For title searches, is IMDb describing "Popularity Ascending" and "Popularity Descending" correctly?

@jeorj_euler​  But am I correct that "Ascending" and "Descending" are mislabeled in these search results? That is my question.

The raw components of "Popularity" are possibly relevant, but that isn't my ultimate question. 

Well, the way I'm expressed it is mixed up apparently, even though I understand the ordering of the items. So, as we know, a priority placement is represented by a low number, "#1" or "1st place" representing the highest "rank", but the sorting algorithm doesn't know that. Hence, "1; 2; 3; 4; 5; ..." is ascending, whereas "500,762; 500,761; 500,760; 500,759; 500,758; ..." is descending. I suspect that part of the motivation for this data acquisition-presentation scheme is so that the search results don't reveal the actual MOVIEmeter of the items. I'm wiling to bet the IMDb site authorities are going to blame the problem on limitations of the "over 12 years old" platform, even though the semantic/perceptual problem should've been fixed before the system was launched in the first place.

@Peter_pbn​ 

This isn't a countdown, though.

And even if it were, I think even a countdown that starts with the least popular item on the list and ultimately ends with the most popular item would be described as presented in "ascending" order.

Plus, we have other types of searches that can be done in the very same place that treat "Ascending" as starting with a quantitative number at the lowest and "ascend" to the highest number.

Take the number of votes, for example:

Feature Film (Sorted by Number of Votes Descending)

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&sort=num_votes,desc

If the system treats the number of votes by descending from the title with the highest number of votes, why wouldn't it do the same with popularity (i.e., descend from the title with the most popularity)?

I assume it's because the numbers in this case are the chart placements in IMDb's Moviemeter.

@Peter_pbn​

That makes a lot of sense. I think you're right. 

I look forward to IMDb staff weighing in on whether and how this should be fixed. 

@keyword_expert​  Yes, @Peter_pbn is correct -- this is a sort by the MOVIEmeter rank where #1 is the most popular and the ascending / descending sort refers to how the titles are sorted by rank so it is indeed confusing, sorry.  Originally the sort was labelled as a MOVIEmeter sort, but then people asked what that term meant so it was renamed to popularity, which introduced a different confusion.  It is something we can bear in mind when we switch the advanced title search to the new technology.  

I'd been wondering about this for a long time, and I've leaned toward assuming that the IMDb site authorities never really had a plan to sort out any confusion arising from the way the outward semantics play out. So, the bit about MOVIEmeter, STARmeter and even COMPANYmeter plays right into the having one word to describe all three, such as "popularity", but the way the word is used reflects negated placement or the reciprocal of placement instead.

@keyword_expert​ 

IMDb generally seems to be unable to rank episodes by popularity, so I agree that this causes a problem for any search feature that is based on popularity.

Popularity of episodes

@Peter_pbn​ 

I'm glad I am not the only one who noticed this problem.

I have just added "reference-to-d.b.-cooper" to about 80+ titles, so those prior search links I gave out are no longer the best example searches to illustrate the problem (or at the very least no longer the simplest searches).

Here are two additional searches with currently less than 50 titles:

Reference to buffalo-bill (Sorted by Popularity Ascending)

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=reference%20to%20buffalo-bill

Reference to buffalo-bill (Sorted by Popularity Descending)

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=reference%20to%20buffalo-bill&sort=moviemeter,desc

I did a slightly deeper dive into some of these search results, and here is what I realized:

1. Popularity searches do sort movies and series by popularity. 

2.   For searches sorted by "Most Popular" results first, results are listed in the following order:

         (a) Everything except episodes is listed first. This includes feature films, video movies, TV movies, video games, music videos, etc. They all appear to be correctly sorted by popularity. 

          (b) All episodes are then listed second. These are not sorted correctly by popularity. The order appears to be random. 

3. When you sort results with "Least Popular" first, there are two additional problems:

        (a) The ordering for "Least Popular" lists all movies and series first, before episodes (even though movies and series are not "less popular" than episodes).  

         (b) For episodes, the ordering for episodes (TV and podcast) is in the exact same (somewhat random) order for "Least Popular" searches as for "Most Popular" searches. Since these two searches are supposed to be opposites of each other, the ordering of the results should be the opposite as well.