IMDb message boards

This is deeply saddening and frustrating. A harsh reminder once again, of just how out of touch administration is from the customer base. How does a decision like this even get proposed, let alone implemented?

Closing the boards is a terrible idea. I've been reading, posting and responding for years and enjoyed many interesting conversations. One of the strengths of the boards is exchanges that can stretch over several years and closing them in favour of currently fashionable (and cheaper?) social media is a really poor short term decision. I've also added program and cast details and have a little to do list that I guess it's not worth doing now. You may well find that a significant slice of your regular visitors simply drop off if there is no suitable medium to comment on films and thier themes - I certainly see less reason to visit once IMDb just becomes just a reference site.
(Apologies if this is a duplicate entry, cannot see my 1st attempt)

The "small and passionate community" that use the message boards also happen to be the people who made IMDb what it is today.  I have been a member for 17 years and was using the site even before that.

We are the people who submit changes to the main database to fix mistakes, add new information, etc.  Some of that information comes from users who do not know how to do that, so post it in the message boards.

Without us and the message boards, IMDb will fall into disrepair.  Not to mention the vast amount of information that is only appropriate for a message board but is still hugely relevant to people interested in movies/TV shows.

Rather than killing the message boards you should be making them more public.  Link them into Amazon so that people looking to buy a movie/TV show can see what is being discussed.

Social media is absolutely useless for this sort of thing as its not one central discussion for each movie.  There is no way to find historic discussions easily either.  The whole beauty of IMDb is I can go find a movie made 30 years ago and see what people have discussed about it.  Its foolish and short sighted to destroy that.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Please Keep IMDb message boards for all the users sake.

Hi this is a problem IMDb are shutting down the message boards please solve this problem and keep the massage boards.

The 'troll' argument is a red herring because the imdb barely lifted a finger to deal with it. Also they have never seriously prevented me from enjoying posts authored by everybody else.

From Col Needham: "We have reached the point where most of our customers do not even know they exist; many that do know about them have been scared away after bad experiences."

So instead of showcasing a prime feature, they get rid of it. Shame on you IMDB.  

Save the message board, please. It's been one of my internet landmarks since forever.

I have been a member of IMDB for 14 years and I use the message boards constantly. I strongly urge you to not disable the message boards! All of your stated reasons for disabling the boards are bogus. It should be obvious to anyone that the other social media platforms you mention in no way substitute for the IMDB message boards, not Facebook, not Twitter, not Snapchat, not YouTube, and not Tumblr. I can say unequivocably that there is no other platform where you can so easily find answers to and discuss detailed, sometimes technical, questions about a movie and its interpretation. You say that your decision was driven by traffic, but surely the IMDB message boards are the most popular movie message boards on the web. I can tell you from many years of personal experience using and reading the message boards that there are dozens and in some cases hundreds of threads for nearly every movie released. At the very least, your loyal message board users deserve an honest reason for the your decision. If your hidden agenda has to do with trolling and the negative comments, after having used the message board for hundreds of hours over a period of 14 years, I have never found negative comments to be intrusive and excessive. You mention YouTube as one of the alternatives to the IMDB message boards. Have you actually visited YouTube and looked at the comments section? The comments there are maybe 50 to 75% negative, whereas the comments on the IMDB message boards are probably less than 15% negative. In addition, I find that the negative comments on the IMDB message boards are much more polite than you will find on YouTube and many other sites. I can echo the opinions of many other commenters here that the negative comments on the IMDB message boards are only a minor annoyance. They are not a justification for shutting down the boards. If a small percentage of negative comments were a legitimate reason to shut down your message boards, then every forum and social media site on the web would have to shut down their comments section! You claim that you want to help your customers "communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways". If that is so, why are you shutting down one of the most useful platforms that your customers have to communicate with each other about movies! Instead of disabling the message boards, what you should be doing is looking for ways to improve them. If you are not happy with the number of users who are going to the message boards for information, then don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Figure out a way to make your message boards more useful! For example, I've never understood why your message boards don't have a search feature like almost every other forum on the web has.

Col,
You state traffic and data are behind the decision, and I believe you. I assume it is a matter of cost per visit - the boards probably produce more pain to the company than benefit. So as a business decision it is probably a smart one - the database is a database and this is what it is.

The loss of community will be hard to judge, but I see on the thread here that I am not alone in feeling it.

So many 'friends' of over a decade who have their connection on boards and PM's. I appreciate the time to allow people to exchange details to keep in touch, but I think you know life does not work like that...it is like in villages or small towns - losing a community hall, a pub, or even a corner store tends to fragment the community due to the loss of a shared hangout...they could still interact 1-to-1, but it is not the same.

This is how those who consider specific boards 'home' will feel - having 100 individual email addresses is not the same as being in a "room" with 100 people around you virtually.

I guess it will have a knock-on on the database benefits of the community. Will people want to submit data to a cold database without that sense of 'community' (which you yourself fostered with your annual PM's and board posts on the top contributors). I assume you must have factored in the loss of data and probably it will not be big since the majority of the site is not reliant on individuals typing data off the screen.

It makes me wonder about user comments, and other 'non-factual' and more 'social' elements of the site. Will they be next I wonder? I guess they will be since the amateur user comments are no match for the polish of the metacritic aggregation tool.

There are other benefits to the boards other than community of course. I mean, where else can I post a question on an obscure film, only for it to be answered a few years later by someone else. Twitter, Reddit, etc - they do not have this ability.

However, the loss of the sense of a community will be what hurts me the most - and I am sure you will feel it too, even if the numbers overruled the heart in your decision. I will of course keep visiting IMDb for data, and to leave my opinion on films I watch (for as long as you allow that to continue), but the site will be a lesser place as it transforms from a social club filled with data into a silent library with single-occupancy cubicles.

bob the moo

note: I am not staff nor in any way affiliated with IMDb

Please do not get rid of the message boards. Facebook is no valid substitute.

IMDB is different from other similar movie websites because it has a message board. No boards...I will probably stop coming.  I have come to these boards since the early 2000's.  Who made the decision?  The web traffic will be severely hindered if the boards go away. 

I was responding to a thread on IMDb about this whole stupid decision, and I wrote out something that I think is very apt about why this is such a bad idea, and I'd like to share it.

When I hear about a possible new movie, or when I watch something older and think that that guy in an episode of SOAP is Fat Tony on Simpsons, who went on to play David Rossi on Criminal Minds, then IMDb is the first place I will go to find out.

For the record, that was a true story, except that my wife was the one who noticed that. I was cooking at that point and wasn't paying attention. However...

Without the boards, I think that I will end up just googling any question instead, because without the boards, I won't be coming to IMDb without having a specific question in mind. I come to IMDb every day to see what's going on on the BOARDS, not any other part of the entire site. The boards are what keep me coming back, nothing else.

Any 'question' I have can be easily answered by good old Google, usually in less time than it takes me to navigate IMDb.

What the...IMDb, are you freaking serious!?

I mean, I realise that the Message Boards have some limitations - the biggest of which is that they are not searchable, which results in similar questions being posted over and over... but to simply close down an internet institution (and I don't think I'm overstating it as such) without so much as any form of viable replacement??

And giving only about 2 WEEKS' NOTICE?? That is unforgivable, and a slap in the face to long-time users such as me (member since 2002!) who have long ago come to regard the Boards as THE place to head to immediately after watching a movie or TV show.

You claim that they have been replaced by social media, which is a load of BS, because I want to discuss about movies and individual episodes with like-minded people, and I want to be able to do that in one single forum - not in a multitude of different social media forums, thank you very much.

Listen IMDb, just what is it about the Message Boards that you suddenly, with 2 weeks' notice, have decided is so bad or unfixable that you in your supposed wisdom must ANNIHILATE them, NUKE them if you will??

I put it to you that you do not even have the RIGHT to do that - after what has it been - more than 20 years of user contributions from 100s of 1000s of users all over the world? This is arguably PUBLIC CONTENT that is INVALUABLE, and of knowledgeable, historic significance.

What you are doing is tantamount to bulldozing the pyramids, with the excuse that "Oh well, nobody really uses them anymore, everyone is using social media now, so there is no need to visit the actual pyramids anymore, people can just see pictures in the internet."

With the difference, of course, that this IS the internet, and without the Message Boards' content staying where it has always been - or perhaps at least moving it to another platform where it will at least still be freely available - LIKE IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN - it will simply cease to exist.

As you can tell, I am astounded that you would even consider this - and whilst attempting to control my language to the best of my abilities, I would respectfully as you to reconsider. Thank you.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Who is the moron at imbd who thinks closing the message board is good idea? It's....

Who is the moron at imbd who thinks closing the message board is a good idea? It's one of the best features when discussing a movie we like.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled I agree with your decision to terminate the message boards--they are far too nega....

I agree with your decision to terminate message boards--they are far too negative.