Big announcement on IMDb

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

If you enjoy reading or even participating in discussions on the IMDb website, that feature will go away on February 20...

http://www.imdb.com/board/announcement

Apparently it's due to a lot of people using other IMDb "social media" sites to talk about movies. In addition, they write "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."

I just hope that all the information that was posted there over the years will not also disappear in one flash, because I found a lot of it to be very useful.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

It was the IMDB message board page for Matt Hannon (Samurai Cop) that lead to him going public. I'm sure there's plenty of useful shit there but most movie talk has moved to Reddit/Twitter/Facebook these days.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Yeah, I read that a while ago. Kind of drastic, but I can see where theyre coming from. I mean it is at least 75% trolling there nowadays anyhow, sadly.

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

I took a glance at the "The Predator" board last night. NOTHING but troll posts for pages and pages. No discussion about the film, just nerds infighting about who pwns who online.

I'm torn on this. I spent soooooooooooooooooo many hours of my life on these boards just devouring info about all kinds of films new and old. It's been invaluable in a lot of ways for a movie buff. However the blatant trolling/off topicness needs to be moderated.

There is also another element to it. Internet has loosened the propaganda grip elites had on the populace and they fucking hate it. Hollywood is and always have been an effective machine for propaganda. You have to be both blind, deaf and stupid to miss how they've doubled down on it these past few years, and it's only gonna get worse. On imdb boards there have been lots of posters calling out these things and they can't have that. They want you to shut up, buy a ticket and watch the film. Do not question whats being fed to you.

We saw campaigns that were effective in many ways waged against Ghostbusters, Terminator Genesis, Expendables 3, etc... where people called bullshit and actively discouraged people from seing these films. We know this because the propaganda onslaught in the mainstream media was blatant in response (mainly regarding Ghostbusters). So putting my tinfoil hat on I personally believe this has 85% to do with it being shut down.

There are of course other venues for discussions and viewer activism but imdb was massive and silencing it lessens the impact considerably.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

There is also another element to it. Internet has loosened the propaganda grip elites had on the populace and they fucking hate it.

There's the rub. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this smacks of corporate interests overwhelming free discussion.

I didn't often post anything on the IMDb message boards, though I've been a member there since the 1990s. The boards for the recent Hollyweird films were often filled with strange, obsessive types and 'trolls', but there was a wealth of interesting information in the boards for some older films - and sometimes you'd find yourself conversing with somebody who had worked on a particular film in one capacity or another. For example, some of the people involved in making SATAN'S BLADE were reunited via the message boards of IMDb, as I recall.

The phrase 'the end of an era' is often bandied about meaninglessly, but the closing down of those message boards is definitely symbolic, imo.

Goddamn 'social media' - a form whose name is as darkly ironic as 'reality television'.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

I've only been across to those boards a couple times but they seem to be lightning rods for trolls. Second only to Ain't It Cool News for general levels of unpleasantness really. If I was a corporation with an image to protect like Amazon I'd close 'em down too.

[JoeS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JoeS]

1. It IS sad. Sure, places like this Forum will benefit, but, there really is no one place on the web where Movie nerds congregate like IMDb.
2. You only have to look at the IMDb boards for any movie with racial or political content to see why this is happening. The pages for HIDDEN FIGURES, the doc I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO and 13th are full of the most vile racist bile - and, those are only the ones that haven't been taken down yet - there was even much worse before.
3. IMDb was very very lax in how they monitored their boards. Sure, it's a humongous site, but there are many trolling scans that other forums use to at least provide a first layer of oversight.
4. Hopefully, the uproar will change IMDb's mind on this - but, with much stricter controls.

[Matt H. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt H.]

This sucks. I found the message boards to be very useful.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

Loads of useful information andnopinions in the boards...they just really needed to be moderated to get rid of the trolls/hate stuff...lots of good old fashioned opinions too~ which obviously needles the big movie studios a lot...especially when it impacts an opening weekend money..

[Johnny Stickman Way Out Hep Cat Find all posts View Profile Close Johnny Stickman]

and sometimes you'd find yourself conversing with somebody who had worked on a particular film in one capacity or another. For example, some of the people involved in making SATAN'S BLADE were reunited via the message boards of IMDb, as I recall.

The phrase 'the end of an era' is often bandied about meaninglessly, but the closing down of those message boards is definitely symbolic, imo.

Goddamn 'social media' - a form whose name is as darkly ironic as 'reality television'.

This right here perfectly summarizes why I love internet forums. They're the only places on the web where people involved with movies would provide amazing insight and long stories about creating their films. I haven't seen anything like that on any social media sites as of yet. My favorite section of the vast IMDb boards was for The Beast of Yucca Flats. So many weird in-jokes and analysis to amuse people who've seen that flick.

[Randy G Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Randy G]

Oddly despite using imdb literally every day I never hung out on their boards. Whenever I looked it was a bunch of nonsense.