Give IMDB higher priority?

In-progress

Implemented
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in DuckDuckGo Forum • 1 year ago

I've been using DDG a lot and being interested in cinema, I've noticed that IMDB sometimes is the fastest answer to my questions. It has a lot of detailed data about pretty much every movie ever made, and it's the closest thing we have to an universal, somewhat "official" (even if users can contribute) film database, not just for Hollywood movies but for world cinema.

Right now, IMDB is the first result mostly for non-English films, probably because DDG hasn't indexed many non-English pages yet. For example, writing "Le cercle rouge" will have IMDB show up as the first result. But if I look for an American movie, there are some results that slow down my search (sometimes). I said sometimes because when the movie is popular, IMDB is always the second result after Wikipedia. (try Taxi Driver). But sometimes, it makes no sense.

For example, if I type "Raging Bull", the first two results are a financial forum (?) and some semi-empty Wiki about the film. I need neither, I want fast information about Raging Bull.

Another example: type "My Blueberry Nights". IMDB shows up way too down in the results and the top result is even broken (404)! While Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are definitely useful to some people and deserve to be in the top results, they don't contain detailed information about the film. The TCM database link is also broken and TCM is a horrible, unnavigable site anyway. The AllMovie database isn't bad but is severely lacking of information.

I don't think any site deserves to be treated differently than the others and I think neutrality has to be enforced, however since IMDB is already in the results and it's probably what the users are looking for (aside from the Wikipedia page, maybe), I don't think there would be anything wrong with giving it a higher spot in the results. Of course, this would require detecting whether the query is certainly a film or not. This is important because there are movies with names like "Wall Street" that could lead to ambiguity. Do you know how Google deals with that? It gives the IMDB results higher priority. Googling "Wall Street" will give you the IMDB page for the movie Wall Street (and sequel) as the top result. I'm not saying "if Google does it, it's the best thing", but I have to admit that Google in the past saved me a lot of time that way. IMDB isn't a great site, it just had the luck to be the first of its kind and thus the one with most information. But I think many people find it useful, me included, regardless of what my opinions about it are.

So, what do you think about it?

Replies(6)

AGreenEar..

Re: Give IMDB higher priority?

1 year ago

Sorry this took a while to come up - silly Zoho automatically flagged your post as spam, and it had to be manually approved.

Comment

yegg13

Re: Give IMDB higher priority?

1 year ago

I like this a lot, but I think really IMDB info should be promoted into 0-click. This was half done already -- but I just never got around to finishing it. What do you think would be the ideal info to include in there when searching a movie?

Comment

Guest

Re: Give IMDB higher priority?

1 year ago

That's even better! Director, year, duration, original name and the main actors are essential info. I think that would be more than enough. If there is a bit space left, I'd include the writer(s) too, and maybe the director of photography. That's pretty much all you need to know about a film, generally. Now that's what I'd call time saving!

igetaround

Re: Give IMDB higher priority?

1 year ago

I'm the author of the other two posts (as Guest) and I just made an account. I forgot to say that sometimes actors are credited in order of appearance and that could lead to incorrect info, as often the main actors appear after minor characters. Some other times the first billed actors are at the top, but that doesn't mean that they were necessarily the main actors. I don't think DDG should deal with it but I'm just saying it, in case some users report it as some kind of bug.
Also, sometimes there are credits for multiple directors. Such is the case for many episodic films and for films directed by directors who work in couples, like the Wachowskis, the Coens and the Dardennes. DDG should at least say "(and others)" and take care of that. This is very important for films like Ro.Go.Pa.G where every director directed a different segment and there's not really a "lead director". The same applies to writers but more commonly, as having more than one writer credited is almost the rule when the film is an adaptation (or even when it isn't).

tezeta

Re: Give IMDB higher priority?

1 year ago

I think most people search for a movie because they want to find out if it's worth watching. That's what I usually do, anyway.

So, the information in the zero-click box should be the information that is most prominent on the movie's IMDb page itself: the movie's score (#/10) based on the votes of # users, the movie's genre, synopsis and year.

So, in the case of Lost in Translation, the 0-click box would contain something like:

Lost in Translation (2003), drama, romance, score of 7.9/10 based on 136,635 votes. A movie star with a sense of emptiness, and a neglected newlywed meet up as strangers in Tokyo, Japan and form an unlikely bond.

Those would be the neccessities. If there's room, you could fit in the names of the director and the main actors (although, I don't think it's that easy to tell who the "main" actors are).

IMDb also displays Metacritic's score. That would also be a nice think to see. As would rottentomatoes' score (based on critic opinion).

yegg13