Changes to formats supported for creating links within contributions

So you never had to look up a name to check if you were qv'ing the right name? Or look up a title to get the right title format? I sure did.

So, you like doing things the hard way, Peter?

Considering the number of homonyms in the IMDb -- bearing qualifying attributes like (I), (II)... check http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5031462/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 for instance --, I guess that is the easiest mean to be implemented.

Jeorj, if you think Peter is doing things the hard way, you must have never run into a case where qv really doesn't work, and there are plenty. This is a simpler and more complete way of doing things that is LONG overdue.

You got me there, Adrian. Indeed I cannot remember the last time that a "qv" link presented a problem, but I do know there have been times when I had to visit a name page to find out what the proper "qv" link would be. Ironically, I've had to do that more often in regards to title pages, especially episode titles, and that's ironic because a few contributors commenting here are stating the new system is more helpful in regards to names than titles.

I think Weird Al is completely impossible to link using the qv notation and his name. Referencing individual episodes of a TV show is hard as well, much easier using the title number.

Generally, opening up new windows isn't a problem, except when using the iPhone app, which at least from my personal experience, tends to reset very often when moved to the background. I haven't tried adding or correcting data using the new method yet, but I hope it works better than I expect. Using the iPhone app (or any browser on an iPhone, for that matter) to make submissions to IMDB is difficult enough as it is.

What do you mean, Q Leo Rahman?

Well, there are many different people with the same names, so using a number to identify the right name to use in a contribution would be helpful, not like using John Smith I, II, III or whoever. For titles, though, there aren't so many titles that are similar, so I'm not sure if using this method would help with titles. I hope that makes sense.

I appreciate your reply, Q Leo Rahman.

Apologies for this. We tried to minimize the possibility of issues during the roll-out of the changes, but we did cause an issue where allowing the correction of existing links did not work. This issue has now been fixed and the change is fully launched. Cheers, Rachel

Well, in that case, thank you, IMDb staff! Cheers back!

No, internal data is not stored in the text qv syntax.

Owen Rees, perhaps the problem has been fixed already. The last time I went to edit an actor's biography page, all the links were referenced in the "qv" syntax. Please, by all means, check it out for yourself.

What you see in the contribution system is not the internal format. The internal form is converted to text qv form for display and editing and the submitted data has qvs converted to the internal form. That text qv to id conversion is the cause of a lot of issues. The new system means that the conversion to internal form is straightforward and does not have the troublesome issues. There are some things that I think need fixing and which I believe should not be too difficult. These do not preserve the old text qv format, on the contrary, my preference would be to eliminate it completely.

Right. I did not mean the internal "internal format" such as the raw data of the database (SQL, Oracle or whatever). I meant the contribution interface, which is internal in the sense that it cannot be seen without clicking the "edit" button.

This is in reference to a specific contribution in which the links were removed altogether rather than manually changed to the entity key syntax, and apparently it went live, so, o, well.

Well, I've figured out a way to solve this problem: For those who think this "key-link" system for names and titles is such a wonderful idea, you're more than welcome to do as many of them as you want to, because I'm not going near them anymore. They're all yours. Contributing to IMdb used to be fun. Now it's getting to be nothing but a pain in the ass--"improvements" that make things more difficult, "changes" that make no sense, "explanations" that are so convoluted it's virtually impossible to figure out what they mean, and so on. This latest "improvement" is just more of the same. Have fun with it.

Please see https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0

Thank you for this example, we have fixed the links (to include the titles that we not previously linked). Cheers, Rachel

Alright. Thanks, Rachel. Please forgive me for flying off the hook. Some of the changes that have been happening in the past several months have really somewhat unhinged me. The main problem is that I feel like the IMDb staff is not listening to the contributors and subscribers.

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. I've updated this post to include the date we made the change. I wasn't sure what you meant by the entry page and the help guide, could you clarify? Cheers, Rachel

Thursday, November 16, 2017 I wasn't sure what you meant by the entry page and the help guide, could you clarify? by Rachel - - - I do not do many contributions here the "entry page" would be the one displayed in your message: An example of this feature is below: New#1 Peter Pan (qv) This change affects 23 different data types: •Plot Outline •Plot Summary •Crazy Credits add links there so contributors do not have to search help.imdb.com or getsatisfaction.com for your latest information ?? - - - Date for history examples https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0 Upcoming changes to several IMDb features Posted 2 weeks ago (Nov 4, 2017 ??) by Col Needham, Official Rep - - - https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/imdb_x_ray_now_has_more_features-wykf3 IMDb X-Ray now has more features! Along with the today’s announcement of the new Kindle HDX Posted 4 years ago (Sep 26 2013 ??) Rachel, Official Rep - - - IMDb Boards added the Time & Date to each message for all the world to see I write the date on batteries so I know how long they have been in use

Here at GS, post dates can be seen by hovering over days ago/hours ago tags (on a PC, at least): As I pointed out in my first reply, there is already a link to the help page in the update form when a contributor tries to use the old format.

Here at GS, post dates can be seen by hovering over days ago/hours ago tags (on a PC, at least): As I pointed out in my first reply, there is already a link to the help page in the update form when a contributor tries to use the old format. by Peter, Champion - - - I know about the post dates I would rather see the date than have to hover ( It is diffycult to copy the date into another message ) It is also a link to the message https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/changes-to-formats-supported-for-creating-links-within-contr... Is there a link to This thread in the update form for helpful chat ??

You can scrape the page and still acquire such information, ACT_1. The information is stored in the "title" attribute of the "ago" hyperlinks. On that note, I have something for you and everybody, a bookmarklet: javascript: ( function() { var l=document.links,i; for(i=0;i<l.length;i++) if ( Array.apply(void(0),l[i].parentNode.classList) .indexOf("timestamp")>=0 ) l[i].innerHTML+=" ("+l[i].title+")" } ) ()If you know what a bookmarklet is, then you already know what to do, otherwise to "install" the tool, you would highlight aforementioned source code (a JavaScript URI), copy it (to the clipboard) and paste it into URL field of a browser bookmark, whether already existing or newly created.

You can scrape the page and still acquire such information, ACT_1. The information is stored in the "title" attribute of the "ago" hyperlinks. On that note, I have something for you and everybody, a bookmarklet: by Jeorj Euler - - - Thank you I did not know what bookmarklet is javascripts are a little bit above my paygrade and for those 30 years younger than me You can post that somewhere that all can read ?? I will just have to read and type the hidden date not C&P if I want to use it - - - I just have a problem with IMDb and their date formats I am the only one that does Jeorj Euler IMDb member since November 2000 IMDb Member 17 years http://www.imdb.com/user/ur0932020/ ACT_l IMDb member since April 2000 IMDb Member 17 years "Registered: Sun Apr 30 2000" http://www.imdb.com/user/ur0706096/ fckdsystem IMDb member since November 2017 IMDb Member New user! (Fri Nov 17 2017) http://www.imdb.com/user/ur82400500/

You're welcome. To use a bookmarklet, you "visit" it while having the particular webpage (in all of the Web) as the active tab in your browser. You don't need to understand JavaScript or any scripting language to use a bookmarklet. I'm not sure where else to post it. Pastebin perhaps or something? We should check with David-CG. I wonder if he is on IMDb GS.

To use a bookmarklet, you "visit" it while having the particular webpage We should check with David-CG. I wonder if he is on IMDb GS. by Jeorj Euler 8 hours ago (Nov 18 2017) - - - You could save your javascript on your GS Profile page OOOOOPpppppssss - no you can't ! No room for fun stuff on that page like WE could on IMDb (See above list - My page!) - - - Chicago_gangster to David_CG Tue Apr 30 2013 IMDb member since December 2006 (Thu Dec 7 2006) http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13279695/ He had a collection of scripts for the Old IMDb Boards: http://userscripts.org/users/67626/scripts?sort=installs (authored) http://userstyles.org/users/14195 (authored) http://userscripts.org/users/67626/favorites?sort=posts (recommendations) Must-have IMDb add-ons: http://addons.mozilla.org/collection/imdb - - - David CG Joined March 15, 2017 https://getsatisfaction.com/people/David_CG https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/people/David_CG : Not on GS IMDb maybe a different name here ?? - - - https://www.google.com/search?q=site:getsatisfaction.com+David_CG https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/list_keywords_in_alphabetical_order?topic-reply-list%5Bsetti... List keywords in alphabetical order by ljdoncel, Champion 3 years ago (Sep 27 2014) Hey, David: Sorry for the delay in replying (I hadn't seen this thread until today that it's been bumped by Peter's response). You can get all the scripts made by David-CG, including IMDb Contributor, IMDb Message Boards plus or IMDb Plot Keywords alphabetizer, from this mirror site: http://userscripts-mirror.org/users/67626 David-CG Member since September 24, 2008 http://userscripts-mirror.org/users/67626/scripts - - - https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/-search-for-users by ACT_1 Posted 2 months ago (Sep 7 2017) - - - https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/perhaps-beyond-imdbs-staffs-control-but-get-satisfactions-se... Perhaps beyond IMDb's staff's control but Get Satisfaction's search algorithm is mediocre by Jeorj Euler Posted 3 days ago (Nov 15 2017)

The properly-encoded URI for that same source code is javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20l=document.links,i;for(i=0;i%3Cl.length;i++)if(Array.apply(void(0),l%5Bi%5D.parentNode.classList).indexOf(%22timestamp%22)%3E=0)l%5Bi%5D.innerHTML+=%22%20(%22+l%5Bi%5D.title+%22)%22%7D)(), by the way. I previously presented this with line breaks and indentation to make it easier to read and thereby easier to understand, which in turn helps a semi-experienced individual screen it for malicious script behavior and errors in the flow of control that could unintentionally cause problems with resource allocation on any computer on which it is executed, meaning that trusting me would not be requisite for understanding that the script is safe. Along the lines of those concerns, no forum on all of the world-wide web intentionally allows actual hyperlinks to script URIs to be published by people posting to the given forum (since malicious, greedy, nosy or deranged people [as bullies, advertisers, pranksters or whatever] would exploit it).

At this point in time this is not supported. Thanks, Rachel

Then please consider.

I support this request, which is completely consistent with so many format ways across website and webforums. And to be honest, I do not understand how the [link=reference] works out, how the system convert it to a html link. But since I never needs it, It is OK and I did not search a lot.

As part of the change described in this announcement, at this point in time only [link=const] is supported. Thanks, Rachel

Yes, yes. If it not too much to ask, then please consider that one too, IMDb staff.

Thank you for the feedback. By moving to a single method for linking data (which is not highly error prone, as the qv style was), we will be in a position to add extra features in the future. Your description of typing a name and a list of possible matches being displayed is an example of a future enhancement we can now consider if there is significant interest. Thanks, Rachel

That certain would be nice to have. With all do respect twards those who aren't good with always remembering off by heart the web addresses for each page to put into the [Link=URL].

Your description of typing a name and a list of possible matches being displayed is an example of a future enhancement we can now consider if there is significant interest.I would be very interested in that.

Add my "significant" interest to it too :)

Same said for me about having Significant Interest in that.

Hi, CuriousUserX90. In your petition description, you would be wise to include a screen capture of your contribution (IMDb entity tr3688509) rather than a link to it, or alternately an archive link of www.imdb.com/title/tt5220122/trivia.

Please see https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/contribution-information/when-will-my-update-be-added/GEK... The changes to the qv format will improve processing times over the long term. Unfortunately there was an unrelated technical issue which was causing a delay across all sections earlier in the week and we are catching-up now. You can always monitor specific processing times via https://contribute.imdb.com/times