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Can't speak for VibroCount, however, a simple linking system which allows for John Doe=John J. Doe=John James Doe=JJ Doe=J.J. Doe=J. J. Doe=John J. Doe, Jr.=John J. Doe Jr., etc., etc. would allow us to link as many variations as there are; no limit.

Essentially, Ken would create another table in the online for all of the names which are linked to each other.  When you click on a name in the cast list, the program pulls up every profile with that name as well as every profile of names to which it is linked.  This is a simple programming issue.

The table would be updated by the user community the same way we do contributions today, but as a separate contribution function from normal profiles.  These "linking" contributions would be voted on by the user community just like normal contributions.  If the user community agrees to link two names, the table would be updated accordingly. When you do updates to your local database, this table would be downloaded to your local, and all of your profiles would be linked automatically.  No need to update every profile with a Common Name the way we have to do it today.

As far as what is displayed in your local, that would be a simple programming issue.  It seems that the user would have to select a display name for each linked actor/actress or they could select "As Credited" to display the name that was entered in the actual profile from the film credits.  This decision could be made during the update process.

This eliminates all arguments about formatting, spacing, capitalization, commas, periods, accents, etc., etc.

The only argument it won't dispel is that of parsing which could also be eliminated by going to a single name field (actually, we could link names that are parsed differently, as well).

Of course, if we did these two things, there would be nothing left to talk about in these forums! 

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And, based on many of the posts here, the upper case version does not exist in the French alphabet.  Confusing at best.

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In fact we have had capitalized versions of ç, é, è, ê, ù since the use of computers with typing programs, as Word. When we had only typing machines, these characters didn't exist. So for recent movies, we can find (not always) those capital characters, and then their transformation is easy. For older movies (before 1990), you have to speak french to decide if E is e, or é, or è ,or ê, and C is c or ç.

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Quoting Taro:

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Quoting VibroCount:

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One person can have many different names and spellings of each name. A solution to linking them is better than random users inputting what they think is "best" or "real world".

I'm actually interested in this linking idea of yours. Could you elaborate on this? I'm mostly concerend about being able to correctly cross link between actors and this could be a solution. A few questions:
1) do you refer to the 'credited as' system or something new?
2) would this work for actors who have, say, 5 or 6 variations of their name?
3) would a user be able to choose which name (of all those linked) to locally display in all profiles? Or would the name differ per profile?

Thank you in advance for your answer. I'm very interested to hear more about your ideas.

Can't speak for VibroCount, however, a simple linking system which allows for John Doe=John J. Doe=John James Doe=JJ Doe=J.J. Doe=J. J. Doe=John J. Doe, Jr.=John J. Doe Jr., etc., etc. would allow us to link as many variations as there are; no limit.

Essentially, Ken would create another table in the online for all of the names which are linked to each other.  When you click on a name in the cast list, the program pulls up every profile with that name as well as every profile of names to which it is linked.  This is a simple programming issue.

The table would be updated by the user community the same way we do contributions today, but as a separate contribution function from normal profiles.  These "linking" contributions would be voted on by the user community just like normal contributions.  If the user community agrees to link two names, the table would be updated accordingly. When you do updates to your local database, this table would be downloaded to your local, and all of your profiles would be linked automatically.  No need to update every profile with a Common Name the way we have to do it today.

As far as what is displayed in your local, that would be a simple programming issue.  It seems that the user would have to select a display name for each linked actor/actress or they could select "As Credited" to display the name that was entered in the actual profile from the film credits.  This decision could be made during the update process.

This eliminates all arguments about formatting, spacing, capitalization, commas, periods, accents, etc., etc.

The only argument it won't dispel is that of parsing which could also be eliminated by going to a single name field (actually, we could link names that are parsed differently, as well).

Of course, if we did these two things, there would be nothing left to talk about in these forums!