In the year 2017, who on Earth still uses message boards? Okay, there are still plenty of corners in the internet where groups dedicated to various interests still use the outdated communication platform, but in an era with Slack, Facebook Groups, and no shortage of other ways to share feedback, commentary and media with 20 or 200 people, a message board seems a bit old school. And that’s just one of the reasons why IMDb is doing away with them.
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The internet’s source for all things movies (and TV) announced today that on February 20th message boards and private message system will disappear from the site. Citing the aforementioned reasons, IMDb also says that the boards “are no longer providing a positive, useful experience” which is a bit of an understatement. Indeed, cinematic discourse on those boards has long stopped being its forte as troll-ish behavior has become more pronounced. Here’s an excerpt from IMDb’s statement:
IMDb is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. 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. The decision to retire a long-standing feature was made only after careful consideration and was based on data and traffic.
It’s a wise move, and I can’t recall the last time I saw a useful thread on an IMDb message board (or the last time I visited an IMDb message board at all). For those who did find a community on there, it’s disappointing news, but at least they have a couple weeks to figure out a new home to congregate and talk (feel free to come here, but try and keep it civil :). As for IMDb, they’ll say goodbye to a corner of their site that could get ugly at times, and look at more inclusive and interactive ways of engaging with their audience.
of course they are not useful . it s like a chat room it s full of troll, of judgment of stupid comments but i believe it create some kind of community … i liked that 🙁
It’ll always have a special place at the bottom of my trash can.
I seldom posted, but it was usually interesting to find certain things. I stumbled across a decade old account that seemed to belong to a know-it-all who dedicated their forum life to posting smartass replies to a few specific accounts.
I used the message boards all the time. Sure there were tons of trolls, but so what. Nobody comments under your articles, and even though I used to, if nobody else comments or gives feedback, what’s the point? Sad
Less reason to visit the site. Many of the comments gave valuable insights and info on the films.
IMDb was my first message board board experience and it was great. I have no doubt it has no relevance now, but it was fun to troll when I was on there.
Terrible decision.
🙁 Makes me sad. I used it to ask specific questions about a movie and I would always get a useful answer.
Bro…
Sorry
reading the message boards was pretty much the only reason i had to go to the site.sigh…
Who still uses message boards? How about pretty much everyone interested in having actual conversations about cinema instead of shouting 140 characters worth of “I like it/not” into the void? Trolls are everywhere, including your precious Facebook groups (I can’t believe anybody would actually prefer them to the more cleaner, organized forums boards, but to each their own, I guess), yet I doubt you would suggest shutting down the whole world wide web because of them.
There’s plenty of valuable insight, random trivia and information to be found in the thriving IMDB’s community if you bother to look beyond the mainstream stuff. That same community contributed IMDB’s growth and it’s the site most valuable asset, whatever they’d like to aknowledge them or not. This is big, huge mistake.
Not less reason – now NO reason.