Should these genre keywords be banned?

@bradley_kent 

Please re-read my post. I am asking whether these keywords should first be "audited" and then banned (so that they won't need to be "audited" perpetually into the future). 

No, they SHOULD NOT be banned, but audited

These are not two mutually exclusive things. One can happen first, then the other.

Yes, genres SHOULD NOT be keywords,

But what about the specific keywords listed in my post? That is the question that I am seeking feedback on. Should the specific keywords listed in my post first be audited, and then banned?

@Peter_pbn 

You might have missed the part of my post where I suggested that "reality-tv-as-subject" would be a much more appropriate keyword for the exact scenario you describe. There are also similar keywords like "war-as-subject," "crime-as-subject," comedy-as-subject," etc. 

And instead of banning the keyword in general, perhaps it could be blocked from titles that already have the genre.

I had actually considered that exact possibility before I wrote my post. But I decided not to bring it up, because I don't even know if it's possible for IMDb to ban a keyword only with respect to titles in a specific genre. Also, "reality-tv-as-subject" is a better solution all around, in my opinion. That keyword is more descriptive and avoids confusion.

@keyword_expert​ I beg you not to "purge" these keywords until they have been audited.  You will be destroying valuable factual information.  In the brief auditing that I have been able to do (others join in, please), there are many corrections, deletions and additions.  A 'scorched earth policy" would be devastating.

Keywords related to genres are not as easily merged as other keywords.

@bradley_kent​

You said you have already identified "many corrections, deletions and additions." Can you give us some examples? Did any of them involve situations where you identified a better outcome than simply deleting the genre keyword in question? 

How long might it take to "audit" these keywords? If it would take a long time, is it possible to "purge" at least some of these improper genre keywords now?

There are 28 genres, and I could give you examples of keywords related ro all these genres that need careful auditing.  Let's focus on just one, as an example, that I have been auditing: "war-movie"

Some of these have War as a genre, so the keyword needs to be deleted.

Some of these did not have War as a genre, so they may or may not need War added as a genre.

Some are documentaries about the making of a war movie, so need to be corrected to "war-filmmaking."

Some (like quiz shows) need to be corrected to "war-movie-as-subject."

Some may need the keyword "warching-a-war-movie."

War movies are meant to be about ACTUAL wars, so the specific ACTUAL wars involved must be added or corrected as keywords.

Some need the keyword "fictional-war."

And some contributors are still using incorrect keywords like "wwi" instead of "world-war one."

I could go on and on.  The audits NEED to be done.

This probem is also ascerbated by keywords that combine a genre with another genre, or use a genre as an adjective with another word.  Sometimes, this has extended to keywords that incorrectly combine one-two-three-four genres.

I just recently audited the faulty keyword : "biographical-documentary" to see if titles with that faulty keyword ALL have Biography and Documentary as genres.  But submissions of deletions on all titles that have the duplicitous "biographical-documentary" keyword WERE NOT ACCEPTED by the IMDb staff!

If only the IMDb genre and keyword list managers would cooperate with this enormous effort.

I am an old man with health problems, and can only do so much.

But, to "purge" these genre-related keywords before they have been carefully audited borders on criminal -- a destruction and distortion of facts -- of the truth.

(Hyperbole, yes, but this is what is happening.)

@bradley_kent​

Hyperbole aside, I am just trying to get a better sense of how worthwhile "auditing" these keywords actually is. I am looking for specific examples of titles that you have found where a genre keyword was used but where a different keyword was intended instead. You have said you have already identified "many" such examples. Can you give us a few?

Taking your example of "war-movie," there were only a handful of titles with this keyword. Did you actually find any titles in any of these categories you have listed, and if so, can you give the specific titles? 

Some of these did not have War as a genre, so they may or may not need War added as a genre.

Some are documentaries about the making of a war movie, so need to be corrected to "war-filmmaking."

Some (like quiz shows) need to be corrected to "war-movie-as-subject."

Some may need the keyword "warching-a-war-movie."

It sounds like we do agree that the keywords in my list are improper. My overarching goal here is to make sure that the keywords are not used in the future. Imagine if you had gotten rid of all these keywords through "auditing," but without any of us discussing any of these keywords via this forum? That might have solved the problem in the short run, but it would still allow for the problem to be repeated over and over again later, starting with the next time someone tries to use any of these keywords. I believe that unfortunate scenario is exactly what has been happening over the years with some of these keywords (for example, the keyword "noir"). 

Either way, I am willing to wait to resolve this until you and any other contributors are finished "auditing" these keywords. But at that point, all of the keywords should be perma-banned, even if they have been eliminated through manual editing. Again, that will prevent these problems from popping up in the future. Just let me know when you're ready for that. 

@bradley_kent​ By the way, I do think the best example of the value of "auditing" is when one of these improper genre keywords can be corrected to an "-as-subject" keyword. I have done that myself in the past with "noir" as a keyword; I am responsible for most of the "film-noir-as-subject" keywords:

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=film-noir-as-subject&ref_=fn_kw_kw_2

But I realized that it is inefficient and unproductive to have to keep manually editing these keywords myself. It is much better to block "noir" as a keyword, which forces contributors to stop using it and find more appropriate keywords like "film-noir-as-subject" instead. That's the bigger picture here (for me).

What you may be adding as film-noir-as-subject has, in the past, been covered by film-noir-filmmaking.  I would only submit film-noir-as-subject if it was a topic on a quiz show.  Otherwise, film-noir-filmmaking would cover titles about the making of a film-noir, or a discussion of the film-noir genre in general

Check other similar genre keywords and you will find action-filmmaking, adventure-filmmaking, animation-finlmaking, etc.

Whatever the choice is, -filmmaking or -as-subject, a lot of keywords will need to be changed if the choice is one way or the other.

@bradley_kent 

 I would only submit noir-as-subject if it was a topic on a quiz show.  

That is way too narrow of an interpretation of the keyword "film-noir-as-subject."

For example, for a documentary covering the history of noir films, both the keywords "film-noir-as-subject" and "noir-filmmaking" may be valid. These two keywords are by no means mutually exclusive. And there is certainly nothing invalid about adding "film-noir-as-subject" to a movie that indeed covers film-noir movies as its subject.

With thee exception of quiz shows, they seem identical to me.

@bradley_kent​ The "-as-subject" keywords are broader than the "-filmmaking" keywords. The latter focus on the making of the style of film itself, while the former could involve anything pertaining to the style of film (particularly involving film plots).

For example, if a fictional character loves noir movies but doesn't discuss the details of how noir movies are made, "film-noir-as-subject" would be perfectly valid. 

If a podcast episode reviews a movie's plot, without discussing the filmmaking aspects of the movie, then this would be borderline, but it might qualify just for the "film-noir-as-subject" keyword, and not the "-filmmaking" keyword.

Along the same lines as quiz shows, any trivia about film noir other than in a quiz show might also qualify just for the "film-noir-as-subject" keyword but not the "-filmmaking" keyword.

Those are just a few hypothetical examples. I'm sure I could come up with others. In general, I think there are distinctions between movie plots and movie making.

There are what some might call a "plotless" title, but the story is an integral part of any title, perhaps only behind (and often front of) the director and just above the editor.  Screenwriters would greatly disagree with you that the "story" is not a part of filmmaking.

@bradley_kent​ You're not understanding my point. Once a film genre (or a specific movie or a specific character or a specific plot line) exists in the world, it becomes its own subject matter. A fictional character can love kung-fu movies, or super hero movies, or noir movies, without even thinking about how the movie is made. And this is just one example of why the "-as-subject" keywords are broader than the "-filmmaking" keywords.

But you are not understating my point.  Those situations would better be covered with keywords like 
"kung-fu-movie-fan" or "watching-a-kung-fu-movie,' etc. Those situations, indeed, would probably not be covered by "kung-fu-filmmaking."

@bradley_kent​  You may be surprised to learn that I agree with you that in such a scenario, "kung-fu-movie-fan" would be a better keyword than "kung-fu-movies-as-subject." However, better does not mean these two keywords are mutually exclusive. Indeed, it would be completely appropriate to add both of these keywords to such a title. That way, people could search under "kung-fu-movies-as-subject" and find more titles than just those involving fans of kung fu movies, or they could search for "kung-fu-movie-fan" if that is what they are interested in. Both types of searches (the broader and the more specific) should be enabled. 

@bradley_kent​

Can we come up with a plan and timeline for "auditing" and blocking these keywords? I feel like the longer these keywords exist, the longer their usage will proliferate, which only compounds the problem. Just in the past six months since I posted this list, some of these keywords have already doubled in usage (e.g., "reality-tv-show," "action-movie"). 

If the "auditing" of these keywords is not coordinated resulting in the blocking of these keywords, then we will find ourselves having to repeat the auditing over and over again, like a Sisyphean task, as other contributors continue using the keywords. That appears to be exactly what has been happening for years with the keyword "noir," for example.

Maybe we should take care of and report these keywords to IMDb staff in groups? Using my list at the top of this post, it looks like the film-noir substitute keywords are now ready for blocking. I can also resolve the horror, romance, adult, action, and short substitute keywords. Can you identify some genres you would like to handle for now? 

One other thing worth pointing out: there is no need to delete specific instances of these keywords if that would be the only edit. For example, if you see that the keyword "talkshow" has been improperly assigned to a title that already has the talk-show genre assigned to it, and you would have no changes other than deleting the "talkshow" keyword, you can leave it alone for now, and we can then ask IMDb staff to delete and block all instances of this keyword. That will save a lot of time and effort on our part.

I agree, but, since keywords change daily, the only solution would be to block the addition of these keywords, leaving the ones that already exist until they are audited.

And, that list of subgenres really needs to be revised.  As you noticed with the awful "basketball-sport" keyword, submitted deletions of that awful keyword resulting from audits are NOT processed because it remains on that awful subgenre  list.

The only solution seems to have new submissions blocked while the current keywords are audited.  Is that somehow possible.

P.S. I did work on noir, science-fiction, war, western, and a few others, but there is a huge amount of work to be done -- faulty submissions on new titles (with the year ????), and faulty acceptance of such faulty keywords by the staff.

A first step might be to delete  keywords on the subgenre list (like "basketball-sport") that are repetitive and useless.

@bradley_kent​ I assume it is possible to block the usage of certain keywords while they are audited, but I think that would only be worth doing for certain very popular keywords. 

For the other keywords, if they are submitted to staff in groups, and if staff take care of them quickly, there will be no need for temporary blocks.

I submitted all the deletions of the "biographical-documentary" keywords in a group, but they were all rejected since it is on the subgenre list.  Same thing happened when trying to delete "basketball-sport" on 10 or so titles.  Such submitted deletions were not accepted.

P.S. I also prefer "situation-comedy" to the cutesy "sitcom," by the way,

@bradley_kent​ I wouldn't worry about any keywords on the list of "accepted" subgenre keywords for now -- the sloppy subgenre keywords is a separate issue that staff have said they are working on. Interesting to know that these keywords apparently can't be deleted, though.

Also, there is no need to delete keywords on my list in this post, since we will be asking staff to delete and block them. Instead, the focus should be on any keywords that need to be changed to a different keyword. Making edits solely to delete one of these keywords is ultimately not worth our time, since staff can quickly and easily delete them upon our request.

@bradley_kent​ Here is some more evidence that IMDb will either deny or delay submitted deletions of keywords that happen to contain genre suffixes, even if the keywords are not on the list of "accepted" subgenre keywords.

I found a new title with 641 keywords, the vast majority of which were obvious spam. I submitted requests to delete or modify 631 of the 641 keywords. The vast majority of my submissions were approved and processed within a few minutes. But as you can see from the remaining keywords, the keywords containing genres as suffixes are not being deleted -- at least not automatically.

The keywords that have been delayed all include suffixes like "-war," "-crime," "-history," etc. IMDb has obviously flagged those suffixes to slow down or block the deletion process.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8126588/keywords

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

KEYWORDDELETION

@bradley_kent​ I have now finished "auditing" the action, horror, film-noir, and romance genre keywords, and I have created a new thread to post these keywords for deletion and blocking. 

Please let me know once you've completed your audits of additional categories, so that I may include them in that other thread.

@bradley_kent​ 

I am not sure what you are doing in your audits.  Just looked at the faulty "action" keywords, and found some that had "action-movie" as a keyword, but NOT Action as a genre, or "action-filmmaking" as keyword.  I submitted corrections.

You're most likely duplicating my work, since I have added appropriate genres to a bunch of titles now. Keep in mind there can be a lag before edits are approved and also before they are reflected in search results. 

@bradley_kent​ We have already made so much progress! Thank you for your hard work on this project.

Again, I am begging IMDb, PLEASE, DO NOT DELETE, PURGE, ERADICATE, BAN THESE GENRE-RELATED KEYWORDS UNTIL THEY HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY AND CAREFULLY AUDITED.

Case in point: I just did an audit of the 120 "adventures" keyword on Adventure titles, and was able to submit 350+ additions, corrections and deletions!

Those arrows in the little green box are misleading.  These keywords have not been completely audited.

Tread softly, or you will be erasing a lot of potentially correct information.

Genre-related keywords are very different from other keywords.

@bradley_kent​ "Arrows in the little green box?" I'm not sure what you're referring to. You mean the check marks? 

I only checked off the Adventure category once I saw that all the remaining titles with the "adventures" keyword in fact had the Adventure genre, so I assumed you were finished with it.

It would really help if you could post once you're finished with each category. Thank you!