Internet Movie Database (IMDb) on Monday, 14 March, changed the voting pattern to calculate ratings for the Hindi move The Kashmir Files after detecting ‘unusual voting activity’ on the movie’s review page. The director of the film, Vivek Agnihotri, has objected to the change, terming it as "unethical."
On IMDb’s review page for The Kashmir Files, a disclaimer says:
"Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.”
The rating currently stands at 8.3/10 with over 2,32,000 votes. As per the IMDb’s Rating FAQ section, it describes a ‘weighted average’ of ratings as, “IMDb publishes weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages. The simplest way to explain it is that although we accept and consider all votes received by users, not all votes have the same impact (or 'weight') on the final rating.”
It adds, “When unusual voting activity is detected, a different weighting calculation may be applied in order to preserve the reliability of our system. To ensure our rating mechanism remains effective, we don't disclose the exact method used to generate the rating.”
Reacting to the changed voting pattern, Vivek Agnihotri, the director of the movie, tweeted on Monday that it was “unusual and unethical.”
The Kashmir Files is a movie based on video interviews of the first generation victims of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits community in 1990.
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