The argument for : Thomas F. Wilson
-It is the most common entry using the credit lookup feature.
-It will help to distinguish from the many other Tom Wilson's without using birth year.

The argument for Tom Wilson (1959):
-It appears to be the most often used credit (the look up answer is skewed because there are many Back to the Future profiles where he is credited as Thomas F. Wilson and it also has a lot of data copied from another web database (you know who) that also use Thomas F. Wilson.
-We don't have to have a unique name because there is birth year data available.
-His official website has him as: Tom Wilson

Some links:
Official Site
IMDb
NNDB
Wikpedia

Quoting Staid S Barr:

Quote:
I'd prefer Thomas/F./Wilson (1959), assuming the BY is credited. With common names like these, I have instances where 6 actors need to be distinguished (Name Variants plugin helps, but also highlights problem cases). Every litte bit helps.

That wouldn't be a valid option because there are no other Thomas F. Wilson's so the birth year isn't necessary or allowed by the rules.

I have to admit I voted for using Thomas F. simply because Tom Wilson is a much more common name, and so we would definitely need the BY and it seems a shame not to use a different name when we have one available.

Quoting Gadgeteer:

Quote:
If we didn't have birth year info then it would be best to use Thomas/F./Wilson.
But we do and therefore there's no reason why we can't have the name that is most frequently credited and, more importantly, the name he uses on his own official site, Tom Wilson.

Having said that, it doesn't actually matter as long as everyone uses the same name and I'll happily go with the majority.

What he said.  This is exactly what the BY field was created for.

It looks like it's going to be a close poll. We need 1 name or the other so I think it's best if we put a definitive deadline for the result. Say 72 hours after it started.

I've had a rough count up of the times he is credited in different TV Shows or films using the credit look up (not number of profiles) & excluding other Tom Wilson's:

Thomas F. Wilson 16
Tom Wilson 15

Admittedly I only had IMDb to check against, but in about 4 of the Thomas F. Wilson credits it should have been Tom Wilson.

The vast majority of Thomas F. Wilson credits where for the BTTF films (approx 4 pages of them). I counted these as 3 when making the above total.

So basically there's not a lot to choose between them.

Both: Tom Wilson (1959) and Thomas F. Wilson will provide a unique entry because no other actors named Tom Wilson have the same YoB (again using IMDb. sorry)

Personally, I would prefer to use the name that he himself uses on his official site and, apparently, in all his credits for the last 10 years.

I think IMDB was used to get that number, as they list 20 Tom Wilsons, 7 of which are actors (including Thomas F.).

double post