It's hard to believe it's been a year.

@genplant29 wrote:

The IMDb message boards closed on this date, at right about exactly this present time, one year ago. (Was approximately midnight UK time at the start of 2/20, approx. 7:00p.m. US Eastern time on 2/19.)

I'm still sad about it ...

All hail to TMDb Movie/TV/Celebrity message boards, and to Travis for instating them! We former IMDb message boards users are very appreciative!

Yes, I am! I wonder how many former IMDb users are still around?

I still have yet to encounter anyone with a username that's familiar from back on IMDb. Even at a couple alternate sites that I observe at now and then, I have yet to see anyone with a username that's familiar from before.

Incidentally, I have the same username here as when on IMDb.

Maybe we can get all IMDbers who are here to mention who they were and what boards they posted on.

Although some may have kept their username(s), I think a lot of them, if they even decided to join here, would have changed their username(s) to leave the past behind, and so as not to be followed here and annoyed by enemies/trolls. I recognize a few who kept their username(s), but not many.

The only difference in my name is I dropped the 23 (used to be bratface23). I mostly posted on the 'Poll' board and a couple of others (TV shows & movies). I do miss the friends I made over there, some do communicate through email (everybody received a list of email addresses of those that wanted to keep in touch after the shutdown). Some of the diehards stuck around and post at the 'Get Satisfaction' section of Imdb. I stuck around at the GS area (I canceled my IMDb account back in Feb. 2017) until Needham deleted a post of mine that criticized his handling of certain things, I then canceled that account too.

I remember how blindsighted so many of us in the US and elsewhere throughout North America felt that IMDb (a UK based company) pulled the plug on the boards at pretty much 12 midnight sharp (actually seems like probably was more like roughly 10-15 or so minutes later, though the boards were working inconsistently, with a lot of "D'Oh!" messages, during the final hours), cheating us of that last evening to finish doing whatever we may have wanted and intended to do while we thought we still had at least 5 remaining hours. I think the "typical" North American user fully believed, and expected, that the boards and private messaging features would remain intact till at least 12 midnight US Eastern time.

On IMDb I never went on any forums other than for specific movies, shows, documentaries, or actors/actresses - never on any genre or general or watercooler, etc. type ones - so never encountered any trolls - instead typically just regular either entirely or reasonably polite posters - in all the years I was on that site.

The thing was that Needham lived in the UK but the site was run from Seattle (in the PNW) and it should have gone down at midnight PST. He was an a**hole for springing it on everyone like that. Even some of the mods/volunteers were blindsided.

I absolutely agree with you. It was a really tacky move. And you know that he realized full well that most North Americans were thinking, when it was announced that the boards would close on Feb. 20, that it meant also by our time/date stamp. IMDb powers that be were jerks, to the message boards crowd, right to the very end.

My IMDB user name was aussiegirl10. I didn't comment that often, but when I did it was on a couple of tv shows.

@genplant29 said:

I absolutely agree with you. It was a really tacky move. And you know that he realized full well that most North Americans were thinking, when it was announced that the boards would close on Feb. 20, that it meant also by our time/date stamp. IMDb powers that be were jerks, to the message boards crowd, right to the very end.

To be fair, many IMDb users were mentally and socially maladjusted kids with bad attitudes, deliberately mocking and crapping all over everyone and everything, and the site wasn't even making a penny off anyone.

It shouldn't be expected that some free loitering area will be getting all these accommodations.

@genplant29 said:

On IMDb I never went on any forums other than for specific movies, shows, documentaries, or actors/actresses - never on any genre or general or watercooler, etc. type ones - so never encountered any trolls - instead typically just regular either entirely or reasonably polite posters - in all the years I was on that site.

I'm guessing you didn't visit the Game of Thrones board...

I've always only ever gone on boards for certain American broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) series or specials, certain things on America's PBS, and for classic films and series, so fare that the boards of tend to remain polite.

Yeah, to be fair many of the boards I visited were OK (even the GoT one usually was "out of season") but some were horrible; I guess that someone decided that it was easier to dump them rather than police them.

I had an account for 14 years or so when one day I decided to leave a comment on the GOT board (I usually just read the posts). My comment was about the replacement of Ed Skrein, who originally played Daario Naharis, with Michiel Huisman (so much better). I thought that the poster wasn't aware of the change & reminded them of the new actor. Well I was flamed like you wouldn't believe, people said the rudest things (I believe a lot of the people on the GOT board were unhinged), reported me to the admins, I was 'suspended' temporarily until I pointed out the post that was flagged & the suspension was lifted. That was one of the things that Needham & co. refused to fix, 99.9% of the time they NEVER checked/read the posts being flagged, they just suspended people from posting for awhile. There were plenty of people willing to volunteer as mods/admins to monitor & deal with the trolls but Needham refused to hear of it. Bottom line, he screwed the people that helped to build the site.