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Better than a Petition: Why IMDb's Message Board Shut Down Is Misguided

posted 8 years ago by centrd
6 replies | jump to latest

Why IMDb's Message Board Shut Down Is Misguided

https://news.boxofficebuz.com/article/why-imdb-s-message-board-shut-down-is-misguided

Makes all the right points.

Skip making another useless online petition and contact Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos ([email protected]) and IMDb’s CEO Colin Needham (http://www.imdb.com/helpdesk/contact) yourself. Make it known how you feel and show them that there are more IMDB users that care about keeping boards alive than there are trolls. Even better, if you have experience with message board moderation and community management, offer your ideas on how the site can improve. https://news.boxofficebuz.com/article/why-imdb-s-message-board-shut-down-is-misguided

I'm going to suggest two things.

1. Volunteer Moderators (using NextDoor, the local neighborhoods site, as an example). If the moderator is abusing the established guidelines, they will weed themselves out based on members' complaints.

2. Unobtrusive Advertising. (Also see NextDoor's advertising). Ads are inserted as a message topic on the board and it's entirely the users' choice whether they're interested in clicking on the message or not. For example, security devices and home automation systems are popular ads on the Nextdoor site. Eg. for IMDB: A network could buy a message spot with a link to their latest show. If a user is interested in that show, they can click on the link. Very easy. Ads would be limited so as not to overpower the board, but if there's just one or two network ads on each of the thousands of boards that IMDB hosts, they'd be making easy money. Networks and studios would have a built-in demographic to which they can advertise their new shows and movies. How can IMDB pass up that opportunity?

"Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward." –Lucifer (Vertigo)

[–] catbookss 8 years ago

Okay, this is very bizarre.

I tried both links in your post, and each time got a "failed to open page" message. So I went to Google and input Box Office Buz IMDb message board. First link that came up was to the article, but I AGAIN got the same failed to open message. I even tried the cached link, and got the same thing. This has never happened to me before.

I'm not anything near a conspiracy nut, but this is very odd, and makes me wonder what's going on.

[–] SapphEyeR 8 years ago

I had no problem FWIW. Nothing scary there. Try another browser maybe?

[–] Sanctuary20 8 years ago

When are the boards shutting down? Seems silly

My strength is greater than my weakness

[–] centrd 8 years ago

I just checked and it opened for me. But hey, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some efforts to remove unflattering material from the internet. I've seen it first-hand, so I know it happens.

I did write to Jeff Bezos and cited that very article, so if he reads his mail as he claims to, then he knows it's out there.

I'm not happy with Mr. Bezos. His attitude/policies toward Amazon employees and their outside vendors, AirBNB, which I think is a pretty terrible company, and now this IMDB thing, has made me reconsider supporting the guy's businesses. He also owns The Washington Post, so he's a contradiction, that's for sure.

I hope you guys write to him. And the CEO of IMDB, although I found the contact page to have nothing where you could actually contact anyone, so I sent my letter to the advertising department and asked them to forward it to their CEO. But Bezos is easy to contact directly.

I'll be happy to post the letter I wrote, if anyone thinks it would help.

"Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward." –Lucifer

[–] Ellie_IntoTheOcean 8 years ago

Done.

[–] Ellie_IntoTheOcean 8 years ago

And above the "contact us" imdb form, instead, it states there are currently 452 open requests. I hope many of us are among those requests and I hope even more people join us in pleading for the boards.