IMDb: the great loss isn't the CFB...

So I just found out via pm the other day, a good thing or I might have
simply come on here to find the whole place gone as I rarely go into
board mode these days and there's no other notice outside the boards.



I was torn a bit between saying nothing and waxing a bit, decided on the latter.



I've perused the boards whenever time allowed since yesterday, most
things have been said about why it's small thinking on the part of IMDb,
how it's like burning down a ship to get rid of a rat problem. I do
think Col Needham has a geeky side that has more sympathy for the old
core of IMDb posters than this decision lets out, or we wouldn't have
been allowed to continue perusing IMDb in the old format all this time,
the new skin would have been forced on us. They probably had to mull
over long and hard that the boards could only be a source for media
debacle now, how that tarnishes the brand, hits their bottom line etc.
It had grown to be pretty bad in some areas.



Small thinking because the supposed millions who come on to check
Jennifer Lawrence's page and bounce off the site again are no measure
for the core group who power the place under the hood by contributing
content. Most of the prolific reviewers I know of, trivia and bio
contributors with credits in the thousands and others, they've all
sprung from the community and have been anchored to this or that board.
IMDb is what it is - partly but significantly - because it has been
stretched to encyclopedic size by our efforts. Jennifer Lawrence's IMDb
page deserves to come up first in google because there is a page for the
obscure silent film Melodie Der Welt that someone has set up on the
same platform, others enhanced by info and three of us contributed
reviews.



IMDb have no idea what they're scuttling. We know this at a glance
by comparing reviews from the days before and after boards were in
existence, many of the former from 1999/2000 were impressions a few
lines long because I guess that's how the section felt like it might be
used in the absence of boards, a place to hang opinions.



It would take a whole other post to broach the subject of web
gentrification. "It's their business" as line of thought enjoys some
traction in the US, not where I come from. The idea that we can't
monetize this part of the platform would cheapen any room where it was
brought up, including San Francisco. Are they losing money? No.



I won't miss what the boards have become the last couple of years,
although that's only part of the reason I don't visit, but to think no
more elegant solutions presented themselves than shutting all of them
down boggles the mind.



More simply, what's going on here is they're shifting their platform
to the prevalent "app" architecture where users are happy to just glide
off stuff the same way they do with social media. I'll bet there are
ongoing discussions about ways to allow users to curate personality,
these will probably be centered on list-making with the opportunity to
"friend" others and space for facebook comments. They've tweaked things a
bit in that direction in their latest revamp.

From chrissie777
I get a notification in my inbox whenever somebody from imdb message boards reacted on one of my posts. I wonder if this new website will do the same?