C

10 Messages

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202 Points

Friday, January 20th, 2023 7:40 PM

No Status

1

Reduce the minimum size for IMDb user reviews

Please remove the required characters of 600 from the review function.  Or limit to much lower.  I may have a short review.  Include a sort feature which allows us to filter by this is you must.

32 Messages

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270 Points

2 years ago

I thought the minimum number of characters to write a review was 150. I'm getting an error message, "Sorry, your review is too short. It needs to contain at least 600 characters." What happened to being succinct, precise/concise, to the point, not wordy?

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Minimum Number of Characters to Write a Review

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

2 years ago

Well, my view is that the limit ought not be unilateral but accounts for the running time of the movie, show or episode for which a review is being submitted.

189 Messages

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6K Points

@jeorj_euler​ 

Yes.  A ten minute short may well not warrant 120 words.

2 Messages

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70 Points

2 years ago

Put the minimum characters required to leave a review back to the original or remove required characters completely. Most people only need to 2-3 sentences, but the 600 character requirement is forcing "everyone" to write long or a few paragraphs, the issue is that "everyone" shouldn't be forced to do so. 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Review requirements

11 Messages

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200 Points

2 years ago

I wish imdb would remove the 600 character requirement for writing reviews. Not every review of a movie requires 600 characters. They didn't used to require that, please consider removing that. Thanks.

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled 600 Character Requirement for Reviews

11 Messages

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200 Points

2 years ago

I think imdb should remove the 600 character requirement for writing reviews. Not every review of a movie requires 600 characters. They didn't used to require that, please consider removing that. Thanks.

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Reviews Suggestion

11 Messages

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202 Points

1 year ago

Why do my reviews have to be so long. I see short reviews all the time and IMDb always declines my reviews for being too to short why is this? I have such a hard time writing lengthy reviews. 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Such long reviews?

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

Then increase in the lower limit on the quantity of letters, numbers, punctuation and non-redundant spaces needed to publish a review was implemented for the purpose of at least making an attempt to improve the overall quality of new reviews posted going forward. The minimum quantity isn't really what constitutes a long passage, but there may indeed exists contexts where no more than a single sentence is really needed for somebody to outline what he or she considers to be the pros and cons of the content of a movie that has an unusually short running time. I was thinking about coming up with a sort of Q&A tool that could serve as a guide to the process of constructing a meaningful review, but in theory, something like that can be found by using a preferred Web search engine. Another idea could involve some sort of stock template that could be adapted into a unique body of text. Meeting the requirement can be hard, but is it ever truly impossible. The only time it would be impossible is when somebody tries to review a movie that he or she hasn't even actually observed and about which nobody else has published any information.

5 Messages

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120 Points

1 year ago

most reviews I read seem written by people who are trying to say "this movie sucks" with many different words just to reach the 600 characters.

and I know the feeling because it happens to me almost anytime I want to write a review.

indeed 90% of the times I want, I end deciding not to, because having to reach the 600 sucks more than the movie.

for instance now as soon as I once again realized I had to reach the 600 (which I keep forgetting) I felt that it was more important to say how much this limit sucks, than how much that movie sucks.

and as I am a stubborn person, I hereby declare that I will never ever ever write any review in IMDb, until there will be such a limit.

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled dismiss the mandatory minimum of 600 characters

2 Messages

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70 Points

1 year ago

Is there s specific reason why my reviews has to have a minimum of 600 characters?

I see a lot of reviews passing trough that contains two or three sentences at most.

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Needed characters on a review

11 Messages

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202 Points

1 year ago

Why do my reviews require 600 characters when I have seen several reviews with much fewer than 600 characters?

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Review details

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

There are tons of reviews that have fewer than six hundred characters apiece, and the reason for it is that those reviews were live on the site prior to the minimum limit being increased from 150 to 600, and prior to that, from 50 to 150.

6 Messages

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134 Points

@jeorj_euler​ That is not  true. I see reviews for episodes of shows that came out last week that are this short. Something else is going on. Either these people abuse the system by putting spaces after their review, or they are paid critics or bots who get to still deliver their reviews using the old system...

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

The "permalink" URLs to those low-character reviews ought to be shared in this thread then.

6 Messages

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134 Points

1 year ago

How is it possible that I see new reviews submitted even TODAY that are super short? How can these people submit their reviews when they are 150-200 characters, tops? Just check the latest Black Mirror S6 episode reviews. Most of them are this short. Are these people part of some super secret special user group, maybe they pay for their accounts? Because when I try reviewing something, I get hit with the 600 character limit. How come they do not get that???

8.3K Messages

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174.3K Points

@commander_bb_shockwave​ 😀

Short Samples??

Black Mirror (TV Series)
Demon 79 (2023)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27731671/reference/

TV-MA | 1h 14min | Drama, Mystery | 15 Jun 2023 | TV Episode
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27731671/reviews

63 Reviews

.

6 Messages

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134 Points

@ACT_1​ Here, just a few examples.

When  I had to review a show, I had to type until the whole thing was as long as my screen before the 600 character limit disappeared. These look barely like a few sentences. No way these are 600 words.

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

I've not found a single review of any episode of the latest season of Black Mirror that is comprised of fewer than 600 characters (i.e. letters, digits, punctuation, spaces and line breaks together). Where are they?

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

Gosh. I dared to scoff at Col putting forth the idea that the people complaining about this were seeing the word "character" but thinking the word "word", but apparently he was definitely on to something. How the hell can anybody be so confused? On average, a commonly-used word is comprised of four, five or six characters.

1 Message

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60 Points

1 year ago

Yeah, I've been wondering about this. I really like watching awful movies and usually end up writing the parents guide for them. Recently, I've been trying to leave review for movies I watch, but there just isn't enough to talk about. After going through both the pros and cons of the movie, I'm left with anywhere from 30-100 character left. Now, of course I could pad these reviews out with useless information, or delve into spoiler territory and go step-by-step through the plot, analyzing each detail, but that feels disingenuous and is also a complete waste of my time.

Also, interestingly, I've been looking at other reviews clearly created before the date this policy went into effect, and most aren't over 50-100 characters, so I really don't know what the intention was for this policy change.

(edited)

7 Messages

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130 Points

1 year ago

I get it's a measure meant to fight review bombing but it's still really annoying. To write AND read reviews. Whatever happened to keep it short and concise? 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Why do I need to write an essay now to submit a review.

1 Message

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60 Points

1 year ago

The 600 minimum characters to leave a review is ridiculous. The people who leave comments after watching a movie are not film critics, and the fact that we should write a minimum of 600 characters does not mean that it would be a good review which can be left in a couple of sentences.

What people who read reviews just want to know if it was a good movie, they do not want to read a thesis of the movie, they want to find out what the movie is like by watching it.

Employee

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7.2K Messages

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177.7K Points

@sweety20​ Please see our reply above -> https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/reduce-the-minimum-size-for-imdb-user-reviews/63caee1c6bcb48295247b565?commentId=63cb3f00bc21074e2a4712b7&replyId=63cb3f0ebc21074e2a47136d  

600 characters is between 90 and 150 words in English, which is typically only a few sentences (unlikely only two sentences unless very long ones). 

6 Messages

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110 Points

Your position may be legitimate for you (600 characters minimum), but in reality, I can confirm that this minimum requirement is causing you to lose a lot of people exponentially, (especially among the new generations), who prefer to go to another increasingly well-known platform (which I won't name) because of it. I recently spoke with a fairly productive director and producer here in Montreal (Canada), and that's one of the reasons they decided to put their productions (tv series, films) on this other website, because they like the idea that people can write short, user-friendly reviews on the pages of their productions. 

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

Exponentially as in a multiplier of four fifths for every decade?

5 Messages

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102 Points

@Col_Needham​  Does this character count include spaces? 600 characters is between 85 to 150 words with spaces included in the character count. If spaces are not included in the character count, 600 characters are between 100 and 200 words. 

5 Messages

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102 Points

This is a review that I left which is 600 characters. It needed much more than a few sentences to reach the minimum. I was able to reach 599 characters without spaces and 726 with spaces. Using paragraphs and extra punctuation were needed to reach the goal. Normally I wouldn't do a synopsis of the movie, but it was a must in this case.

(edited)

6 Messages

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110 Points

1 year ago

I recently learned that in my part of the country, more and more people (young directors, etc.) are very fond of a competing site because they can write comments, SHORT reviews on films, and with no minimum characters to have, whereas with IMDB, we must have a minimum of 600 Required characters, otherwise we can't write. Why not remove this minimum? I feel it would be a great help in attracting this new community.

Good week for IMDb team  :)

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled An improvement that I consider very important to make

40 Messages

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550 Points

1 year ago

"Sorry, your review is too short. It needs to contain at least 600 characters."

This message appears while I write my review until enough characters are reached. 

Is this message something that only started in the last few months? 

I have seen any number of one-sentence reviews that are most definitely not 600 characters. 

How is it that these get published?

It's clear there are hardcore movie fans that will post thoughtful reviews and also people with brief opinions that will sometimes offer a single sentence, which, on occasion, they will copy enough times to reach the character count. 

It seems completely random and I cannot understand: is this 600-character rule applied to all reviews? 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled A vast inconsistency in reviews that have been published, despite not having enough characters. Why?

Champion

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7.3K Messages

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274.7K Points

Tatami: I believe that the minimum used to be only 50 characters.

1 Message

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60 Points

Please change this limit to something like 50-200 characters. It's absurd to invoke this requirement, who says a movie review is better or worse based on the character length? Both short and long review should  be possible. It seems like imdb are creating more problems here instead of solving others.

I also don't believe "to ensure the most value to our users" is any  good explanation for this change.

(edited)

10.6K Messages

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225.1K Points

Seems like 450 characters might be the most popularly-acceptable lower bound limit, both for readers and writers.