As an example, IMDB reduced Gumby: The Movie (1995)

From:
Action
Adventure
Animation
Comedy
Family
Fantasy
Music
Mystery
Science Fiction
Western

To:
Animation
Action
Adventure

I think it is better for it.

The argument isn't that it should be done because IMDB does it. IMDB only recently changed.

It is an argument of quality over quantity. Even 4 would be okay as a limit.
Allowing 11 just seem ridiculous and even 5 is a bit OTT.

I agree that if the key genre aspects of a film can't be captured in 3-4 genres, then folks are just being lazy. Too many genres don't help people to classify the film meaningfully.

I'm glad you guys agree, this is from the upcoming Contribution Bible:

Genres should be chosen very carefully. We only want the 2 or 3 most relevant film genres–excluding Animation, Documentary, Family–that best describe the movie.

I personally think four genres is not a big deal iff they are equally relevant key genres, but I agree using 5+ is a bit ridiculous.

As I said, I prefer 3, but I could happily live with 4. I just believe, coding wise, there should be a limit. e.g. you cannot actually add more. Rather than it just being a curating preference.

@banana_girl said:

I'm glad you guys agree, this is from the upcoming Contribution Bible:

Genres should be chosen very carefully. We only want the 2 or 3 most relevant film genres–excluding Animation, Documentary, Family–that best describe the movie.

Yeah, there aren't really that many films that need more than about three. Even something like Gone With the Wind or Dr. Zhivago could probably fit reasonably well within three genres. And if those can, I think anything can.

Over-genre-adding, like over-tagging (keywords) is just plain dumb and those people I rather not have here :') #harshbuttrue.

I like the idea of a limit. I don't it necessarily needs to be super restrictive, though. Even a limit of e.g. 5 genres and 30 keywords could really help. As long as other contributors don't remove good keywords and replace them with bad ones. @Travis ?

I agree with everything everyone here is saying. Some members really go overboard with their genre selections. I rarely consider there to be valid need for more than 3, and never - that I've seen - need for more than 4.

Regarding Keywords, I always think max of around 20 is a good "soft" limit, though always preferably to aim for less. Keywords shouldn't list "everything and anything" that's an ingredient in the movie, instead should stick to just things that actually are significant in whatever way.

My approach to this, is data as a whole and programmatically. So having a bunch of outliers and rubbish is far worse than nothing at all for those entries.

At the moment, there are 20 genres.
So 3 genres = 1350 variations.
If you change that to 4 genres, you get 7545 variations.
(This is assuming you can't have a genre twice and genre order is meaningless.)

So, you have already diluted your combination pool by a factor of 4.

e.g. take Aliens as Action, Sci-fi, Thriller and that combination matches 1000 films. With 4 genres, it is likely to match 250 films.
In a way, this is good, as it is more specific, but you can quickly run into very small pools, especially if you apply year/decade.

Stretch that to 5 genres and your pools get very small and far less useful.

Being too specific can cause problems and limit what you can do with the data.

This is part of the reasoning as to why I like 3.

That said, I can see there being endless complaints about 3 not being enough, which is why I am open to 4. I think it is far more difficult to argue for 5, than it is for 4. If someone comes along wanting 5, I have no issue with shutting that down right there. If someone was arguing for 4, you can't get around the fact that they do have a valid argument with a reasonable set of examples.

Also, most will just add 3 since they take their base as IMDB. 4 will indicate that they either added one specifically, or they are choosing them themselves.

@Tokubetsu said:

As an example, IMDB reduced Gumby: The Movie (1995)

From:
Action
Adventure
Animation
Comedy
Family
Fantasy
Music
Mystery
Science Fiction
Western

To:
Animation
Action
Adventure

I think it is better for it.

All genres are listed on the IMDb page further below. They just display the main 3 at the top of the page. And having those three at the top could of course be helpful for IMDb users.

@genplant29 said:

Regarding Keywords, I always think max of around 20 is a good "soft" limit, though always preferably to aim for less. Keywords shouldn't list "everything and anything" that's an ingredient in the movie, instead should stick to just things that actually are significant in whatever way.

The problem from our perspective is that so many users copy blindly from the trivia-obsessed and spoiler-heavy IMDb keyword listings. If you ignore the trivia (that we generally don't want, with some notable exceptions) and the spoilers, it will be quite hard to come up with more than 20 keywords that are essential to a movie. All that will be addressed when the TMDb 'bible' goes live though.

Is the bible something coded though? Or is it just that you "shouldn't" rather than "can't"?

Is the bible something coded though? Or is it just that you "shouldn't" rather than "can't"?

It's all the unwritten rules put into writing. If you break the rules you usually get a warning and then you get banned. (Edit: But this depends on the offense, sabotage often means immediate ban. And some minor stuff, only means we send out an e-mail.)

With coding, do you mean like enforcing a "no more than 25 keywords can be added to a movie or TV-show" limit?

Yup. Although to be honest, I am only bothered about genres. I don't give a monkies about keywords as I don't use them :P

I want it so you just can't add more than X. Otherwise, it will just happen and then moderators have to find the issue, correct the issue etc. It is just a lot of extra work, which could be prevented by a tiny bit of coding.

When it comes to keywords, meta-tagging basically, I would basically set up a forum where someone had to argue for a tag to be added. e.g. prove it relevant and worthwhile for a number of films. Then the total number of unique tags remains manageable and useful. Otherwise it just becomes a big unruly mess which has little use.

That said, that comes down to where a site is when it comes to its content. If it just wants data, any data, then free-for-all is the way to go. If it thinks it is past that point, then actual quality of data becomes more important. Obviously, you always have to go through that first stage first.

On a plus note, the people blindly following the top of the page of IMDB, could prove advantageous when it comes to keeping genres to a useful limit :P

Oh and don't get me started on the "Foreign" genre.