"And", "Or", and "And Not" for Collections

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
djross
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"And", "Or", and "And Not" for Collections

Post by djross »

First off, I know the suggestions I am putting forward here are not precisely new. But that said, the ability of users to create "collections", and the highly orderable and filterable character of those collections, makes this one of the best Criticker features, and one that I think deserves a push towards further improvement.

The collection "Female director", for example, currently contains over 4000 movies: is this kind of information so readily available anywhere else, online or off, and, if it is available somewhere else, is there anywhere that, with the click of a button, such information can be filtered to only include female-directed Bulgarian films, or only films made between 1921 and 1923? (As an aside, my personal feeling is that it is disappointing that the user who took over this collection added the unnecessary requirement that, for films with multiple directors, at least 50% must be female, but of course this only makes a small difference at the outer margins.) Criticker's unique ability to make this kind of information available and useable has always seemed to me to be something that can be used to more forcefully promote the virtues of the website.

The next step in making this information even more useable is to be able to combine collections in three different ways:

AND: Select Collection X and then Collection Y and choose AND, and this will select all films that belong to BOTH Collection X AND Collection Y. This will mean that one will instantly be able to see, for example, what films are made by "Female directors" and are also about "superheroes".

OR: Select Collection X and then Collection Y and choose OR, and this will select all films that belong to EITHER Collection X OR Collection Y. This will mean that one will instantly be able to see, for example, what films belong to the set of "Monkey Movies" films and/or films about "Dogs" (alternatively, just look up the work of director Robert Vince). Or: "My DVDs" and "My Blu-rays".

AND NOT: Select Collection X and then Collection Y and choose AND NOT, and this will select all films that belong to Collection X but ARE NOT in Collection Y. This will mean that one will instantly be able to see, for example, what films "passed the Bechdel test" and are not by "Female directors".

Potentially, these operations could be applied to other categories than just collections (genres, countries, etc.) in a way that would completely open up the database to all kinds of investigation. But I think applying these operations to collections would be the best place to start.

mpowell
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Re: "And", "Or", and "And Not" for Collections

Post by mpowell »

Thanks for the detailed suggestion! You're right that this is one which has been on the books for awhile. I'll add your ideas to our report!

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