Quoting Merrik:

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Do we need a BY attached to a major star to know the difference between them and a porn actor that most of us are never going to download a profile for? Pain. In. The. A$$.

Hear, hear ! 

Quoting CubbyUps:

Quote:


Contributors that add those BY's are following the rules to a T. It doesn't matter if you have any x-rated titles in your local database at all. These BY's are 100% accurate and allowed.

If so, where did all the undocumented BY's come from ?

Btw, I'm not against serious contributors (I think you know that), I'm against a system that fills my private db with rubbish I have not asked for and have not accepted.

Quoting CubbyUps:

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That isn't really for you to decide.

Never said it was.

Quoting CubbyUps:

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Contributors that add those BY's are following the rules to a T. It doesn't matter if you have any x-rated titles in your local database at all. These BY's are 100% accurate and allowed.

Of course they are. Never meant to imply otherwise and don't actually think I did. I did state my opinion that they're a pain in the butt, and it's a valid opinion.

Quoting CubbyUps:

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It's these sort of blanket statements that cause some to not want to contribute to the database at all.

Let's not get overly sensitive here. I wasn't staging an attack on anyone here. If you think that I don't appreciate the work that everyone puts into their contributions you're taking me the wrong way. I appreciate every contribution that helps make the database more complete. I wouldn't take hours of my time to start and contribute to common name threads otherwise. I was however, staging an attack on the SYSTEM. The BY system is seriously flawed. If we ignore the fact that probably hundreds of actors now have a BY attached to them to distinguish them from porn actors (this was simply a single example that contributes to BY's being my pet peeve, and it can go even further... a lot of porn actors use numerous names through-out their careers, meaning one porn actor might cause six or seven different cast or crew members to need a BY), then we focus back on the original intent of this thread. There are still hundreds of unneeded BY's contained within the system, within local databases and they continue to spread no matter how hard someone tries to correct them. How many times have we all had to remove a BY for Samuel L. Jackson? To my knowledge, he's still the only Samuel L. Jackson out there, yet I've been removing his BY in my local for going on five years now. Or we could focus on the fact that if there are two people with the same name born in the same year, we're hooped. Or we could focus on the fact that there might not be reliable data to determine someone's BY when it's needed. Again, I wasn't attacking any one single person. I think everyone that takes the time to contribute to the system deserves to be celebrated and thanked, I was making a comment on the system. Having used another program that handled actors with the same name a completely different, and much easier way, I know there's a better way to go about doing this, and why it hasn't been implemented yet, even though many people have taken time out of their lives to suggest ways to do it (and some have even started programming ways to allow it to be implemented), is beyond me.

Quoting CubbyUps:

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It seems to me that some people are just a tad too lazy to contribute approved BY's just because "I don't own any profiles with that other person so why should I have to do look up a contribution note and include it in my notes."

Speaking of blanket statements...  I'm anything but a lazy contributor not to honk my own horn. I take pride in my contributions and work my butt off to make sure they're correct. Yes, I even take the time to include proper documentation for BY's that are not needed in my own local when submitting them (I remove them afterwards however).

I wasn't saying "why should I have to deal with BYs for these non-porn people when I don't own anything with such and such porn star in it", I was saying in not enough words apparently, that the system is flawed. A system where Tom Cruise (an example made up off the top of my head) needs a BY to distinguish him from a porn actor that used that name in a single porn film is not even close to the most effecient system there could be (while adding in all the other numerous problems, some of which I described in this post already), and it results in being a pain in my butt. And if we are being truthful... There's a ton of work to put into a single contribution as it is. It takes a really good solid contribution, with proper full cast and crew completed, up to an hour to complete. Add in the extra 15 minutes to have to verify 10 BY's that seemingly have appeared from nowhere, whether they're valid or invalid, is a lot to ask of people who are doing all this work of their own kindness, time and free will.

So don't take what I'm saying as a personal attack. I'm venting my frustrations over a system that needs a new solution, and this was just a single example of why the system irks me, not any contributors.

I agree that the current BY solution to separating people with the same name isn't the best solution. But at this time it's what we have to work with.

I find it really difficult to find out if a person with names such as Rick/Richard/Ricky/Dick needs a BY or not since there are so many variations and that's compounded when having to deal with many people with that name.
Sometimes IMDB lists people that share a rather common name well in excess of 50 different people.
Needless to say I don't even bother at that point.
It's just to much work to first determine what is Rick/Richard/Ricky/Dick's common name and then have to go through dozens on names on sites such as IMDB to see if there are any BY's or not.

Sometimes when I make a contribution and see a BY attached to a profile and I don't recognize it I go back and remove the BY and recontribute without it.