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karen_
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Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Mon, Dec 11, 2017 5:42 PM

Updates to User Reviews

Today we are announcing changes to User Reviews as part of the broader site update announcement (https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0). After in-depth discussion and examination, we have decided to simplify the features and functionality for reviews as follows:

  • “Your Reviews” are now ordered by Date and reviews on each Title sub page are ordered by Helpfulness.We will continue to update functionality in the new year, starting by bringing back the ability to sort reviews from newest to oldest/oldest to newest. We appreciate your patience as we continue to improve the overall experience.
  • We have removed the Index view. 
  • We updated the way that reviews with spoilers are displayed.
Additionally, on our iOS and Android apps, you can now browse all reviews for a movie or show, as well as see which reviews were voted most helpful. In the next few days we’ll be updating the Review contribution experience, which will be the foundation to enabling mobile users to write and post reviews in the near future. For more information about Reviews, see the IMDbHelp Center.

Karen

Announcements

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3 y ago

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Official Solution

Col_Needham

Employee

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4.4K Messages

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144.4K Points

4 y ago

Thanks for the feedback so far.  The team is monitoring this thread, although focused on launching the new review contribution experience right now, so detailed follow-ups may be delayed.  Some quick follow-ups now ...

  • As explained on https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 this is part of an essential technology migration -- there is no option to go back.  We appreciate that changes to familiar interfaces are always difficult, and there are some painful casualties in terms of feature / sorting / filtering losses.  However, we need to start with a common review platform across the main web site, the mobile site and the iOS and Android apps.  Once we have this, we can build a better review experience for everyone more quickly than ever, providing review features consistently and everywhere instead of only on the web interface. 
  • One change already live in the latest app versions (updates to these are rolling out now) is that all customer reviews are now available on the popular IMDb iOS and Android apps as well as the IMDb mobile site. Until this change, only a subset of reviews were available on mobile.  Far from limiting the audience of your reviews, we have more than doubled the audience with this single change.  This also clears the way for reviews to be written and submitted on mobile which is also a popular customer request. 
  • For those people who think reviews have been removed from the main title pages, this is probably because you are using the old, unsupported (7+ years out of date) version of IMDb.  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.  We will shortly be making changes to the "Always display full cast and crew credits" view which will move it onto the new technology platform and will restore more direct access to the reviews. 
Please continue to provide feedback as this will guide us on where next to take the new system.

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Official Solution

Col_Needham

Employee

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4.4K Messages

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144.4K Points

4 y ago

Thank you for the on-going feedback on user reviews (and a reminder to see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 for the wider context).  This is an update for 12 January outlining the progress so far: 

Already implemented:
  • Make all user reviews available across all IMDb platforms (web, mobile web, iOS, Android)  [DONE]
  • Allow voting for reviews from user/reviews pages  [DONE] 
  • No longer display reviews with spoilers on the main title page [DONE]
  • Integrate reviews into main IMDb database to improve management and processing [DONE]
  • Add reviews and “Report This” to the “Track My Contribution” feature for better feedback on processing [DONE]
  • On the iOS app, add sort orders: chronological, by rating given to title by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions) [DONE]
  • Fix “Load more” functionality on Internet Explorer [DONE]
  • Allow IMDb mark-up in review text to link name/title pages from inside reviews [DONE]
  • Increase default view of reviews shown before “Load more” from 10 to 25 [DONE]

In progress across Q1:
  • On the web site & mobile web, add sort orders to the title/reviews page,  ideas under review include: chronological, by vote volume, by rating given to title by reviewer, love/hate view, by volume of reviews by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions)
  • On the web site, add sort orders to the user/reviews page, ideas under review include: alphabetical by title, chronological, by vote volume, by rating given to title by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions)
  • On the Android app, add sort orders: chronological, by rating given to title by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions)
  • Allow review contribution from mobile devices (mobile web, iOS, Android)
  • Fix known issues posting new reviews with certain browser / system combinations 

Ideas for the longer term:
  • Allow helpfulness voting on mobile devices (mobile web, iOS, Android)
  • Improve the algorithm used to determine default helpfulness sorting

Please bear with us while we work through the above list (and equivalent lists for other impacted features).  Our aim remains to make IMDb the best place to read, write and discover reviews of movies, shows (and other title types) ... both on the web and on mobile.

Finally a reminder from the above list: the IMDb iOS app already supports sorting of reviews by three options if you have access to an iPhone or iPad.

2

ElMaruecan82

4.5K Messages

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131.1K Points

  • On the web site & mobile web, add sort orders to the title/reviews page,  ideas under review include: chronological, by vote volume, by rating given to title by reviewer, love/hate view, by volume of reviews by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions)
  • On the web site, add sort orders to the user/reviews page, ideas under review include: alphabetical by title, chronological, by vote volume, by rating given to title by reviewer, by helpfulness (all in both directions)

That's good enough for me, thanks!

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4 y ago

alessandromachi

6 Messages

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330 Points

Is it possible to add a small encapsulation of an Actor's performance in a specific episode of a TV show they were guest starring in?  
Example.  As Angelita in Maverick, The "Guatemala City" Episode, Linda Dangcil's Angelita is a Remarkably Precocious presence that invites one to connect with her on a multitude of levels. Angelita immediately shuts down Maverick's anger in one scene, Instantly reminding Maverick of the honor in being gentlemanly in non violent situations. Besides Dangcil's on screen high energy yet calming presence, in another era she might have been a Shampoo Ambassador for her unending but well managed Tresses.

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3 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. Here is the progress update for the week ending Feb 2.

2

dan_avenell

1 Message

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212 Points

We have made it clear that we want the return of 'hated it/loved it' - please explain why there seem to be no plans to bring back this popular feature.

Cannot believe this has taken you two months so far.

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4 y ago

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Hi Dan. This is on our list of features to bring back in the near future.

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4 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. The update to support filtering out spoilers, and sorting by date (not just helpfulness) is now live.  

5

jon_vitas

44 Messages

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1.6K Points

I have worked on my share of websites and I know sometimes it can take a long time to create or re-create a feature that used to exist on new software from totally scratch. In fact it was about time that the IMDb site got a software upgrade it had existed in the form that it was for over 12 years, and there has been a lot of improvements with code platforms since then, I just hope that by the end of this year we will have our sorting back not just in the user reviews but in our personal review section. And maybe a messaging feature where we can contact the other IMDb users that we used to communicate with but have not been able to since the removal of the message boards.

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4 y ago

dan_gg9ynz46cmgvr

3 Messages

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388 Points

Odds are Imdb could care less about user interactivity. It will end up being a trailer showcase and gossip news aggregator. User content is probably just a nuisance to them, hence closing the boards and making the user review function unusable.

And one other thing: Why the hell do I have to sign up for a third party site in order to give feedback?? Goddamn annoying.

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4 y ago

jon_vitas

44 Messages

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1.6K Points

3rd party site? Because that's how it's done, I suppose you don't use Quicken. But if you're suggesting that "resistance doesn't work" I have to diffidently remind you of what happened last summer when the whole nation responded to the threat of FakeACA. Basically what you are saying is that when people gathered together for a common goal it's useless. I beg to differ.

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4 y ago

jeorj_euler

8.1K Messages

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184.5K Points

Well, I know that I certainly would not allow people to discuss ways to "go against" me in my house. I wouldn't expect anything different from most site operators in the world. The liability is typically unbearable.

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4 y ago

jon_vitas

44 Messages

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1.6K Points

That's why most places set up a third-party site like this and then they have representatives who come in. But I used to moderate a huge Bulletin board that was attached to the original MP3 com. We held it on site and the management actually encouraged ideas from the user base and general public. The reason why companies use get satisfaction, it's because it's a resource that already exists and they don't have to create a bulletin board on their own web space. I toured the MP3c storage area before it was taken apart and sold to C-Net, it was thousands of terabytes and yet there was always issues with running out of space. Needless to say, I wasn't happy after MP3 went down and my music started showing up, without my permission, on places like garageband, and they were suddenly asking me for $100 to access it. So I told them to delete it but still a few of the tracks show up here and there on butt music sites.

Now the storage of our reviews is a huge use of storage space, and I'm glad that they kept our work intact, but in doing so a lot of the features that we depended on vanished, it's going to take their programmers a while to re-create that all from scratch. But I have faith that they will do it, because we want it. But as it is the whole reviewing system is unworkable except if you are viewing them on the mobile app.

A lot of the complaints are against Amazon as well, but if you look at Amazon, they have sorting in place for reviews of products. But the problem is Amazon is Amazon and IMDb is IMDb, two different entities with completely different programming.

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4 y ago

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. I don't have any new functionality releases to announce today but am posting to keep the Friday announcement cadence consistent. We have additional sorts in-progress and I'll announce those as soon as they are available.

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Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. Here is the update announcement for this week (the week ending Feb 23):
  • We have added "Total Votes" to the sort option drop down on title/review pages.

3

Horst

308 Messages

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12.5K Points

Thanks Karen. Can you (or anybody else) explain what total votes means in this context?

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4 y ago

0

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Hi @Horst. It is the total number of votes given -- both up votes & down votes. 

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4 y ago

Horst

308 Messages

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12.5K Points

Thank you Karen.

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4 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. No updates to Reviews today (Mar 2) as we're prepping for Oscars.

Spoiler for next week though -- we are currently testing the sort functionality for prolific reviewers. I'll post an announcement as soon as it's available.

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Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. I'm happy to announce that the 'prolific reviewer' sort is now live (Mar 7). To try it out, go to any title/user reviews page and use the dropdown which now contains: Helpfulness, Date, Total Votes, Prolific Reviewer.

4

elshikh4

64 Messages

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3.3K Points

Hi Karen, I hope you're doing well.

So happy for the return of the prolific reviewer' sort. Though, something is bothering me..

Lately, and after the recent modifications, I have a hard time editing any of my old reviews. For instance, I edited my review about Batman Forever (1995) 3 days ago, and after 72 hours nothing happened at all. So does the time of publishing a new version become more than 72 hours ? (it used to be done immediately !), or is it a kind of temporary disorder ?

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4 y ago

0

Col_Needham

Employee

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4.4K Messages

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144.4K Points

Please see https://help.imdb.com/article/contrib... and in particular note the section on tracking your contribution.

In the case of reviews, see https://help.imdb.com/article/contrib... which explains how to use the link in the email receipt for an update on the specific processing time.

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4 y ago

elshikh4

64 Messages

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3.3K Points

Thanks Mr. Needham.

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4 y ago

0

Horst

308 Messages

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12.5K Points

Excellent. Thanks for that Karen.

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4 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. I'm posting the weekly Friday update for completeness (Mar 9). No additional updates today since we launched Prolific Reviewers earlier this week. We are currently working on Love/Hate.

4

peter_webber_ad4o9fu9470p8

2 Messages

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540 Points

Hi Karen,

Thanks for the update on Love/Hate. Look forward to it as it was my main sorting tool.

Can you say if there are plans to revert to pagination from infinite scroll? Infinite scrolling takes away all control and knowledge of whereabouts. Clicking a link leads off the review page, which loses its place when returned to. When there are hundreds of reviews this isn't acceptable. I know this view is shared by many.

The search box has a dropdown for Titles, TV episodes, Names, Companies, Keywords. I propose you add Reviews to the dropdown. This would allow the finding of mentions of particular films in reviews of different films, mentions of particular actors and so on. I for one would find it incredibly useful. It would probably double my IMDB screen time and significantly improve my film knowledge. Would you please consider this?

Peter

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4 y ago

jon_vitas

44 Messages

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1.6K Points

Hi Karen I just thought about something. Every day, our reviews are accosted by dozens of fake IMDb accounts whose sole job is to down vote every positive review and up vote every negative review. They've been doing this especially to Star Trek discovery.

IMDB ain't REDDIT. I just thought about something, let's make a bold proposal: totally remove the "unhelpful" button.

If you would do that, these fake accounts would have no ammunition. I believe the whole helpful/unhelpful system has become abused, just like the review system has been appropriated by troll accounts who have been posting multiple duplicate negative reviews for many popular shows. This is just a suggestion, temporarily remove the unhelpful vote. Then watch back and see if this activity stops. Because it is really pissing me off, these people who do this have no interest in the shows, it's just a troll Activity. Or maybe somebody else has a better idea of how to excise the trolls from IMDb?

PS, if anybody doesn't believe me that this is happening, try this. Write a positive review for the next episode of The X-Files and watch what happens.

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4 y ago

0

maria_t_ciaccia

4 Messages

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1.9K Points

thank you, Karen. Good news.

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4 y ago

0

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Thanks for the suggestions Peter & @XweAponX.  I can't comment on future plans, but please add your suggestions & ideas to the IDEAS area here: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb?topic-list[settings][type]=idea

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3 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. No updates to Reviews this week (week ending Mar 16); posting for completeness.

0

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

4 y ago

Hi everyone. I have a mid-week update on review sorts (Mar 20).

You can now sort by review rating on title/reviews and user/reviews pages (IMDb desktop and mobile web site). For example, if you go to https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/reviews?ref_=tt_urv  you can choose the sort option "Review Rating" and see all reviews rated 10, 9, etc. You can also sort in the opposite direction and see reviews that are rated 1, 2, etc. Unrated reviews appear at the bottom.

2

brett_harrison

15 Messages

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824 Points

Great work! At last we seem to be getting back to the level of usefulness that there used to be. Now if only alphabetical index view would return...

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3 y ago

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Hi Brett. We're working on an alphabetical sort option -- "sort by title." I'll post in announcements once it's available.

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3 y ago

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

 • 

5.7K Points

3 y ago

Hi everyone. Here the update for Mar 23:  You can now sort by title (aka alphabetical). On user/reviews pages you can sort by the first letter of a film or show title, ascending or descending (on desktop and mobile web).

Note that if you have 7500+ reviews we aren't able to enable this sort for you at the present time. This is on our list of future fixes.

3

ElMaruecan82

4.5K Messages

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131.1K Points

I like how you slowly rekindled our motivation to pursue reviewing movies, we're certainly not in the same situation than three months ago.

But I think it would be the perfect and ultimate improvement if we could also select the viewing format, grid view with the posters or just a list without any image, I don't think it's asking much since it already exists with the ratings :)

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3 y ago

prismark10

17 Messages

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540 Points

We certainly need a grid format.

I really do not have the time or motivation to press 'Load More' all day long.

I actually have a job, family and other things to do. I am not one of these young people on mobile phones that IMDB values so much, the ones who are writing meaningless one line reviews for them these days.

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3 y ago

0

jon_vitas

44 Messages

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1.6K Points

I just checked this in my own reviews, to sort by title does not give me any sorting in any way that Is usable. I still have to go through every single review of my over 700 to find a specific review, and they are not actually in alphabetical order but some undesirable format. We need the reviews sorted by the title of the TV show or film like they were before and we need to be able to go directly to the letter that we are looking for or the shows that we are looking for like we had been able to do previously.

And there needs to be a Search format that allows us to scan through hundreds of reviews at once rather than taking four hours to do so. This new "title" sorting is totally worthless. You guys remember how it was before, that's what how we want it. What is so difficult about giving us this sorting format like it was before? It's starting to look like you should fire whoever is assembling these changes for your site and rehire whoever you used to create the site in the first place.

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3 y ago

0

Official Solution

karen_

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

3 y ago

Hi everyone. Here is the update for Mar 30. On both title/reviews and user/reviews pages you can now filter by rating. For example, you can see all reviews with a specific rating e.g., all reviews rated "8."

Thanks for your patience and feedback as we've released Reviews features over the past three months. This will be the last of the weekly updates to this announcement thread, but please keep adding ideas for future ideas here: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb?topic-list[settings][type]=idea I'll post new announcements on Get Satisfaction as we release new features and functionality in the future.

2

bobthemoo

929 Messages

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39.3K Points

Karen,
Thanks for following through and putting a lot of the functionality back into the user reviews section.

bob

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3 y ago

brett_harrison

15 Messages

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824 Points

I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it until it returns: I want Index view back.

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3 y ago

0

Official Solution

Col_Needham

Employee

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4.4K Messages

 • 

144.4K Points

3 y ago

A further update ... we have restored the option to view / link individual reviews:

To view an individual review, simply click the review title.  To copy the URL of a review, click on the "Copy link" label under the review.  For example from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/reviews?sort=reviewVolume&dir=desc&ratingFilter=0 (see red highlighting)



which will lead you to or will copy -> https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4063416/

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Col_Needham

Employee

 • 

4.4K Messages

 • 

144.4K Points

4 y ago

If there is now a push to align the desktop site with the mobile app, then it devalues the desktop site.
This is not always true and is something we are trying to avoid.  Over on https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-list-pages we wrote this a couple of days ago:

"In the meantime, do you have an iPhone or iPad? The list implementation on our iOS app is actually the best one -- Android, mobile web and the desktop web are playing catch-up with the power of iOS.  One the advantages of the new changes is that they clear the path for the same powerful list experience on all platforms."  

The iOS app is already (IMHO) the best implementation for many other things, including: sorting & filtering filmographies; viewing showtimes; ticketing; box office; and locations. 

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