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200 Points

Thursday, March 30th, 2023

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Ratings issue with my title

Hi @Michelle and @Col_Needham, please help me get into direct contact with a supervisor or manager over the rating system (one of you possibly?). My Scorecard film has clearly uncovered a tragic flaw that is causing some damage, and at very least I need to know how the weighting system is generating such a huge anomaly. I am well versed in statistical analysis, so I simply need to know specifically how this anomaly was generated, and be given the chance to discuss what I believe is a very real flaw in this system in need of correction, as I believe it is easy to prove in a simple discussion. Thank you in advance.

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3 years ago

@wcaparas Everything we can say about ratings is covered in the FAQ at https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/track-movies-tv/ratings-faq/G67Y87TFYYP6TWAV which includes details on why the IMDb weighted average is not the mean.  

11 Messages

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200 Points

@Col_Needham​ and @Michelle, As a paying member and long-time user, can you please help me communicate directly with someone in this department? Your link does nothing to explain the extreme disparity in actual votes and the weighted score of my film, which has a massive base of viewers that love it. I challenge you to explain how a film with nearly 2500 ten-star votes and just 104 one-star votes can have a 5.5-star weighted rating. At this point, I demand an explanation, as by ANY stretch of the imagination this reveals bias against the controversial subject-matter of my film. Innuendo that you're protecting against ballot stuffing might fly among those who don't know the film or the fan base, but as the producer I know VERY well that the positive votes reflect actual user votes for our very successful film. All one need do is read the 200+ written reviews to see that the worst our weighted score should be 7-stars, as even that requires ignoring 2300 ten-star reviews. Please stop hiding behind this curtain and let me speak directly to someone in management. 

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@wcaparas​ 

let me speak directly to someone in management. 

You already are: Michelle is fully authorised to reply for IMDb, and in any case, I am the Founder and CEO of IMDb

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3 years ago

Hi @wcaparas -

As explained on the Weighted Average Ratings Help page - IMDb does not use the arithmetic mean when calculating the ratings, although the raw mean and median are shown under the detailed vote breakdown graph on the ratings pages. Instead, we use a weighted average scheme. This explains why there's often a discrepancy between the user rating displayed on a film's title page and the arithmetic mean of all the votes cast for that film. For more details about IMDb weighted ratings, see this additional Help Article.

Lastly, note that in order to avoid leaving the scheme open to abuse we do not reveal the exact method used to calculate the final user rating or any other details other than those included in the above-referenced help page.