Let's talk about movie recommendations and their new found popularity in the subreddit.

A couple weeks ago a user submitted the trailer for Gross Pointe Blank with a general synopsis of the movie. The post blew up, climbed to the top of /r/all, and ended up with over 40k net upvotes. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that. I hope some people unfamiliar with the movie got the chance to check it out and enjoyed it! The problem with posts that blow up like that is that they tend to breed copy cats. When people see an easily upvotable formula in a subreddit some people want to take advantage of that. It's not exactly murder but it does clog our sub with the same kinds of posts over and over and they tend to get a lot of reports from our daily users.

Example: remember a few years ago when /r/askreddit became flooded with questions that followed the formula of telling your own story in the title and following the story up with a vaguely related question? A few popular posts with that formula front paged and all of a sudden people saw an opportunity to tell a story to the largest community on Reddit but posing it as a question despite their actual interest in answers. It got pretty bad until the mods made a rule about answering your own question in the title or post. I'm sure things are better there now but I wouldn't know, honestly I'm still unsubscribed because I unsubbed when that issue got bad.

This is just another form of that. We are getting probably five front page posts a day that follow an eerily similar formula, although I haven't seen much evidence it's orchestrated or coming from the same users. They recommend a movie that isn't circlejerk material but is still known and enjoyed by anyone who was around when it came out. They give it a quick description and a reason why it's unique and attach it to the trailer.

I personally have no problem with these posts. I helped develop the rules about submitting movie scenes and trailers for old movies. My aim was to make this sub a welcoming place to people trying to recommend movies but also ensure a bit of thought was going into the recommendations. Here are the three criteria we came up with for these posts:

• Must name the movie in the title (as must all posts in this sub)

• Must give us a reason to revisit the movie (a performance, a great scene, mention something about it don't just drop a trailer on us)

• Must mention the scene being submitted specifically enough that anyone who has seen the movie will know the scene being posted without clicking (something as simple as saying the church scene or the long take, and no spoilers)

Obviously for trailers we don't require the third criteria which is where this formula has become easily manipulated. Here are some examples of these kinds of posts we've gotten in the last week, notice how. the titles all seem to follow a formula:

• Blast from the Past [1999] Brendan Fraiser was born in the 60s in his parents bomb shelter. After 35 years underground he returns to society in late 90s L.A believing it to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland ran by mutants. Great retro feel with up to date comedy. - [01:39]

• Secondhand Lions (2003) - A coming of age story where a young boy is sent to live with his two wealthy & eccentric uncles. Stars Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, & Haley Joel Osment. One of my all time favorites! - [02:25]

• Once - 2006, an Irish film about a busker who meets a girl. Made on a shoestring budget, it's a fantastic love story with great music. This is the opening scene. - [02:20]

• Not Another Teen Movie (2001) is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies-- a satire on 80s & 90s coming-of-age movies that introduced us to Chris Evans - [02:01]

• Clue [1985] Cult comedy, inspired by the board game. Featuring Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd. Has multiple ending. One of my all-time favorites. - [01:31]

• Soldier (1998) - Kurt Russell is a genetically engineered soldier that becomes obsolete by a newer model, but then has to come back and kick some serious ass. - [02:05]

• The Gate (1987) - Two young boys accidentally release a horde of demons from their backyard via a large hole by playing heavy metal music backwards. Somehow reminded me of Stranger Things for some reason. - [01:41]

• 50/50 features my favourite​ Joseph Gordon Levitt performance and deserves recognition for its portrayal of cancer patients their loved ones. - [02:17]

• I seriously think "The Cabin in the Woods" has one of the most inventive and hilarious uses of a title card that I can remember. It really deserves some more love. - [00:42]

• 'Before Sunrise' (1995) is a beautiful movie with strikingly natural dialogue and charming characters. Though it's light on plot, this scene captures the purpose of the film in a poem. - [04:02]

• Shoot 'Em Up (2007) is an over-the-top actionflick starring Clive Owen as a stranger with some serious gun skills. - [02:11]

• A zombie apocalypse is scary but I always felt like if I survived, the loneliness and silence would drive me mad long before a zombie ever got me. 28 Days Later does a perfect job of portraying a lonely, dead world that literally stopped in its tracks. - [02:42]

• The Rundown (2003). One of Dwayne Johnson's earlier movies. Action/Comedy about a Mafia bounty hunter sent down to South America to bring home the Boss's pain-in-the-butt son. Lots of fun action and genuinely funny. Worth another look. - [02:32]

• Freaked (1993) a very surreal, very awesome, and very funny. Stars an uncredited Keanu Reeves as a Dog Boy and Mr. T as a bearded lady. Co-Written/Directed by Alex Winter (from Bill & Ted fame) The full move is on YouTube. - [01:21:32]

• Tank Girl is an oddity from the 90's and while the film is fairly faithful to the comic of the same name and has a killer soundtrack, it truly excels in its animated scenes. Enjoy. - [01:27]

• Bronson- 2008, a tale of Britain's most notorious prisoner, Charles Salvador. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Tom Hardy in one of his finest performances till date. - [02:07]

• I never see it mentioned but Eraser is a fun Arnold action film from the late 90s. It's no Predator or Commando but it's worth a watch if you are in the mood for a little cheese, action, and James Caan. - [01:58]

• Reign Over Me - a move in which Adam Sandler plays a severely depressed PTSD survivor after losing his family during 9/11. This is one of many great scenes - [04:50]

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a brilliant mix of beautiful cinematography and a hauntingly mesmerizing soundtrack. - [04:49]

All of these examples were taken by sorting this sub by top in the last week. I set the sort then went through five pages and picked them out, I left several that were specific scenes. So in the last week about 16% of our top posts have followed this precise formula. It's also worth noting that I didn't add the time stamps in brackets to those titles. That's also a totally new and not enforced thing that has popped up with these posts.

So, what's wrong with these posts? Who are they hurting? Well, no one. But whenever a trend like this pops up we as mods like to see what our users think about it beyond just blindly accepting upvotes that may not be coming from our daily community. A lot of people use this subreddit for news on upcoming movies and that can get stifled when people are riding nostalgia karma. Personally, I think the worst thing about posts like this is that the way the Reddit voting system is set up and the way users use it means that movies that actually need recognition won't get it and movies that are already recognized even if they aren't discussed every day will just continue to be recognized. People upvote what they already know and like, it's human nature. Kinda makes the idea of it frivolous.

Basically what I'm getting at is I'd like to take y'alls pulse on the issue. Are these posts getting too formulaic, are there too many of them? Are they annoying or tolerable? Here are some possible solutions, if it's even decided a solution is needed:

1. Be less lenient on these posts in general. That may include rediscussing the criteria by which we judge them or maybe just being more selective about how many we allow on our front page at once or setting some sort of metric for if a movie is too popular to deserve a recommendation post. Idk I'm just spit balling here.

2. Divert these posts to our Sunday weekly What Have You Been Watching thread. I mean, in reality that's why that thread exists. To put recommendations in one easy to find place and to keep the subreddit free of clutter when popular movies are making the rounds.

3. Stop allowing trailers for old movies. Harsh, I know. But we already don't allow old posters and any IMDB links for the same reason. It's simply too easy to throw a movie up and be like remember this fucking shit without any real context. We even made the 300 Character rule to stop low effort self posting, I feel like this trend is a reaction to that. Just like posters, new trailers would still be allowed. If you want to recommend a movie, you'd have to choose a scene to submit. Already something lots of people do.

4. We get each side of this argument that literally only I'm having with myself to choose a hero and we get them to fight to the death in a cage match/gladiator situation. Hurling insults and throwing food is encouraged.

Anyways, drop your thoughts here and I'll think about it all instead of advancing my own life in any meaningful way and get back to you. Thanks!

BNR

Submitted May 20, 2017 at 11:19PM by LiteraryBoner http://ift.tt/2q73qCl