@slimmybim said: Think it’s silly either way insist on a one size fits all rule for naming movies. There ought to be more flexibility.

On this we very much agree, but given as very reasonable requests on that front have been turned down in the name of "the rules," they should be least be applied consistently. And of course, as you said, it's absurd to list "Seven" like this. It's not searchable (this is meant to be a database, no?) and it doesn't even work as a stylized treatment (as that relies on it being in all caps serial-killer-cutout-style), and it's simply not the title of the work.

@lineker said:

I should then add that over the last three years the official practice on TMDb has been to use the on-screen title for most cases, regardless of promotional usage. That is indeed a change from how it was originally worded in the Contribution Bible and maybe it's time to update that section to reflect this new practice.

Over the years contributing on this site, I thought that that the rule was basically (based off of previous mod decisions) to always use on-screen title. I think it probably should be updated right? I think its more accurate/truthful to title a film, tv show, tv episode, the way it reads onscreen.

Additionally, I think, in general, its also more practical- as its usually much easier to just look and see what the onscreen title is, vs. trying to research every single promotional piece of media out there for a show/episode/movie to try and decide if there is consensus on what the title is, and only use the onscreen title when there is no consensus, but not use the onscreen title when there is cosensus. Not only is that more time consuming, but that creates more confusion as that means sometimes promotional titles will be used, sometimes onscreen titles will be used, and different users will have different amount of knowledge about the promotional material for any piece of content, creating the need for more back-and-forth discussion about the promotional content out there?

It is concerning however, that even though "Seven" is added as an alternate title for the movie "Se7en", using "Seven" in the search bar...will not help you find that movie. Unless I missed it, you can scroll through at least 5 pages of search results and not find the movie. Although that separate (but still related) issue. Perhaps we can create a new site function that allows you to search for alternate titles- so the search results only show up movies/shows where the title you are searching for matches alternate titles of entries?

I am also assuming these rules about movie titles carry over to tv show and tv show episode titles right? Like a lot of the rules written in the movie section generally (using some common sense) apply to tv too right?

EDIT: Although I guess that search issue might not be such a big problem, since I had no issue locating the movie on trakt's search function by searching "seven" (it was the first movie to come up). So maybe its only an issue with searching on this site, but not sites that use tmdb.

@slimmybim said:

Item: Se7en

Language: en-US

Type of Problem: Incorrect_content

Extra Details: The official title of the movie is "Seven". "Se7en" is just a stylized way to write it on posters. Writing it this way with a 7 makes it harder to find it in search etc.

It's not even always written as "Se7en" on posters, for example see the featured one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film) which shows it as "Seven".

Yes, this is nutz.

The biggest problem I have with this se7en non-sense is that you cannot find the movie through a "Seven" search. I am on page 15 of the movie results and nothing.

Se7en should be marked as an alternate title, not the actual main title of the movie.

The biggest problem I have with this se7en non-sense is that you cannot find the movie through a "Seven" search. I am on page 15 of the movie results and nothing.

A bit off-topic, but for the search-related issue, including a year (with the y: command) is your best option. Example search for this case.

(Edit: Original titles are given more weight. Nothing new. I won't clog up this topic with more replies.)

Even with that it’s only the ninth result.

@lineker said:

The biggest problem I have with this se7en non-sense is that you cannot find the movie through a "Seven" search. I am on page 15 of the movie results and nothing.

A bit off-topic, but for the search-related issue, including a year (with the y: command) is your best option. Example search for this case.

(Edit: Original titles are given more weight. Nothing new. I won't clog up this topic with more replies.)

Thanks, but I'm not sure the year provides no help to the common user looking for information about a title.

Not to draw comparisons, but imdb correctly brings it as the top result when you search for "Seven". Even when they have it listed as "Se7en" for original title.

@lineker said:

The biggest problem I have with this se7en non-sense is that you cannot find the movie through a "Seven" search. I am on page 15 of the movie results and nothing.

A bit off-topic, but for the search-related issue, including a year (with the y: command) is your best option. Example search for this case.

(Edit: Original titles are given more weight. Nothing new. I won't clog up this topic with more replies.)

That's a bad faith argument and you know it. The average user of any website isn't going to know to add specific search operators to find the thing they're looking for. Even if someone does know the year the movie came out, as you presuppose, it's extremely unlikely they will know how search modification terminology works on this specific website. People will just go elsewhere. Take the L.

Despicable Me 3 is shown in the movie credits as “Despicable M3” but the main title on tmdb is “Despicable Me 3”. The M3 name is shown as an alternative title under “stylized logo”. Why wouldn’t Seven be the same?

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/324852-despicable-me-3/titles

Why are mods refusing to fix this?

If someone searches tmdb for “Seven” and didn’t find it, they’ll likely just give up. If they searched “Se7en” and didn’t find it they would immediately change their search to “Seven”.

Given that their justification changes based on the film, the rational is clearly "well, I said so." If that's the case, they should be open to discussion and actually address any of the points made in the last two pages instead of saying "onscreen titles only" when that's both not the official policy or de facto policy. The official policy is even written with a mind toward addressing situations like these: preferring the promotional title and using onscreen titles only when there's conflict there. Also, the onscreen title isn't even "Se7en," it's "SE7EN:" the stylization doesn't even work in mixed case. Even if you want to be ridiculous and pedantic, it's just wrong on any level.

The mods have clearly made the wrong choice here. It's user hostile. It's against the wishes of the director. It's inconsistent. It's arbitrary. And yet it's never going to change because their ego is too big. Is there a system for voting out a mod? Is there any hope of restoring common sense?

even the NYT Crossword team gets it:

https://imgur.com/a/7zbUkzx

@lineker said:

I should then add that over the last three years the official practice on TMDb has been to use the on-screen title for most cases, regardless of promotional usage. That is indeed a change from how it was originally worded in the Contribution Bible and maybe it's time to update that section to reflect this new practice.

has this change been implimented in the rules? if it has, I still think this sentence should be changed:

"When the promotional material use slightly different titles (e.g. Twelve Monkeys vs 12 Monkeys), we try to use the title as it is written in the original on-screen opening credits."

As it implies that when promotional material don't use different titles (when they use the same title), you dont try to use the title on the original on-screen credits (so presumably you'd use the promotional material's titles over the onscreen titles. This doesn't adhere to the idea that you should "use the on-screen title for most cases, regardless of promotional usage".

It should also be changed from "on-screen opening credits" to just "on-screen credits" or "on-screen opening or end credits" since sometimes the title of the film is displayed at the end of the film (usually the beginning of the end credits), right?

If the change hasn't been implemented in the rules.....it should. This is an important rule and if thats whats been done in practice for three years (or more so at least 3.5 years by now) then it should be in the rules.

Also the exceptions should be explained too "for most cases" (implying exceptions).