Lost films should not be in the database

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
Risselada
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Lost films should not be in the database

Post by Risselada »

Criticker keeps recommending this movie to me: https://www.criticker.com/film/Sunrise/

If you read the description of the film it says "A lost silent film, from the Australian director Raymond Longford (not to be confused with Murnau's "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)". However the fact that enough people have rated this film that it's recommending it to me clearly indicates people are still confusing it with Murnau's "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans". I don't know why we even have films in the database that are not only lost, but lost so long ago that it's likely no one has actually seen them, much less will ever be able to see them again.

Can we please get this entry removed from the database?

Thank you.

BadCosmonaut
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by BadCosmonaut »

Wikipedia says it's a lost film. It was made within 1 year of another old black and white movie with a similar name, and wikipedia also says "Not to be confused with the 1927 American film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans." On IMDB, it has two user reviews, but both sound like they are talking about the other movie from 1927. Also, on IMDB this movie has only 197 ratings, whereas on criticker it has 35. Usually IMDB has at least 10x as many ratings compared to criticker. All of this seems to be in favor of the fact that it is easy to confuse these two movies and that it's happening now on this site. Where did these 35 people watch this movie at if it's lost? They all saw it back in 1926? I looked around and can't find it anywhere, so I think most likely they rated the wrong movie.

Because of this, I agree with OP. I can't see what practical purpose a lost film from 1926 serves by being in the database if it's true that people are mixing it up with a different film.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by CosmicMonkey »

What is a solution would be to keep the films in criticker's database but lock them from being able to be reviewed by users, with a header on the film's page saying something like "this is a lost film, and as a result cannot be reviewed."

Idk, the wording could be better, but you get the general idea.

BadCosmonaut
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by BadCosmonaut »

CosmicMonkey wrote:What is a solution would be to keep the films in criticker's database but lock them from being able to be reviewed by users, with a header on the film's page saying something like "this is a lost film, and as a result cannot be reviewed."

Idk, the wording could be better, but you get the general idea.


I like this. The point is just to prevent confused ratings. I would add to your message - "Not to be confused with movie name (year)" with a hyperlink to the other movie.

edkrak
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by edkrak »

Why don't we remove users who clearly don't have any idea what they're rating instead? :twisted:

kyvetti
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by kyvetti »

BadCosmonaut wrote:
CosmicMonkey wrote:What is a solution would be to keep the films in criticker's database but lock them from being able to be reviewed by users, with a header on the film's page saying something like "this is a lost film, and as a result cannot be reviewed."

Idk, the wording could be better, but you get the general idea.


I like this. The point is just to prevent confused ratings. I would add to your message - "Not to be confused with movie name (year)" with a hyperlink to the other movie.


Agreeing with these, it's good to have notable lost films in the database but considering that some people don't bother to read even the "lost film, not to be confused with" announcements there should be a possibility to lock a film from ratings/reviews
(I doubt the admins will be flooded with "I am actually 90 years old and saw this film before the last known copy went up in flames in 1953" requests).

mpowell
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by mpowell »

Locking the rating is a sensible idea... we don't have that capability quite yet, but have added this to our list of future improvements.

Luna6ix
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by Luna6ix »

Not sure if I agree with this. There are two possibilities that would make this a bad idea. First, there might actually be someone out there who saw the movie before it was lost, and their input would be invaluable. Secondly, while it's very unlikely, lost movies are occasionally recovered, and leaving it on here, as a lost film listing could possibly help bring it to light. Both those are unlikely, but the example of a lost film being confused with one that is not is also going to be an uncommon situation, I don't think it justifies removing them altogether.

I personally added a lost film to criticker once, trying to see if anyone was dishonestly rating movies. It's been about a decade now and that film still has no ratings whatsoever.

Edit. I'd also like to add that not all lost films are from the silent era, some are much newer, and it is still possible that a film was lost long after it was produced.

livelove
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Re: Lost films should not be in the database

Post by livelove »

I completely agree with all points made by Luna6ix.

Erroneous ratings might be a legitimate problem to address. I don't want to know, how many ratings are erroneously attributed to remakes, etc. I'm all for measures that avoid misunderstandings (e.g. "attention: not to be confused with ..."). But I think locking ratings is not the way to go.

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