Internet movie database shutting down its message boards

[Stevicus]

Well, this is kind of a bummer. Message Boards - IMDb are shutting down as of February 20.

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.

"No longer providing a positive, useful experience..." I guess that means they're tired of the trolls and consider that the message boards are more trouble than they're worth.

Apparently, they're not the only ones doing this. IMDb is shutting down its long-running, popular message boards after 16 years


the company isn’t the first publication to do away with public, loosely moderated comment sections. Various newspapers, magazines and online publications have decided to close comment sections citing similar concerns about fostering a more positive environment for all users.

Targeted harassment, sexism, homophobia and racism have been longstanding issues in most comment sections and IMDb readers have pointed out the company’s community wasn’t much better. Multiple people on Twitter have pointed out that IMDb’s discussion boards have become a hotbed for internet trolls while others have questioned why it took so long for the website to come to this decision.

It wasn't really that bad, though. Maybe less than 5% of the posters were insufferable trolls, but it was at a tolerable level.

Oh well, I guess it means I might end up posting here even more often.

 

[allfoak]

You have been here forever!
It will be nice to have you around more often.

 

[Revoltingest]

The History Channel shut down theirs in 2010.
That's why I'm here.
Blame them!

 

[Callisto]

Some IMDb boards were just completely out of control with trolls. The thing I'll miss most are boards for forgotten/less prominent films & series that don't have other sites & forums.

 

[Stevicus]

Some IMDb boards were just completely out of control with trolls. The thing I'll miss most are boards for forgotten/less prominent films & series that don't have other sites & forums.

Yeah, there were a lot of trolls, but I have to admit that I found some entertainment value in watching threads where it was troll vs. troll. But there were a lot of good posters there and some rather interesting discussions about the various films and TV series.

I'm not surprised that they're shutting the boards down. Some of the trolls were a bit disturbing, particularly on the politics board.

There's an online petition to keep the boards open, but I don't know what good those things are. The word is that the decision was made after Amazon's bean counters crunched the numbers, so an online petition probably won't change anyone's mind. The message boards weren't making them any money, and they were apparently more trouble than they were worth. I get that, but I'm still going to miss the boards.

On one of the Star Trek boards, there was a thread which was entirely quotes from the series which was hilarious. Then there was a thread where a bunch of posters made up parody lyrics from Beatles' songs with a Star Trek theme. That thread actually expired and disappeared from the board anyway, but it was fun while it lasted.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Wow. I was a Soapbox regular for over a decade on the IMDb. Honestly, all they needed to do was do away with the Politics, Soapbox and Religion boards since that's where most of the trolls are. They should keep the movie boards for obvious reasons.