First of all: I'm just writting actors, of course all can be done for crew-member in the same way.

The first thing that I think can be done more user-friendly is the linking of actorser.

For now we have always to check if an actor is credit in other movies different if yes, check the CLT (which results can change with time) for the most common name and link this to the current credit. We've some users that do this very good and some that just type in all as credited, without checking for common namesand linking.

My idea: If we contribute a profile, there should be check how the name of this actor is linked in the other movies in database. For example: I type in John A. Smith, at the upload will be checked that John A. Smith is linked to John Smith in some movies in database. Then is checked internal which is the most credited form and this will get the common name automatically.
On a change of the most credited form the profiles in the online database get automatically updated  with the new common name and at the next local database update we get it in our local collection for the movies we own.

To make it perfect the check could get further, so that a third or fourth name variant also gets checked if there is a linking to John A. Smith or John Smith.

Of course it should be also possible to add a linking at contibution, because without some profiles linked manual this wouldn't work.

Second thing is that the distinguishing for actors is just possible over Birth Years. This is always very hard and sometimes impossible. So we need something additional for distinguishing.

My idea is adding the the production year of the oldest movie the actor is listed in to the actor. For example: John Smith has played in movies n database produced in 1999, 2003, 2007, ..., he would get a 1999 as first movie entry added.
If this is in addition with BY not enough I would take the oldest release date instead of oldest production year.
Of course if a new profile is added with an older date this actor is included, an update of this actor in the other profiles has to be done automatically.
What could be a problem: if the profiles of this update will be downloaded, DVDP will add a new actor, so there has to be a Pop up that says to me I can delete John Smith (with the old date).

I know this all will result in worst case in many profile updates at a refresh.

Third idea for the users that are not satisfied with the common name or in a change of the common name: There should be a possibility to add every actor an "local name" that is shown in the actor list local.

Linking problems needing to be fixed, by order of importance (first one being the biggest problem):

1: Accented names. For actors (crew) with accented names, we generally find credits that show accents, and credits that don't show when the accents are hidden behind capitalized letters. As it would be stupid to remove the accent when it is really there, the best is to restore it when it is hidden by capitalization. A verification at IMDb or any other actors' database may be a help for people who are not sure about accents. But the present way to manage names, removing the accent which is included in the capital letters, leads to many variants that do not link (four variants for the same actor if there is one accent in given name, and one accent in family name).

2: Asian names.
example : Zhang Ziyi : Zhang is family name, Ziyi is given name. Half contributors put Zhang in first field and Ziyi in third field (as appears on screen), and half contributors put Zhang in third field (family name), and Ziyi in first field (given name). But Zhang Ziyi does not link with Ziyi Zhang. Solution : a tick box to reverse family name and given name. With this, given and family names are in correct field, and they appear on screen as in the credits.

3: Parsing when 3 words name.
No evident solution, and a case by case analysis may be necessary. But in fact, most time we see a middle name on european actors, we have a bad entry. Search on web gives the solution in 90% of cases. Here, no need to change program, just give some indications on a "How to enter correct names" Guide.

4: False linking between two different actors with same name. I agree that BY is not a good solution (too difficult to find in many cases)

In all cases, obtaining correct linking needs work and time, and will never be automatic. That is why contributors' time and energy must be kept for that type of important function that is a help for everybody. Time should not be spent in cosmetic things as bold or italic in overviews, or things that do not interest most of users (some sound and art crew...).  Simple profiles for online with correct linking data are better than a lot of data with no database function (filtering, sorting, linking) that most users will have to delete just after downloading.

PS to the OP. I hope I have not "hijacked" your thread.

Quoting surfeur51:

Quote:
Linking problems needing to be fixed, by order of importance (first one being the biggest problem):

1: Accented names. For actors (crew) with accented names, we generally find credits that show accents, and credits that don't show when the accents are hidden behind capitalized letters. As it would be stupid to remove the accent when it is really there, the best is to restore it when it is hidden by capitalization. A verification at IMDb or any other actors' database may be a help for people who are not sure about accents. But the present way to manage names, removing the accent which is included in the capital letters, leads to many variants that do not link (four variants for the same actor if there is one accent in given name, and one accent in family name).

2: Asian names.
example : Zhang Ziyi : Zhang is family name, Ziyi is given name. Half contributors put Zhang in first field and Ziyi in third field (as appears on screen), and half contributors put Zhang in third field (family name), and Ziyi in first field (given name). But Zhang Ziyi does not link with Ziyi Zhang. Solution : a tick box to reverse family name and given name. With this, given and family names are in correct field, and they appear on screen as in the credits.

3: Parsing when 3 words name.
No evident solution, and a case by case analysis may be necessary. But in fact, most time we see a middle name on european actors, we have a bad entry. Search on web gives the solution in 90% of cases. Here, no need to change program, just give some indications on a "How to enter correct names" Guide.

4: False linking between two different actors with same name. I agree that BY is not a good solution (too difficult to find in many cases)

In all cases, obtaining correct linking needs work and time, and will never be automatic. That is why contributors' time and energy must be kept for that type of important function that is a help for everybody. Time should not be spent in cosmetic things as bold or italic in overviews, or things that do not interest most of users (some sound and art crew...).  Simple profiles for online with correct linking data are better than a lot of data with no database function (filtering, sorting, linking) that most users will have to delete just after downloading.

PS to the OP. I hope I have not "hijacked" your thread.

ROFLMAO.

Hiow many times does it have to be said, Yves, before you get it. We are not interested in"real" or "correct" names by anybody's definitions. We are interested in Credited Names and Most Commonly Credited Names. The rest is for your local. Good grief, man.

Quoting Prof. Kingsfield:

Quote:
ROFLMAO.

Hiow many times does it have to be said, Yves, before you get it. We are not interested in"real" or "correct" names by anybody's definitions. We are interested in Credited Names and Most Commonly Credited Names. The rest is for your local. Good grief, man.

I disagree. Accents should be treated like capitals. The current system makes about as much sense as counting DOM DELUISE vs. Dom DeLuise vs. DOM DeLUISE and whichever got the most credits is the correct capitalization for our purpose. We don't do this and we use outside sources to determine how to change DOM DELUISE should be converted to lower case. Accents could be treated the same if DVDP didn't think Alfonso Cuarón and Alfonso Cuaron were different names. This would be ideal.

Short version of the problems with current system:

Doesn't handle accented names (or diacritics like ç, z¸ or ñ) well.
Asian names can get sorted either way and no good way to handle this.
Often hard to tell the difference between a middle name and the first part of a two-part last name.
BYs to distinuguish between people with the same name can either be impossible to obtain or don't disambiguate.
If someone's common name changes, we have to resubmit every profile they are in.
Common names can be difficult to obtain because it's unclear if CLT results are correct or in a few cases, how to count the results. (The Rock being a good example of the latter.)

If we just tied each person to something unrelated to how they were credited (like a randomly generated alphanumeric) which never changes, that woud be ideal. For each person entry, you could see what other films they were in and how they were credited to keep them straight.

Quoting DJ Doena:

Quote:
Quoting Prof. Kingsfield:

Quote:
ROFLMAO.

Hiow many times does it have to be said, Yves, before you get it. We are not interested in"real" or "correct" names by anybody's definitions. We are interested in Credited Names and Most Commonly Credited Names. The rest is for your local. Good grief, man.

Even if we are not after "real" or "correct" names, the issues drawn out by Yves are still there. If contributors know nothing about accentuation then two profiles that just use different casings are most likely never going to link. And linking is the topic at hand.

Karsten;

None of those concern me in the slightest. I would  like to figure out a way to resolve it, but as I have said I am slave to no culture when it comes to data entry. I follow only what i see on xreen. I realize that we have users that are slave to culture and care nothing for the accuracy of the data as it appears on scree, but only the accuracy as determined by their favorite culture. The on thing that still does trouble me if when we a character On screen that the program will not recognize. Bottom line Karsten , people have slung one tooomany arrows in my direction whila accusing of me things that re flat out not true, so I no longer care what many of these have to say as much as I once did. My profiles got locked down a long time ago and my Contributions will continue to be at a minimum, it is no longer worth the effort, makes me sad, but it's the way I feel.

Quoting Prof. Kingsfield:

Quote:
Hey Ace:

You want to treat accents like Caps, go have a look at you Character map. <shakes head> Just follow the data, Ace, I know exactly how hard that is for you. The rules too, for that matter.

This is the feature request board. Any change in how the crew system works would be accompanied by a change in the rules. As far as character maps, I'm not sure what you are talking about. If you are referring to the fact there are a lot of variants for some letters, I'm not sure why this would be a problem.

I think everyone knows how i would do it, so there is no need for me to elaborate yet again.. But Axce you are fuindamentally lined against the Rules on this. You don't care what the screen data says, you want your data to say what YOU want it say, now guess where that works. Can youi say LOCAL.....Iknew that you could.

The capitalization I will grant you is a major problem, we can't possibly know any longer what the actual credit is, thus i have a hard time accepting more than a handful of updates. People have figured out how to handle the suffix issue quite nicely, but they won't do likewise with the cap issue....go figure.

It is obvious that improvement in Cast/Crew linking is desired. I would like to ask everyone to try and work together to meet that goal.

For example, surfeur51 has posted some linking problems that exist. It would be nice if everyone worked on solving these problems.

Since this is posted under Feature Requests the rules are irrelevant and will only inhibit the brainstorming of this issue.

I would love to see this topic discussed in a positive way in which everyone works together to solve the problem.