The WGA Wonders: Should IMDb Post Birthdates?

If you're the type of Internet user who can spend a few hours clicking through the IMDb pages of actors, directors and writers, forever wondering how the particular person has accomplished so much at such a young age -- what, it can't just be me who does this -- some bad news: The Writer's Guild of America West is pressuring the massive film resource to pull all the ages from its site because they create the potential for age discrimination. Where's the fun in that?

Apparently -- as has happened in the real world too -- older, below-the-line workers are facing more and more obstacles when it comes to finding work. Says Paul Levine, a writer for JAG:

Not that anything ever overt was said, but not one time was I interviewed by someone my own age. I was always interviewed by people 20 to 30 years younger. It could be a problem if a show runner or his or her first lieutenant has scripts piling up, and they were trying to figure out who to interview. Looking at a credit list, if one writer is 35 and the other is 52, they're going for the 35 year old.

To its credit, IMDb only posts ages that they can verify as accurate and they are holding steadfast on their policy of not removing ages at the request of the individual. Besides, if that happened, how would anyone know Russell Crowe is 46? Oh, that's right: Wikipedia.

· EXCLUSIVE: Battle Raging Over Age Listings on IMDb [The Wrap]