You said IMDb!  Death to you!

The idea has been brought up before, but the management of such a database would be pretty tough.  How do new cast/crew get added?  Do we petition Ken?  Is it something that someone submits name to and then we all vote?

Everytime I'm updating a profile I pretty much always end up adding 3 or 4 names (usually crew) to my actor/crew database for people that didn't exist before I put them in there.  Do you just add the people already exist and then have to wait to add "new" people at some later point when they finally get added to the "master database".

It's a good idea and theory, it just seems the actual practice of trying it would be a nightmare.

Well, not to be Captain Obvious or anything, but if Ken didn't want it used then he probably shouldn't have released it.  What a surprise that folks get a shiny new toy and want to play with it. 

Quoting skipnet50:

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I don't think Ken had realized he had opened a can of worms. We thought the BY was a great idea to distinguish between people of the same name, it took users 5 seconds to discover that we could not get BY data for everyone. In retrospect we should have realized it, but we didn't, I think we have the same thing here.

Skip

That's about what I figured as well.  The only exception to your comment, is that there were (and are) a few people who pointed out aspects of the problems that are now becoming so vividly apparent.  Nobody wanted to listen to them, and still don't.  Some of us, including you, have said that we shouldn't be using either feature until Ken has all the bugs worked out, but the usual response is that if Ken didn't want us to use it, he would say so.  So, it seems to me that they are going to rationalize the use of these features despite the demonstrated problems with them, and to hell with the consequences.

I have used it several times but so far I have kept it local except in one case (Robert De Niro credited as Robert DeNiro in Godfather Part II) and I am happy with that. It does work now to an extent and the choice of the common name already has a criteria. It's the same as every other part of the database that is, a contributor makes a submission with the source, the users who have that film in their collection vote on it and then INVELOS DECIDE if it is to be included in the database.

I hear the argument wait for the standards and choose to do exactly that except if it is very obvious. But I think the whole "who decides and what criteria is there for a common name" is a bit of a red herring. Even if there are different crieria for different cast and crew it will achieve the objective which is to link their common films. We will always have their individual credited names.

Birth years is a little different since that becomes a virus if people CHANGE an existing cast or crew member in the database. If that is accepted the master database record gets changed and then every film you have with that named actor irrespective which one they are gets the same birth year.

All that needs to happen to prevent this is, if there is a need for birth years create 2 (or more) NEW cast/crew members with the name and the date of birth but leave the vanilla name with no date of birth alone. Then on a film by film basis users change them to the appropriate person which would change that film only. The downside is, just like as credited, we have 2 actor crew entries who are the same person until all their films get sorted out.

@Graveworm

The database i was thinking of, has nothing to do with users deciding the standard name of an actor. That would be a descision that Ken takes and we would have to live with it. The "Credited as" part would be free, although it will still have to follow the contribution rules.

It might sound strange not to be able to decide on that part of the programm, but i will resolve a lot of unnecesary problems.

Sure the system now has contribution rules and users vote on that, but that's only for that particular movie and only for people that actualy have that movie. So if u only have one movie with Robert De Niro u are kinda making a descision for all the movies i have with him. I can vote no ofc but that's where the discussion starts again then.

Letting Ken decide what the name of an actor is removes unnecesary discussions like that and all users will find all there movies with Robert De Niro when they click on his name, regardless of how he was credited.

Quoting skipnet50:

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That is the argument I have been presenting, Gendji and it is NOT a red herring, it is a valid argument. red Herring is a term used frequently when a valid argument cannot be dealt with and answered.

Skip

Had to look that one up first, english not being my native language  and u are right, it's NOT.

Being a vegetarian myself i am not influenced by whatever herring people are trying to use anyway

Quoting kdh1949:

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Quoting Gendji:

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Letting Ken decide what the name of an actor is removes unnecesary discussions like that and all users will find all there movies with Robert De Niro when they click on his name, regardless of how he was credited.

If I were THAT Ken, I wouldn't want to have to be the arbiter of what an actor's name is.  I'd have enough to do keeping track of thousands of contributions.

There would not be any arbitration in whatever form, Ken's descision and that's it. Checking contributions would actually be easier cause it would only be the "Credited As" part.