The Movie Database Support
Support → Website Support
'bad' / duplicate image problem (for the entire website)
posted by kiyoSTAFFMOD on September 3, 2024 at 10:32 AM
i've noticed that on TMDB, for popular and niche films/shows/people etc. alike, there is a major problem with image (mainly poster, backdrop, logo) [sometimes episode images/people, but this is a much simpler issue] quality control. a lot of these 'improper images' usually never get reported. this is rather annoying as it especially spams the poster/backdrop/logo section with effectively, garbage - this and the duplicates make it hard to look for images on popular/semi-popular titles. this is an even bigger inconvenience for other sites that use TMDB for user image functionality. the logos are sort of a problem as they easily enable a user to create a 'bad' poster. it's also the one thing that in my eyes give the site of a bit of 'bad look' (IMDB shares the same problem, although they are far more lenient and there are hundreds/thousands of random images). there being a smaller amount of people that care about this doesn't help. i have noticed cases where this leads in a 'bad' / user-altered poster with obvious flaws being the main poster on TMDB - which is undesirable for obvious reasons.
something should be done about this to aid in cleaning up the website in order for its image sections to look more professional while making it's functionality simpler. for anything else it's usually a non-issue as content can be locked and users can remove garbage/update incorrect info themselves in a matter of seconds/minutes or make an easy report on it. making a report for 50-100 images isn't as convenient for a user or staff, neither is just a simple report saying 'tons of duplicate/spam on this popular titles page' (there's a lot of cases like this), more niche titles only have a few max, but there can be rather bad examples. i don't know if the moderators/administrators are exactly happy with this either, as it seems to be a constant, futile 'battle' where images are constantly removed for new ones (or the same ones) to come back again, and for the cycle to repeat as theoretically an infinite number of images can be added and be allowed, unlike other information, which is going to be far more limited. even when this 'battle' happens, the 'bad'/duplicate images are still in place. in summary it's a huge waste of time for anyone involved and the constant addition of 'bad' images gets in the way of other reports or the removal of previously uploaded 'bad' images'. fixing this could lead in more official(/good looking user-made) posters/backdrops/logos/images being added that aren't on the site.
my personal potential differing solutions to the problem:
all images are to be user requested/manually glanced over and verified before upload (it is uncommon and radical but databases do this, and rightfully so as images can be a big problem. some even require all information to be verified) [perhaps in order to make it a bit less work for admins/moderators there can be 'volunteers' that only have permissions to verify/remove images, but in all cases where verification is required it would create a backlog, similar to sometimes reports on the site being backlogged as well. a clean up effort could be created alongside this solution. i have seen also sites do a complete lock-down of image/video content for a clean up, at a large scale but probably not as big as TMDB's selection is.]
the ability to lock image uploads on certain titles/peoples. this could differ from usual locks as the 'lock' would still allow for either a user request, or a verification report. additionally anything that's locked could be either cleaned up or filed up for clean up of all the 'bad images'.
the addition of 'trusted users' that can remove images that don't align with the sites rules/quality standards, without any other permissions or authority moderators/administrators & other staff would hold to help out with the issue.
perhaps a different solution that i don't see!
examples for posters : duplicate posters, bad quality images for posters, bad 'altered' posters (noticeable altering of the image, like shoddy removal of text or other things), user-created custom posters (not-allowed), bad quality custom posters for foreign translations (either the image itself or the official translated title stylised by the user looking rather bad), just straight up screencaps being used (usually in low quality with awful cropping)
for backdrops: duplicate backdrops, low quality screencaps, incorrect images being used, user-created custom backdrops (with either bad/incorrect stylised logos or shoddy images, and the same for custom backdrops of official translations.)
for logos: duplicates, custom stylised logos that look bad and aren't official (in the official language, as well as official translations)
Reply by softpillow
on September 4, 2024 at 8:04 AM
Yeah it is quiet a frustrating issue. And I feel like in order to fix this problem site-wide (if its deemed important enough of a problem) there probably would have to be structural/systematic changes in the nature of how this site deals with images in general.
One suggestion I would make is having an upload limit to new users, where their images have to be approved before being shown on the site. So for example, maybe a new user that has never uploaded an image before has something like a 10 image upload limit, with each 10 approved images increasing their limit by 10, and only after 100 of their images gets approved, will their upload limit be lifted. Obviously this would create extra work for mods but hopefully the prevention of bad images being uploaded by new users unfamililar with the image guidelines will outweigh the extra work required to approve new users first 100 image uploads . This is something similar to what I have seen on other sites like moviestillsdb or cinematerial. This wouldnt solve the entire image problem but perhaps help make the problem smaller.
Another suggestion I have is perhaps there are a lot of users on this site that have been making accurate image reports over several months if not years that may not have the expertise to be fully-fledged moderators (or may not want to be) but would be suitable to be given limited moderating functions to remove images. I'm not sure if thats something that could even be done on this site, but in theory it could be (giving users limited moderating functions). Their responsibility would just be to remove obviously badly cropped (chopped logos/text), bad quality (pixelated), squished/stretched (proportionally distorted), images with unintended borders, or innapropriate (wrong content/spam) images. I wouldnt mind having this ability myself, in order to help ease the backlog of image reports and also just save myself the time and effort in creating image reports and copy and pasting image urls for images I am almost 100% certain should be removed. Obviously, if this was put in place, those users would still be allowed (or maybe expected) to make reports for image situations that are a bit trickier/less obvious- duplicate images, fanart/custom images, subtler quality issues with images. Again this wouldnt solve the entire issue, but it should reduce it- it at least would reduce the amount of images I report probably in half or something similar.
Reply by kiyo
on September 7, 2024 at 10:30 AM
that's a pretty good suggestion, it also gave me the idea of locking image upload permissions behind a X amount of edits/additions. that would tie in really well and encourage anyone who wants to add images to contribute positively and give them time to understand on how to do things properly and would help with unfamiliarity / discourage malicious behaviour. small prerequisites have discouraged me from uploading images/video on certain sites before, because i didn't want to contribute in any other way.
Reply by softpillow
on September 10, 2024 at 10:32 AM
perhaps another idea might be, assuming it doesnt already exist, create the ability for mods to have optional checkboxes/drop-down menu on what kind of issue there was when deleting an image- an option that would with one click of a button send a pre-written message written to tell to the uploader that their image was removed (with a link to their image) and specifically explain why (maybe with relevant links to the contribution bible).
Im sure mods probably already send messages to uploaders that are frequent abusers of the image guidelines but I would imagine maybe not as often as they would like since it would take time to individually type out explanations to uploaders. Creating this functionality would obviously take some time to set up, but I imagine in the long run would decrease repeat offenders, save mods some time, boost the amount of good quality images being uploaded, and even increase the amount and accuracy of image reports.
Edit: (obviously if this was put into place, there should be the ability for mods to edit the pre written message if they see fit)
Reply by Jim Stark
on September 11, 2024 at 3:44 AM
Those are good ideas, but considering the availability of mods and response lag, bad images are being uploaded faster than they are deleted. Unless you have a few staff members dedicated only to image assessment you'll be plowing the water. They probably already have a tool like "recent image uploads", so it just needs someone with a good eye to monitor it constantly. But I don't think images are considered that important, as long as the primary image is good.