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Ability to suggest similar items and allow to vote for each suggestion/recommended item.

Added on May 8 20:01

vote

Flixster.com does this and has a page for "If you liked 'Movie X, you may also like..." and then has a list of movies with the user who suggested them and a count of thumbs up and thumbs down votes for this recommendation.

I would like to have this feature, but lists are often better here because there's lots of ways movies can be similar, and only some of those are of interest to any given person. With a list, the title of the list usually tells you the specific similarity. But when there are no lists like that nor any tags, your suggestion could come in, and it would also be helpful for similarities in movies that you can't think of any words to describe. It also would provide a way to see which movies of a more general type were *most* similar to each other.

A thumbs down feature like Flixster's seems important, but if you look at a lot of movies there, its not uncommon to see near-equally large numbers of thumbs up votes as thumbs down for any given recommended movie because the movies are similar in the ways that some users care about but dissimilar in the ways that other users care about. Maybe a better system would be to

1. have the Compatibility percentage for the recommending user displayed next to their name.

2. a display of the lists the recommending user has added the movie to and the tags they've given it.

3. a display of the lists, tags, actors, writers, and directors which both movies have in common.

First of all, thanks for your interesting comment :) I didn't know about Flixster.com... but it's an excellent example of what I'm wishing for :)

I think a special section for "similar movies" (for example) would be a lot better than lists:

1) more specific, accurate and selective (there are too many generic list like "my favorite movies", "best movies of 1999", "best movies of [director or actor name]", and you won't find what you're really looking for...);

2) visually better and immediate (a thumbnail-link of the movie poster for each suggestion);

3) a list of suggestion sorted by users votes.

I know that there are lots of criteria to choose from, but they're all good IMHO: similar story, plot, characters, locations, events, cast & crew, style, look, subject, themes, topics, mood or feel... But there will be a selection process by users votes (see point 3).

Bye :)

I think we're in agreement--I'm just trying to combine the best of both worlds. Flixster's system is good--it just could use some additions like the 3 points I mentioned and the cover thumbnails and sorting you mentioned. Sorting could be done by the number of Thumbs Up votes, Thumbs Down votes, or the difference between the two. 123 up and 2 down would have a difference of 121, which would rank much higher than a movie with 130 up and 100 down, with its difference of 30, even though the latter had more thumbs-up votes.

What I would say about the 'too many generic lists' problem is:

1. vote for this suggestion

http://www.listal.com/suggestion/36

2. "Best Movies of [director or actor name]" are just the kinds of lists I'm looking for and create myself because if I really like a movie, its usually mainly because of the actors, and the easiest way to find something else I'd like (even if its not related thematically to the current movie) is to look at the rest of the movies by that actor. Sure, you can just click on the actor's name on any listal page's Starring section and see a list of all their movies, but if a user has taken the trouble to make a list for that actor, you know they're a fan, and that gives their rating of each of that actor's movies more weight. If they rate a movie very low despite a favorite actor's presence in it, you're probably not going to like it either. On such lists, you can also see whether the actor's role in each movie is just a brief cameo probably not worth bothering with.

I would use this only if it was integrated with the compatibility system.
EDIT: Not compatibility instead Only if the voting can have a thumbs down option.

Make more community lists. This is hybrid of http://www.listal.com/suggestion/300
http://www.listal.com/suggestion/309