My my, it's a busy day today...

Quoting Ken Cole:

Quote:
The lookup tool is not to be blindly trusted, however it does outweigh other sources, including autographs.  The common name is not intended to always reflect the "real name", but the most commonly credited name. 

However, if a user documents errors in the database where the credit is not entered properly, that can and should be considered.  Better yet, correct the entries, assuming you own the discs in question, thereby correcting the lookup results.

The key, in this case, is in the last part: if there are errors in the database (like: the CLT results clearly showing us large batches of incorrect, IMDb-mined entries), "that can and should be considered." We see that here in the forums every few days: someone starting a thread asking people to confirm someone's credits to find out what the ACTUAL "common name" is, so as to be able to start using it right now, instead of having to propagate the IMDb-variant for years to come.

It's hard to know what to say with the details given, but saying only that "the CLT data is wrong & just mined from IMDb" shouldn't be enough in my opinion. What I have done when I have encountered a name for which I feel the CLT is wrong is that I calculated what the CLT results would be if errors in the db were corrected (based on as-credited names that I know). Then I present that in my notes.

If you don't have enough known as-credited data, then the threads the T!M mentioned are probably the way to go.

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
The key, in this case, seems to be in the last part: if there are errors in the database (like: the CLT results clearly showing us large batches of incorrect, IMDb-mined entries), "that can and should be considered." We see that here in the forums every few days: someone starting a thread asking people to confirm someone's credits to find out what the ACTUAL "common name" is, so as to be able to start using it right now, instead of having to propagate the IMDb-variant for years to come.

I have no problem with this method.  The problem, if I am reading the post correctly, is that the contributor decided...on their own...that the CLT was wrong and chose to ignore it.  I don't think that is the right thing to do.

Thanks for the responses guys. Although I don't know if the user actually researched beyond the CLT as it wasn't in the contribution notes, I do believe that they are the sort who likes to do things accurately.

Yup... I agree... even Ken himself said that should be documented.... so without documentation I would vote no to ignoring the CLT. In my eyes the perfect documentation is the threads we see where everyone works together to find the correct most commonly credited form... not sure how else it could be documented to be honest with you.

Just for clarity, let me re-iterate what happened here. I contributed an correction to a profile where I basically said: "Corrected actress name XXX to YYY - as credited." Nothing more. The key issue is, of course, that the name was listed incorrectly in the profile to begin with. I merely corrected it, after re-checking the actual film credits for the actual spelling. Forget_the_Rest felt I shouldn't have made the change from XXX to YYY, but should have changed it to "XXX, credited as YYY". I had actually checked whether that was necessary, as I always do, but I felt it wasn't, and opted for a simple "as credited" correction. None of the other voters shared his concern, by the way, and the contribution has since been approved. The entry in the profile now matches the credits, where it didn't before.

It's rather ashtonishing to see people posting here "so without documentation I would vote no to ignoring the CLT". Are you all absolutely sure you would vote against "corrected XXX to YYY - as credited" corrections without further "documentation"? I believe I rarely see any of you actually do that... But that really was what I was doing: I was simply correcting a misspelled cast entry to match the credits - thereby actually helping to improve the accuracy of the CLT results, by the way. I'm afraid I don't really believe that, for instance, Addicted2DVD would have voted against this contribution the way he just described - please correct me if I'm wrong, though.

While I certainly do see and appreciate Forget_the_Rest's point of view - I also like to see users employing the "credited as" field whenever necessary - I think it's not entirely fair to refer to merely fixing an incorrectly listed cast entry as "ignoring the CLT results". Then again: usually I find myself under fire for INCLUDING a common name - it's kind of nice to have it the other way around for once. Damned if you do, damned if you don't! 

Quoting Pantheon:

Quote:
T!M corrected a name in a profile to match the credits exactly. No Credited As; simply made it match the credits?!

And someone voted NO?

That's it. Let me be clear: I am in no way attacking Forget_the_Rest here - like I said earlier, I like to see users employing the "credited as" field whenever necessary as well (and, as recently re-confirmed, so does Invelos). Also, Forget_the_Rest actually did provide all the facts in his original post, and we've exchanged some friendly PM's on the matter. So there are certainly no hard feelings on my side. I was just surprised at some of the reactions here. At first, I decided to wait a bit to see some more opinions, but by now it seemed like a good time to repeat what actually happened.

IMHO, it's just that people seem to latch onto the term "ignoring the CLT results", and that jumpstarts them into expressing their disapproval. Things are rarely black and white, though, and, again, if you look back at the first post, Forget_the_Rest did explain what actually happened. It just seems as if no-one really picked up on it. If anything, it teaches us that a well-chosen thread title might do more good for your argument than anything you actually post in that thread. 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't help suspecting that, if faced with the exact same contribution, most of the posters in this thread would have voted wholeheartedly in favour of this contribution without giving it any thought whatsoever - and that's why I was surprised at the reactions. I actually applaud Forget_the_Rest for exploring the possibility of "shouldn't this correction be handled through the use of 'credited as'?" - more users should have that thought stuck prominently in their heads when profiling cast and crew - but as I said, I actually did look into that, arrived at "no", and thus opted for a simple "as credited" correction. All in all, I feel my contribution added some value, rather than being an example of "ignoring the CLT results".

For the record I'll add one more thing: I'm not at all opposed to voting "no" on a strictly-as-credited update when I spot an occasion where "credited as" should have been used, in a bid to force the contributor to fix his contribution (which is what Forget_the_Rest was trying to do). It's just in this case I had actually checked up on that, didn't feel it was the right way to go, and opted for a simple "as credited" correction instead. Did I decide that all on my own, without providing documentation for my findings, and seemingly at odds with the CLT numbers at the time? I did, yes. But I'm afraid the same could be said for just about any contribution not using "credited as" for anything and saying it all comes from the credits. In all those cases, we have no clue as to whether the contributor has actually researched the need for any common names at all. At the end of the line, my research resulted in a simple "corrected XXX to YYY - as credited" contribution, which I felt at the very least was preferable over the plain wrong entry that the current profile had.