
Show HN: MovieChat.org – Archive and Replacement for IMDb Message Boards - JimSmith84
http://www.MovieChat.org/
======
JimSmith84
Hi Everyone,

My name’s Jim, and I created MovieChat.org as an archive and replacement for
IMDB’s message boards which are shutting down this week. For those of you not
familiar, the IMDb message boards allowed you to discuss any single movie or
tv show with others (there was a separate forum for each movie/show). IMDb
recently announced they were shutting down the message boards and its users
were furious (there's a petition with close to 10k signatures here:
[https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-keep-the-
imd...](https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-keep-the-imdb-
messageboards-going)). I ventured out to create an archive (of all the
existing posts) and replacement and hence MovieChat.org was born.

Key Features of MovieChat.org:

1\. Any movie/show on IMDB is also on MovieChat.org (over 4 million and
counting) - we have separate boards for each movie/show, just like IMDB

2\. I backed up most of the posts for IMDB’s top 10,000 movies/shows - most
existing conversations on IMDB should also appear on MovieChat.org - we have
over 3 million posts already (and I'm working non-stop to back up even more
from IMDB)!

Please visit [http://MovieChat.org](http://MovieChat.org), join or start a
discussion, and let me know what you think. If you like it, please spread the
word. If there’s anything I can improve, just email me (jim@moviechat.org) and
I’ll get on it.

Jim jim@moviechat.org

~~~
dave_sullivan
This is awesome and much needed.

Just throwing it out there, but would you consider making a dump of the data
you scraped that could be used by data scientists? Maybe as a torrent or
something like that? Data about movies and what people say about them could
form the basis of a lot of NLP projects.

What other big datasets are there for forum post text data? The reddit dataset
most immediately comes to mind, and I've also seen a similar one for HN
comments. Any others?

~~~
mynewtb
ArchiveTeam's web archives will be available to everyone without restrictions
or profit as usual.

~~~
amyjess
Well, thanks to your comment, I just found out ArchiveTeam exists.

Thank you!

------
chinathrow
Nice - but have you consent of the comment authors to duplicate the content?
Normally, UGC (user generated content) remains under copyright of the users.

~~~
Markoff
no, he doesn't and he illegally copied 14 years of my posts which i don't like
especially since I moved to TMDb which is proper movie database where you can
also import your IMDb ratings and watchlist and each movie there has own
discussions

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punjabisingh
Great effort. I see some broken images here:
[http://www.moviechat.org/movies/search?name=westworld](http://www.moviechat.org/movies/search?name=westworld)

I'm surprised there isn't enough interest in people to recognize tMDB as
relevant. Especially since iMDB is ignoring users by taking down the forums.

~~~
Markoff
agreed on second part that TMDb is the only real alternative, it has
information about each movie and TV show, discussion for each of them and you
can even import there your IMDb ratings and watchlist, plus is run since 2008
and edited by its users plus developer is very responsive and provide API free
of charge

------
trippycheez
Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

I just heard about the IMDb message board deletion and was feeling deeply sad
about it. I love cinema, and their message board (despite its flaws) was a
valuable resource. It was the only place where you could go to participate in
in-depth discussions of even the most obscure films. I used it for 14 years
and learned so much from other users.

As far as I'm concerned you are a SAINT for preserving this bit of film and
internet history. Major gratitude to you for your caring and putting the new
site together.

I honestly want to cry, I am so relieved.

------
Markoff
thank you for helping further fragmentation of IMDb alternatives by creating
dumb forum like tons of other generic forums when there is REAL alternative
movie database with discussions for each movie called The Movie database
themoviedb.org run since 2008 and edited by its own users like Wikipedia

it's nice you created searchable archive of IMDb discussions though guys at
Archive are doing same anyway, not posing as alternative and I am not feeling
very happy sometime took 14 years of my IMDb posts and put them on his website
without my agreement

~~~
Jaruzel
You are fully within your legal right (based on _most_ countries data
protection laws - I do not know where you are), to reach out to MovieChat.org
and request formally your data be deleted. If it bothers you that much, I
fully recommend you do so.

However, surely rule #1 of the internet is, once you've posted it, it's out
there forever. Are you going to go around to every cache server, and
everyone's browser cache and demand that your comments be deleted from there
as well ?

~~~
Markoff
should not it be the other way? first he should have consent to publish that
data and not that he illegally copy data and publish them and i must perform
some action when he did some illegal?

as much as i hate IMDb shutting down boards i hope they will close this
illegal website

OTOH i have no problem with recognized Archive.org instead of this solo thief

~~~
fnj
Please stop your trolling. Nothing is being "stolen".

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CM30
It's a good start. I mean, you've got the data from the original IMDB boards
all laid out and accessible, so that's better than most alternatives at the
moment.

However, I'm curious about exactly how you're going to promote this site. The
people currently on IMDB likely don't know much about it, and it's unlikely
the administration there will redirect people over when they view the pages
for a movie or TV show on their site.

What's the plan to get the users whose data you scraped to come to this new
domain and participate again?

~~~
Markoff
he doesn't have movie database with ratings and watchlists, so i see no reason
moving there when i can have all of this plus discussions at TMDb (yes, they
are at the moment quite empty because nobody illegally copied posts from IMDb
there, including mine)

------
WayneBro
Thanks for making this. Some suggestions:

\- How about linking back to the IMDB page for each movie?

\- It would be great if you displayed various ratings from IMDB, Rotten
Tomatoes and elsewhere kind of like JustWatch.com does (but with links to
those ratings pages).

\- Actually, it would be really cool if you linked to a JustWatch search too
so the user can easily see if the movie is streaming anywhere that they
subscribe to.

Another crazy thought - a merger with JustWatch would be awesome too (but I
really wish JustWatch would also link back to IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc).

~~~
JimSmith84
Yeah I was actually thinking of doing this, just been super busy trying to
archive everything from IMDB before the boards shut down.

Do you know the founders at JustWatch?

~~~
endymi0n
Hey Jim, one of the JustWatch founders here - we'd love to have linkouts as
well. Unfortunately, interests with IMDB aren't super aligned at the moment
and they're in business much, much longer than we are. Let's say they keep a
pretty close guard on their data, as they've spent the last dozen years
collecting it.

But rest assured we're working heavily behind the scenes to make our site & UX
better and better every day with free and open movie data sources - but always
trying to stay safe on the legal side.

------
dirkg
Thank you!!

To my knowledge this is the only instance someone has managed to scrape the
Imdb boards, very curious how you managed that.

I really hope you get a sponsor/donations. This needs to be promoted to other
sites/social media and I will do my part.

I do have one request - can we do this for actors as well?

~~~
Markoff
promoting illegally copied content of users without their consent? for what's
it worth, he copied 14 years of my posts and I don't like it

~~~
dirkg
Imdb also 'copied' all your posts, right? How is this any different?

~~~
Markoff
no, I published my comments on IMDb website under their ToS, so I am fine with
them doing whatever they want on their website, I don't like it but it's their
right, meanwhile this guy has no rights to this content

------
dini0519
Jim-first thank you. But I accidentally signed up under my whole email when I
meant to sign up only under the first part as a user name. Can you help? Dini

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blitzo
What most user's annoyed the most is years of profile status now gone. If you
could somehow managed to get profile verification in sync that would do
wonder.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
My university's internet blocks the site as “Pornography”. Was the domain name
previously used for some other use, perhaps?

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dewey
Please add https, now with Let's encrypt there's really no excuse to not have
it.

~~~
OldSchoolJohnny
I wish! Windows servers is an excellent excuse to not have it. Two years
running now there still isn't a practical solution for Windows servers and
none in sight for the foreseeable future.

~~~
Jaruzel
I totally agree with this.

I am not comfortable running a daily, task scheduler based, third party script
with local admin rights, on my Windows Server, that checks my Lets Encrypt
certs and auto renews them.

However, now that Chrome v56+ is revoking StartSSL.com certs, I've probably
got no choice. Either that, or actually PAY for a multi-domain cert (Comodo do
a fairly cheap one).

~~~
tokenizerrr
> third party script with local admin rights

Why? Just have it drop the certs in some directory and then reload the
services. Just give the account running the script permissions to only reload
services.

I assume such is possible on Windows, but I don't know for sure because I only
use Linux servers. It is trivial there, so I assume you can do it on Windows
as well.

~~~
Jaruzel
It's not unfortunately - Certs are held in the Computer partition of the
Windows Credential Store, which you need elevated rights to update. It sucks,
but that's how it's designed. You also need to re-associate the renewed cert
(once its in the credential store) with the IIS binding as well, and then you
can stop/start the website instance. Again also needing elevated rights.

------
Steve2k17
theimdbforum.com

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supervill
Holy hell that's a ton of data you scraped

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akadini519
Second request-Help! I was active on IMDb under dini0519 but am now having
trouble signing on under that name because I had previously signed up under my
whole email not realizing that would be the username. Not really wanting my
complete email floating around I tried to shorten my user name to the previous
dini0519 and even just "dini" but nothing is working. I really want to be part
of this community esp concerning the Twilight Zone boards, The Golden Girls,
and Big Brother. Please help.

