How about defaulting to our preferred review sort order

@popeyereanimat  We have changed the default sort order for User Reviews based on customer feedback.  You can always change back to "Helpfulness" via the menu in the upper right hand corner near the first review:

Hope this helps. 

It seems to be a bug regarding how user reviews are sorted on default. It used to be sorted by helpful, but at the moment it’s prolific reviewers. Is IMDB aware of this issue, or have they actually changed it permanently? 

In that case, I really hope they’ll consider changing it back. These prolific reviewers often have a completely different view than the average viewer, I want the general consensus, not some negative prick’s opinion with 1-star reviews on every single movie/episode. 

I think it’s a shame that the first review the audience is going to see is a biased opinion, just because he/she have been active on IMDB for years. Thoughts?

@RaviNathan 

look at later for changes..

Chucky (2021- )
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8388390/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8388390/reference

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8388390/ratings

1,563 IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 7.6 / 10
Rating    Votes
10   45.0%  704

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8388390/reviews

66 Reviews

https://www.imdb.com/review/rw7437572/

 8/10
Chucky's Back and He's Got Potential
wes-oliveira
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur49885038/ 1 Review

13 October 2021
The series bring the traditional nice, 
small town vibe with new narratives.
Pretty impressed with the doll's comeback.
Hope they don't rely on jump scares, 
fan service or nostalgia too much. 
Keep it fresh, relevant, gore and smart! Go Chucky!

18 out of 44 found this helpful. Was this review helpful?

https://www.imdb.com/review/rw7438329/

1/10
Writing so bad it hurts!
HateFakeReviews
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur107268883/ - 9 Reviews
13 October 2021
All the 10/10 reviews are obviously fake! 
The writing is beyond ridiculous, 
the dialog it so far from real it's laughable... 
Sad because the potential was there 
but is let down by every aspect! 
If you last past 20mins you are either blind and deaf 
or just really super drunk and don't care how bad it is.

56 out of 122 found this helpful. Was this review helpful?

.

@nobody  Thanks for the suggestion. This is how the IMDb iOS app already works — it remembers your last choice and it is “sticky” across titles.  

Unfortunately it is harder than it should be to add the same functionality to the old IMDb web software, which is one of many reasons it is being replaced. This will be easier once the user reviews are on the same technology as the main title pages. 

In the meantime, you could install a browser plug-in which will rewrite the appropriate IMDb URLs and add the parameter?sort=helpfulnessScore to the end of links. 

Hope this helps. 

@martinols122 it's not a bug. They changed it to combat review bombing from new accounts.

@martinols122 Totally agree with you, helpfulness was... well, helpful. Prolific reviewer is less relevant. Don't understand the change.

@Liam_gal What do you call review bombing please? Some users would mark reviews as unhelpful when it doesn't fit their view? Or bots as helpful/unhelpful (on a respectively positive/negative review) to promote a movie?

@Col_Needham I don't understand this change. Helpfulness was the most relevant criteria. If you want to avoid "review bombing" as mentioned below (if I understand correctly what it is), then maybe "Total helpful votes" is best: many users found that review helpful, disregarding how many did not. IMDb would then need to ensure there are no bots boosting a review (e.g. to promote a movie), for instance based on IP address. 

@Teyss Please see https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/review-mobbing/6159d8f3c76fe86d93a26f82 

@Col_Needham Thanks for the link. Interesting and annoying (regardless of the fact I thought "Dune" was a great movie, must happen for other ones).

There is something flawed about the whole review process. For starters, approving reviews is not done seriously: some are just 3-liners basically saying "It's great" or "It's crap" (that's not a review, it's an opinion), some are not even in English. Consequence: a plethora of useless "reviews" becoming a battleground of helpful/not helpful instead of real consideration.

The selection needs to be stricter: longer minimal length, structured argumentation, decent language. Then IMDb could rank reviews based on a secret algorithm (a bit like ratings are done) mixing:

- helpfulness, possibly weighted by contribution status (gold contributor saying "helpful" or not weights more than silver than bronze than nothing),

- total votes,

- prolific reviewer,

- length of review (yes, a long review is generally better provided the selection is ok),

- maybe a secret note from IMDb staff selecting the review,

- other TBD.

An additional option would be NOT to show the rating with the review: users would actually have to READ the review before clicking on helpful or not. Would dissuade potential mobsters and definitely bots. That's just a few ideas.

@Col_Needham Just realised you are founder and CEO of IMDb, then many thanks for answering my post.

I am an active contributor (gold status, not many reviews but thorough) and really wish this community to keep on providing useful and interesting information to all movie fans.

@Col_Needham : I also don't understand the change in the user review dropdown menu, and I just don't buy your response that "user feedback" motivated the change. As I have stated in other posts here, a "prolific reviewer" is not necessarily the "best reviewer". Since the change was incorporated into the dropdown menu, my reviews are simply NOT being read as they were before the change. If they're not being read, there is no point in my taking the time and effort to write these reviews as I take great care in my research and in the composition. I believe that the first choice in the dropdown menu should be "most recent date" as that alone will serve to level the playing field as to chances that reviewers will be read. If reviews are sub-standard, as many of those published are, then they should just be "declined" by IMDb. As a reviewer, I am willing to face the consequences of IMDb's judgment on review quality and hopefully improve as a result of the rejection. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

@Teyss:  Thank you for staying on this important topic. Since IMDb changed the dropdown menu order, none of my reviews are being read unless they happen to be the only review or one of very reviews for a specific movie. I take time and effort researching and writing my reviews. If they are no longer being read, whether "helpful" or "not helpful", there isn't much sense in continuing to write them. I also agree that IMDb needs to decline more reviews that are sub-standard. As a reviewer, I will accept the consequences if the standards are tightened. My own personal opinion is that "most recent date" should be first on the drop down choices so that new writers will be given a chance at being read. If users want "most helpful", they should easily be able to make that choice as well. In either case, it is wrong to place "prolific reviewer" at the top as many of those reviews are merely cranked out without enough thought or care, and it prevents other reviewers from being noticed. Thanks again for your very welcome comments on this very important topic.

@frank_wiener_fe4dw90cmuqbe Thanks for participating to this debate and for your helpful insight. Yes it is important because if sub-standard reviews are on top, real fans like you or me will stop both reading and reviewing. I agree on everything except maybe on "Review date" by default: I like to see useful reviews on top, not the latest ones which could be inferior.

We can almost all roughly agree on what a good review is: something argumented with nuance, structure and insight, regardless if we approve or not. The trick is how to identify them? So far IMDb didn't find the solution and to be honest I don't have an easy one either. The main issue is the sheer volume of movies and also reviews published, which could be limited with a stricter approval process as you suggest. 

To be continued as they say in the movies. 

Teyss: I would certainly accept a dropdown menu with "most helpful" at the top. It's a challenge to get to the top of the heap, but I've done it a few times. This is subjective on my part, but the best movies inspire the best user reviews. Thanks again for your valuable contribution.

I always look at the most recent reviews first. Sometimes I’ll look at helpfulness if the most recent reviews aren’t helpful. Typically though, the most helpful reviews are also the oldest oldest/older reviews. For ongoing tv series, I find older reviews less helpful. I never look at prolific reviewers. I forgot that was even an option, lol. I use the iOS app, so my chosen setting is remembered.

MysteryTW: Thanks for the response. As a broad generalization, I find "helpful" reviews to be among the best written. I still like to read the most recent so that I can get a wider range, especially for many artsy type films where the "most helpful" all seem to belong to the same elitist film society, and they dare not stray from what is expected of them, regardless of how they really feel about a film. Otherwise, how could so many "most helpful" reviews give 10 and 9 ratings to some of the dullest, overly long films on the face of the earth? It's not possible. In these cases, I turn to "most recent" so that I get a better mix of opinions that are not necessarily written to please the "elitist film society". Also, the new reviewers deserve to be read and not ignored if they have something important to say.  Thanks again for the feedback! 

@martinols122 : Thanks for your important contribution to this conversation about the IMDb change in the order of the dropdown menu so that the category of "prolific reviewer" appears first. I agree about "most recent" as that category tends to give me the widest, least inhibited views of a film. I do also look at "most helpful" because my experience is that category is where the best written reviews are located. No offense to "prolific reviewers", but while the number of reviews they have written may be impressive by itself, those are not necessarily the "most helpful" reviews.  In many cases, they are the SAME reviewers for all of the movies of my interest, which is "unhelpful". As I've said in my other comments on the topic, the newer, unestablished reviewers deserve to be read if they have "helpful" ideas. If they are thrown on the bottom of the heap, they will never be read, which is unfair and "unhelpful". Thanks again for helping to draw attention to a very important matter.

@Teyss 

I’d settle for reviews 1) written in complete sentences, 2) spell-checked, and 3) (mostly) grammatically correct. I say “mostly” because everyone makes mistakes. There’s a huge difference between a mistake or two versus someone who isn’t even trying.

As far as length - I think that is tricky. Less than 3-4 sentences (depending on sentence length) doesn’t provide much information. I’ll read a paragraph or two if I haven’t seen something, but more than that I find to be too much. I’m just trying to get a sense for whether I will like something, not have everything broken down. I have read some wonderfully-written long reviews with a ton of detail; I feel like these belong on a discussion site, or somewhere where they are more likely to be appreciated. I’m not saying they don’t belong on IMDb, just that they might be more likely to be read and appreciated elsewhere (assuming there is an elsewhere). Hopefully there is an elsewhere and they are posted both places.

Now you have me wondering about the difference of review versus opinion specifically for IMDb user reviews. I’ve always considered them to basically be the same thing on IMDb. I’ve thought of them as “Did you like this [x]” and “why or why not?” (I don’t think I’ve written more than 2 or 3 reviews in the 15+ years I’ve been on IMDB.)

I’ve never understood the reviewers that just write, “It’s great” or “It’s crap.” There’s a rating system to “say” exactly those things.

For your last point, how would you know a user had read a review? You can’t do it by length of time. People read at different speeds. People could also just leave their phone open and ignore it until the required reading period was up - just like with ads.

@MysteryTW Thanks for your articulated contribution. I didn't say we could check a user read a review, just that without showing ratings they would have to actually read the review before assessing as "Helpful" or "Unhelpful" instead of blind clicking only based on rating. Unless of course the title is obvious such as "Great" or "Crap", but that generally doesn't happen for elaborate and nuanced reviews. And bots would definitely be useless then.

As for long reviews, there isn't really another place than IMDb for us non-professional reviewers since it's the most accessible, most user-friendly, most read site on this planet. I personally enjoy long reviews with thorough insight even if I don't agree with the content, gives me another POV on the movie.

Thanks again. I feel I am discussing with real movie fans here instead of an anonymous bunch just using a website to promote their ideas whatever they are.