Conserns about LGBTQ+ content on the front page.

@jeorj_euler​ thank you for engaging with a comment on the topic. I believe I understand the point you're making. However, I think it's important to clarify that the matter at hand is less about the appropriateness of the content and more about the autonomy and discretion parents should have in deciding when and how to introduce complex topics to their children. While it's true that the banner does not contain explicit or inappropriate content, it still presents a theme that requires careful explanation and understanding. Such subjects, including sexual orientation and gender identity, are difficult for some children to grasp, and it is often up to the parents to determine the best time and way to address these issues.
 

I think it's also important to acknowledge that the platform has content attractive to younger audiences and their parents. If you take a look at the most popular movies section, it's currently populated with some titles that in my view are largely appealing to children. I am talking about The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7th in popularity) and The Little Mermaid (1st in popularity). Even on the home page, very close to the PRIDE banner, you will find a movie trailer that I think should be interesting for kids (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). In my opinion, the proximity of these two elements on the main page is inappropriate. 

So while it may be true that IMDb isn't primarily aimed at children younger than thirteen, it remains a popular place for all audiences. Thus, it's very important to ensure that all users feel comfortable when using the platform.

Hello @Sandy1986​. Thank you for taking the time to write a response on the topic. Unfortunately, I can't quite understand the point you're trying to make. Sorry about that. Could you try to explain your thesis better and if you have specific questions for me, I will be happy to answer them.
Also, I would be grateful if you could answer the following two questions:
Do you think it's important that all users should feel comfortable using IMDB?
Do you think child-friendly content should be in close proximity to LGBTQ+ content?

edit: I'm afraid I didn't phrase the second question correctly, so let me try again. Do you think content designed to appeal to children should be near LGBTQ+ content?

The encompassing societal matter has been rather complicated for a long time. Some children grow up the same households as respectively their mothers and fathers, maybe losing one of the two parents and maybe gaining a stepparent along the way. Some children have only ever lived with their respective mothers, the father being regularly away at war, work, college, off with another family or whatever, if not dead and not institutionalized; likewise some children have only ever lived with their respective fathers. Some children alternate between living with respectively their mothers and fathers who neither share the same abode nor travel together. Some children have always been institutionalized orphans, if not cared for by relatives, adoptive families or foster families. That covers children who are being raised according to traditional model, or in the first case, the ideal model. So, but then there are children who respectively have two mothers, or two fathers, whereby often one of the parents is something of a stepparent rather than both being adoptive parents (which can alternately be the case), but most assuredly the child will be told that that he or she simply has two moms, or two dads. Unless some kind of social segregation is implemented, there is hardly a way to isolate the concept of homosexuality from the concept of heterosexuality, save for the fact that the former is slightly rare whereas the latter is not. While there remains the notion that a person can certainly be too young to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend of his or her own, children can understand that some of the men/boys have boyfriends in the same way that other men/boys have girlfriends, and that some of the women/girls have girlfriends in the same way that other women/girls have boyfriends. So, while the overarching societal situation may be complicated, the fundamentals are at least mostly very simple.

I 100% agree that family structures can greatly vary. I'm not advocating for isolation of certain concepts from children. Once again, I am advocating for parental control over when and how these topics are introduced. While you agree that every family faces its own challenges, is there anything that bothers you about the idea that caregivers should be able to choose when and how to bring up sensitive topics? And precisely because we are different people from different cultures and countries, I argue that for some families it is not important at all when and how they introduce their children to LGBTQ+ concepts. For other families, however, this issue is essential. Can you agree with that?

Why should assisting with parental control be a responsibility of any encyclopedic entertainment news website? There is no more of way to give an edge to families who consider it a great importance to control when and how the children among them will be introduced to the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity let alone the term "LGBTQ+" (which probably has no meaning to new people uninterested in looking it up) than there is to give an edge to those would would take issue with the fact that four anthropomorphic turtles are armed with sai, nunchaku, katana and bo (and not even strictly for self-defense at but vigilantism too), yet presented as some sort of child-friendly franchise. How is any child harmed by anything among the plethora of junk displayed on the IMDb homepage? If anything therein is misunderstood, what is the actual harm in the misunderstanding? Basically children wind up building myths and legends out of these things if not properly introduced. Seems as though some adults are afraid of the mere risk of being asked questions about some stuff.

Why should assisting with parental control be a responsibility of any encyclopedic entertainment news website? 

A good reason could be to maintain a reputation for being considerate and reliable, although if I'm the only person here who has concerns about the topic I'd conclude that the reputation of the website is not really affected by the banner. 

Regarding the other points from your last message, I think you are right. Your point is pretty insightful to me, and the more I think about it, the more hopeful I am that the banner shouldn't be harmful to the majority of children. Starting the thread I voiced my own worries and anxieties, but as the conversation progresses I realize that my position is not as strong as I thought. Since I have not met any support, and my concerns have begun to dissipate, I cannot continue to advocate that my proposal is good for the platform.
Thank you for the conversation @jeorj_euler. You are an interesting and insightful person and I wish you all the best.

Greetings and good luck to all. :)

Also, for what it is worth, I didn't cast a vote on this thread, neither up nor down. Supposedly the thread is being followed by five participants of this forum, but only two show up when I click the "crowd" icon. I've lost track of how many times I've complained about the functioning of this forum, just as well the actual IMDb website. In some contexts, perhaps few, this forum is useless to most of the people who interact with it. Outside of the IMDb poll section of this venue, nearly everybody on here only receives feedback for questions or problems that are tethered to an IMDb general FAQ or some kind of precedent that was set years ago, unless a new glitch in the IMDb software is reported, in which case the IMDb company may take an interest. Anyway, it might be worth pointing out that IMDb is partnered with GLAAD, so the influence within the relationship invariably manifests itself in design decisions and policy decisions. While it wouldn't be fair to denounce the company as partaking in virtue signaling, undoubtedly what they are doing is akin to that very thing, but perhaps this sort of thing is typical corporate behavior.

In the post of mine above containing an embedded video that had apparently been rescinded from publication, I meant to include something else entirely for the embed:

I'm another who almost never visits the IMDb homepage, but in my case, I'd been exhibiting that kind of behavior years before the recent redesign, yet I definitely agree that the content and organization of homepage used to be vastly superior to what it has become.

While I may try to play nice, I often have no qualms about criticizing policy decisions, creative decisions and behaviors, be them deep or shallow, that are motivated by intersectionality theory, critical theory, Marxist theory, social "justice", political correctness, diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental social governance (ESG) metrics, all of the things colloquially referred to by a certain four-letter word ordinarily signifying the primary opposite of the dream state of mind. But of course, I cannot necessarily shoehorn my philosophy and politics everywhere. In lieu, I must be provided an opening, even a tiny aperture. Thankfully, I don't really have much an emotional investment in the nonsense, so my mind kind of protected, but lord knows how many people's feelings my words have hurt. The way I've been seeing it, desensitized folks have an edge ultimately. What is that phrase the Corps trainers like to express? "Pain is weakness leaving the body."

I think we're pretty much on the same wavelength and it's precisely because our mind is broad enough to welcome the 'new' that we allow ourselves to be critical when criticism is due... my mind is like a big house where I can leave the door open but not without locking a few rooms...

"Pain is weakness leaving the body"

That's a good one.