@Samara, et al: I'm not in any way suggesting regionalization (i.e. "Ohio, Missouri for example"); however I heartily agree that Wales and Scotland should be added, after all Ireland, Canada and Australia have their own listings! Thank you for pointing that out; particularly because there is video and/or movies clearly being released in Wales significantly prior to release throughout Great Britain, and "The United Kingdom (UK) comprises four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland." Furthermore, we don't list any countries as the EU, though a dissimilar issue, it is just as arbitrary. I'll also point out that North Korea and South Korea are nnot treated as regionalizations of Korea... they are separate and independent nations right now... today.

Everyone in general: My recommendation here is quite simple, our wold is not static, it has changed int the past and will continue to change in the future. I don't believe anyone intends TMDb to be only for today, but for an uncertain future as well.

Are we only going to list countries/territories of the present year? This would mean that as nations fail into the future, they should be removed from the database. Are we prepared to strike Greece, Israel, Tibet or the United States of America from the database if they should fall?

Are we only going to list countries that exist in the first decade of the 21st century? Perhaps countries and nations should be removed from the database all together; then we could only list years and certifying agencies.

I imagine most here are too young to remember (or be aware that) many actors/actresses, directors and producers were blackballed from Hollywood due to "communist associations" in the time frame I have highlighted previously. Similarly many western films have been prohibited for decades in communist nations. (For that matter, how many films are prohibited today in their own nation of origin due to "political correctness" of the time -- Song of the South, comes to mind). I am confident similar is likely to be occurring today in Islamic nations and likely China still.

Personally, I believe we all have a responsibility to report historical facts accurately, not whitewash them under the light of current prejudices (or laziness). Yes, TMDb can just be a pretty site for present day quasi-geekdom to use for their video collections, but if it is going to provide historical "facts", they should indeed be factual and therefor accurate. But that's only important if one is building for time (ie decades to come) not just today and tomorrow.

Should it be the same for persons (ie actors/actress, directors and others) born in nations that no longer exist (or will cease to exist)? At this point I'll just point out that Bruce Willis was born in "West Germany", and he just one example among hundreds considering nations gone by (Burma, Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, USSR...), and I have seen no indication on TMDb that it is intended solely for the western nations and their motion pictures. (I can already hear the screams if it were suggested Anime should be removed.)

I believe this issue has become even more relevant since TMDb added the ability to list television series, and Anime is a paramount example of video which has gained interest outside of its country of origin and intended audience.

The problem of historic countries has obviously been extensively discussed. The ones I miss most are:

• West Germany (or more precise: FRG)
• East Germany (or GDR)
• Soviet Union (or USSR)
• Yugoslavia
• Czechoslovakia

Grown up in East Germany, it is very puzzling to see our cultural history disappear. What may look like a boring film for a West German audience, was sometimes an act of subversion for an East German director. Neglecting these historic differences in the database, makes them more difficult to understand for young and future audiences.

I would suggest it as a Keyword

When I can't add a country like Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia then give me the option set no country on release. Okay you I can say this former Yugoslavia movie is an Serbian movie, but then I divest the other successor state of Yugoslavia of his culture property.

@Theli93 you compare with Ohio, Missouri is not the same. Missouri was all the time part of the US and it is not a problem to say this is an US Movie. The goal of this discussion is not to regionalize this db to hell. When I add a movie I want only add correct data, but in this kind I have to lie.

Alright, I just went ahead and added a few new countries. I based the ISO codes on the codes Musicbrainz is using.

• Czechoslovakia (XC)
• Yugoslavia (YU)
• Kosovo (XK)
• East Germany (XG)
• Soviet Union (SU)

Hi Travis,

I noticed you started renaming countries for release dates namely (United States of America to United States), but now West Germany for example is removed. Was that intentional?

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/11708-chitty-chitty-bang-bang/edit?active_nav_item=release_information

I didn't explicitly change Germany but perhaps maybe, West Germany just became Germany? It was always the code, "DE", though, that didn't change. "XG" is still East Germany.

Ah, maybe there just never was West Germany to begin with!! I do know there was East Germany (hadn't checked that it was still therE), so I just assumed that there always had been West too :P

West Germany is the common English name, but the official name was the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD) in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 and German reunification on 3 October 1990. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states, became known simply as "Germany".

Before reunification, East Germany was officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik).

Yeah, I know, it's just easier than writing BRD and DDR honestly, we all know what is meant with East and West haha! Like you said we also don't have Federation of Germany :P

@alltimemarr said:

Yeah, I know, it's just easier than writing BRD and DDR honestly, we all know what is meant with East and West haha! Like you said we also don't have Federation of Germany :P

Sorry if I've gotten confused, but what did we decide about country names vs. keywords? Can someone please summarize, maybe using E and W Germany as examples? East Germany makes sense to me, especially since the German Democratic Republic (GDR), is an ironically inaccurate description of what E Germany actually was like. But I always thought of West Germany as just Germany--or the "real" Germany; and East Germany was a Soviet country "stolen" from Germany, not just a segment of Germany. Sort of like Russia "stealing" Crimea.

Because when there was a wall. There was east and west. Or what people call it. Theres even songs and movies about it. Its nothing scientific 😜

I don’t know what GDR is. Probably wasn’t important enough to mention in history class.

GDR was the official name of East Germany but about the history there wasn't something stolen, it was the result of a lost war started from Germany

@Samara said:

GDR was the official name of East Germany but about the history there wasn't something stolen, it was the result of a lost war started from Germany

The postwar partition of Germany (and its capital, Berlin) by the U.S., France, Britain and the Soviets was supposed to be temporary, but the Soviets failed to give up their occupied territory. So the country of East Germany was in fact stolen from Germany by them. The reunification in 1990 effectively gave it back.

But this still doesn't clear up Moon Doggie's question about the part of the previous discussion involving country names vs. keywords. I'm frankly still confused about that part of the discussion as well. Any clarification is appreciated.

I don’t even know what is meant by keywords. Keywords are tags for the movie?