karen_'s profile
Employee

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

Wednesday, December 6th, 2017 7:51 PM

Closed

Updates to List Pages

Today (Dec 6) we are announcing an update to the List pages on the IMDb desktop experience. This update is part of the broader site changes announced recently (https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0). After in-depth discussion and examination, we have decided to simplify the features and functionality for lists. We have merged “compact view” and list editing into a single Edit experience. In that one view, you can now modify your text and add, copy, delete and move items. We have also pulled List actions (edit, export, settings) together into a 1-click menu (the 3 vertical dots on the top right of the page). You will now also find two new options in the Refine menu: ‘In Theaters’ and ‘Keywords.’  Tech constraints on the new system prohibit us from continuing to support drag-and-drop from the Edit view; we appreciate your understanding. For more information about Lists, see the IMDb Help Center.

Official Response

Employee

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7.3K Messages

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179.2K Points

7 years ago

The next change resulting from the technology migration is now live -- you can now create and edit lists (add/remove items) on the IMDb Android app.  Please see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/imdb-android-lists-update 

Official Response

Employee

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7.3K Messages

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179.2K Points

7 years ago

Basically I hope that IMDb wants to make Lists into a superb feature. 
This is 100% true, as is everything on https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 which is driving the wider changes. 

If the customer feedback makes it seem more negative than it's worth (like message boards?), they might decide to pull the plug. 
No danger of this -- lists are a core feature of IMDb and are from where IMDb originates. The latest changes have already enabled us to add list editing to our Android app at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/imdb-android-lists-update which brings full list support to more than 100 million additional customers who did not have it before this week (see install count on https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imdb.mobile).

What we especially appreciate from you are the clear, constructive and actionable feedback items.  We will not be able to get to all of them in 2017 (see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 :-) but they are going on a prioritized list for consideration by the appropriate teams. 

Thanks. 

28 Messages

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1.9K Points

Colin, question; in the midst of these updates, are you planning to add a feature where we can find lists on IMDb?  Because right now, there's no way.  You can't go through the most popular ones, the most likes, the only ones you can see are those that have been most recently made or by using google, which is limited usually to a scant few popular ones, we're talking about maybe a few dozen.  Right now, the only way that we can make others remotely aware of our lists is to include links on others' lists, in a 'if I comment on yours, could you comment on mine' sort of way.

A feature like this would make lists far, far more accessible, hugely increasing views and therefore ad money. 

Champion

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19.4K Messages

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477K Points

Hi Chris,

Until IMDb adds the ability to search for a list with IMDb you can use Google to do this kind of search.

This is the general form to add to the search box:
site:imdb.com/list {search terms}

where {search terms} is word or phrase for which you are searching.

For instance, if you are search for lists related to Christmas.

Enter, this in the Google search box.
site:imdb.com/list Christmas

This produces the link:
https://www.google.com/search?ei=8642WvCdCMvImAHL5a24Dg&q=site%3Aimdb.com%2Flist+Christmas&o...

You, other IMDb users and I have requested an indigenous IMDb list search for the last five years. Such a search would be more convenient and useful. However, this approach works fine in most cases.

If you agree that a list search facility would be useful,
you can indicate your support by clicking the "+LIKE" button
or by posting a reply on the request thread at:
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/i_think_a_search_engine_for_list_name_is_necessary

10.7K Messages

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225.4K Points

How much revenue do those 100 million additional customers bring to the site?! How much data contribution and troll suppression do they bring?! Why do they matter so much?! Is it just because there are a whole lot of them?! Whatever...

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. Here is a list of updates we've made over the past week (Jan 19):
  • We added pagination to image lists to fix an issue causing browser crashes with large lists
  • We increased the number of items you can see in a list (up to 250 per page) to help users with long lists move items around since drag-and-drop is no longer available
  • Bug fix: If you have a list of 1000+ titles and add another, the total count is now updated correctly
  • Bug fix: We fixed an issue that was causing problems for Kindle Fire users who wanted to reorder list items

Already implemented:
  • Improved list item validation. You can no longer add invalid items, for example, if you accidentally mistype an image ID you will get an error so you know to correct it. Also, if an image is no longer available, you have the ability to delete it so that your list item count is accurate [DONE]
  • Improved the list creation form so that it accepts & and + (for list name and description) [DONE] 
  • Improved list display on Your Activity page (aka your Profile page) so that long list display names wrap to multiple lines [DONE]
I'll update this thread weekly. Thanks for your ongoing feedback and for bearing with us as we make updates to the new system.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.3K Points

Karen, Official Rep

You said:
  • We increased the number of items you can see in a list (up to 250 per page) to help users with long lists move items around since drag-and-drop is no longer available
How do we control this number of items we see? I still get 100 per page (and that's good for normal situations).

54 Messages

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3.2K Points

It looks like that was only changed for edit mode.  If they would please increase it to 250 for viewing purposes that would be a step in the right direction.  Hopefully they can reinstate compact mode after that.

77 Messages

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4.7K Points

updates to the new system
don't you mean "fix what you broke" or "go back to what we had previously"

I often read here about 'community' but your autocratic changes show you care little of the community that uses your website.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.3K Points


I too found that Edit mode now displays 250 titles, but find no option to reduce that to 100.

Ironically, Edit mode is the least efficient at displaying thumbnails, since it is dynamically compressing an extra-large image into a tiny space, and takes visibly longer to finish loading than other types of pages. See this thread for more documentation, posted 10 hours ago: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/site-constantly-loading-yet-fully-loaded?topic-reply-list[se...

I suppose the good news is we can open multiple tabs/windows of Edit mode to see both where the title is and where it's going, and have the number of titles/page match. 

But this is no substitute for drag-and-drop. As documented again in more detail 3 days ago here https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-list-pages?topic-reply-list[settings][filter_by]=a..., moving titles within lists is a messy business. I don't know if there IS a fool-proof way of moving multiple titles at once and have them land in the exact location you want (at least not without the human understanding the algorithm so well you can predict where it will land). 

If we have to move 1 title at a time to ensure its location, then we need to refresh  (potentially multiple pages) after each move. With a longer Edit view, that means longer refresh time, and needing to use ctrl-F and other keyboard shortcuts to get to the place on the page that you need. This implies that we need an option to display only 100 titles in Edit mode.

It also implies that we still need drag/drop! As I recall, it was only 50 titles/page for that view, probably because things get wobbly with dynamic "card" placement.

77 Messages

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4.7K Points

Edit mode is the least efficient at displaying thumbnails, since it is dynamically compressing an extra-large image into a tiny space, and takes visibly longer to finish loading than other types of pages.
Correct. Shows how little IMDb programmers know about web design. And seriously what does a 40px x 57px image do to a page except add a little color. It is so small it might as well not be there. Which is exactly the point.

BRING BACK COMPACT MODE.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. Here is the progress update for the week ending Jan 26. This week:
  • We improved the performance of list editing for users with large lists
  • We added links to checklist, watchlist, and ratings to the top of Your Lists page

30 Messages

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1.4K Points

The active links to external websites (e.g. Youtube) stopped functioning again.
Here's an example
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls005313331/

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. Here is the progress update for the week ending Feb 2.
  • We fixed an issue that was causing encoded characters in list descriptions to display incorrectly.
  • We fixed an issue on the Showtimes page that caused the Watchlist ribbon to render incorrectly when viewing trailers. 
Additionally, see the iOS update announcement here: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/ios-update-version-8-5-1-now-available. We've updated lists on iOS with the ability to add or edit notes to any movie, show, or person.

24 Messages

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588 Points

It would  be nice if the a 'Synopsis' column is added in the .csv export.
The 'Description' column serves for user's comments only.

Like this...

-

-

24 Messages

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588 Points

Also ..
would like to have the 'Original Title' included if possible, i.e. basically what is in the header of the movie.

-

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. Here is the weekly update for the week ending Feb 9:
  • You can now add a title or name to a list by entering a full URL in the edit list search box ("Add a movie or TV show to this list:")
  • Your ratings now appear in your exported lists
  • We fixed an issue that was causing encoded characters on Your Activity page to display incorrectly

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone Here is the update for the week ending Feb 16.
  • We improved list reordering to make edits work more predictably.
We're continuing to work on additional sort options; I'll post announcements when they are available.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.3K Points

Karen, Official Rep

Here's a simple example that still fails (destination also placed in comment to track success/failure). Note, title 3 is unaltered; so what was ABCDE is supposed to come out EDCBA:

And here's the failed result of Save List Order, instead of EDCBA, is ECDBA:

Here's a simpler one; just move the first title before the 4th one:

and the result is NOT what the human wanted.

(I won't clutter the post here, but moving a title ABOVE it's current position DOES give the expected result, as it did previously.)

So there is not much improvement since the idea exchange back here on 17 Jan:
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-list-pages?topic-reply-list[settings][filter_by]=a...

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-list-pages?topic-reply-list[settings][filter_by]=a...

I wonder if the techs have considered my comments here:
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/update-to-list-pages?topic-reply-list[settings][filter_by]=a...
specifically:
I mentioned ... that Information Science has studied the problem of sorting/merging extensively. But I'll bet most if not all academic articles on the subject deal with an objective, unchanging key by which the items should be sorted.
Hopefully IMDb staff are realizing that when we specify that we want an item to appear before the title  currently at position n, they need to hang on to the actual title, not just the number n. Otherwise many combinations of moving more than one title at a time will fail.
"Position n" is apparently still NOT an objective unchanging key when certain combinations of moves are requested.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone.  Here is the update announcement for this week (the week ending Feb 23):
  • We added an additional list view option. In addition to Detail and Grid, there is now also an option for Compact view.

77 Messages

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4.7K Points

But still no refine in edit mode. Makes editing a list near to impossible.

54 Messages

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3.2K Points

THANK YOU!

54 Messages

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3.2K Points

One more little request can you do 250 per page like it is in edit mode?

26 Messages

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724 Points

What is the status of bringing back the ability to edit the "Description box" of an IMDb entry? I am hoping that in addition to creating [b]BOLD[/b] and [i]italic[/i] (currently the only editing features I am aware that are available), I would like to once again colorize my text. Colors like [blue]BLUE[/blue], [red]RED[/red] or any of the other colors once available on: https://www.imdb.com/activity/help/descriptionmarkup would be GREAT!!

54 Messages

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3.2K Points

Also if you could set default views for our lists.

Another thing which I'm sure you haven't got to yet is to include the vote amounts next to the average IMDB score and any score that is 7 should be 7.0 or 8 should be 8.0 just so it aesthetically look better like it does in edit mode.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. No updates to Lists today  (Mar 2) as we are currently prepping for Oscars.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. No updates to Lists today (Mar 9); posting for completeness.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. No updates to Lists this week (week ending Mar 16); posting for completeness.

Official Response

Employee

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73 Messages

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5.7K Points

7 years ago

Hi everyone. Thanks for your patience and feedback as we've released List features over the past 3 months. This will be the last of the weekly updates to this announcement thread, but please keep adding ideas for future List ideas here: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb?topic-list[settings][type]=idea I'll post new announcements on Get Satisfaction as we release new features and functionality in the future.

423 Messages

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14.4K Points

7 years ago

How can I effortlessly move a new entry on a very long list (lets say number 550) to page 3, position 250. Before the change, it was easy as I could just go to page 3 in edit mode, add it there and drag it to the exact position where I want it. But now it always puts new entries to the very end of the list.

Champion

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14.4K Messages

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329.9K Points

7 years ago

If regular lists can have added refine features, why can't the ratings list have any?

Champion

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14.4K Messages

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329.9K Points

Didn't get a reply to this. It's an honest question.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.3K Points

You probably want an official reply, as do I.

An interesting tidbit that emerged somewhere in this thread: the Ratings are in a separate "system" than the lists. That's why adding the personal rating column back into the Export is taking so much longer than the director, release date and url did.

I also wonder why the presentation of the Refine options is so different on Watchlist & Checkin than on custom lists. And why is their Export option down at the bottom of the page instead of under a 3-dot button at top? These notions have nothing to do with back-end infrastructure. Unless they are designed to hide the fact that we have fewer Refine options on WL and C, which could be due to backend data structure. 

Champion

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14.4K Messages

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329.9K Points

Thanks. I have no particular understanding of the technical issues, it just seems odd.

15 Messages

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820 Points

We recognize that this isn't ideal, particularly for those with many lists, and we plan to iteratively update it as this is an important piece of the IMDb experience.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.3K Points

@sv, Official Rep

Please clarify to what you were responding in this comment:
http://email.getsatisfaction.com/wf/click?upn=Gf15zKkQ5xF-2FJchx2RlboEZCOWJo71NP9bexmc7o9m-2Bb0WYK-2...

We recognize that this isn't ideal, particularly for those with many lists, and we plan to iteratively update it as this is an important piece of the IMDb experience.
It is attached to Peter's reply: 
If regular lists can have added refine features, why can't the ratings list have any?
To which I also had a lengthy comment/question about Refine options looking very different on custom lists versus Watchlist and Checkins.

1 Message

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382 Points

7 years ago

The edit options appears to be broken. I'm not able to rearrange my list now. We used to be able to click and drag titles.