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I learned that unofficial translations aren't allowed and it was honestly surprising, because I don't think anyone follows that. Is it possible to vote against this rule? Should I search for a movie in Japanese (and I don't know Japanese) because it will possibly never make it officially to USA or England, not even speaking about my country? A lot of translations have to be removed then, even these of such popular franchises as Kamen Rider.

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There is an exception for movies with non-roman original title. I quote : "Exception: a romanized title can be used as a temporary translated en-US title for entries with a non-Roman original title (e.g. a Japanese, Malayalam or Ukranian movie). "

But as I understand, romanization isn't a translation, but rather a transcription, right?

Also, what if I want to do a translation to Ukrainian? Does it mean the same rules apply to movies with the original title for example in Latin alphabet (English, German), because Ukrainian uses Cyrillic alphabet?

@Allosaurus said:

But as I understand, romanization isn't a translation, but rather a transcription, right?

Yes

Also, what if I want to do a translation to Ukrainian? Does it mean the same rules apply to movies with the original title for example in Latin alphabet (English, German), because Ukrainian uses Cyrillic alphabet?

No

Can this rule be changed then?

No changes of the rules are currently planned.

So user opinions on the rules don't matter at all?

User opinion matters, of course, but a change of the rules would mean any made-up, home-cooked translation could be added for any movie without an official translation and that's not something we want. The exception was created to make sure users and moderators could actually read certain titles. In the early days of TMDb the standard was to add those titles as original titles (inspired by IMDb, no doubt), an incorrect pattern which we eventually had to correct. (So, for example, the standard way a Russian title was added early on was with the transliterated title as original and with the original Russian title as the translated Russian title.)

I would suggest that you report some titles and then we can look into each case. That way it creates a linked up discussion that can be useful in a more direct way rather than a more general discussion here.

What I mean, is if there's such a rule, I will of course follow it but it will be almost impossible. I think it's easier to start every translation from zero than to remove everything that should be left blank or transcripted according to the rule. I'll go as far as saying I believe most of the translations on the site are unofficial. Not only movies and shows, but a translated title of every single episode of certain entries should be erased, which sounds almost impossible. I changed titles of several entries to the transcripted ones, if you want examples: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/826708, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1002780 and https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/153918. I believe someone will undo that in no time, and reporting every single thing is impossible in my opinion, again. I know it's me using the site, I should do as told but every other editor who's not aware of this rule will be a problem. Personally, I think even the worst possible translation of any entry without an official translation is better than nothing, because it's understanding what the title means what matters. I believe it'd be the best solution if unofficial translations were allowed but they could be marked as such somehow and maybe it could be even chosen if to look at the blank/transcripted title or at the unofficial translation. It's quite sad the answer to if the rules can be changed was a strong no, because there was another rule I didn't think was good (images of worse quality, in particular) and no one said never, but it's opened to discussion. I think TMDb would became better if rule of the unofficial translations was changed, because as of today, it means that I wouldn't even can search for older Spider-Man movies and any of the Japanese Godzilla movies on the site if I didn't know English. However, even if I know English, the situation isn't far better, especially when the fanbase of the titles I gave links to relies usually on fansubs and nothing can be done about it.

Well, here's another example: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law. Since I removed a Ukrainian title yesterday, it was already added two times.

@Allosaurus said:

Well, here's another example: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law. Since I removed a Ukrainian title yesterday, it was already added two times.

Now locked empty. This is, however, what I mean with a direct report being more helpful. This fix with an explanation will not be viewable for users that check the reports for the entry.

And someone simply added this title as an alternate... (I removed it.) Anyway, here are three of individual reports: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/438561/discuss/62ff5d79bc8657007b0fddba?language=uk-UA, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2661/discuss/62ff5ccad6819b007d3b9f7e?language=uk-UA, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92749-moon-knight/discuss/62ff5d36bc865700837c9a4e?language=uk-UA. This is what I mean under it being almost impossible to follow this. Even if I try to remove everything, someone can add it again. Reporting every single of these for being locked empty/transcribed is something I don't think I'll do either, sorry.

OK, so my confusion now is with these original titles in a language not expected to be understood by someone in Ukraine. Should we then allow a transliterated (readable) title to be added for uk-UA? Or is it enough to let these users find it with the help of titles already added to other translations or as alternative titles?

My whole point was not about transliteration but about actual translation. I think the solution should satisfy both sides. As I said just for an example, there could be two text fields: one for a title that is either officially translated, transcripted or left blank according to the current rule, and another field for an unofficial translation that could be marked as such. This is just an example of idea of how it can be developed in the future. What I tried to tell all this time is «no unofficial translations» is impossible to follow considering the site's size and number of films, shows and episodes in different languages.

What I tried to tell all this time is «no unofficial translations» is impossible to follow considering the site's size and number of films, shows and episodes in different languages.

But that would be true for any other rule we have and we still have the rules. To use an example: at any given time there are hundreds if not thousands of incorrect entries in the database. Without pre-moderation (entries are checked before they are approved to enter the site), it's impossible to defend against spam, trolling, and incorrect entries (music videos, ads, non-professional content etc). Instead we remove the bad stuff when we find it (often helped out by regular users and moderators that keep track of common offenders and titles that get re-added). In the same way, we fix other issues when we find those. If we had more language specific mods, I'm sure it would not be as much of an issue as it is now.

But despite that, most of the rules are still way easier to keep up with and there's way more reasoning to most of them. I honestly don't understand at all what's bad about unofficial translations.

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