hurdy_gurdy_man's profile

59 Messages

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1.4K Points

Thursday, April 26th, 2018 5:12 PM

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2

Redundant/illogical keywords to be merged with existing correct keywords.

I am offering a few suggestions about merging two or more keywords together to avoid repetition and redundancy and also giving my reasons.

#1. The keywords "bare-breasts" and "breasts" should be merged into simply "breasts" and "bare-breasts" be made entirely redundant. Reason: "Bare" breasts are no different from simply "breasts". What next, should "clothed breasts" or "covered breasts" be submitted as another keyword simply to distinguish them from "bare" breasts? "Breasts" used to be the only keyword since the beginning. The "bare" variation is relatively recent but overgrown everywhere like a garden weed.

#2. The keyword "Man-with-glasses" does not sound good. Should be merged with the much better sounding and grammatically correct "Man-wearing-glasses". Same goes for other related keywords such as "woman/boy/girl with glasses" etc.

#3. The keywords "Railway station", "Railroad station" and "Train station" cause confusion and redundancy among searchers. i suggest they be merged together simply into "Train station" which also brings it close to the keyword "Train" in alphabetical search in a movie's keywords page.

Pleas let me know what you think about these suggestions. Thank you.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

6 years ago

I agree with #3.  #1and #2 are problematic.  

Any title with a female (or a male, for that matter), could have "breasts" as a keyword.  But, "bare-breasts" has been a correlative for "topless-female-nudity" and the opposite of "bare-chested-male."  If anything, "breasts" should either be converted to "bare-breasts" (if that is the case,) or eliminated.  (I submit a correction every time I come across this.)

"glasses " has always been a problematic keyword, since it can either refer to eyeglasses or drinking glasses.  I prefer "man-wears-eyeglasses," "woman/boy/girl-wears-eyeglasses," etc.

Alas, these changes would probable need be made, one-by-one, since I do not believe that IMDb has a method to make such mass conversions.  If they do, please let me know, for I have many other similar suggestions, too. (Also, tedious audits, one-by-one, can deter mistakes.)

P.S. "railroad" or "railway" may also refer to a railroad company or railway company.  And, "railroad-tracks" or "railway-tracks" should be converted to "train-tracks."

There are hundreds -- indeed, thousands, hundreds of thousands -- of redundant keywords.  I work on them a lot, but it is apparently an unending endeavor.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

Just for fun:  As an example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) has railroad-station, railway-station AND train-station ALL as keywords!

Champion

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14.2K Messages

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327.8K Points

Yes, they can merge keywords, as many topics here show, but have also been reluctant to accept requests.

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

Merging keywords is very risky unless there is an audit of all titles with a specific keyword. It's a very time-consuming process.

59 Messages

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1.4K Points

"Any title with a female (or a male, for that matter), could have "breasts" as a keyword."

That is... rather an overstatement, isn't it? The word "Breasts" almost always implies the exposed body part. It doesn't make sense to include this keyword when none of the women are shown topless. So there's no distinction between simply "breasts" and "bare breasts".

As for "topless female nudity", this keyword is problematic for me because of the word "topless". The way I see it, this is a slang word and should not be used in keywords. "Female frontal nudity" satisfies this requirement equally well (I have always assumed this to mean only above the waist nudity).

2.7K Messages

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82.6K Points

6 years ago

Apart from the breasts vs. bare-breasts there's also an issue with nudity-keywords.
Lots of (adult) titles have 'nudity' and 'female-nudity' as a keyword. There's no point in having the not very specific keyword 'nudity' listed if there's also the more specific keyword 'female-nudity' attached. This even gets worse for titles that also have 'female-frontal-nudity' (making 'nudity' as well as 'female-nudity' redundant) or even 'full-frontal-female-nudity' (making 'nudity', 'female-nudity' and 'frontal-female-nudity pointless to keep around). For what it's worth, there are currently 69 titles having those four keywords attached to them, talking about redundancy: https://www.imdb.com/search/title?keywords=nudity,+female-nudity,+female-frontal-nudity,+full-frontal-female-nudity

133 Messages

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3.5K Points

I'm surprised that there are not hundreds of titles with those keywords.  I prefer that keywords include BOTH the general and the specific, so that the specifics are included in a search of the generals.  To this day, I am still not exactly sure what the difference is between frontal- and full-frontal-nudity,  Does full-frontal designate below the waist?  Isn't that included with frontal?  And are bare-breasts and bare-chested-male reserved for just the upper parts of torsos?  Oh, my...  Some keywords definitely need definitions.

2.7K Messages

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82.6K Points

I prefer that keywords include BOTH the general and the specific, so that the specifics are included in a search of the generals.
I understand your reasoning, but it leads to an enormous amount of redundant keywords. And - as you of all people know - the keyword area is already pretty messy. Apart from that, it only works if both the general and the specific keywords are added to all titles it applies to (which will very probably never be the case). Otherwise, you'll get two different lists: one with the general term and one with the specific term. Apart from being redundant, it also gives the user who compiled the list a false sense of completeness because (s)he doesn't know about the other lists, featuring (partly) other titles.

But you're right, unless we have both definitions and cross-references, the keyword area remains semi-functional.

59 Messages

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1.4K Points

There ought to be some kind of algorithm that prevents adding both "female frontal nudity" and "female full frontal nudity" to the same title - if the latter exists, former is automatically deprecated for that title. But that would be expecting too much from the site, I guess.

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

2 years ago

I agree with suggestion #3 (merging "railroad-station" and "railway-station" into "train-station"). I am adding this one to my internal list for future merger proposals.

I disagree with suggestions #1 and #2. 

Regarding suggestion #1, a scene could involve one character commenting on another character's breasts while the breasts remain fully clothed, or committing a sexual assault by grabbing another character's breasts (again while they remain fully clothed), without the breasts ever being exposed. These would be situations where the keyword "breasts" would apply, but not the keyword "bare-breasts."

Regarding suggestion #2, both of those keywords were recently merged into "man-wears-glasses." The most common form of these types of keywords is to use the word "wears" rather than "wearing." Unfortunately it was not possible to merge all these keywords into "man-wears-eyeglasses." Although most of the titles with "man-wears-glasses" are probably in fact referring to eyeglasses, some of them could have been referring to sunglasses. Given the inherent vagueness in the word "glasses," the "glasses" keywords could not be merged into the "eyeglasses" keywords.

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

I included suggestion #3 in this post about five weeks ago. The post is still pending.

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

2 years ago

"railway-station" and "railroad-station" have now been merged into "train-station":

railway-station (761 titles)  -->  railroad-station (67 titles)  -->   train-station (2041 titles)