announced yesterday and effective feb. 20th:
http://www.imdb.com/board/announcement

i only posted about once every couple years, but i see this as another dick move by the establishment and another nail in the coffin of message boards.

i use imdb as a regular resource. professional reviews of films and shows are cool, but i really like word of mouth and what fans think. the imdb boards were an invaluable resource for getting that kind of casual commentary and so much more. there were discussions about the most minute details and thoughtful interpretations that you just won't get anywhere else online from what i've seen, at least not organized so well. if i want to know more about a scene, line of dialog, or plot development in some old, obscure movie i just watched, i don't know where to go now. then there were d-list actors posting under aliases to defend and promote themselves and the people posting who were extras or PAs sharing stories from decades past. that's just fun to read. there were also people with really good taste and depth of knowledge who would recommend or reference something uncommon but awesome. was there trolling and flaming going on on the imdb boards, i'm sure; that wasn't what i came for or paid much attention to. it's hard not to read into amazon's decision as appeasing the powers that be, including hollywood vanity.

it's also another sad day for the message board as a communication platform. there are so many once thriving message boards i've come across that were either deleted since my last visit or are now ghost towns. when i google something and land on a message board, it is so eerie to see one still online without having had a post in years, all the more so when i take a closer look and don't see any announcement of a shutdown or migration. at least the imdb regulars have a couple weeks to do what they have to do before it's all gone, but what i got out of those boards can't be replicated by imdb's social media platforms.

I wasn't a big-time frequenter, but when I would peek around there, it usually wasn't hard to find something dicey. It didn't seem like they tried to keep it in check terribly effectively either. That's based on limited experience, of course... but put it this way, I know a lot of cinephiles celebrating the move, saying it was long overdue.

do these same cinephiles have a vested interest in driving conversation to their own social media accounts, blogs, or columns? from reading the petitions today, the rest of us cinephiles are pretty bummed about it, especially as we are big boys and girls capable of ignoring trolling. most of the boards i checked rarely if ever had any trolling or racism, but that's because i wasn't checking the boards of the latest movies and tv shows. amazon's nuclear option is absurd and such a tremendous waste. i can't understate what a loss this is. movie and tv fans who didn't make use of at least reading the boards were missing out.

>especially as we are
>big boys and girls

Like I said, I have no vested interest either way, as I rarely frequented them.

Nothing but trolls, racist, and bigots seem to post in comments sections.

there could be a message board about just about anything so it really depended on what you were looking at. the ones that tended to be ass were the big name boards. those only made up a small fragment of the overall boards hosted on imdb.

but there would be good dialogue on smaller films or the boards for some actors.

It's a sentimental thing for me though - IMDB was the first place I participated in online discussion of film. My login for that site is an old hotmail address that I haven't even used since 2003 when gmail came out.

super ass.

There are some great user reviews tho.

better.

One way to improve would be to use real names for comments. I am not sure there is a great value to anonymous comments.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

to discuss movies but it turned into a shit show not too long after that. I'll miss what it used to be but it hasn't been that for a very long time.

For a while I split time between here and there...haven't been on there in ages though.

>to discuss movies but it turned into a shit show not too long
>after that. I'll miss what it used to be but it hasn't been
>that for a very long time.

what was the turning point? where did you first notice it?

20+ years of communicating online has given me a high tolerance for tomfoolery. i'm probably more inclined to find trolling funny than be genuinely offended. most of the time it's so obvious and stupid that it's easy for me to recognize and ignore.

it really is/was a great platform. i know there have been times i've checked the boards for major new releases and hot directors and actors, but i was usually looking for something in particular or to get a general impression, not to participate in conversations and never to be a regular of any particular board. i would mostly notice it's busy and that a lot of the conversation was superficial or not particularly intelligent, but i chalked that up to the high volume and mass appeal. i noticed name calling, but i think it's been so long since i've checked one of these popular boards that the dawn of the (racist) troll era missed me, thankfully.


>For a while I split time between here and there...haven't been
>on there in ages though.

i posted sporadically from 2005 to 2010 and barely since. there was a time i would engage in discussions, but in recent years it's mostly been an indispensable resource for me in exploring old movies. that a board could only have a few posts and that they dated back over a decade wasn't a mark against it for me as long as there was quality discussion and information. i've gleaned so much from the imdb boards, i'm still in disbelief amazon is just going to delete them all in two weeks. to me it's not just a crackdown on free speech; it's like book burning.

People usually stuck to the movies they cared about. The ones I frequented kinda fell apart back in 2008 or so. We built a little community but it didn’t last long.

without some new blood this place is like a closed jurassic park with the same few dinos howling at eachother

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=11&topic_id=301839&mesg_id=301839&page=

it really was a good outlet for voicing a critical opinion without needing to have one's own blog, podcast, or followers of any kind. i know this move was partially or at least ostensibly because of legacy software they didn't want to maintain, but i really do worry about media consolidation and the resulting ability to suppress divergent viewpoints by simply removing the platform.

>i know this move was partially or at least
>ostensibly because of legacy software they didn't want to
>maintain, but i really do worry about media consolidation and
>the resulting ability to suppress divergent viewpoints by
>simply removing the platform.

Especially in an probably upcoming age without Net Neutrality.

But your post about the quality of the content on imdb on the other hand points to the lack of quality sources of opinions by movie fans.

You would think that someone or some company would have come up for a means of having some type of online community based around fan interest in movies, but if there's one out there it escapes me. Letterboxd is okay, but I don't think they allow for comments from other users. So you end up missing out on more elaborate discussions that used to be the case here and other places on the Web.

On another note, does anyone know of any video shows, online or cable, that feature film criticism? For some reason it's really hard for me to get into 'reading' comments on film, even here at times. Not so much because the writing isn't well done, but because discussion art through language is difficult, especially when that language is written.

I liked the TV shows because they would show clips of the film and the discussions were spontaneous and might touch on subjects that seemed tangential but had merit to the point of the discussion.

>I liked the TV shows because they would show clips of the film
>and the discussions were spontaneous and might touch on
>subjects that seemed tangential but had merit to the point of
>the discussion.

i'm not able this year, but last year i watched a few episodes of the viceland guide to film. they are by design tributes to a particular director, but they do show clips to illustrate points about what makes their work distinctive and good.

i used to enjoy renting bonus discs to criterion collection films. some of the french ones had clips from cool french tv shows that combined interviews and pointed criticisms. french journalists would point out flaws to a person's face, and i really appreciated that respectful engagement. directors always seemed to have a defense of their work at the ready, making for good discussion. it's unfortunate if amazon doesn't think the productions of their studio and those they do business with stand up to scrutiny.

it did crap out near the end but it was great to have a central hub to pick peoples brains and vent about movies/shows in detail.