Do you all still use IMDb, or have you moved on to an alternate site in protest
Topic.
shareYes, not much, but there's still information that's not as easily found anywhere else.
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MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Do you all still use IMDb, or have you m...
it is still the best database out there.
sharei was never a big user, and with the boards a thing of the past, i'm rarely there. i doubt i've hit the page more than a dozen times in the past year.
letterboxd and metacritic pretty much cover all the things i personally need from movie sites.
Haven't used IMDB since the boards closed. For cast and filmography info I just use Wikipedia now.
shareThat reminds me of something else I dislike about IMDB. Ever heard of the Oracle of Bacon? https://oracleofbacon.org/
It's a site which calculates degrees in the same way as in the Kevin Bacon game, except you can enter any two actors. For example, John Wayne is two degrees from George Clooney -- Wayne was in The Cowboys with Matt Clark,, who was in The Harvest with Clooney.
For a long time, IMDB freely shared all of its data, at least as far as titles and persons' names. The OoB would regularly download data from IMDB to keep itself current, so a user could link between any two actors, no matter how obscure. I liked that personally because I was in Stripes. I was an extra in the outdoor graduation scene. The movie was filmed at Fort Knox, and several real soldiers had small parts in it. The filmmakers generously listed those people in the credits, so Stripes has several actors listed who only have one screen credit in their entire "career." When using the OoB I'd use one of those people as a proxy for myself. For example, if I wanted to know how far I was from Larry Hagman, I'd enter Hagman's name and Larry Odell Lane into the OoB and get the answer.
I can't do that anymore. Why? Because the OoB no longer uses IMDB's data. Why? Because IMDB stopped sharing it. The OoB has to use Wikipedia now, and since Wikipedia has never heard of Larry Odell Lane, I'm out of luck.
Well, that's a small loss, of no consequence. But there were also researchers using IMDB's data, studying models of social connections and things like that. They've begged IMDB to allow them access to the data. If not the current data, at least the full database as it was at the time IMDB closed access. But no, IMDB won't even do that. Jerks.
That's really annoying.
shareIMDb is a user contributed site, that they're not freely sharing their data suggests it's time to move on to themoviedb.org
shareThey do allow downloads of subsets of their data. But what's the point of that? If someone is trying to link people by degrees, model social connections, et cetera, a partial data set is useless. Sean Young was also in Stripes and was in Wall Street with Charlie Sheen, so I'm two degrees away from him -- but if the partial data set leaves out her Wall Street credit, it doesn't work.
To be fair, the last time I looked -- and it's been a while -- they did allow downloading the full database, but only under certain conditions which made it impractical. IIRC, you had to pay a large sum of money, or make an absurdly large number of contributions to their data, or other such things.
Occasionally, I still visit to look something up.
shareNo, I give my traffic to themoviedb.org. I tried to use their message boards are first but there has never been enough interaction.
Still, if I want to know the cast, I will use their site.
I use IMDB on a daily basis, I like to look up soundtracks, actors and filming locations
It's a shame that IMDB chumped out of hosting message boards but it is still a very useful site
Have to admit it is. The new format is also nice because it separates the categories in a useful way. I can look up a writer I like and find all his work. It is great for finding new things to watch (sometimes new things that are old, and that is great too). I was not aware of how much tv is driven by the writing, but I suppose it makes sense!
shareI use an adblocker so ads aren't a problem.
I use IMDb a lot for ratings, reviews, background info, and lists (I make a lot of lists).