Bring Back "Buddies": a unique and interesting feature of the old version
I liked finding movies that my friends and I might have liked together. That feature seems to be missing (or at least hard for me to find) in the new beta.
We have started building this feature. We hope that it will be available by Spring.
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Anonymous User commented
But please don't force social features onto users (please make them opt in, not opt out, if possible). Not every site has to have social network features. I like that movielens doesn't ask me to friend or follow anyone.
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Lior commented
what's going on? we want this feature!
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Charlie commented
Spring of which year? Please bring it back! We are all locked down and looking for movies to watch with our families. Now would be a perfect time for this feature.
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Jani Pääjärvi commented
Me and my wife relied on the Buddy feature on the old site. Please bring it back as the algorithm in the old site worked like a charm - although I understand it may be harder to do it in the current setup.
Anyways, thank you for the best recommendation site on the planet for a single user - it is very, very rare occasion when the current system's recommendation is more than half a star away from my own review - so good job everyone, good job!
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Kimuchi commented
This is a feature I'm desperately looking for. I can't seem to find it anywhere. My boyfriend and I don't have similar tastes in movies. My favorites are usually ones he hates, and his favorites are ones I hate. I want something to help us (and other friends in a group setting) find movies to watch together.
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Ole commented
Seems like this site is like an abandoned ship. But yes, this feature would be great, but we will never see it. Its a pity, these recommendation engines seems to go into sleep mode after some time. Jinni was one of them, the best. So many features, and then it totally disappeared. Taste Dive also seems like its running on automatic with out any human taking care of the site. Movie Lens at least gives very good recommendations. Hope they will leave it on.
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Ben Moore commented
That was almost 3 years ago. Still working on it? Wondering because while this website absolutely rocks, it's frustrating to use to find something to watch with my family. I had to set up 3 different accounts for each family member. And every time we wanted to watch something, I'd have to log into an account to take a look at the recommendations then log out, log into another account, and so on. Go through all the 3 accounts, then try to integrate what I saw. Not very efficient.
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Armando La Rocca commented
Is there any update on this? I saw you guys started building this feature back in 2016 - is it still in the works?
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Alex commented
Its very helpful when watching with others and gives us a reason to recommend the website to them
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Charlie commented
Yes, this feature would be so useful!
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Ferret commented
I loved the idea, but nobody would do it with me. :(
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JED commented
Id like to have the ability to see my wife's movie ratings next to mine so I can pick a movie we both will like. I dont need it to be social (That is fine by me) I just would like to see. JED 4.5 stars DMD 2.0 So I can avoid this as much as possible. Thanks!
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Charlie commented
Yes! I was also hoping that the buddies feature would be built!
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Leon commented
Any update on this one?
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Hans Olo commented
Agreed!! My wife and I have very different tastes in movies and it would be great to get help in finding movies we'll both like.
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Anonymous commented
Yes, movielens definitely needs social aspect. I'm new to movielens and loving the website so far, but I was surprised that it didn't have this feature.
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Todd commented
This was definitely the best feature of the old movielens, and the sole reason I came back. I'm sad to see it gone.
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GT commented
Agreed. This would be extremely useful for MovieLens to be able to suggest movies that two or more people like.
It already can suggest movies that people individually like, being able to suggest a movie for two or more people would be a great job for a computer program like movielens! -
Emilee commented
I am not familiar with the old Movielens but I would love to see this feature. I want to be able to look at movies that friends may watch so then I can get suggestions from them. This is actually the one reason I started to reconsider going to another movie listing site.
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Anonymous commented
I don't care much about the buddy feature. I've told people about movielens because I want them to get recommendations and be excited about machine learning, not because I want to see them in my friends list.
But if you do introduce the feature, I would find a "movies both of you will enjoy" for two or even more people incredibly useful. As far as I know that would also make movielens pretty unique as a kind of movie night planner.