Dan, Ken posted this in the "Credited As" topic of this same forum...

Quoting: Ken Cole

Quote:
When I considered options for resolving name linking issues due to variations in how cast and crew are credited, there were two main candidates - the credited as system in use today, and a linking system.  Linking works well with name variations but doesn't work well with one-off credits, and complicates the birth year solution to credit uniqueness.  On the other hand, the credited as solution requires consistency in the common name to work well.

There seems to be much duress over determining the "correct" common name for each cast/crew member, when in fact what is needed is merely consistency.  I've prepared an online lookup that will allow searching the global cast and crew databases to determine the more common credited as name.  Note that whether or not credited as field is currently used as intended, the lookup will remain valid as long as the cast/crew entries follow the credited as standard.  Importantly, changing the common name for particular DVDs to align with the most common credited as field will have no effect on the lookup.

Before I roll out the lookup functionality, I want to make sure that this solution is workable to the community.  Pick it apart, tear into it, I'm thick skinned.

Let me illustrate ONE of the problems I see with this system...

Step 1:
Person A contributes 6 of those 12 profiles with the "proper" linking in them. Several minutes for this procedure alone. (Can't forget sourcing and so forth) Anyone still trying to figure out what a "Proper" reference for birth year is?

Step 2: Everybody else who has those 6 profiles gets to preview the updated profile and accept it or not. (keep in mind that we are only talking about 1 credited person). at least 1 minute for each person who has 1 of these profiles (multiplied by the number they have).

Step 3:
Person B  contributes 3 more of the profiles.

Step 4: repeat of step 2

So far we have countless man hours (thousands at minimum) tied up in nothing more than making a link for one credited individual. BTW, this does not include any of Ken's time (probably delegated to a part-timer) making sure it's correct.

With just this, how many users are going to do it?


Step 5: never-mind ------ I'm already worn out and I haven't even begun to touch on the number of times I will see each profile come back for an update because of the second, and third, and fourth, and fifth, etc., etc., credited individuals who are in this same profile. Then we get to add the normal ping-ponging that we see. Then there are the regular updates for CoO, and genre reorder, and .......


Why can't we fix just one thing and be done with it?

Must we always adopt a system which creates an infinite number of updates for each profile, for that one field alone?



Ken,
___ = ___ = ___ = ___ = ___

It's done once and everybody is finished. Why put your customers through all of this when it can be done in the main DB ONE TIME and it's complete????

Quoting Dan W:

Quote:
On second thought, Ken's "part-timers" might like this new "linking system" because it will certainly keep them busy. In-effect, it offers job security for those "part-timers" due to the increased work load they will see.

I would say that money could be better spent but that would depend on your perspective.

So, I guess there is an upside to this after-all. Initially, I didn't see one.

Well, for what it's worth, I don't think that's much of an upside for all that to-in' and fro-in'!  I guess maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand what seems to me to be an insane obsession with linking all these names together.  Is there some sort of arcane pleasure in seeing every last movie somebody is in displayed on the screen?  I'm completely mystified because I've never had a problem keeping track of names.  If somebody mentions a movie I can usually tell you who was in it, and vice versa (unless you're talking about some artsy-fartsy art house flick that 17 people saw).  It just really seems like a complete waste of time and effort for little real return.

Thanks Guys for your help on this subject