# IMDb's new bullshit--how do you reorder reviews by chronology, etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 12, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263 "2017-12-12T04:07:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/1 "2017-12-12T04:07:44Z")
This change literally happened yesterday, I think. Trying to google answers to this question is pretty useless when it comes to IMDB–you only get a ton of movie listings in the results… Anyone see the new bullshit they’re pulling? I’m not a fan of changes at IMDb. They took away all the message boards about, well, everything. That’s a resource that won’t be returning to the Internet anytime soon (like, ever). Now they’ve taken away the handy ability to order reviews by chronology, loved it, hated it, etc. All is now ordered by “helpfulness.” Where’s the goddamn button to change that?! If it ain’t broke, don’t fuckin’ break it some more!!! Sorry, frustrated. Anyone got some answers and opinions?! ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/2 "2017-12-12T04:14:06Z")
I’ll also add that I think the “helpfulness” metric on IMDb is 100% useless. The three meaningful things to me are chronology (useful to have that come up first, as it did until, um, yesterday) and love it/hated it to get different perspectives on a movie. I’m now looking at the reviews for Total Recall (1990), and I have to scroll through a shitton of mostly glowingly positive reviews to get to anything subtle. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/3 "2017-12-12T05:07:14Z")
That is laughably bad. Reviews can make the first page ranked on “Helpfulness” with only 3 people finding it helpful. If the movie is at all unusual the first page is crammed with all the negative reviews. Luckily I only ever look at user ratings or reviews once in a rare while, even though I have rated thousands of movies. I certainly will be ignoring the reviews until they add other sort options. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/4 "2017-12-12T05:49:18Z")
The bastards have also eliminated “Characters” from their dropdown search menu. You can no longer search for actors playing the part of soandso. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/5 "2017-12-12T22:57:52Z")
Lots of signs that IMDb is having income trouble. They got rid of the boards a while back. Their ads are getting seriously more intrusive. And now they are cutting back on the little things. Expect a new “basic”\* membership pay level soon to get access to most of it. Being bought out by Amazon seemed like a good fit. Show links/ads for the program on Amazon so you can buy/rent it. But like a lot of free sites on the Internet now, the ads just aren’t cutting it. - Lower than “pro”. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/6 "2017-12-13T01:09:43Z")
For a long time now, they have buried information gathering facilities. If you enter the exact name of an obscure film, it defaults to highly-promoted recent releases with similar words in the title, and you have to keep begging it to pay attention to your search termsl ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdbs-new-bullshit-how-do-you-reorder-reviews-by-chronology-etc/804263/7 "2017-12-13T13:37:03Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > For a long time now, they have buried information gathering facilities. If you enter the exact name of an obscure film, it defaults to highly-promoted recent releases with similar words in the title, and you have to keep begging it to pay attention to your search termsl IMDb’s search results are not as bad as Rotten Tomatoes. Give RT an _exact_ title of a new or soon to be released movie and it’ll often appear 10-20 hits down on the list below old stuff that barely have similar titles. My rule of thumb: search engines trying to be “helpful” never are.