Submission guidelines & curse words

I’ve written 37 reviews for IMDb & this is the first one I’ve ever had rejected. I’m pretty sure why: I included a quote from the film itself that included the word “bullshit”. It makes sense that IMDb expects reviewers to maintain a civil tone & therefore prohibits profanity. I felt that a direct quotation should be an exception, but I realize that may be opening a can of worms. I can fix my review; my complaint here concerns the rejection process itself.

The generic “Reason Does not meet contribution guidelines,” offers no hint on how I’ve offended the algorithms or what I can do to rectify the situation. In this case, I’m pretty sure I know, but what if I had no idea at all what I’ve done wrong? To reject a review, the algorithm applies certain very specific criteria — in this case profanity. Shouldn’t the message then read “Reason: profanity”? It wouldn’t take a great deal of programming to create a reply more specific to the problem, rendering it a great deal more helpful & informative. Without at least some  indication what the problem is, “Please review our submission guidelines,” becomes a daunting task.

Reviewers — unpaid volunteers — contribute their time in order to share hopefully intelligent opinions on films we’ve seen. It’s a symbiotic relationship: We get to speak our minds & IMDb garners free reviews. We deserve better responses than a cryptic “Does not meet contribution guidelines.”