Classic Film : Can IMDB just close the Boards that are unpopular?

Why close very popular boards such as "classic film" and "movies", etc.?
Why not just close the Boards that don't have many people posting to them?
And they can close Boards that have become too x-rated and juvenile.

I think it's horrendous to close Boards that many mature people enjoy and find useful as it pertains to movies.

Maybe if enough people can voice their dissatisfaction it can help?

You do not understand, a dollar is always a dollar. This is a cost cutting move, read between these lines for the real reason - movies, tv and celebrity content make the money for this site, not opinions. The next thing to go will be user reviews, for the same reason.

IMDb is the world's 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 IMDb's message boards on February 20, 2017. This includes the Private Message system. After in-depth discussion and examination, we have concluded that IMDb's 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.

A Smile is priceless and Can Be Addicting

The sad reality is that it is their "space" on the web and it has just gotten too difficult for them to handle. They won't have to pay for "storage" and the people to maintain both the hardware and the messages.

In the current political climate, there is no way to put the toothpaste back into the tube at this point.

I find it sad that there will no longer be a place to discuss specific films and have the Q&A's remain for years to come.to have been able to have told someone who sang the part of Joe in the "Blue Monday" segment of "Rhapsody in Blue" of the name of the violin concerto played by Julie Andrews in "Duet for One" will be leaving shortly.

All the world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.

If people don't look at the site in protest of shutting down the Boards, then IMDB will make no money and defeats the purpose. I for one, think it's so horrendous to that, I would hope people that enjoy these boards for years and years don't just say "that's the way it goes" without at least expressing their feelings. There is always strength in numbers. This is no reason to disable all of the Boards here. That is a nasty thing to dovery distasteful.

Imdb says they've run the numbers and only a miniscule % of their 250,000,000 users every month use the message boards. Plus the old software the boards use prevents imdb placing adds and selling advertising on them. They're a costly, crappy technology boat anchor. So they say.

There used to be a lot of ads on every movie board. Always with a link to buy the dvd or stream off Amazon. Like someone recently said they were forced into taking down those links to the Amazon site. But the streaming option remains.

Shutting down the week before The Oscars is really annoying, but it could be they can't handle all of the posts that will generate.

All the world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.

The boards are running on old software imdb wants to ditch, it's in the way of their future enhancements.

Here's imdb's founder talking about it

http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/thread/265706940?p=5&d=265758475#265758475

Lots of posts "deleted by an administrator" in that thread.

jj

People are probably starting to close their accounts.

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Proud to be Canadian!

I said something about that on the Contributions board or whatever it's called. I suggested that Feb 20th (the day all the boards get closed) be the day that all the boards get all the threads wiped out, but that the boards would still exist. Then, maybe some of the boards could get closed and the emphasis could be on the general boards. Never hurts to provide a suggestion, although I don't know if they would even consider doing such a thing.

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Proud to be Canadian!

I think there are a lot of options they haven't considered because they just don't want to. Maybe they are trying to cut staff or maybe it is just getting too big, data wise to handle. Film has been around for a long time, and tv almost as long. Thats a lot of data.

Personally, I think monitoring the message boards for every show, and movie made is just getting too much for themjust normal stuff, not to mention handling complaints, reports of trolls, etc. But I think trying to cut a little at a time figure out where the holes are would be a better way to handle it.

Meantime, I have loved meeting most of the people I have met on these boards, and if you want to keep in contact via facebook, or some other outlet, let me know!

How sad, that you were not born in my time, nor I, in yours.

Another thought is possibly piracy.

People sharing where to see stuff that hasn't got an official release.

I wouldn't doubt they are deathly afraid of that.

And they see TCM cutting back everywhere, and going to money making schemes. I can see why it happened but I don't have to like it.

I posted a suggestion on the Contributors board, suggesting that they cut most of the individual movie boards and stick mostly to general boards. That might make a difference. Deleting threads which haven't had activity for more than a year or so would likely make a difference. Why are they even keeping threads which were only active between 2003 and 2006? Oh well

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Proud to be Canadian!

And see, I was thinking just the opposite close all the general boards, trivia boards, I need to know, private messages, etc. And keep only the ones for the shows and movies and weed them all so they only include posts for the last year, and keep the boards for the actors.
Maybe that's why they are closing everything. They know just doing a partial would puss people off.

Ah, well

I'd keep just movie, tv show boards, actor, director boards.

And no "Is he gay?" threads allowed on any actor's board. Good grief, every actor has at least one of those threads. NO wonder IMDb is cutting the boards out.

If you go to the Contributions board (or whatever it's called), you can voice your opinions there. Of course it's the opposite of what I said, but maybe the admins will listen to one of us.that would be nice

Follow the links on my profile and make your opinion heard!

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Proud to be Canadian!

I'd been thinking the opposite (ditch the specialised boards, keep the general, and people can create individualised threads on those), but I think either way might have helped. The real thrust would be to cut down on the ever-growing number of individual boards that it would seem would be impossible to maintain indefinitely.

50 Is The New Cutoff Age.

Hi Amy,like you that idea came to my mind as well,but with the site struggling on traffic to individual threads,I think putting all the pressure of activity on just a few boards would overwhelms. As an example,the site always goes down when a new ep of Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead is on. If there was only one TV board,it would have to handle the traffic of those shows,and all the others with a large following.

ABC has their own website. I went there one season, for Dancing with the Stars, and it was busy. So I do know fans can gather there. FX used to put up websites for their shows but I don't know if they do that anymore. It will be more on the network themselves to supply a place for fans to gather to discuss.

Yes, I think GoT, TWD, and The Dark Knight just about brought this website to its knees.

My thought was to have more of the general boards.

Anyhow, so far, it's not like they're doing any of them. They will just be closing the boards and that's it.

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Proud to be Canadian!

Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to prevent OT topics from boards like The Classics Film board, even though there are already boards where those topics would not be off topic.

Problem is that the trolls infect the whole board.
It is the same old story: A few jerks ruin it for everybody.
Amazon ran IMDB for PR purposes, and if it had gotten so out of hand that it was hurting their image, it was a business decision to shut it down.

Business decision!
BAH!!!

This reminds me of married men who travel away for business, have sex with hookers provided for them, and then try to justify to their wives: "It was just BUSINESS."

Who died and made you king, so you can tell other people how to spend their money?

Says the idiotic marxist with a freaking image as their avatar.