Asian Cinema : IMDb Message Boards closing down on February 20

This message appeared today (about an hour ago) on all message boards I checked:

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IMDb Message Boards Announcement

IMDb is the worlds most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. As part of our ongoing effort to continually evaluate and enhance the customer experience on IMDb, we have decided to disable IMDbs message boards on February 20, 2017. This includes the Private Message system. After in-depth discussion and examination, we have concluded that IMDbs message boards are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide. The decision to retire a long-standing feature was made only after careful consideration and was based on data and traffic.

Increasingly, IMDb customers have migrated to IMDbs social media accounts as the primary place they choose to post comments and communicate with IMDbs editors and one another. IMDbs Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/imdb) and official Twitter account (https://twitter.com/imdb) have an audience of more than 10 million engaged fans. IMDb also maintains official accounts on Snapchat (https://www.snapchat.com/add/imdblive), Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/imdbofficial/), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/imdb), and Tumblr (http://imdb.tumblr.com/).

Because IMDbs message boards continue to be utilized by a small but passionate community of IMDb users, we announced our decision to disable our message boards on February 3, 2017 but will leave them open for two additional weeks so that users will have ample time to archive any message board content theyd like to keep for personal use. During this two-week transition period, which concludes on February 19, 2017, IMDb message board users can exchange contact information with any other board users they would like to remain in communication with (since once we shut down the IMDb message boards, users will no longer be able to send personal messages to one another). We regret any disappointment or frustration IMDb message board users may experience as a result of this decision.

IMDb is passionately committed to providing innovative ways for our hundreds of millions of users to engage and communicate with one another. We will continue to enhance our current offerings and launch new features in 2017 and beyond that will help our customers communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways while leveraging emerging technologies and opportunities.

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I really enjoyed our discussions and got lots of information as well as interesting tips.
Good-bye to you all and thank you!

At this moment, I still hope this decision will be repealed. Remember the emoticons?

each brain develops its own preferences

Wow. I hate when they do this kind of thing.

Another forum out there to keep the discussion going? Sitenoise? Any ideas? I think you said you use letterboxd.

I have always appreciated the great crowd here and the civility of the discourse, which you don't find on most internet forums with more anonymous users! Where to next?

There's only five or ten of us here but it still feels like a party. I'm surprised things lasted this long. Years ago when IMDb turned over their commenting system to FaceBunk, I assumed the message boards would soon follow.

Letterboxd doesn't have a "lounge", so to speak (or PMs). I spend a lot more time there than I do here, but it's of the "crawling around" variety. Interactivity is pretty much one-to-one. I have this anal thing about wanting access to histories, making lists, which isn't much of a need for others here at IMDb, so it works well for me, probably not so much for others.

!!IT WOULD BE PERFECT FOR EBO!! (and in turn wonderful for many of us)

Oops. Did I say that out loud?

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I'm sitenoise. I'm all over the internet. If any of you lovely people want to find me, it's pretty easy. I thought about suggesting a thread where we could all post contact info, but if folks don't already have a big fat public face on the internets they probably don't want to start now.

This is heartbreaking news

This stinks.

YouTube Asian Movie Review Channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/anticlimacus100

Sad news, but over the years less and less people have been using it in general and more and more people use it to spam and troll. Its been great sharing our films with each other and our experiences and it wont be forgotten. Thanks all. Ed

My foreign film list http://www.imdb.com/list/z86jRjauDwE/

What's the best place to talk about Asian movies (or dramas)? Which forums are all of you members of?

Sometimes I talk about Asian movies on http://www.icmforum.com/. Asian movie discussion is mostly mixed in with discussion about other movies, but you can make a thread about Asian movies if you want. There are movie-watching challenges each month, and occasionally they focus on specific Asian countries. They also had a "favorite Japanese movies" poll a few years ago (https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/icm+forums+favorite+japanese+movies/rokp/).

Sometimes I use http://mydramalist.com/ (a website about Asian movies and dramas), but I haven't spent much time on their forum, so I don't know if it's a good forum.

If anyone wants to contact me after the IMDb forum closes, you can contact me at either https://www.icheckmovies.com/profiles/mjf314/ or http://www.icmforum.com/profile/173550/.

Made a petition, almost a 1000 signatures in 6 hours

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-keep-the-imdb-messageboards-going#

thanks for posting! Would be nice if they change heart.

No problems Almost 5000 signatures now, which is the current signature goal but I can change that at any time and people can still go over that amount.

Feel free to spread the word around other boards and twitter and stuff of that nature.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-keep-the-imdb-messageboards-going#

I stopped protesting about imdb and decided to take action.

I got together with 3 more people and we created a forum, with similar categories and forums than imdb, so we can continue to interact after this forum is closed.

The forum was done in 24 hours, its now accepting registrations, has facebook login/register and it's 75% done in the categories.

I invite all of you to join, collaborate, suggest new sections and make this forum your own.

https://www.imdforums.com



Alex Vojacek

good work!

I'm not ready to post my farewell message yet so IMDb better change its mind!!!!!!

The message boards here is the only forum I join, I don't have any social media so this is the only outlet I have for my thoughts.

This is so disheartening.

If you guys decide to meet up on another forum, make sure to invite me! I like the people here. Not snobs. All civil and level-headed.





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Age of Loneliness-

I've actually been wanting to spend less time on the internet, but this is still bad news. As much as I wanted, I just can't find anyone irl that I can talk about asian cinema. I've recommended some asian films to a few friends before but they didn't show any interest.

Someone will probably create an alternative to the imdb message boards before this place shuts down. if that happens we can all meet there on the asian films subforum. if it doesn't, this is a goodbye then, it was fun while it lasted.

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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

(not really responding to you directly, Daniel, just working out my thoughts on whether 'somewhere else' is an option)

If a bunch of people want to get together and talk about Jesus, doing it in a church provides some extra comfort. If the church shuts down discussions, and those people meet in a coffee shop, the feeling is different.

Having our discussions here on IMDb is sort of like our movie church. Or something like that.

My experience of "Asian Film Discussion" elsewhere is that it's almost exclusively one of three things:

1) Japanese films from the 50s & 60s (with a few famous, more contemporary cartoons thrown in)
2) "Classic" grunting man Hong Kong flicks
3) Up-to-the-minute discussions of j/k-dramas/movies from an idol-worship perspective

I don't know anywhere else where people talk about the broad swath of contemporary East Asian cinema. I don't know anywhere else where someone has seen 75 Takashi Miike films. Even the places that make it possible for us to see and discuss the things we do (you and comrade Z know where I'm talking about), don't have anything going on like we have hereand we don't really have much, but it's our church, and we at least feel free to explore our passion.

I totally get why IMDb is doing this. I think. There are probably millions of people a day who look at these forums and the individual movie/actor discussion boards. And as far as I can tell there are no Ads on these pages. If even a small percentage of these people flop over to Facebunk, well $$$.

I am totally shocked about the two week timeline, however. Seems mean spirited. But it means they only have to listen to the "small passionate" group complain about for that long. Then Poof!

Exactly, there is no other option (even on the internet). I've been before on both mydramalist.com and .info and these are better places to talk about asian dramas. the avistaz forum is also very weak.

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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

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elsewhere is that it's almost exclusively one of three things:

1) Japanese films from the 50s & 60s (with a few famous, more contemporary cartoons thrown in)
2) "Classic" grunting man Hong Kong flicks
3) Up-to-the-minute discussions of j/k-dramas/movies from an idol-worship perspective

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Amen brother, you hit the nail on the head. I think you mean also in the sites that are oriented toward asian cinephiles, the snobby critic stuff too, it's all kurusawa this naruse that. Most discussion is Kurusawa, Miyazaki, Bruce Lee, and k-slobber.

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I don't know anywhere else where people talk about the broad swath of contemporary East Asian cinema.

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Exactly. There isn't one, but I think there must be many more people out there who are into it on that level. I find it really exciting the way that the living art of cinema interacts with social reality in Asia, through these sort of films we talk about, which are mostly not blockbusters or international-arthouse, but rather just middle-sized Japanese, Korean, and Chinese movies.

You guessed it, I have no interest in a Face**** group. I don't use fb and in my day job I advertise to people on fb, and it never ceases to amaze me the information people volunteer about themselves. Not worth it. IMDB is owned by Amazon now, not fb (is that what you were thinking?) but yeah it's undoubtedly a decision based on ad spending and zero chance they're going to roll it back. They are handling this like when you fire someone on wall street and they have to throw their *beep* in a cardboard box and frogmarch out immediately.

Maybe a better forum for this conversation will gel somewhere. The small congregation of regulars make it uncommonly civil that's the reason I don't get into it with most online forums.

I find it ironic that I still have most of the correspondence I ever had with people up until 2000, and after that, almost all of it disappears, permanently. Never really gets shifted to the next computer or whatever

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k-slobber

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lol

I went and read some of Col Needhams posts about this. Two things interested me:

He says MORE people leave IMDb because of forum bullying and abuse than well, I forget. But just the fact that he quotes that as an issue surprised me.

The forums have no mobile life. Everything is about mobile. I can attest to the fact that using their mobile app to access the forums simply doesn't work. Hasn't ever worked.

I guess the third thing is that he is interested in "Permanent" data on IMDb. Forums don't contribute to that.

Anyway blah blah blah



I found someone linked to this site:

http://www.movieforums.com/community

I suggest we nominate sweet morning dew eyes to go over there and ask if they'd create an East Asian Forum for us. And a Horror forum for EBO and friends.

I've been on s4.zetaboards.com/fg3/forum for almost 7 years. You can't see the threads unless you are registered but this is how it looks:

http://oi68.tinypic.com/2aeza86.jpg

http://oi64.tinypic.com/313jgap.jpg

Despite having very few regular users nowadays, it has a massive library of knowledge and opinions. It's like a small family.

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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

I remember you suggested that board once before. I couldn't (still can't) get past the captcha to register. Maybe because I don't have Flash on my system? Adblocking? I'm screwed on pretty tight

I don't think it has anything to do with adblock, I logged out and could see the captcha when I tried to register. I'm using chrome btw.

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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

I just hit the reload about 30 times and it finally gave me something I could read. I give the place a mingle over the weekend

Cool. That place has very few regular users but they enjoy any type of film.
Check the last movie watched + rate it thread. I think it would be a good place for us to share our opinions on asian films (ok I do it already :P). And since this is such a small community, we could see just each others' posts most of the time.



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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

Sooooo everyone seems to be moving to this new place http://imdb2.freeforums.net/ which is nothing more than a clone of the imdb message boards, but it means that there's an asian board for us there.

I don't use facebook and I don't care about reddit.

This forum doesn't look bad http://www.icmforum.com/index/ but it doesn't have a place to come and talk about asian cinema only. There's also http://www.movieforums.com/ which suffers from the same problem.

And yeah, there's this place that I suggested http://s4.zetaboards.com/fg3/index/ which I've been for 7 years. Very few regular users, so we could see each others' posts everytime. sitenoise already gave it a try.

What do you think?

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Favourite films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006514680/

I think the real action is going to be at

https://www.imdforums.com/index.php

The admin from that imdb2.freeforms place you linked to is onboard at imdforums and I think they are just going to merge. imdforums has waaay better software and it looks like the guys know what they are doing.

I mingled around the http://s4.zetaboards.com/fg3/index .. Seems like a pleasant low-key spot. I'm sure I'll hang around there a bit, but I think the imdforums is probably a good choice for us imdb regulars to pretend like nothing happened

icmforum.com doesn't have a sub-section for Asian cinema, but threads devoted to Asian cinema would definitely be allowed (or you could even make a thread devoted to recent Japanese films, if you want). There are some members who watch a lot of Asian films.

There's a new "Favorite Japanese Movies" poll in case anyone wants to participate. The voting thread just got created today: http://www.icmforum.com/topic/10123660/1/

The asian movies forum on the Around the World category has been created today and we are open to suggestions from all imdb forum participants at imdforums.

Come visit us !

Site style will change in the coming days as we keep adding new stuff to the forums.

Alex Vojacek

I just wanted to chime in before the board goes dark. I haven't posted much, but I've always enjoyed keeping up with the Asian Cinema message board. I'm a big fan of Asian cinema, and fairly knowledgeable, and the few times I've posted I hope have been helpful. Anyway, just stepping in to say "thanks" to the other Asian movie fans who've made this message board a very interesting place.

Make sure you follow us on the other boards that we are referencing. I'm only posting on one of them right now: https://www.imdforums.com/forums/asian-cinema.118/

YouTube Asian Movie Review Channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/anticlimacus100

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I'm only posting on one of them right now: https://www.imdforums.com/forums/asian-cinema.118/ - ebossert

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https://www.imdforums.com is the one I preferred also.

I also registered at http://imdb2.freeforums.net/ via https://www.proboards.com/ to try out http://imdb2.freeforums.net/board/89/asian-cinema. But I decidedly prefer imdforums.

The forum https://www.imdforums.com/forums/asian-cinema.118/ is even more active as of today (now 7 threads, 171 replies). I just added some activity at http://imdb2.freeforums.net/board/89/asian-cinema (now 5 threads, 18 replies).

It's totally the other way around for Indian Cinema: 1 thread, 3 replies at https://www.imdforums.com/forums/indian-cinema.120/, but 63 threads, 417 posts on http://imdb2.freeforums.net/board/91/indian-cinema. But since the Indian Cinema Board at IMDb was since years more a chat room than a film discussion board, it's no wonder.

each brain develops its own preferences

This place was like a gem in the sea of IMDb morass.