Ha! That's a story. A lame story, but here you go....

So back in 2008 when I had just renamed this project from Meligrove to The Movie Database, I went on to Wikipedia and added some links to a handful of pages. Just like you see now where movie pages link to IMDb. I added maybe, 20 links or something (it was not very many.) Some Wikipedia editors didn't want links to TMDB (which is fine) and even though I guess they had warned me to stop a few times, I never saw these posts to my "talk" page so they suspended me.

I explained at the time that I didn't see their warnings (Wikipedia's talk pages are a very user unfriendly way to communicate) and while they agreed to unban my account, they added our domain (themoviedb.org) to their spam block list. It has been there ever since.

There has been quite a few times since then that our users have tried to get the domain removed from the block list, and even tried to get a page created for TMDB but their moderators will not budge. Even though a countless number of pages exists on Wikipedia without any notable citations this is something they claim we absolutely require in order to have our page. Every attempt since then just gets deleted. I had a whole back and forth with them about this back in 2017, and when they made it clear that I shouldn't have any part in it (because I am biased as the founder) I left it there. Haven't thought about it since.

But ya, that's the story. tldr; Wikipedia and their moderators have held on to a 15 year grudge against me and TMDB.

I was surprised, and rather tickled, a year or so back, to see someone had added the shortcut to one of my TMDb threads (probably one about a long ago actor or actress, as I've created some pretty detailed such [and movie] threads at times) in a Wikipedia footnote as a source.

@travisbell said:

Ha! That's a story. A lame story, but here you go....

So back in 2008 when I had just renamed my project from Meligrove to The Movie Database, I went on to Wikipedia and added some links to a handful of pages. Just like you see now where movie pages link to IMDb. I added maybe, 20 links or something (it was not very many.) Some Wikipedia editors didn't want links to TMDB (which is fine) and even though I guess they had warned me to stop a few times, I never saw these posts to my "talk" page so they suspended me.

I explained at the time that I didn't see their warnings (Wikipedia's talk pages are a very user unfriendly way to communicate) and while they agreed to unban my account, they added our domain (themoviedb.org) to their spam block list. It has been there ever since.

There has been quite a few times since then that our users have tried to get the domain removed from the block list, and even tried to get a page created for TMDB but their moderators will not budge. Even though a countless number of pages exists on Wikipedia without any notable citations this is something they claim we will need to have in order to have a page. So every attempt just gets deleted. I had a whole back and forth with them about this back in 2017, and when they made it clear that I shouldn't have any part in it (because I am biased) I left it there. Haven't thought about it since.

But ya, that's the story. TLDR; Wikipedia and their moderators have held on to a 15 year grudge against me and TMDB.

I have tried maybe once a year to add TMDB links to movies & TV shows for a while (the last 4 or 5 years) but keep getting the nope not going to happen message. This last time (about a month ago) there was some back & forth on the 'talk pages' about why they couldn't be added & they would say because TMDB is 'spam' & since they get their info from other sources, they aren't reliable! I said then why is IMDb allowed (even though they say it isn't allowed on a page on info of what is allowed)? I said even Wikipedia gets their info from somewhere else initially! I was then told that I would be banned if I brought up the subject again! This is not all of the conversation but the gist of it. I personally think it's all ridiculous but...?

Yeah, some there sound to be on a power high. And 15 years should be more than plenty time for a site that did something not to Wiki's liking in 2008 to redeem itself to Wiki's satisfaction. They clearly are unwilling to listen, which is completely unreasonable.

Their rules requiring notable citations is fine, my problem is that it's not enforced in any consistent manner. They are certainly enforcing it any time TMDB gets mentioned and yet take a browse around the site, you can hit 10 pages in a row without any notable citations. It's a total farce.

And yes, all of this because of something I did (on like I said, maybe 20 pages) over a period of 3 days in 2008. Crazy.

@travisbell said:

Their rules requiring notable citations is fine, my problem is that it's not enforced in any consistent manner. They are certainly enforcing it any time TMDB gets mentioned and yet take a browse around the site, you can hit 10 pages in a row without any notable citations. It's a total farce.

And yes, all of this because of something I did (on like I said, maybe 20 pages) over a period of 3 days in 2008. Crazy.

That is a long time to hold a grudge. Thanks for answering my query. Honestly, I really didn't think I would see an answer until maybe next year? 😉