Why? Keywords for TV Series Problem Continues

@Will 

I'm not sure exactly what you added at that time, but it seems it has been lost in an update of the update form's tips feature.

@Will 

Phil Boroff was completely misconstruing the guidelines in this post. I explain more here, here, and here, but the short explanation is that the guidelines do not prohibit a keyword from being added at both the series level and the episode level, so long as the keyword is relevant in both instances. 

There are only two relevant sentences in the guidelines. Neither sentence says anything about duplication between the series level and the episode level:

Keywords submitted to the TV series page should be relevant to and describe the entire series. Keywords that are specific to a particular episode should be added to that episode only.

The first sentence is emphasizing that keywords added at the series level should be relevant to the entire series (all or most of the episodes). Nothing in that first sentence says that keywords added at the series level should be limited to the series level.

The second sentence is reminding contributors that keywords added to specific episodes should be relevant to that episode. In other words, don't post a keyword to a specific episode unless it is relevant to that episode. The word "only" in that second sentence means only the episodes to which the keyword is relevant.  But if a keyword is relevant to all the episodes, the guidelines allow the keyword to be added to all the episodes (again, so long as the keyword is relevant to all of them).

The final point I will make is that not only do the guidelines allow keywords to be posted at both the series level and episode level (so long as they are relevant in both places), this also facilitates searches. When searching on IMDb for titles with combinations of multiple keywords, there is no way to mix and match keywords from series levels and episode levels in the same search. In other words, if you want to find an episode that contains three specific keywords, you will need all relevant keywords to be in that episode, or your search will not retrieve that episode. To prohibit a relevant keyword from being added to an episode (just because the keyword is also relevant at the series level) would completely interfere with and devalue the effectiveness of these searches.

In short, the policy is clear: keywords can and should be added wherever they are relevant. 

@Peter_pbn 

I'm not sure exactly what you added at that time, but it seems it has been lost in an update of the update form's tips feature.

I may have figured out what Will added at the time (three years ago). I will explain using an example.

The show "The Queen's Gambit" already has the keyword "chess" at the series level. And here is what happens if you go to the series page for that show and then try to use the editing form at the series level to add the keyword "chess" to individual episodes:

It reports this error message:

This item has been rejected. You need to correct this item before it will be accepted.

• Title already has this keyword

• This title already has the keyword chess.

That error message is probably what Will added three years ago. It blocks you from using the series form to repeat a keyword already at the series level on the episode level.

With that  said, I also tested adding the keyword "chess" to an individual episode of "The Queen's Gambit" using the keyword editing form on an individual episode page, and it worked just fine. (And sorry to repeat myself here, but adding the perfectly relevant keyword "chess" to this title, at the series level and/or to any and all episodes, is fully consistent with both the guidelines and dictates of common sense. I have yet to see a single policy argument otherwise.) 

As best I can tell, the IMDb staff were concerned about the use of the series editing form to add keywords "in bulk on all episodes of a series" (as Michelle explained in one of the threads). That appears to be why they blocked the ability to duplicate keywords via the series form, but kept that ability open via the episode form. This makes it a lot harder to mass-duplicate keywords, but still allows the ability to duplicate keywords manually if they are relevant and the contributor is willing to work a lot harder to make the edits. The staff have purposely set this up to encourage contributors to visit the individual editing page for each episode and really think about the appropriate keywords for that episode.

This actually makes sense to me. I can see how there is a potential for abuse, e.g., using the very powerful editing tool available on the series page to mass spam irrelevant keywords to multiple episodes.

But it also makes sense that the editing tools still allow keywords to be added at the episode level even if that duplicates keywords between the series level and the episode level, so long as the keywords are relevant in both places. That's allowed by the guidelines, as well as by the editing tools (just as it should be).

I would hope that staff would back me up on this. It would defy logic to prohibit adding the keyword "zombie" to an episode of "The Walking Dead," or the keyword "chess" or "female protagonist" to an episode of "The Queen's Gambit," just because those keywords are relevant to both the series as a whole and to every individual episode. There would be no basis for such a policy, and it would severely hinder keyword-searching functionalities under the current keyword structure, which is probably why we don't see anyone even trying to advocate for that result at this point.

Haha. I could've sworn that I pointed out something to that effect, years ago.

@jeorj_euler 

Haha. I could've sworn that I pointed out something to that effect, years ago.

Can you please be more specific? Are you agreeing with something that I (or someone else) said in this thread?

Yes, particularly concerning the search results by keyword for episode type title pages that belong to a series type title page. In fact, absent an investigation or a simple check, I'm still wondering whether or not the search results automatically include references to episodes when the corresponding series has given keywords but the episodes do not, much like inheritance of "prototype" properties in object-oriented programming/scripting language implementations.

I'm still wondering whether or not the search results automatically include references to episodes when the corresponding series has given keywords but the episodes do not, much like inheritance of "prototype" properties in object-oriented programming/scripting language implementations.

I can assure you that IMDb's search system treats titles at the series level and at the episode level completely separate. In other words, a search result for a series will not borrow or inherit keywords from an episode, and vice versa.

That fact is a significant reason why it would make no sense for IMDb to prohibit listing a relevant keyword at *both* the series level and the episode level.