Updates to Characters

So WE will not be able to see all who played Batman (sample) in one list ? Filmography by type for Batman (Character) http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000177/ ALERT: All Character pages will be turned off on Dec 6th 2017.Please see the IMDb GetSatisfaction Character announcement for details. Feature:1. Blood of the Bat (2017)  Played by Joan James Muixi 217. Batman (1943)  Played by Lewis Wilson TV:1. "Gotham Crusader" - Wonder Land (2016) TV episode, Played by Hunter T. 148."Batman" - Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires (1968) TV episode, Played by Adam West  (115 more) http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000177/filmoseries

This doesn't make any sense.The character filmography is one of the main features I use in IMDb.This is almost as bad as Microsoft removing the start button from Windows 8!!!

IKR, me too, that was my favorite section & now it will be gone, most of the time, that's how I can identify who played what character, they were saying that you were not going to be able to look up a character cause that was going to be gone from their drop down, inless I misunderstood. I'm really upset about this!

The correct way to do this is with a proper data model tied to the underlying credit database, backed with a full search; available across all IMDb interfaces. Once this is built, you will be able to find all instances of a character name across titles without requiring another contributor to have done essentially duplicate work to manually add each character credit to a separate character page.  The old character pages will not return and there will be a temporary loss in functionality as part of the program described at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 until we can rebuild the character search function the proper way. 

There IMDb goes again, fixing something that isn't broken. I lived on the forums for over ten years, then they disappeared. Now the cool character pages are going as well. What's next? IMDb announcing they'll just shut down the site? At this point, you might as well. Most of us have stopped using it, anyway. RIP IMDb.

Wait what?  I am super bummed. This was valuable.  Here's the deal.  You guys are the Amazon of movie info.  I cross reference what's on your site, but it's the first go to.  You are going to make us figure this out ourselves again on fan sites?  That sucks. Can I export all?  

There is no "export" function. Maybe the new platform is more scalable. So, the transition from fourth generation (next generation) to fifth generation (after-next generation) will be smoother, and I'm not even sure if I have the generation ordinals right. The founder of IMDb said that it all started with a spiral notebook, so that is probably before the "first generation".

Truth be told, all of the large and famous websites with lots of user-generated content despite their prestige are (or started out as) ultimately just the personal blogs of their respective owners. Wikipedia is Jimmy Whale's blog. IMDb is Col Needham's blog. 4chan is Christopher Poole's blog. Facebook if Mark Zuckerberg's blog. Each one can do whatever he likes to his blog until too many investors and contractual obligations are accumulated, which sometimes but not necessarily make matters worse (e.g., imagine the terror if Walt Disney Studios owned all of them). I would like to emphasize that we as a world of "customers" have larger problems. We need a lot of money and also a lot of ethics and technical skills to set things right.

ACT you da man.

If you keep deleting portions of the site, there will be nothing left except a page full of ads.

Has to be the dumbest thing I've seen on the internet today. Literally the only thing that everyone I know uses IMDB for is to figure out what other movies a particular actor is in. You have made your website completely obsolete to at least 20+ people in my circle alone. Obviously 20 people doesn't make a dent but how many circles of friends will never use this site again bc there is absolutely no need. Why would I want random quotes from movies? I'd watch the movie if that's what I wanted. Why would I want to .....you know what, I've wasted too much time on this now useless site with a useless complaint. Have fun only being a memory, like blockbuster. SMFH at how stupid of a move this was. Surrounded by idiots makes one extremely tired of people in general

Hello Josh,> Literally the only thing that everyone I know uses IMDB for is to figure out what other movies a particular actor is in.What makes you think that they'll be doing away with that? That would be dumb.They are talking about (AIUI) getting rid of the Character sections like the ones at http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000273/ (for Luke Skywalker) but they will still say that the character of Luke Skywalker was played by Mark Hamill and will still show all of the other movies that Mark was inI hope an IMDb staffer will correct me if I am wrong    Steve

Bond 25 (2019) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2382320/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2382320/referenceDaniel Craig ...  James Bond http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0185819/http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0185819/reference5. Spectre (2015/I) .... James Bond 7. Skyfall (2012) .... James Bond 15. Quantum of Solace (2008) .... James Bond 20. Casino Royale (2006) .... James Bond - - - So ... who else played James Bond ?? http://www.imdb.com/find?&q=JAMES+BOND&s=ch Displaying 9 results for "JAMES BOND" http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000007/   ( 007 !!! ) 1. Bond 25 (2019)  Played by Daniel Craig  ... aka "James Bond 25"2. Death Is Forever (2018)  Played by Tom Smith 3. Death Collector (????)  Played by Liam Fountain 4. Diamonds in the Sky: Fan Film (2018)  Played by Paul Cusack 100. Dr. No (1962)  Played by Sean Connery- - - http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0102115/Quarrel (Character) from Dr. No (1962) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055928/reference Played by John Kitzmiller http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0457839/reference a "Character" with only 1 credit should not have a "Character" page ??Can not search and find a "Character" without  a "Character" page

I have to say, I don’t like this. I like making lists of movies I want to watch. For example, I am making a master list of movies about leaders. It is very easy to type in Dwight D Eisenhower or Sadat and get a list of all movies featuring those leaders.This change will make that harder to do. Someone may want to watch every adaptation of a Christmas Carol . But there won’t be a page for Ebenezer Scrooge.You should leave it as is.

I too hate the idea.  IMDb was most useful to finding out what other shows any particular actor was playing in.  For example, if I saw an actor I didn't know anything about but I liked his/her performance, I'd look up what else the actor playeed in, there were links to the shows I was intrerested in, together with ratings, brief description of content, what other shows were people interested in, etc., and we could instantly check it out.  Now I will have to find another site that provides all this info.  The proposed changes really suck!  Good bye, IMDb.

Hate it hate it hate it.. did I mention I Hate It !  If if ain't broke don't fix it !!!

I hate this idea as well...I like to use character pages to see what the last episode a certain character is on without having to go through each and every episode.

And I was actually interested in the filmography of my favorite characters, not just a picture of some actor I don't care about. 

I miss thecharacter pages as well. It was a good but not perfect concept which worksperfectly to me. Without it, IMDB has lost a lot of it’s potential ininvestigate film and actor backgrounds to me. It will definitely reduce myusage and contribution of IMDB.

What a SHAME. Worst idea since imdb's beginning. Your website simply lost 50% of its interest."thank you"...

I see absolutely no point in removing Character pages. Why remove information? Just one example: 'Jesus Christ' as a character appeared in film and television over 600 times. If I'm interested in representations of Jesus in film (which, incidentally, I am for my doctoral research), I could navigate from that list to view over 600 productions. How else am I now supposed to find that information? Am I just supposed to somehow magically know all 600 films so that I can search for them individually? This makes NO sense. Thank goodness for cached pages! 

Kate Hayward, no, you're not supposed to somehow miraculously know all 600 films, just as you wouldn't magically know all the novels, short stories and comic books in which Jesus or the "Christ" appears. Ordinarily deep research would have to be done to compile a list, but indeed IMDb used to provide that. We're stuck with going back to doing things a slightly harder way, as far as uncached and unarchived, character pages go. The search tools that accept a character name as input queries are still available. We can use that, but we're on our own as far as screening out false positives. The situation is a step backwards undoubtedly, but nothing with which we should be too unfamiliar. A wealth of knowledge in our world is basically undocumented, so we have to work to assemble some information.

Definitely do not like the new character pages - it used to be that I could find out all the actors who had played the role - e.g., Click on Doctor Who and you would see at least the actors since 2005.  Now, you see only the one actor in the one movie.  Why would I bother clicking on the character page at all?  It doesn't take me anywhere outside the specific movie.

Bring back the bios especially ones that didn't cross shows or movies. Character bios for tv series help tremendously when entering a show in later seasons.

10 months since this feature was removed. The layman's understanding of 'database' is a CROSS-REFERENCED set of related data, searchable by many useful fields.In IMDB, the most useful fields are title, year, actor and character, (among a few others, of course.)Without the ability to  search this field, how will the average Joe find out which James Bond film starred 'that bloke who only did the one movie?' Or which Sherlock Holmes film starred the actor who played Doctor Who a couple of times...? Or, what's that film with Wade Wilson in it that ISN'T a Deadpool movie?I understand that clicking a character within an existing Title listing cannot reasonably be expected to link to all instances of that character name in the database. After all, Benjamin Walker's Abraham Lincoln (the vampire hunter) is far and away a different character to Daniel Day Lewis' incarnation, or that of Robert V. Barron in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.What is totally possible, however, is the ability to type Abraham Lincoln into the search bar, click the magnifying glass and select Characters, (as we used to) and be shown all entries that had a character whose letters matched the entered letters, regardless of who or what that character actually was!People often do need to know these things. That's why the database was invented, after all.Under its current stewardship, maybe you should consider renaming the site IML - The Internet Movie... List.  Or WIMDb - Was/Wannabee Internet Movie Database...

@ACT_1 Hi The character filmography is one of the main features I use in IMDb." I myself used this option many times to find my titles, the new change is useless, who care about quotes in character search ,when we can find quotes more easy in other options  I hope IMDb change their mind and after 4 years bring back this option Would you please activate this character search again, I think after 4 years , the IMDB users still need this option best regards

So, after December 6, if someone is wondering, "What was the movie where there was a character named Ugarte?", will they be able to find it?Temporarily, no sorry.   Once the dust settles from https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 a full character search is high on the list for search enhancements.  It is important to note the current character search is extremely broken because it only searches characters which have been manually created; the replacement character search will search the entire character space whether or not they have photos or quotes.  In your example, all characters in Casablanca will be able to located via a character search.[for example see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/character-search-confusion-is-a-valuable-site-tool-working]

On December 6, 2017 and after we can still use Google to find characters on IMDb. Although will not work as well as the current IMDb resident character search, it is a stop gap measure until that functionality is restored.In general, you can enter the following in the search box for Google.site:imdb.com [search term]Where, [search term] is any search term you wish to find on IMDb.Example: You wish to find "Han Solo" on IMDb. Enter the following in the search box for Google.site:imdb.com "Han Solo"This results in this search:https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aimdb.com+%22Han+Solo%22&oq=site%3Aimdb.com+%22Han+Solo%22Note: Google may return non-existent pages because they may have exited the last time Google crawled IMDb.

Col Needham, your responses are very, very helpful and actually explain things. Thank you!

But searching across manually created character pages with filmography sometimes is much more helpful, than fully automatic search. E.g. if I want to know out all actors, who performed Napoleon, I can visit the character page with filmography easily. But soon I'll have to look through thousand of characters called Napoleon, including gang members, dogs and cakes. Am I right? :(

Child, that's correct. So, you'll wind up using Wikipedia, provided the community there doesn't decide that creating "in popular culture" sections is not worthwhile or not aligned with the general notability guidelines. Somebody out there might just resolve to create a movie character database, like how IMFDb (for firearms), IMCDb (for automobiles) and IMPDb (for aircraft) exist, two of which have the MediaWiki platform. I wish somebody would create a movie landmark database.

As a long-term Wikipedia editor, I can tell you that they already have. A coterie of medieval 'experts' have already arbitrarily decided that sections like this are incompatible with biographical articles on historical figures (apparently they're too populist and offend their sense of historical scholarship) and deleted many of them.

When Wiki admins block you for "disruptive editing" for posting sourced facts just because of their own bias and refusal to accept facts. xD

Well, I'm a Wikipedia admin myself, so generalising is a bad idea. Most of us aren't biased and wouldn't dream of blocking anyone unless they genuinely were disruptively editing. Depends what you posted and what sourcing you used.

Wiki admins are cancer basically.

I smell sour grapes!

James King went from an editor to an admin of Wikipedia in only 3 hours once he thought the scenario benefited his stance.Being affiliated with Wikipedia is not something that screams of credibility.

You are presumably unaware that all admins are editors first and foremost! We're not a different breed. We don't work for Wikipedia. We're volunteers like anyone else. We are elected by other editors. We spend most of our time on WP editing just like anyone else. We sometimes get frustrated with what some other editors (including admins) do just like anyone else.I smell the nasty smell of more sour grapes. Obviously there are a few people here who didn't like their soapboxes being kicked from under them at some point.

Wiki admins seem to think they're some sort of know-it-all academics. Yes when you apply for college definitely let them know that you're a Wiki admin and see how much they care xD

I am a Wikipedia editor, but frankly some administrators get involved in arguments when they don't even understand the topic of a debate. 

Yup. Deadline passed and character searching via the search box is completely dead. Searching for Ugarte, as posed here, returns a couple of hundred real people but not one single fictional or dramatised real person. Not one.IMDb is now, officially dead. Time of death: November 2017.<Switches off EKG machine...>

Yup. Deadline passed and character searching via the search box is completely dead. Searching for Ugarte, as posed here, returns a couple of hundred real people but not one single fictional or dramatised real person. Not one.IMDb is now, officially dead. Time of death: November 2017.<Switches off EKG machine...>

Kyle,Nic meant that you can export your character list to a CSV (comma separated variable) file. This file has the following information for each choice in the list:position - order of the choice in the listconst - character ID (for instance: ch0008316)created - date createdmodified - date modifieddescription - text include in the descriptionName - name of the characterThe exported CSV file does not include the description of the list which is shown at the top of the page. For example for your list:Movie Redheadshttp://www.imdb.com/list/ls064779387/You can export this list by clicking Export this list at the bottom of the page.You can also save the html version of the poll page on many browsers.Finally, you can also use the Internet Archive to archive the list, poll and poll results.I've archived this poll:Movie RedheadsList: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/list/ls064779387/Poll: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/poll/Y7CFKCGeizU/ Results: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/poll/Y7CFKCGeizU/results

Yeah but I don't have time to go through everything & save them right now especially before Dec 6, I'm going to be extremely busy until the middle of December! I'm very upset about this! I wonder when it will be available & how different it will be then or will it ever be even close to what we've had all this time!

IKR. The timing is very crummy too.

Dan,I know this will take a lot of hardwork and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say it is incredibly appreciated.So when you say:Please note, anyone who has a poll taker badge will still have the same “count” post taking down the character polls.1. Does this mean our cumulative vote total won't change i.e. If I am at 250,000 now, I will be at this amount post the termination of character polls? 2. And if we re-push the existing character-based polls with image polls, they will effectively start at 0 votes?Thanks and let me know, I'm curious about what this change will entail.

Kyle,From a practical point of view, I will treat the the image version of an existing character based poll as a new poll.We will not be re-pushing the character polls as images polls. We will be pushing new image based polls that are essentially the same as your existing character based polls. The newly pushed image based polls will start at zero votes. IMDb does not have a means of transferring votes from one poll to another.I have a record of the votes for all of the live polls over time. I will maintain the votes for all of your character polls even though they will disappear on December 6, 2017My total count of your polls will not be affected. However, if there is an images version of a poll and a recreated images version of the poll, these will count as two separate polls.Your vote totals should not be affected. An IMDb staff member manually places the Poll Maker Badge on your profile page. Your Poll Maker Badge is not dependent on IMDb's totals for your votes and will not disappear when the character based polls are deprecated.Once a character based poll disappears, IMDb's vote history for those polls will disappear. This should be reflected on the profile page of people who voted in these polls recently.

Thanks Dan, as always. You are the "Polls Champion" we need and I think you deserve more recognition from the powers that be.Just to clarify, any published character polls that are made into image polls will be published but will not retain any votes and will be starting from scratch in that regard?

Yes, any published character polls that are made into image polls will be published but will not retain any votes and will be starting from scratch in that regard.For instance, if you recreate your second most voted on poll:That guy is everywhere!... as a image based poll, the title will be the same, but the votes for the images based version will a different voting history. On December 6, 2017, the original character list, poll and poll results will disappear.http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070581171/http://www.imdb.com/poll/9weVKvJh2FI/http://www.imdb.com/poll/9weVKvJh2FI/resultsFortunately, I just archived these three web pages on the Internet Archive.https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070581171/https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/poll/9weVKvJh2FI/https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/poll/9weVKvJh2FI/resultsThere may be multiple archives of these pages.Please note: Unless, I have specifically archived poll related pages, the Internet Archive may not have an archived version.

I re-read what I just posted above and it appears that I'm promising that we will push all recreated polls based on character polls. That was not my intent.The admins still have to review recreated polls and will push as appropriate.

I don't understand how to do this, I clicked on your link but I can't click on anything on the page, it doesn't go anywhere. Does this mean I have to type the name in the search box to go to the polls & then proceed from there?

Hi Dan,Per your question:>>If the character page URL is used instead of title page URL to make the image list, will there be any problem after Dec 6?Yes, the character URL will be going away after Dec 6th.  Do not reference any URL that has a chconst since those URLs will be removed. You should instead use the title or name image URL as the source of the image link.  Please note in your example, those are actually 2 different images (duplicates).  They have different rmconstshttp://www.imdb.com/character/ch0383426/mediaviewer/rm985594112http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/mediaviewer/rm3346727168They are both in the title gallery so the image exists but you'll need a URL with a title/name path to access ithttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/mediaviewer/rm985594112Hope that makes sense.Thanks,Nic

Nic,Thank you for the quick response. You confirmed what I suspected that any link that includes a character ID will be deprecated and will return a 404 (page not found) error on and after December 6, 2017.

OH MY GOD...!!!Almost 90% of my 'Image' polls, I used images from character pages. Those all will be deleted...!!!I have lost my hope...1 Million votes is not possible...and I can't update so many polls...

DC,Only 10 of your polls are based on character lists. These are the only polls that will be deprecated. Your remaining polls will have missing images. Although onerous, these can be repaired over time as needed.And, yes, when I first heard about this change six days ago, I understood the implication for the IMDb polls beyond the character based polls.

Wolfie,From what I can tell, you can only get to the new character pages by going to a title page. For instance, if you go to the title page for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/), you will see links for all of the characters:Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, etc. These links go to the new character pages.If you do a search for the character Han Solo, using the drop down, this will still bring you to older version of the character page for Han Solo: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000002/You will also see this note:ALERT: All Character pages will be turned off on Dec 6th 2017. Please see the IMDb GetSatisfaction Character announcement for details.

Not for me.  For me, the character links go to the existing pages, not the new URL's.That alert on the character pages is how I learned about this to begin with.  So that's sort of like pointing out a detour sign that got me to where I ended up in the first place.

Perhaps you are using the old reference/combined view for title pages? If so, the new links should still be on the Full Cast & Crew pages.

Per Peter's comment ... please go to your site settings at https://secure.imdb.com/register-imdb/siteprefs and ensure both "Always display full cast and crew credits" and "Show reference view (old title/name page layout)" are unchecked.   

How do I maintain the old layout with those unchecked?  The newer layout is useless at best.  Could the better layout be updated to refer to the newer character pages?  Would make much more sense to make that change, than for millions of users to change their preferences.

How do I maintain the old layout with those unchecked?There is no way to maintain the old layout with the "Always display full cast and crew credits" and "Show reference view (old title/name page layout)" unchecked. Unchecking the these items forces the display of IMDb's preferred supported format.IMDb is allowing users to use the old layout, but not making any changes to it.

I can understand a lack of enhancement updates to legacy pages, but important consistency updates (ie, not allowing links to become dead or malformed) should still be included.  I imagine such an update to the legacy layout should take less than five minutes to accomplish, and would prevent IMDb from breaking within itself.

Would make much more sense to make that change, than for millions of users to change their preferences.It's nowhere near millions of users, and once you take into account the number of people who have chosen these options accidentally without realizing they are stepping 7+ years into the past, it's barely even in the "hundreds of users" range, sorry.  The pages are unsupported, and for a variety of reasons, we cannot make any changes to them despite the long list of bugs which have accumulated since 2010. 

Please see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 for the context here. 

Personally I would prefer a poll that is aimed at new voters rather than trying to preserve old votes.

Good to know Peter. But that wasn't my question.

I like your idea Jen, I'd like to do it too if it's acceptable. It's sad to lose records of the previous votes :(

Pea, since no one "in charge" has responded, I'm going to go ahead and do it. It's easy enough to switch the new list/poll back to the order the first version was in.And Peter, I'm not going to redo all of my live character polls, just the ones with the most votes, plus a few that are dear to my heart (that were inspired by family or friends).

The question is about poll content, so it is something to discuss with poll admins.Dan has described his efforts to preserve the record of previous votes, so why should new polls do the same?(Rephrased!)

If we have to re-make them anyways...

Indeed.  It's especially helpful with TV shows, as you can see quotes from all episodes they were in.  I'm all in favor of making them less wikipedia like (in that people can update with crap vs reliable information), but give us ways to find connections, quotes, etc, without having to search multiple titles.

It's especially helpful with TV shows, as you can see quotes from all episodes they were in.This is a known issue with the current implementation, sorry.  We have recorded the requirement to roll-up all of the episode quotes to the character page as a future enhancement.  It will be a while as we need to complete all of the future technology enhancements first, please see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0

I expect and NEED to be taken to the main character pageThe new pages are the main character pages; although you can still navigate to the old /character/ pages if you know the URL (and, temporarily, search for them) they have effectively been retired, and in early December will simply result in a 404 "dead page" error, sorry. 

I'm sorry but at this point (and even adjusting my site settings, as mentioned above) I do not see any proper character pages appearing. I can only assume that these  character pages are still being updated/construction.

I can only assume that these  character pages are still being updated/construction.No, sorry, what you see is what you get.  For example, from Nic's message at the start of the thread, for Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, the character data is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/characters/nm0000148

If I want to find a quote, I don't use the Internet Movie Database. That is what Wikiquote is all about. 

KK,After Dec 6, all the character polls and character lists will show Error 404 message. So you can't open or vote on those polls.Previous poll vote counts will not be changed.During this time, you can re-create your character polls by creating image lists for those character lists. Those new polls will be published later.

What about if I vote on these polls now before dec 6th .. will my vote count or it will be removed .. (I'm talking about how many polls I voted)

Khaled,I'm assuming you are talking about your votes on the individual poll pages and on your profile pages. The current behavior is votes in character polls will be shown for the most recent votes. If you were to not vote for awhile eventually the votes on your profile page will be old enough not to be shown.On December 6, 2017, if you have votes for character polls those will no longer be shown.Internal vote count on IMDb in theory should not change. My external count of votes on IMDb polls will definitely not change. However, I only track votes for polls not by individual users. Vote tallies for individual users is only available within IMDb.IMDb staff (Nic Bachhumber, Col Needham or someone else) will have to verify this statement.If you are referring to the count at the bottom of your profile page:Total polls answered:IMDb staff will need to answer that question.

Hi Dan,The poll count at the bottom of your profile page will not change.Total polls answered: xx

Hopefully, search features will be restored sooner rather than later. But the proper way of handling the transition would've been to archive the content being eliminated (except polls) and offer the link to that content at the bottom of new character pages.Unfortunately the character content exists only in a system which is being removed for reasons covered in https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 so it's not practical to archive it and attach it to the new pages, sorry.  It's also never a good idea for us to publish static content which cannot be updated as there will be errors frozen within it. 

Is it temporary? The IMDb staff have indicated nothing of the sort.

One hopes it's temporary. And it's to the benefit of IMDb to have character pages.

It is not temporary at all -- as shown in the message on all the old character pages, they will be retired in early December. The new character pages are, as in the example at the start of the thread, now in the form of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/characters/nm0000148 -- we are committed to providing a better search experience for characters in 2018, but the new pages themselves are what they are already. 

I have spent (and am still spending) a great deal of time/work on developing/updating character pages, and as a contributor it aches and frustrates to hear that they will be discarded. All I can do is wait and see how this "better search experience for characters" turns out.

I have spent (and am still spending)Please do not spend any time adding / updating the old character pages.

Although IMDb will not explicitly archive the character pages, they may survive in part via the Internet Archive. For instance,Jesse James (Character)IMDb Page: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000001/Summary of Snapshots: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000001/Latest Snapshot:https://web.archive.org/web/20170511044853/http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000001/

IMDB destroyed users' contribution in character pages, users' character lists and made impossible for users to search in which other titles the same characters appear. This decision is unbelievably stupid! It is nonsense.

I've created a list of the Internet Archive of the first 1000 character pages. A small sample of character pages shows that all of the pages examined have been archived.I've posted the list on my Blog on Google.Links to Internet Archive of Character PagesThis is a sample of the first 10 pages:Character Code / Link to Archived Page / Character Name  ch0000001 Archive Jesse Jamesch0000002 Archive Han Soloch0000003 Archive Mace Winduch0000004 Archive Obi-Wan Kenobich0000005 Archive Darth Vaderch0000006 Archive Qui-Gon Jinnch0000007 Archive James Bondch0000008 Archive Princess Leia Organach0000009 Archive Atton Randch0000010 Archive Visas Marr

If I remember correctly, I first discovered the Internet Movie Database two decades ago, because I was searching for a list of character appearances by Dracula. The character pages were one of my favorite features. 

I'm with you Dimos. 10 Months on and no replacement solution to the deprecated search tool.R.I.P. IMDb.

The correct way to do this is with a proper data model tied to the underlying credit database, backed with a full search; available across all IMDb interfaces. Once this is built, you will be able to find all instances of a character name across titles without requiring another contributor to have done essentially duplicate work to manually add each character credit to a separate character page.  The old character pages will not return and there will be a temporary loss in functionality as part of the program described at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 until we can rebuild the character search function the proper way. 

How long is temporary? What I don't understand is why the old function has to go before a replacement is implemented. People are still using the current functionality.When you are improving things, can you find a way to improve the "Lists" function? Lists could theoretically be a fun and valuable way of discovering new films. But 99% of the lists are "500 films that I have seen" and "100 hot actresses". Not of any added value to anyone.

IMDB destroyed users' contribution in character pages, users' character lists and made impossible for users to search in which other titles the same characters appear. This decision is unbelievably stupid! It is nonsense.

"Besides: even if there are other websites where I can find an answer; "Do you have a list of such websites? I will need alternatives to the Internet Movie Database. 

It may seem that IMDb won't survive losing important features like character pages, message boards (forum), etc.  However, remember it is owned by Amazon.  With that kind of backing, it won't go away.  It will just become less useful and receive less use, leading to less clicks on ads.  Fortunately, there's a workaround for the lack of character pages:  Google.  Write your searches carefully, with keywords and quotes, like:site:imdb.com "harrison ford" "han solo"https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aimdb.com+%22harrison+ford%22+%22han+solo%22 It's not a complete replacement, but it helps.@dimos_dicoudis: See alternatives to IMDB at https://alternativeto.net/software/imdb/