"reference-to-" keywords

Well, we have to differentiate between novels and the movie adaptations thereof, but then also there are things like the "Titanic", or hell, the "Lord", creator of the universe.

@gromit82​ 

I've always assumed the keyword categories will be visible to users eventually. If not, then I don't even understand their purpose. They don't seem to be serving any purpose at the moment.

I agree the keywords should not double as movie connections. That line about using reference-to-Shawshank-Redemption does not belong in the contributor guidelines. (It used to say reference-to-Casablanca, which was worse, since that keyword could mean either the movie or the place.)

The staff (along with nearly all contributors) has misunderstood the keywords from the beginning.

Early contributor guides asked us to contribute keywords in the order of importance, even though there was no mechanism to re-order them if you wanted to contribute a super-important keyword after fifty keywords were already listed.

They also asked us not to "duplicate" keywords, claiming that, say, tree and birch-tree were duplicates. It's true that early search results would show you titles with both tree and birch-tree if you clicked on birch-tree—but the system never worked well. And the rule against "duplicates" remained in the guidelines long after it was obsolete. Some still believe the rule holds.

A staffer on the old Contributor Board directed contributors to create keywords so they would come out right alphabetically, as if the keywords were like the index in the back of a book. Throwing-a-baseball, for instance, should be baseball-throwing-a.

Not that I blame anyone for misunderstanding it. The keyword system has always been a tangled mess. I was about to give up on it and resign myself to seeing it disappear, like so many other IMDb features.

But seeing how fast AI is developing gives me new hope for them. AI is the only thing that could help IMDb bring order to the chaos.

@jeorj_euler​ 

I'd like to see keywords look more like Wikipedia titles:

Orange (fruit)
Orange (color)
Orange (word)
Orange (Al Stewart album)
Orange (2007 David O'Doherty song)
Orange (TV channel)
Orange (animation studio)

And what's with keeping the hyphens? What purpose do they serve?

Well, I really don’t want to get entangled in this, but I prefer the "reference-to-" keywords since "reference-to-" separates and distinguishes them from the other keywords.

Alphabetical order is certainly preferred from a research standpoint since it makes searches much easier and objective.  "In order of importance" is very subjective, and makes a researcher scan through (sometimes hundreds of) keywords to find a particular keyword.

Certainly the "reference-to-(title)" DOES NOT belong in keywords, but in Movie Connections. There are, however, established and acknowledged exceptions, like Star Wars, Star Trek, etc., in situations where the reference is to a generalized franchise instead of to a particular entry in that franchise.  And, while a keyword like “reference-to-the-shawshank redemption” belongs in Movie Conventions, a “reference-to-the-shawshank-redemotion-the-novel” belongs in keywords.

“reference-to-“ keywords should remain because they assist research and reflect a title’s reality. 

@jay_spirit​

I've always assumed the keyword categories will be visible to users eventually. If not, then I don't even understand their purpose. They don't seem to be serving any purpose at the moment.

The keyword categories are currently visible to users of the mobile app. I truly hope IMDb has plans to do something similar for web users, but I don't know whether this is the case or not.