Numbering disappears after sorting list order?

@Col_Needham

I could swear there were more replies in this topic, what happened to them? Also, I wonder when this is going to be fixed? Because it still doesn't make sense to me.​ 

Can anyone perhaps respond? I now see another bug, where on each page you load from your list, the items are always numbered from 1 to 250, has this been reported yet?

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls046424878/?ref_=uspf_t_1

Hi Navin2000,

Regarding your first above response, other replies on this thread may not appear if they're marked private. 

Secondly, as previously stated, a fix is not pending for this report as there is no broken feature or bug present here. The explanation being that the numbering disappearing when sorting lists by anything other than default list order was too confusing for most customers. 

We apologize for the mistaken additional comments below in this thread suggesting your report being forwarded on for further review, as this is not something we expect to change based on the explanation given above.

As for the other bug you've recently reported, I'm unable to replicate the issue you're seeing on the link you've provided. Page 2 shows list items as 251-500 with each title listed correctly as well, e.g. 251. and so on...(as seen in the image attached below - please let me know if you'd rather I mark this reply private if you don't prefer the screenshot to be public).

Are you still seeing the bug with list items on subsequent list pages? We can investigate further if you provide screenshots of the issue you're seeing if so. 

Cheers!

@Ozzy​ 

1 I still don't understand the logic behind this decision. It's very simple, if you order the list differently, then why should it matter? What's so confusing about it? In fact, it's confusing that the numbering disappears, it defies all logic.

2 I don't know why replies are being marked as private, and by whom? There were other useful replies that I (and others) can't see anymore.

3 Vey weird that you can't reproduce the newly introduced bug. I see it both on Vivaldi and Firefox (Windows 10), with and without adblocker. Perhaps you should logout and re-login?

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls597730119/?ref_=uspf_t_4

(I see this bug on every list that I made)

Hi Navin2000,

The existing experience tested better with more customers, whereas the numbers persisting after changing the list order received feedback that the display was confusing. 

The reply marked as private was an unofficial IMDb solution to the issue you were describing, which was marked private because it was unofficial, and not an IMDb supported workaround. The replies to that private comment are therefore also marked private by default. This is the display logic that the IMDb community works with in regards to private tags. I can try marking this entire thread private, and then making the "unofficial IMDb solution" comment public, which in theory could mean only you and IMDb staff will see all the comments on this thread as the original poster. Is that something you would prefer? 

Finally, can you provide us with a screenshot of the numbering bug you're seeing? We can then pass that onto our tech teams to review. 

Thanks!

@Ozzy​ 

1 Like I said before, there is nothing confusing about it, because when you edit your list, it's always displayed in List Order. So it's not like it's confusing when it comes to editing. It doesn't matter how the list is sorted, you will always need/want to know how many titles there are, for navigation purposes.

2 I don't understand this private topic thing, let's leave it at that. Actually, now I suddenly once again see that my post (or whole topic?) has been marked as private, what's up with that?

3 So can you really not reproduce it? This would mean it's only a problem on my system, I highly doubt this. Check out the screenshot, it's a list of 420 titles, and this is the second page, yet it's once again being listed as 1 to 170 titles.

https://postimg.cc/gwb5MdCS

4 Can you also take a look at this topic? It's about adding the movie year to the ''more like this'' section.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/add-movie-year-to-recommended-section-more-like-this/69d7a178e009ce40bc24d38f

Hi Navin2000, 

1) We appreciate your feedback but as previously mentioned, the current experience tested better and is therefore not subject to change.

2) The comment I'm responding to here was marked private because it contained a URL to an external site (i.e. not an IMDb or community URL). This is our standard community policy. However, as I can see the link you've shared is simply a screenshot of your list experience, I've marked your previous comment public. For future reference, you're able to attach images such as screenshots to your comments here without needing an external site. Again, if you would like to see the previous replies to this post I mentioned before, I can mark them public again, but I would have to mark the entire post private, so only you and staff can view these. I hope that explains the display of the comments here for you. 

3) I can now reproduce the issue you're referring to on your list. This only seems to occur when viewing your list(s) in the poster grid format. The other list view options do not trigger this numbering issue. I have filed a ticket (ref. #D435849079) with the appropriate team to look into this. I will update you via this thread once I know more.

4) As for your Idea community topic, I can only pass this on for review but cannot provide any guarantee that the idea will be implemented. 

Cheers!

@Ozzy​ 

1 To me it's mind boggling, how you guys at IMDB don't see how this doesn't make any sense. I don't know which people gave you this feedback.

3 The problem was fixed, thanks.

4 It's simply about adding the movie year, should be easy to add, there's plenty of space.

@Navin2000​ For #1 it is via other IMDb customers; more people were confused when the numbers were present because they thought the list order had been destroyed since the sequential numbers did not correspond to the original list order numbers. As a result this is not something we can consider changing because we already tested this already, sorry. 

Like you, personally, I would prefer it if they were numbered, which is why I suggested the (private) workaround which only you can see below.  I have been using this for 3 months and it took 10 minutes to set-up.

@Col_Needham​ 

I can't see the script? Now that I think of it, why not make it optional, via some setting?

About 1, I think I might be missing why it's confusing for certain people. So for me, when I open a list, it's always sorted in List order. If I go to edit this list, it's still sorted in List order, so no problem. 

But isn't it logical that if you now sort the list by Release date, or Alphabetical, then all movies will now be placed on a different number? What did these people expect, and why is it a problem?

@Navin2000​ If you have a 100 item list, and say, the title with the earliest release is #50 on that list, when you sort the list by release date, some (or rather most) people prefer the number next to the list to still be “50” whereas you and I are happy with it being “1” — they think the list has been permanently remembered and they get confused. 

You should be able to see the solution to the problem at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/numbering-disappears-after-sorting-list-order/69a7fe3c1f84b211a9e06405?commentId=69a8068dec7541710b9c945e 

@Ozzy​ 

Just for the record, a couple of more posts about this subject have been made in another thread. Here are the links, let me know if everything is clear, and if it makes any sense what I wrote, because I still wonder what I'm missing, this whole situation doesn't make any sense.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-redesigns-listlike-pages/662a8541586efb2637c22757?commentId=6a6624a0776246d474be7054&replyId=6a9c37727b7da2c711a13039

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-redesigns-listlike-pages/662a8541586efb2637c22757?commentId=6a6624a0776246d474be7054&replyId=6a9ee9b740158a76c8ea110c

@Col_Needham​ 

Did you see my posts in the other thread? See post above directed to Ozzy. I hope it makes sense to you.

And by the way, I don't want to make use of yet another extension like Tampermonkey, for security reasons. Besides, IMDB should offer basic functionality.

@Navin2000​ You wrote:

because I still wonder what I'm missing, this whole situation doesn't make any sense.

The explanation is across both threads and repeated again most recently at: https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-redesigns-listlike-pages/662a8541586efb2637c22757?commentId=6a6624a0776246d474be7054&replyId=6a9a946023153cdf9c450e21 

Hope this helps. 

@Col_Needham​ 
I still haven't seen any explanation of why, after years and years of the numbers working the original way (the list was renumbered when the list was sorted), people all of sudden found that confusing after the List upgrade. There is nothing confusing about the numbers always matching the way the list is currently sorted, and I still haven't seen any good explanation of why anyone found it confusing.
 
If you look through the various threads where this problem is being discussed, you might find one or two who prefer the way you changed it to (the list sequence number stayed with each entry when the list was sorted), but the vast majority preferred the original way. So who is it you are polling? I wasn't included in the polling. I bet Navin2000 wasn't either. Do you only care about new users now? Because you don't seem to be listening to the long time users who were accustomed to the original way, or the people in this community. The fact that you included me among the people who preferred the new way in the other thread (after I took the time to explain the benefits of the original way many, many times) proves that you are not really listening to us or including us in your decision making process.
 
I explained much of that here and here in the other thread, but you apparently haven't read it. And I want to state here that I am in complete agreement with Navin2000 that it makes absolutely no sense that the method that was used for years and years could somehow suddenly become confusing to the majority of your users, and I have serious doubts about the validity of this polling you say you did which justifies the decision you made. I am not convinced that whoever you polled accurately represents your user base.

If you look at any typical spreadsheet, the line numbers in the left hand column (which are not part of what the user enters into the spreadsheet), do not change or disappear when the user sorts the entries in the spreadsheet. They are always the relative line number for each line in the spreadsheet IN ITS CURRENT SORT SEQUENCE. That way makes it possible to compare how different entries relate to each other when the spreadsheet is sorted into different sequences. This is what we used to be able to do when we sorted our IMDb lists into different sequences, but we can't do that anymore because now the relative line numbers disappear.

Also, if there really are people who are so obtuse that they can't understand the concept of relative line numbers, you could have supplied an option to turn numbers on or off, instead of just taking the numbers away from those of us who understand what they can be used for. If they get confused by the numbers when a list is sorted, they could just turn them off. (What good are the numbers to those people when the list is in its original List sequence?)

As I explained in previous posts:
"You removed functionality that many people used, to satisfy some people's idea of aesthetics." and "Taking away functionality that users enjoy or depend on is much worse than aesthetic problems."

And I would like to stress again a point that Navin2000 and I have already made: As users of the IMDb product, we should not have to develop our own software to regain functionality that IMDb has either inadvertently or misguidedly taken away. When we explain to you that functionality has been lost, we expect you to be responsible and listen to us, instead of bringing up this Tamper Monkey crap.

@Col_Needham​ 

You are misunderstanding, I did read the explanation. But what I'm saying is that your explanation doesn't make any sense. The result of the poll is quite puzzling, like MSebring mentioned, so after all those years, people get confused, by something they shouldn't get confused about? 

Can you perhaps also reply on my post about 2001 Maniacs? Why would anyone with average intelligence expect 2001 Maniacs to retain number 638, when the list is re-sorted by Alphabetical order? Don't you find this strange and illogical?

The fact that movies (or items) will get a new number upon re-sorting, should be EXPECTED by anyone with average intelligence. Do you agree with me or not?

And why does the numbering disappear when you switch between List order and Date added? It's the exact same list. What about all people who get confused when the numbering disappears upon re-sorting? Because this used to be basic functionality on IMDB. Did you guys do a poll on this?

Perhaps this weird and illogical new ''feature'' named ''hide numbering upon re-sort'' should be made optional? And while you at it, also please bring back the 100 (or 200) items per list option, which is now at 250 items. I'm not a webdeveloper, but I believe these things shouldn't be hard to add.

@MSebring​ 

My issue is that it's not logical to get confused by renumbering of items upon re-sorting. So even if this poll showed that most people got confused, this shouldn't be leading. I'm not even sure why on earth you would even poll this stuff? Because it's not relevant.

I'm not trying to be funny, but it's almost like some electronics company conducting a poll about if they should remove the on/off button on the remote control, because some people prefer to have the TV turned on 24/7 a day. And if it's turned off, they get confused by it, so let's simply remove the off button for ALL people, because that's what the poll said, eventhough it doesn't make any sense.

If certain people get confused by basic functionality, that works EXACTLY like intented, they are probably not the brightest, with all due respect. So THIS should be leading, not the fact that some poll (that isn't even relevant) gave unexpected and frankly plain weird results. It's mind boggling that the IMDB staff doesn't see this, but I'm not giving up hope yet.

@Navin2000​ 

Though I do my best to explain what I think and why, I have pretty much given up hope that this problem will be resolved.

I believe the people we are dealing with here are not very responsible. They don't wish to admit that they might have made a mistake (or that they don't really care what we want), or go to the trouble of reversing the change that they made. And I believe that, like most online services these days, they don't really care if long time users are satisfied with the changes they make. We've been here a long time and there's no place better to go, so it's unlikely that we're going to leave, regardless of how dissatisfied we are. So they are more interested in attracting new users because they equate that with increasing profits. That's why I suspect that only users unfamiliar with the List feature were included in this poll they supposedly did. (As far as I know, none of us were included.) So the problem of being confused by the numbering may have had more to do with lack of familiarity than with stupidity. Since they weren't people who have used Lists for a while, they didn't recognize the benefits that the original design provided. (When you teach someone how to play chess for the first time, they might be confused by castling or the "en passant" rule. Or they might think the way the knight moves is stupid. If the IMDb folks had control over chess, they would change the rules to make it easier for the new players.)

I also suspect that one reason the List upgrade was done so poorly, is because it was done by relatively new people with little knowledge of the site's history or the reasons why certain things were originally designed the way they were (I keep getting the impression that they think the numbering is something new instead of something that has been there for years), and especially, no understanding of how more advanced list makers use their list feature.

@MSebring​ 

I have to disagree. I'm sticking with my theory that the people who got polled were not the smartest, to say the least. Or perhaps they were trolling IMDB? Again, why would you even conduct a poll about this, that's already silly enough.

I'm still having a hard time believing that there are actually people out there that get confused by a basic feature. It's common knowledge that when you reorder a list, every item will get renumbered, there's nothing confusing about this. I don't know how I can explain this any clearer, and I wonder if IMDB staff agrees with me.

@ Col_Needham

I have to say, that I think this is an odd reason NOT to give this option. I mean what does it matter how I sort my list? In my view, you should always see numbering because this makes it easy to keep track where you at.

Sometimes I might scroll up or down and then I have no idea where I left off. So in my view, you guys should reconsider this decision, because it makes it less userfriendly. And thanks for the tip about Tamper Monkey, but I want to limit my usage of browser extensions because of security reasons.

@Martymccflyy

I hope you understand my reasoning? It really doesn't make sense to me, to remove numbering based on sorting. It shouldn't matter how the list is sorted, numbering should always be visible, for usability reasons.