Random questions about the site and future plans

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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
ADMIN EDIT: spun off from another thread,
right around this post.

On topic of change, I am curious on what drove the community in the early years. Was it more sharing formal reviews? Was there more general discussion pinging around? Were there more active posters in the past or is this the general pace of things from year to year?

Non of this is a complaint, btw. I'm just randomly infatuated with these ideas suddenly for no reason than because.
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On topic of change, I am curious on what drove the community in the early years. Was it more sharing formal reviews?
I think there was significantly less of that. It was awhile before we even formally tagged and tracked user reviews at all, and it was just a few years ago that they were actually the driving force in the "Reviews" area; before that, there were mostly just reviews there when I happened to get around to writing one, with the User Reviews in a box to the side.

Was there more general discussion pinging around?
I think so, yeah. And a lot of intermission-y stuff. There still is, to be sure, but in the first year or two there was a little flare-up over the number of users who basically never discussed movies. I made it clear I saw the off-topic stuff as secondary to the site's goals, one or two users took that kind of personally, and a small group left for a (now defunct) movie site.

What I think most of them didn't realize (and which was essentially proven by the fate of their alternative site) is that a community based on amorphous chat isn't sustainable. It's plenty of fun, but that fun comes from cultivating a small group of friends and getting to know them really well. That makes the site incidental, and when some of those people move on or change there's no reason for anyone to stick around.

On the other hand, if your site is built around a specific interest (like film!), the people who share that interest will have a reason to return even when some people leave and new people take their place. That's why I've steadily deemphasized post counts and always tried to encourage substantive discussion: to get people to think more about the types of people they can meet here, and the types of discussions than can have, because both of those things are infinitely renewable resources.

I think a good analogy is a show built around a specific character or storyline, compared to a procedural. You wouldn't wanna watch House without House, but if you like Law and Order you'll watch it with any cast and in pretty much any of its incarnations.

Were there more active posters in the past or is this the general pace of things from year to year?
In terms of active users (which has a semi-formal definition that might differ from each person's idiosyncratic meaning of the phrase), it's actually not dramatically higher than some of those earlier years, though I suspect that's skewed by the sheer number of unique visitors we used to get. But in terms of total activity, like posts, or "stickiness" measures like time of visit or pageviews per visit, it's much higher, and about as high as it's ever been.



I think so, yeah. And a lot of intermission-y stuff. There still is, to be sure, but in the first year or two there was a little flare-up over the number of users who basically never discussed movies. I made it clear I saw the off-topic stuff as secondary to the site's goals, one or two users took that kind of personally, and a small group left for a (now defunct) movie site.
Interesting. I love movies, I really do, but I couldn’t come here & only talk about movies & TV. I just couldn’t & I didn’t on IMDb.com. I like it here because I have started threads on different topics & even if nobody reads the thread (I can think of a couple of unread threads), I still appreciate being able to start the thread in the first place. Even if I am babbling away to myself.
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One thing i noticed was the threads for a specific movie got used a lot more in the earlier days, right up until a few years before i joined i think. It's only really the big blockbuster threads that get used like that now, back then practically every notable movie had a thread and everyone who watched it would post their thoughts there rather than RTLMYS or Movie Tab or their own Review Thread.

Think that was a good thing to organize discussions so anyone that would be interested in joining in would know where to go rather than having to luckily catch the discussion on RTLMYS or something. TBH though i don't think it was overall that different as most of those threads didn't make it past a page.



Yeah, I think you're right, @Camo. Long discussions about specific movies was more common, whereas now it's more general threads that occasionally veer off into discussions about movies people mention in them.

I do want it to trend back towards a thread-per-movie kind of model. That hasn't generally "felt" right to me, but one thing the IMDB closure taught me is that a lot of people like it, and I can kind of see why: they see a movie and want a designated place to talk about that specific movie, and they want it to be easy to find. So I'm toying with the idea of an "official" thread for each movie, IMDB-style, in addition to the structure we already have. Might not be too hard, either. Gotta think about it some more.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
That brings up something I've been struggling with here. Sort of. A few weeks back, I noticed people had their own movie list pages. I thought that was interesting, like a diary of movies watched month to month. So I started one, but since creating it, I have seriously neglected the page! The other day I watched something that I wanted to write on but realized that to add it to my running list would place it out of sync with movies that I've already seen but haven't been able to comment on yet. Now I question the purpose of my list completely. I am not sure if people are starting pages just for a single review, or they are throwing that review into the movie list randomly, or maybe there's a single thread somewhere dedicated to just one movie and everyone drops a line or formal review there.

I'm the type that easily locks up, mentally, from over thinking whatever. This has become that for me

If you go to a dedicated thread per movie, do you see that as strictly conversation? A compilation of formal reviews from multiple users? Both? Or something entirely different?



Yeah, I think you're right, @Camo. Long discussions about specific movies was more common, whereas now it's more general threads that occasionally veer off into discussions about movies people mention in them.
The Hall of Fames are the best place for specific movie discussions now. It depends though sometimes nothing takes off it needs to be the right type of movie to spark discussion and the timing of everyone watching it needs to be right which is why we've toyed with agreeing on viewing orders before. I'm running the Women Directors HoF right now and the first half was half of the members quickly finishing and discussing the movies a good amount as we went along, the second half has screeched to a halt though and it's just turned into RTLMYS because most of the members have said all they want to already. It's difficult (and probably not possible) finding the right balance.

I do want it to trend back towards a thread-per-movie kind of model. That hasn't generally "felt" right to me, but one thing the IMDB closure taught me is that a lot of people like it, and I can kind of see why: they see a movie and want a designated place to talk about that specific movie, and they want it to be easy to find. So I'm toying with the idea of an "official" thread for each movie, IMDB-style, in addition to the structure we already have. Might not be too hard, either. Gotta think about it some more.
I think that's a good idea. Members here aren't shy (except for me) about reposting their reviews in different threads so i don't think that would effect the megathreads.



That brings up something I've been struggling with here. Sort of. A few weeks back, I noticed people had their own movie list pages. I thought that was interesting, like a diary of movies watched month to month. So I started one, but since creating it, I have seriously neglected the page! The other day I watched something that I wanted to write on but realized that to add it to my running list would place it out of sync with movies that I've already seen but haven't been able to comment on yet. Now I question the purpose of my list completely. I am not sure if people are starting pages just for a single review, or they are throwing that review into the movie list randomly, or maybe there's a single thread somewhere dedicated to just one movie and everyone drops a line or formal review there.

I'm the type that easily locks up, mentally, from over thinking whatever. This has become that for me

If you go to a dedicated thread per movie, do you see that as strictly conversation? A compilation of formal reviews from multiple users? Both? Or something entirely different?
Last year i abandoned my first Movie Log like 30 pages in because i had got so used to posting my thoughts on every single movie i watched in that thread (and i watch a lot of movies) that i got completely burnt out. With my new one i've only been posting my thoughts when i feel like it, sometimes i just post ratings to keep it consistent chronologically. If someone is interested in your thoughts on something they'll ask and maybe that'll spark a discussion on it between the two of you.

Honestly, a lot of your first paragraph confused me so i have no clue if that applies to what you're saying in any way.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Oh I confuse myself most of the time, so you're in good company
*flexes good company muscles*


I guess it boils down to not yet knowing how to most efficiently post my commentary. Are your reviews separate threads completely apart from your running watch list? That's the part that got me all confused.


*edited stuff*



That brings up something I've been struggling with here. Sort of. A few weeks back, I noticed people had their own movie list pages. I thought that was interesting, like a diary of movies watched month to month. So I started one, but since creating it, I have seriously neglected the page! The other day I watched something that I wanted to write on but realized that to add it to my running list would place it out of sync with movies that I've already seen but haven't been able to comment on yet. Now I question the purpose of my list completely. I am not sure if people are starting pages just for a single review, or they are throwing that review into the movie list randomly, or maybe there's a single thread somewhere dedicated to just one movie and everyone drops a line or formal review there.
Yeah, there's a tricky push/pull thing where, if you give the thread structure (sometimes to try to force yourself to follow a schedule or plan), that's great when it works, but actively counterproductive if you fall out of it. It's like keeping a diary and then missing a bunch of days, and then deciding you can't write anything because you don't have the time to "catch up." For some, it's probably better to just have a thread for whichever films you have something to say about, whenever you feel like saying it.

BTW, if it makes a difference, the system is already tracking what you've logged as seen, and when, through the individual movie pages and list. So if you mostly just wanted to be able to look back at that, it's not something you have to do manually with your thread, provided you can wait a bit longer for me to figure out how I want to present all that.

I'm the type that easily locks up, mentally, from over thinking whatever. This has become that for me
I can definitely relate. A long time ago the primary challenge for me was how to accomplish things on a technical level. Increasingly, that's the easy part, and the hard part is making design decisions about how to display it or what things to prioritize, emphasize, or make room for relative to others.

If you go to a dedicated thread per movie, do you see that as strictly conversation? A compilation of formal reviews from multiple users? Both? Or something entirely different?
Well, the individual movie pages already display tagged reviews for that movie (and that wouldn't go away), so it'd basically just be the addition of a thread that would either be linked (if a thread already exists) or be auto-generated when the first person makes a comment about it. In theory people could come at it from the forum side or the movie page side, and it wouldn't necessarily make a lot of difference.

But even that, which sounds simple enough, has tons of ripple effects: do I create a new forum to hold all of the individual movie page threads? If so, wouldn't that mean the Movie Reviews forum would just be a place to house personal review collections? Etc.



Are your reviews separate threads completely apart from your running watch list?
I just replied to this effect, but yeah, it really sounds like what you wanna do is actually being done for you already, and should (hopefully) be available before too long. Only thing I don't have right now is the ability to go back and change the "seen on" date (right now it just assumes it's whenever you click the button or check the film off your list) retroactively, but that can be done fairly easily.



A link to a thread on each individual movie's page would be good imo. Might get a few more people actually rating the movies on here as well.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I just replied to this effect, but yeah, it really sounds like what you wanna do is actually being done for you already, and should (hopefully) be available before too long. Only thing I don't have right now is the ability to go back and change the "seen on" date (right now it just assumes it's whenever you click the button or check the film off your list) retroactively, but that can be done fairly easily.
Thanks for the reply there, and for the one above.

Please forgive my ignorance but:

Originally Posted by Yoda
BTW, if it makes a difference, the system is already tracking what you've logged as seen, and when, through the individual movie pages and list. So if you mostly just wanted to be able to look back at that, it's not something you have to do manually with your thread, provided you can wait a bit longer for me to figure out how I want to present all that.
What exactly are you referring to by individual movie pages and list?



Yeah, I'm basically 90% convinced some version of this is a good idea, because most people watch a movie and want to go talk about that movie, specifically, so that should be a lot easier on here than it currently is. There's just a ton of ripple effects depending on how that's done. Even the basic idea, right off the bat, has a huge inflection point in the form of "Do we auto-generate a thread, or do we let people have lots of threads for each movie, IMDB-style?"



What exactly are you referring to by individual movie pages and list?
Movies: www.movieforums.com/movies (normally linked in the header, but temporarily gone for the Oscars link), or found by clicking on the favorite movies in anyone's profile.

Lists: www.movieforums.com/lists

Any time you check a film off of one of the lists, it tracks the time you did it. Ditto for going to a movie page and clicking that big Seen button. There's also a similar thing going on with the filmography on Clubs, if you check them off there.



Are your reviews separate threads completely apart from your running watch list?
Some members have watch list threads, some have both and some have both combined like me. Can i ask which specific threads are confusing you? I have my watch list in the first post of my Movie Log and i also post my reviews in that thread. It's really up to you how you want to do it, people won't care tbh, they'll respond to your thread anyway coz they like you and are interested in your thoughts on movies. Like me



that last part was an excuse to properly use the new bashful emoticon for the first time



Oh wow, i left my Laptop for five minutes then when i come back there's an extra page What i said there is probably redundant haven't read the other posts yet.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Some members have watch list threads, some have both and some have both combined like me. Can i ask which specific threads are confusing you? I have my watch list in the first post of my Movie Log and i also post my reviews in that thread. It's really up to you how you want to do it, people won't care tbh, they'll respond to your thread anyway coz they like you and are interested in your thoughts on movies. Like me



that last part was an excuse to properly use the new bashful emoticon for the first time
It's not so much response that concerns me as it is just logic and order (for myself).
So for example, I started a January list. There may be two or three films from that month that I'd like to review but haven't gotten to it yet. In the meantime, I watch something today that just knocks my socks off! OMG I neeeeeed to write about this while it's fresh! But doing that technically puts that post before the few from January left to review.

Getting that out of order really bugs me. So I'm thinking to abandon my watch list and just write when I can, regardless of when I watched it.

I hope that makes more sense!



I just replied to this effect, but yeah, it really sounds like what you wanna do is actually being done for you already, and should (hopefully) be available before too long. Only thing I don't have right now is the ability to go back and change the "seen on" date (right now it just assumes it's whenever you click the button or check the film off your list) retroactively, but that can be done fairly easily.
I must admit i don't use the watched feature much (also because of Letterboxd but mostly...) because i didn't really see much point to it if i couldn't see who has watched the film (you can't see that unless they've reviewed it right?). I'm always wondering which non Letterboxd using members have seen the film i've just watched as maybe i'd want to talk to them about it.

It would also be useful purely for Cricket, he's the regular Hall of Fame member that has seen the most amount of films and from the most diverse time periods and genres. He always really thinks about his nom and makes sure most haven't seen it, so i want to do the same thing with him (it has the added bonus of Cricket having not watched it means most probably haven't).



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Movies: www.movieforums.com/movies (normally linked in the header, but temporarily gone for the Oscars link), or found by clicking on the favorite movies in anyone's profile.

Lists: www.movieforums.com/lists

Any time you check a film off of one of the lists, it tracks the time you did it. Ditto for going to a movie page and clicking that big Seen button. There's also a similar thing going on with the filmography on Clubs, if you check them off there.
Oh WOW.
I think I noticed this list soon after I joined but I had no clue what it was and completely forgot about it since.

As to the Movies search:
  1. Is this linked to some news feed to update whenever a new movie is released, or is some admin hiding in the back end manually creating a page for each release?
  2. I see reviews associated with a movie that I've searched for. Is there a link from that page to create a new review? Or would I just create a new thread, write my independent review, and then check the "suggest this post for inclusion" option hoping that it will be associated to the movie page at some point in the future?


I'm hoping that's the last of my Qs for today. Thanks for that patience everyone.