Updates to Characters

As with any user-created or user-expanded content, there is going to be incomplete information. But frankly: an image or a character quote was never the main reason why I visited character pages. I wanted an easily accessible (clickable) list of entries on IMDb in which a certain character was portrayed. Which is immediately the reason that I don't want to go to whatever Wiki site to find the information. I'm sure the information is there, but then I'm not on IMDb. :)

I totally understand, Hans Bomers. That is probably the only thing I wound up liking about character pages. Again, unfortunately most of the character pages contained just one portraying performer in just one movie/game/series, as opposed to what we would actually value in a character page. I'm sure you can imagine what terrible feeling it is to click on a character page link only to see no more information than what is provided on a name page or a title page.

I get what you mean, but this was not my experience. That 99% may be right, but of course a lot of characters appear in only one film. Whenever I clicked a recurring character's name, I usually got some valuable info, even if it wasn't 100% complete.

Well, the main reason why my experience differs, I think, is because I visit almost every crevice of the site, and content that is either not popular, not well-advertised or lacks a cult following is severely neglected. The were thousands if not millions of character pages that did not really serve a purpose, as in: Contain a screen shotContain a quoteContain a biography (no matter how short) Link to more than one performer (even if in the same work) Link to more than one work (even if by the same performer)Link to a poll

Even characters that appear in only one film were supposed to have a character page, as they could be put in characer lists. There is nonsense to quit character pages. Very bad decision!

That's a good point. I should've included that criterion, as the abundances of pages I'm thinking of didn't even have associations to lists.

While I love Wikipedia, most of its pages feature bare bones character biographies or no character biographies at all. It has rules against in-universe information. 

When I create lists, I have to delete a few because IMDb can't support more than 999 lists, now if I want to turn all my characters-poll into images-poll, can I just delete the original list once I've made the "copy"?

ElM, The short answer is yes, you can delete the original list. The admins are unlikely to repush any poll based on a character lists. Besides, all 843 character lists will disappear on December 6, 2017.

Thanks, sorry to pull a Columbo but just one more thing: Some of these characters' poll were created at the time of the old format, when I make the 'image' version, do I 'post a suggestion' as well on the GS board?

If the character poll has a thread on Get Satisfaction post to that thread that you are creating an image based version of the poll in the thread with the new list link. If the character poll does not have a Get Satisfaction post, create a new thread much like you would for any other new poll suggestion. For all intents and purposes, the new image based versions of character polls will be considered as new poll suggestions.

Thanks a lot :)

For extra context, please see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0

It's a balancing act, and it only ends well if you're sober.

A character filmography helps in tracking a character's appearances across media, but you can also attach pictures to a character gallery and it can assist in tracing quotes to those characters. I've contributed on characters who have been attached to around 5-30 titles, so I've noted how helpful/extensive the character page can be. If I may ask, what issues did you find with the character pages? What do you want in your overhaul? So far the only issues I would note were duplication of characters.

Well, a lot of entries I've found on character pages are for characters whose names may look alike but actually aren't the same character. Of course, the big problem was removing the old free text character search function, which hopefully will now be restored.

I should hope I'm not the only one who was disappointed with the plethora of practically-empty character pages that maybe should not have been created in the first place.

Issues I can remember off the top of my head: 1. This is the biggest issue in my opinion. When attempting to edit a character filmography, it's impossible to add character entries with generic names like "Bob" or "James" or "Policeman". This seems to be because once there are too many entries, IMDb gives up on trying to load them all. A good example of this would be the character of Kate in "Blackadder II". She took on the persona of Bob, but it was impossible to add both names to the same character page because they're both so generic. Additionally, the actor reprised the role, now a judge, in another recent BBC show from one of the writers where she was credited as "Judge", but her character is meant to be the same one. It was impossible to search for and add "Judge" because, again, it was too generic. 2. Like you say, the problem of duplicate pages. 3. The system couldn't handle more complex situations. To use Blackadder as an example again, Rowan Atkinson was credited as "All Blackadders" in Blackadder Back and Forth, where he played a variety of descendants of the special's protagonist. This credit covers a variety of characters (many of whom appeared in past TV series of their own) but it was very difficult to apply the credit accurately to several different character pages without creating unwanted duplicate pages. I encounered a lot of trouble with situations along these lines. 4. The inability to add character appearances from the "themselves" section. A feature-length retrospective documentary about the sitcom Spaced was produced and included a scripted, non-documentary scene near the end where Simon Pegg and Jessica Heinz reprised their roles in the show so that we could see that they ended up as item, years after the ending of the series. It's a moment that would make a lot of sense to include in the character pages for Tim and Daisy, but wasn't possible. Another example would be the band Electric Six's lead singer, Tyler Spencer, who performs under the stage-name / character Dick Valentine. Dick Valentine had a character page but it wasn't possible to add any instances of the character performing live music such as when the band would appear on TV or the band's live-performance DVD that they produced.

The reality is slightly different, unfortunately.  There's extra context for this at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 -- the problem is that there is a very high cost to maintaining the existing system so we need to modernize and simplify before we can move forwards, even at the expense of some feature loss. Overall it is better for all customers in the long term. 

Thank you for the added explanation. I commented because, as much as I love IMBD, you guys have made some pretty bone-headed IT-related decisions in the past. I'm thinking, in particular, about the longest thread ever known to man and geek on one of your now-defunct discussion boards.  The "It doesn't DO anything. That's the beauty of it" discussion. http://kcor1953beauty.tripod.com/blog/ The thread was so popular and had become so huge, that your server blocked all further posts to it.  And once further posts to it were blocked, your server then determined that the thread was stagnant, and dead, and deleted it. All that work.  All that effort.  All that art.  All that humor.  All that love.  Lost.  All lost.  Lost like the Antikythera mechanism, drowned for untold ages in the Aegean Sea.  So sad.

Col, to be honest, it seems more like an actor/actress profile page for their involvement in the episode/movie, than a character page.  Let's look at a 'character' from "The Flash" TV series for example... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3107288/characters/nm0146915 I clicked to see "Dr. Harry Wells" but I'm seeing all the characters combined into one profile.  That's not a character page, that's an actors page. Now, let's go to Man of Steel... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770828/fullcredits#cast Click on any of the Clark Kent entries and the expected behavior is to see the Clark Kent character, with the different actors listed.  However, each is treated as a separate page. So instead of "modernizing and simplifying" to move forward, how about making sure that it's at least working somewhat as expected first?  As it is, it's not a character page, so you are removing the feature completely, while introducing a different feature that you are claiming is a replacement.  That's like a restaurant replacing a steak with a small bag of potato chips.  Both are edible, but claiming the chips are a replacement meat is a lie.

Stephen Sywak, I hope you anticipated a little attention to your first paragraph/line here, because even if done in teasing humor, it is awkward and invariably would draw some remarks (potentially off-topic). Mind you, the Republican Party has internally struggled about how to address United States (federal) programs that Congress had no business establishing in the first place. Alas, we have to take it on faith that program "slashers" do not have cruel intentions. Undoubtedly they have always leaned toward catering to large commercial organizations and thereby have shared similar lines of thinking with "businessmen".

Congress had no business establishing in the first placeThat is ridiculous. You or the Republican party are going to need to explain to and convince the people how the Congress of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" with "All legislative Powers" promoting "general Welfare" had no right establishing programs that now enjoy the overwhelming support of the people and do not restrict their rights one iota. But, yes, this is off-topic.

There are limitations, perhaps both ways. James Madison kind of explained it a long time ago, but obviously he just one man among a group of men who contributed to founding a civil institution. As well, they have all been deceased for centuries, so maybe they do not matter. I admit that I'd be hesitant to equate either of the United States' two major parties with constitutionalist thinking. (Elected representatives do what their donors tell them to, not necessarily what is right.) Anyway, we might be pleased to know that a legislature is far less likely to cease support for a very popular/helpful program thereby commissioned than likewise a privately-owned organization to do for its programs. Notably, lots of organizations really are not predicated upon limitations of the "board", the "director" or the "staff" of the organization. The setup for civics is a bit different, since sovereign or semi-sovereign governments have the power to craft policies that licenses their persons commissioned by them to use designated or arbitrary amounts of force take a person's life, liberty, freedom, property or opportunities to pursue happiness.

Yes, sadly we will have to go elsewhere to see which actresses have portrayed Cora Mills on the show. As of the time, I think there are only two, though: Barbara Hershey (regular rendition) and Rose McGowan (younger rendition). And the way that the character pages were setup, it was a little messed up. The hyperlink for Hershey's portrayal pointed to the character page for the Queen of Hearts (as whom presumably Cora only served in one episode and by a third actress whose face is concealed in a veil), whereas McGowan's portrayal pointed to the specific character of Cora Mills. It was a kind of confusing setup, possibly fixable but the site was rife with such competing links.

As I pointed out elsewhere, we can use an IMDb specific search until/if IMDb restores a character search. As an example: Cora Mills site:imdb.com "Cora Mills" https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aimdb.com+%22Cora+Mills%22

That is not a decent example, Dan Dassow. Sorry. Rose McGowan's name does not appear in the search results. I appreciate the attempt, though.

Jeorj, Rose McGowan shows up in later pages of the search. Obviously, this not very useful compared to the current IMDb character search. Sigh! The Miller's Daughter (2013) - IMDbwww.imdb.com/title/tt2620930/mediaviewer/rm1220255744 The Miller's Daughter (2013). 17 of 17. Rose McGowan in Once Upon a Time (2011). Titles: Once Upon a Time, The Miller's Daughter. People: Rose McGowan. Characters: Rumpelstiltskin, Cora Mills. Photo by Jack Rowand - © 2013 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

For that case, thank goodness for that caption including the whole character name of Cora Mills, as the webcrawler needed to have stumbled upon it in order to produce the result.

Sadly, as the cache for the Google, Bing and other search engine web crawlers expire, these kind of results may not be available.

Years ago IMDB name did mean quality... Now it's a lot like Wikipedia, collection of misinformation collected from various sources.

No, no, no. It might not be a good idea if Col Needham resigned. I think a group of advisers (maybe Amazon employees appointed by Jeff Bezos) behind the scenes are manipulating him. In fact, I'm worried about what will happen when he invariably goes into retirement, say, 25 years from now. (And note also that he is a mortal man, as are we all mortal.) He is remarkably supportive, despite patronizing the IMDb subscriber base.

No, no, no. It might not be a good idea if Col Needham resigned. I think a group of advisers (maybe Amazon employees appointed by Jeff Bezos) behind the scenes are manipulating him. Posted 46 minutes ago (Nov 19 2017 11:56 PM) by Jeorj Euler - - - IMDb was launched on October 17, 1990 Amazon.com bought IMDb in April 1998 Filmography by type for Jeff Bezos http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1757263/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1757263/reference - - - Most everything here was helpful to Users and visitors Looking at the Old IMDb Message Boards the message time and date were the same time zone as Amazon.com about 266,164,000 messages were posted Aug 6 2002 - Feb 20 2017 So, the Boards were on Amazons computers ? Now not! - So, Amazon has more disk space for sales etc... IMDb is changing (deleting) helpful parts of IMDb for what ?? Save disk space ? Save employee time updating pages soon to need less employees (and that weekly pay check) What is next on IMDbs GONE list ? all Lists and Polls ? Fun for Users but not needed to look up a Name or Title Certainly with less information here less Users and others will visit which may mean less advertisement money well... with less Staff a lot of money is not needed Oh, and now there are more than 82,500,000 Users http://www.imdb.com/user/ur82500000/ Some are gone for different reasons

That lack of a spine when pandering to profit-driven execs is one of the reasons he should do the decent thing and go.

ACT_1, well, they claimed that running the message board was not a core competency of the IMDb staff. This make sense. However, we have to wonder in what other ways are their skills limited. Maybe they cannot afford to hire many more employees of enhanced skill levels.

Maybe they cannot afford to hire many more employees of enhanced skill levels by Jeorj Euler 24 minutes ago (Nov 21 2017 1:55 am) - - - cms IMDb Administrator Status User - Fri Oct 6 2006 IMDb member since Tue Dec 18 2001 http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1488088/ former IMDb staff programmer Once upon a time, I developed the message boards system. This does not mean that I am responsible for moderating it.  I don't read any PMs, they get deleted as soon as they arrive  I know what [mjeyds]    means  I made this!

I keep forgetting about that person. I probably have the profile page bookmarked.

I keep forgetting about that person. I probably have the profile page bookmarked. by Jeorj Euler - - - He is on my list of Users So, after they ... fired him (?) No one to maintain the Boards ?? and one less employee to pay !! - - - film|boards unaffiliated with imdb.com   https://filmboards.com/ https://filmboards.com/user/legacy/cms/ https://filmboards.com/user/legacy/Jeorj%20Euler/ https://filmboards.com/user/legacy/ACT_l/ https://filmboards.com/user/legacy/Col%20Needham/

I WANT THEW WRINKLE IN TIME QOTES

Hi Stephen, Sadly, the character pages depend upon old technology that IMDb is forced to phase out. I'm not happy about this, since it adversely affect the polls. I hope that the IMDb technical staff will provide an alternate means to search for characters in the future. In the interim, you can use Google search as a less than perfect substitute. For instance, to search for "Jesus Christ" enter the following in the search box: site:imdb.com "Jesus Christ" https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aimdb.com+%22Jesus+Christ%22&oq=site%3Aimdb.com+%22Jesus+C...

We'll probably just wind up relying upon Wikipedia and Wikia.

What do you mean "old technology"? What, relational databases don't work any more? Because that's what they're populating the pages with, whether they're using an actual database for it or simply static pages built such a way as to mimic that functionality. (And it should not be that difficult to recreate identical structure in a database if the latter. All you need is some scripts and time to run them, and time you have because you can first create the complete structure and only then make it live.)

And, Dan, search engines do not always give you all the results. They only give the ones that have been indexed.

djv-6, And, Dan, search engines do not always give you all the results. They only give the ones that have been indexed.We are in violent agreement on that point.

Dan, I don't understand how these pages use old technology.  You're still having to use relational databases or as djv-6 said above, static pages built to mimic the functionality, when creating the quotes character pages (which are pointless, sorry). It seems to me IMDB just doesn't want to keep up with the complexity of the old character pages. Can you tell us the real reason?  Ok so I just read some of Col Needham's posts on this thread and he explains things very well. So now I understand. Go read his responses on page one of this thread start at the top. They do want to eventually go back to the character pages as they are now.

Kat Cody Roberts, can you tell which IMDb site pages are part of the old platform versus the newer? We can all tell by the layout. All of the pages generated by the old software have the index of sibling path pages (of a given IMDb subject [title, real person, fictional character or so]) listed on the left side of the page, whereas the newer has them listed on the right.

Unlike Kat suggested, Col Needham's posts on this thread didn't explain much to me. Upon reading the Upcoming changes... thread, however, it seems to me that the whole site has been built as a patchwork of (at the time) hyped-up technologies or home-brewed kludges without any larger design, each with their own particular system, instead of doing things right. It also seems that now the hardware on the system with the character information is dying or the system is reaching its EOL one way or another and so, rather than doing the right thing this time by importing the data in the new system, the IMDb is (again) taking the easy way out and simply scrapping the data along with the old system. In its place, it seems, they are scraping together a feature on the new system that sort of looks like the old without its actual functionality with promises that all will be well at some unspecified future date. That's what this seems to me. I simply don't see a way to look at this and not think this is simply poor change management and intentionally throwing away data and features that could be fairly easily preserved. All it really takes is some scripting and processing time for it to run, unless they've really screwed the pooch.

It does feel slightly like a "nuke the ghetto" situation.

The filmography is the most useful thing about character pages. The trivia is nice but that's just a low-brow distraction. By you logic they should get rid of most of the actor pages as well, because, in addition to filmography, most of them only contain the most inane stuff, if even that.

Yes, djv-6, off course, you are absolutely right. People are really missing the point about what character pages are important for. That is a shame.

I mean Quotes pages don't have any option for viewing quotes spoken only by a Certain Character.