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Alex · 04-02-2008, 09:47 AM

To me the concept of IMDb is an interesting one (and dovetails well with my librarian training in trying to organize all information into one system).

That is a strength of Wikipedia. It doesn't require a template. Whatever someone wants to write about a movie or a TV series they can, in whatever format is best for that one product. Have someone willing to make a list of all the secondary characters to ever appear in a show? No problem, just make a separate page and link to it.

But that requires an individual who cares to do all of that. When that person doesn't exist the movie/show goes neglected. Take for example the long forgotten failed Jason Bateman sitcom "Some of My Best Friends." At Wikipedia you get just a paragraph of overview information. No way to find out who played Connie in that series because only the three major characters are mentioned.

But because IMDb takes a more systematic interest, even a show that only aired for 5 episodes gets almost the same treatment as 400 episodes of "The Simpsons". And I learn (if I care) that Connie was played in four episodes (three never aired) by Camille Saviola.

But the byproduct of a systematic approach is a reliance on templates and sometimes fitting square pegs in round holes and complex rules and arbitrary compromises (all of which is familiar to anybody who has worked in library classification systems where the attempt is to create a system that can accommodate all knowledge, even knowledge that doesn't yet exist). Such as the issue of what to do with roles that were filmed for a movie but then left on the cutting room floor? Include them or not? What about in the modern DVD age when that role gets restored as an extra or in the Director's Edition?

Classic knowledge management issues. I've long thought that if I ever ended up back in library schools as an instructor I'd use the history and evolution of IMDb as a case study (and Wikipedia is its own very interesting beast in this regard) to drive a whole semester of study. Of course, since I've now been out of the field for a decade that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.

04-02-2008, 09:47 AM	#28
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	To me the concept of IMDb is an interesting one (and dovetails well with my librarian training in trying to organize all information into one system). That is a strength of Wikipedia. It doesn't require a template. Whatever someone wants to write about a movie or a TV series they can, in whatever format is best for that one product. Have someone willing to make a list of all the secondary characters to ever appear in a show? No problem, just make a separate page and link to it. But that requires an individual who cares to do all of that. When that person doesn't exist the movie/show goes neglected. Take for example the long forgotten failed Jason Bateman sitcom "Some of My Best Friends." At Wikipedia you get just a paragraph of overview information. No way to find out who played Connie in that series because only the three major characters are mentioned. But because IMDb takes a more systematic interest, even a show that only aired for 5 episodes gets almost the same treatment as 400 episodes of "The Simpsons". And I learn (if I care) that Connie was played in four episodes (three never aired) by Camille Saviola. But the byproduct of a systematic approach is a reliance on templates and sometimes fitting square pegs in round holes and complex rules and arbitrary compromises (all of which is familiar to anybody who has worked in library classification systems where the attempt is to create a system that can accommodate all knowledge, even knowledge that doesn't yet exist). Such as the issue of what to do with roles that were filmed for a movie but then left on the cutting room floor? Include them or not? What about in the modern DVD age when that role gets restored as an extra or in the Director's Edition? Classic knowledge management issues. I've long thought that if I ever ended up back in library schools as an instructor I'd use the history and evolution of IMDb as a case study (and Wikipedia is its own very interesting beast in this regard) to drive a whole semester of study. Of course, since I've now been out of the field for a decade that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.
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