Improving Criticker's metadata systems

[djross]

Criticker's developers have shown an admirable commitment to developing and improving the metadata systems of their website. There are a number of ways of developing this even further (I have previously suggested the possibility of filtering and ordering TCIs to enable users greater control over different ways of generating PSIs).

The new Filmmaker List feature enables two new kinds of sorting: an alphabetical list of filmmakers with x number of films, or an alphabetical list of filmmakers with x number of films I have ranked. As mentioned in the blog, there is room to develop this type of filmmaker-sorting further. For example, why not make it possible to sort this list by number of films or number of films-I've-ranked, rather than alphabetically? If I want to know which filmmaker has made the most films, or which filmmaker I have seen the most films by, I currently need to take a guess of a highish number of films that will reduce the list to a smaller size and then click on each filmmaker to see their actual number of films or films ranked. This seems unnecessarily clumsy.

There may be other ways of sorting and filtering filmmaker lists. For example, by year: number of films between 19XX and 19YY. Or by country, genre, etc. This would be to make the Filmmaker List function more closely resemble the Film Database function, which has quite a wide range of filtering and sorting options. Why not make it possible for me to generate a list, for example, of Venezuelan filmmakers who made documentaries between 1980 and 1985, ordered by number of films?

Finally, there is one other area of data that could be developed in this direction: user information. One thing it has never been possible to do on Criticker is to easily locate which users have seen the most films, or which users have the most films in common with me, or which users have written the most mini-reviews. A User List similar to the Filmmaker List would clearly make this possible, especially if it could be sorted by number of films rather than just alphabetically. And again, it could be developed further, along the lines of the Film Database: why not make it possible to generate a list of users who have watched Venezuelan documentaries made between 1980 and 1985, ordered by number of films?

In short, there should really be three locations: a Film Database page, a Filmmaker Database page, and a User Database page, each filterable and sortable in numerous ways. The current Film Database page offers the best model for the other two. If this were to occur, then Criticker would have developed a very useful, interesting, transparent and versatile metadata system, far beyond anything available at any comparable site.

[mpowell]

Thanks for those detailed suggestion! Certainly, the expansion of this kind of data is the direction we're heading. The Filmmaker List we have is just a start, and we plan on expanding the functionality and sorting/filtering options on that.

The User Database is something a bit further on down the line... we'd love to give you the option on finding other users from your country, for example. It's all in the works!

[iceblox]

Great suggestions!