Some of you seem to be dealing in symantics.  While it is true that 'Dan George' is not a ficticious name, it is not the name he used as an actor...which is what I believe Skip is saying.

That being said, I don't even know why we are discussing this one.  He has always been credited as 'Chief Dan George'.  That means all his credits, in profiler, should be 'Chief Dan George'.  The purpose of the 'as credited' feature was to link actors who have been credited differently during their career.  It was not intended to 'standardize' names.  If that is what you guys are doing, please stop.

As to the original question:

Chief Dan // George

Eddie // Little Sky

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
The purpose of the 'as credited' feature was to link actors who have been credited differently during their career.  It was not intended to 'standardize' names.  If that is what you guys are doing, please stop.

This is indeed being done with names with accents, nick names and Jr./Sr. We've been using accented names in the name fields and putting non-accented names in the 'credited as' field regardless of which is more credited. The same is true with Jr./Sr., we've been adding a comma before the suffix regardless of the most credited form. For some actors, the comma form is the most credited, but for others it is not.

The rule is to use the "Credited As" field where the person's name differs from the credited name. "Chief" is no more a part of Chief Dan George's name than "President" is a part of President George W. Bush's name.

Quoting m.cellophane:

Quote:
The rule is to use the "Credited As" field where the person's name differs from the credited name. "Chief" is no more a part of Chief Dan George's name than "President" is a part of President George W. Bush's name.

I am sorry, but we are going to have to part company here.  I can understand changing it if he were credited as 'Chief Dan George' in some films and 'Dan George' in others.  But when his only credit is 'Chief Dan George', it just doesn't make any sense to standardize it.  What purpose does it serve?  What value does it add to the database?

As I said, the purpose of the two name fields was to link actors who were credited differently during their career.  'Chief Dan George' is already linked as it is the only way he was ever credited.  Standardizing the name simply for the sake of standardizing it just doesn't make any sense and is not what was intended.

Quoting m.cellophane:

Quote:
We do it for other names but not for him? A case can be made that it's a stage name. I can buy that. But saying we can't apply a standard to him when we have to apply it to others, even if they weren't credited in the "standard" form, doesn't seem right.

As I said, we were not supposed to be standardizing ALL names.  We were supposed to be linking names.  I don't know how, or when, the direction shifted.

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What purpose does it serve to add commas to names with the Jr. suffix if the most commonly credited form for an actor does not include the comma?

In my opinion, as with most arbitrary standards, it serves no purpose. 

Quote:
The purpose of using accented names as the name, even if it's not most-credited, is to record their true name rather than to perpetuate a non-accented form that isn't their true name. Is that a "purpose"? I'm not sure. I'm just seeing inconsistencies in the way things are being applied.

You are not seeing any inconsistencies from me.  My vote has always been for the 'most credited' form of the name.

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So with this rule we go by assumed intent and other rules we follow as written?

There is no assumed intent.  I thought Ken was pretty clear as to the purpose of the field.

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If you don't want standardizing to occur, you have quite a few polls to reverse. 

I don't recall a single poll asking if we should standardize all names.  I don't recall a single poll asking whether or not we should change the name of an actor who has always used the same credit.

Based on the logic I am hearing here, we are going to have to make the following changes:

Marion Morrison (Credited as John Wayne)

Madonna Ciccone (Credited as Madonna)

Cedric Kyles (Credited as Cedric the Entertainer)

Ramón Estévez (Credited as Martin Sheen)

Now, before you protest, this is based on your logic for removing 'chief' from 'Chief Dan George'..."The rule is to use the "Credited As" field where the person's name differs from the credited name."

Well, Marion Morrison's name differs from his credited name.  Madonna Ciccone's name differes from her credited name.  Cedric Kyles' name differs from his credited name.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

'Chief Dan George' is his credited name.  If you change that then you must change ALL examples where the person's name differs from the credited name.  If you aren't doing that, then it is you who are bing inconsistent.

I am sorry, but I just can't believe what I am seeing here. 

I think all people who want to use Dan George credited as Chief Dan George oversee the following rule in the contribution rules:

Quote:
To determine whether to enter the name directly as credited, or to use the "Credited As" field, use the Credit Lookup tool.

If you use the Credit Lookup tool as defined in the rules you will see the following result:

Dan George 0 titles 0 profiles
Chief Dan George 28 titles 68 profiles

Conclusion according to the contribution rules:
Use Chief Dan George without arguing.

mfg Speedy

Quoting Speedy666:

Quote:
I think all people who want to use Dan George credited as Chief Dan George oversee the following rule in the contribution rules:

Quote:
To determine whether to enter the name directly as credited, or to use the "Credited As" field, use the Credit Lookup tool.

If you use the Credit Lookup tool as defined in the rules you will see the following result:

Dan George 0 titles 0 profiles
Chief Dan George 28 titles 68 profiles

Conclusion according to the contribution rules:
Use Chief Dan George without arguing.

mfg Speedy

I agree... tells you right there in the rules when to use the credit as section.

I'm agreeing with Unicus on this one.
The fact that we're generally dropping prefixes for the common name doesn't mean we have to all the time.
If it can be verifiably shown that a person is always credited with their prefix, then I see no problems using it in the common name.
The guidelines for the common name were written to help people choose which name to go for when there are a number of choices to choose from. They weren't written to make us shoe-horn everybody's name into a standardised format. We already have a number of names that have been accepted that go against the guidelines - why not this one too?
If at some point in the future we find a credit of someone who became a chief during their career, then I can see the argument for dropping it then. But in this particular case, I say we have it in the common name.

Quoting skipnet50:

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Didn't you know James changes things and interprets things to suit himself. So, if HE has decided we are standardizing names then we are standardizing names, not only that, Unicus, James is the ONE that gets to define the standard.      ....NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not solely responsible for anything. I'm making an observation based on what I've seen the forum decide in other areas. The polls and threads are all there for all to see. I'm just saying "hey, this Chief Dan George thing doesn't mesh with other decisions we've made." If we need to change other decisions we've made to accommodate Chief Dan George, that's fine. I'm just bringing it up to everyone's attention.

Quoting skipnet50:

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I don't care if he was Dan george from 1904-1951, that has NO RELEVANCE to his film work, NAME ONE, JUST ONE film in which he is billed as Dan George...you can't because there aren't any. Therefoer Dan George is irrelevant and against the Rules.

The comment about his use of Dan George from 1904-1951 was not to support use of Dan George as his acting name but rather to counter your ridiculous claim that I would have been scalped for disrespecting him by calling him Dan George 100 years ago. But once again, you dodge the facts.

Quoting skipnet50:

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And permit me to add at this juncture that it is exactly the attitude and behavior of James and others that prevents me from trying to figure out to deal with the common name and BY and now even the title issue, they can't do anything simply, they want to do this sometimes and that other times and it has become simply too complicated to deal with.

I'm using the new title rules which direct us to pull data from the cover. You are consistently throwing in US Copyright office lookups into the mix. I'm following the simple rules as given. You might want to look in the mirror to see who's complicating things.

Quoting skipnet50:

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Therefore, I sit on the sidelines  I mjust remeber that when there is a Blue moon on the 4 th Tuesday of December then we have to do it some other way.

It's sort of the nature of names; isn't it? There aren't any rules for how people make names so it's inherently messy for us to deal with. Again, it's not my creation. I've contributed to trying to sort it out. All I did in this thread was to bring in other decisions and try to make sure that what's going on in this thread is consistently sorted out with other precedents. It shouldn't be so traumatic to discuss this issue.

Quoting skipnet50:

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And to top it off they will not even document their work, so that we know that X=x and

This is really getting old. I did one common name link where the only documentation I gave were the statistics from the official Invelos lookup. I explained it in this post. The reason why I did that was to see if that's enough for Invelos. Maybe they don't require what we think they do. And they accepted it.

It was the only change to the profile, so it wasn't hard to miss it or misinterpret what I was doing. Frank De Vol = De Vol. Now I know that proof from the 'Credited As' database (which I helped create, don't forget) would have met your needs for documentation. But I withheld it to see what they would do. Interesting that they accepted it. As we all know, one approval or decline either way doesn't mean much. But I just found it interesting.

Their support for the 'Credited As' database has been muted. It seems they favor the official Invelos lookup. If so, that alone will not meet your needs for documentation. Should we continue with the 'Credited As' database so that you get the best documentaiton? I don't know. Perhaps from an Invelos standpoint it's not needed. We'll see.

But please quit crying like a baby over it because I do document my work. I've heard you that you didn't like that I did that. You've followed me around for a couple of weeks now harassing me after any post I make on any topic whatsoever by immediately posting "you don't document your work" "you don't document your work" "you don't document your work" "you don't document your work" "you don't document your work" "you don't document your work". Try to grasp the issue at hand and get over yourself. 

Quoting skipnet50:

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now I have to wonder whether or not stardardization is going on which if it is and i see it I will vote of very vociferous NO, that is NOT the intended function of the common name and if such data is discovered and accepted I will repair the damage at once.

The much feared Skip correction. Well, take a look at every Jr./Sr. name. They're all being standardized. That should keep you busy for a while.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
As I said, we were not supposed to be standardizing ALL names.  We were supposed to be linking names.  I don't know how, or when, the direction shifted.

I think it happened slowly. People wanted all Jr. names to be the same. That requires standardizing. It flows from there...

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
You are not seeing any inconsistencies from me.  My vote has always been for the 'most credited' form of the name.

Perhaps not inconsistent on this particular rule, but it just seemed to me that your focus shifted from the words of the rule to the intent of the rule, which I thought was unusual for you.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
I don't recall a single poll asking if we should standardize all names.  I don't recall a single poll asking whether or not we should change the name of an actor who has always used the same credit.

You should take a look at the polls referenced in the List of Common Names thread. Many of those are standardizing names regardless of which is most-credited.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
Based on the logic I am hearing here, we are going to have to make the following changes:

Marion Morrison (Credited as John Wayne)

Madonna Ciccone (Credited as Madonna)

Cedric Kyles (Credited as Cedric the Entertainer)

Ramón Estévez (Credited as Martin Sheen)

Now, before you protest, this is based on your logic for removing 'chief' from 'Chief Dan George'..."The rule is to use the "Credited As" field where the person's name differs from the credited name."

Well, Marion Morrison's name differs from his credited name.  Madonna Ciccone's name differes from her credited name.  Cedric Kyles' name differs from his credited name.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

'Chief Dan George' is his credited name.  If you change that then you must change ALL examples where the person's name differs from the credited name.  If you aren't doing that, then it is you who are bing inconsistent.

I think the above is covered by the stage name rule and I've previously said I could buy a stage name argument for Chief Dan George. And again, I wasn't trying to say you personally were being inconsistent in your application of name rules as I explained above.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
I am sorry, but I just can't believe what I am seeing here. 

Early on with Jr. and Sr. the issue came up about whether to insert or remove commas. Some of us started doing it based on which form was most-credited. But it moved into standardizing one form or the other. Then accented names...then prefixes...etc.

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
I'm agreeing with Unicus on this one.
The fact that we're generally dropping prefixes for the common name doesn't mean we have to all the time.
If it can be verifiably shown that a person is always credited with their prefix, then I see no problems using it in the common name.
The guidelines for the common name were written to help people choose which name to go for when there are a number of choices to choose from. They weren't written to make us shoe-horn everybody's name into a standardised format. We already have a number of names that have been accepted that go against the guidelines - why not this one too?
If at some point in the future we find a credit of someone who became a chief during their career, then I can see the argument for dropping it then. But in this particular case, I say we have it in the common name.

I think we need another guideline to add to our list that covers this sort of situation, because otherwise, some of our other guidelines will create situations like Dan George that people don't want to see.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
North:

As I noted rather sarcastically, this is about users being allowed to try(successfully) to make the data entry so complex with garbage that users will actually be reduced instead of increased. this is something i have fought vigorously against, but nobody sees it or they choose not to see it. The have only one wish and that is to turn the system into an electronic pretzel for what motives I can only speculate on...but as this particular issue rather graphically demonstrate as with most of the issues that have been involved they are dead WRONG.

Somehwere along the way the concept of simplicity has been thrown out the window to favor personal preference.

Skip

Spoken by the user who throws US Copyright lookups into every title discussion.