of users who sees it as you think it should be seen, rather than a representative group of users who used it for what it actually was: a better overall representation of movie data than the default view offered.

I also cannot remember seeing anyone (not affiliated with IMDb) come forward, in the abundance of negative and criticizing opinions posed on this site about the changes, saying that "hey, I was part of the test group screening and approving this", defending you from any of the - sometimes extremely - harsh things said about the changes.

Now, don't get me wrong; I've seen evidence of our ideas and criticism being heard and dealt with, and I'm confident that more will come into place as we go along. I deeply love the site, overall, and want it to be all that it can be, and will do what I can to help. I've shared ideas these last few weeks, and will share more going forward, and I choose to believe you when you say that things will get better. But; I do have issues with a company whose line it seems is to completely disregard how the majority of users used the reference view, saying to their face "this is not the view that is meant for you", and ignoring very honest and true opinions about how the new view is inferior to the old, not only visually, but also technically (for instance; you say it's faster, user reports suggest it is much, much slower). If the old reference view wasn't meant for them, why did they use it? And why do they complain when they are forced to use something else? I'm sure the answer to that does not lie with the "key users of the reference view" you actually did ask, and I'm also sure there are far more of them than there are of users who used it only for what you think it should be used... Your users aren't divided into just those who comes to watch trailers and read reviews (for which the standard view is good) and those who want to get a long page of pretty much all the data available for a movie to ease the process of contributing to the site (I pretty much belong here myself, though); there is also a large group of users who wants something in between - who found the previous reference view, without full cast and crew info, to be the best option in the past, but who now don't have any good view options available for them, and who are pretty much, and very sadly, ignored in their plea for a new, good view option.

First, thanks for the thoughtful and constructive post. 

What, in your, opinion, constitutes a "key user" of the old reference view?

The key users of the reference view for us are IMDb's top data contributors who want (and we very happy to provide) a data-centric view of IMDb's content for every title.  The main features they told us they wanted are: all the data in the credits for swift checking of what is/is not already in IMDb;  enough extracts of other data to give a feel for what else is covered; the smallest possible set of what they consider as distractions from the rest of the data.  

I do believe that you've screened to a select group of users who sees it as you think it should be seen, rather than a representative group of users who used it for what it actually was: a better overall representation of movie data than the default view offered.

This is a fair point to some extent. IMDb covers the entertainment industry, generally visual media, and specifically movies, TV, video games and online video; along with the creators in every role who make such titles. Our opinion, supported by hard data from detailed traffic analysis & soft data from customer feedback through various forms, is that outside of reference view, IMDb consumer site pages should sparkle and shine with our passion for entertainment.  This means plenty of visuals via photos & videos, plus a focus around opinion, recommendations, customer reviews & ratings, news, lists, polls and engagement with other site content. We see this in our traffic -- we know what works and we know what does not work -- we are continuously testing new placements and feature tweaks, especially in those areas of the site not hampered by our now retired old technology (which now means everywhere). Anyone else posting opinions here is guessing based on their own personal usage of IMDb at worst, and at best, posting as a representative of overall a small subset of customers. I frequently endorse building things at IMDb which personally I would never use or do not even understand, yet if the data shows us otherwise then, of course, we should build them. It's only a piece of software so if it does not work as built, we can always enhance it later or remove it. Yes, or remove it -- a good design is just as much about the things it does not have than it is about the things which it does have.  Sometimes the best thing you can do is take something away -- be it permanent if there's no hope or be it temporary so you are more free to recreate it without the constraints of the previous version. The perfection can often lie in the simplicity. 

We accept every design is a compromise, especially when you are designing and building at the 250+ million monthly customers from pretty much every country in the world (and every interest level).  The one sure recipe for disaster is to try and please all people, all of the time, especially at this scale. We also accept all change is hard.  Simply rebuilding an identical copy of the 2007 design on 2018 software is, of course, theoretically possible but it abandons all hope of improvement for future customers. It also ignores the completely understandable knee-jerk reaction of hatred on initial reception; the 2007 design was not perfect, nor is the new reference view perfect and nor is the new standard view perfect.  All are simply the best reflection of what we could build at the time with the technology, people, and importantly, time available. 

My advice to anyone is to decide whether you are more suited to reference view or more suited to the standard view and then make constructive recommendations about the one you use, ideally via the Ideas category here and we will weigh them up with the other data and against other priorities. We are not going to fundamentally change the purpose of either view. Nobody is going to convince us to abandon either view; accept there are customers different from you, chose your option and work with us to make it the best it can be. Please also see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101669/quotes/qt0328172 

Anyway enough talk.  We would rather be judged on what we do than what we say. We remain true to https://contribute.imdb.com/charter always. We operate an open customer feedback platform here (with zero tolerance on trolling though). We have accumulated over 32,000 separate threads here on Get Satisfaction in just five years. You can see the problems solved.  You can see the ideas implemented.  You can see the potential in the future ideas. I am just the CEO and I have posted over 5,000 replies here;  I have filed hundreds of tickets for bug fixes which have been actioned (and, honestly, some where the data told us not to action them so we did not).  The whole drive for all these changes in this thread and the associated announcements at the end of 2017 is based on the frustrations of both ourselves and customers at IMDb not being able to move quickly enough. We drew a line in the sand.  We had to make some awful temporary compromises in functionality, but we are here and ready.  Could we go faster, yes, I remain frustrated at the lack of a magic wand to wave and reach the end point of where we want to go tomorrow, but that is life. As always:

Sonny: Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end.
-- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1412386/quotes/qt1645298

The sentiments of the "top contributors" surveyed may have perhaps been misinterpreted or interpreted out of context, I think. I wish the same people would speak up, right now, right here. Apart from Vincent Fournols, they might be most displeased with the recent outcome, and he is not so pleased either really but somewhat optimistic.

Thanks for the spotlight! But I would not like being misinterpreted: I am not a top contributor, I have never used lists, I hardly miss the reviews. Actually I am much more concerned by IMDBb as a data repository, than a social, let alone a professional network, and I can adapt to layouts. I have also been working in IT for 20+ years, so I can easily figure what is at stake when such a infrastructure has to changed. And I consider that the change management here has been appalling. But I am rather satisfied with the outcome, and I trust Col Needham's assertion of upcoming improvements.

My biggest worry, by far, is the new proposed datasets with the https interface, which provide only a fragment of the former FTP interface (moreover, as shown in the proper thread, the title.principals.tsv file is absolutely useless).

This being said, I fully understand that some long time and involved users might prove disappointed by the current changes. They have to be heard, because the essence of IMDb is constribution, whatever Amazon thinks about it. But disappointment is no excuse for the contempt, or even insults, that have sparked the exchanges lately. Come on guys, it is only a website....

O, in that case, I apologize. All of the bulk data subscribers to speak up, and we, are unhappy with the loss of so many data sets. The responses to the changes to the Reference Views are a slightly varied, but for the most part, we are displeased.

I have for many years been a user of the imdb site. It have always been a great site for us movie interested people. But its auprising that you guys would remove the recently viewed feature. It have for me as for many other users been a key feature. Wich i miss. And before you respond about the list feature it does not cover the use recently viewed did. Lets say i wanna look for a movie i dont know wich movie. But i an remember one of the actors but they played in another film i know i have reasearched earlyer. I could before just follow the breadcrumbs left for me in the recently viewed list. I really miss this feature and i know i`m not alone. Hope you seriously would reconsider getting this feature back as it is a key function for your users. After all the users are your audience and should be listened to if you want to provide the best service you can?!?!

Helemaal mee eens, goed punt!

Je dirais même plus... :)