I pity any newbie starting out here. Too many hurdles to jump over and too many bottoms to kiss.

Still, the program's great isn't it! 

Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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Quoting StaNDarD:

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Quoting scotthm:

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The good news is that these issues can usually be corrected once you know there are multiple "Bill Smiths".

Only if you know the birthyears and/or common names to all of them...

Wrong!
No one asks you to correct all errors in one go.
Fix those you can. Leave the other problems to those that can (and/or need to) solve them.
E.G. If I know of only 2 Bill Smith in my database, why should I care to find the birthyears for the others.

Well, OK. You can solve your private issue, when you know at least one birthyear less than persons sharing the same name in your private database.
Or you can use fake-birthyears to split them and lose you're right to contribute.

But this is not about your private database, it's about the online database...

So my statement still stays:
I can't correct this issue once I know there are multiple persons sharing the same name.
I can correct this issue when I know birthyears and/or common names for these persons.

Even worse: to really solve this issue, I would have to re-contribute all existing profiles these persons are involved with corrected data.

In my private database I don't have these issues due to excessive use of fake- and real-birthyears, so I'm not allowed to contribute anymore.

Quoting StaNDarD:

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In my private database I don't have these issues due to excessive use of fake- and real-birthyears, so I'm not allowed to contribute anymore.

So why can't you contribute because of extra BY's in your local, fake or not.  Just don't check the box to contribute the particular BY.  I do it all the time.

Quoting StaNDarD:

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Quoting Scooter1836:

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Quoting StaNDarD:

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In my private database I don't have these issues due to excessive use of fake- and real-birthyears, so I'm not allowed to contribute anymore.

So why can't you contribute because of extra BY's in your local, fake or not.  Just don't check the box to contribute the particular BY.  I do it all the time.

That's because I have a lot of real birthyears, which exist in the online database, but are not allowed by the rules - and there's no checkbox for those.

??
If they are in the maindatabase already and are needed to distinguish between different cast-/crew members of the same name these BYs already got approved by Invelos.
Further documentation is not required.

Since the participation in the "Accepted Birthyears"-thread is NOT mandatory you can safely assume that the necessary documentation was provided by the original contributor of the BY.

Please note my given premise for the statement

BY has to be necessary (Means: NOT unvalid according to the rules) AND already in the database.

In such cases (IMO and experience) a "Added previously accepted BY to John Doe" completely suffices.

But actually I can see StaNDarD's point regarding BY's, just not in the cases he gave in his example.

I too do not contribute new Birthyears, even if they are needed.
First of all because I use a different (much easier) differentiation-system for my local database, but too, because getting a BY accepted is far too complicated for my taste.

Quoting StaNDarD:

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Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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Please note my given premise for the statement

BY has to be necessary (Means: NOT unvalid according to the rules) AND already in the database.

In such cases (IMO and experience) a "Added previously accepted BY to John Doe" completely suffices.

That's correct, but as I said, my database has lots of real birthyears which are not allowed per the rules.
And some of them are available in the online database so that I don't get a checkbox for them when I try to contribute.

Sorry,
I don't get it:
How can a "real" and required BY that is already present in the maindatabase be against the rules?

I never said that all my birthyears are required. I just like to have them...

Quoting Lewis_Prothero:

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Since the participation in the "Accepted Birthyears"-thread is NOT mandatory you can safely assume that the necessary documentation was provided by the original contributor of the BY.

Having a birthyear in the online database doesn't mean the necessary documentation as been given...
Even if it has been given, the need for it might have been gone, because of a change of a common name. ;-)

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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  A few peopel, for reason I don't quite understand, like to have the BYs for actors whether or not they are needed.

BY is an interesting information connected with headshots. For example, when you are looking for a specific headshot for an actor to illustrate a specific movie, it is important to know if in this movie he was a baby, a child, a young man or an old man, specially if this actor is not well known, and if he is not clearly recognizable on screen captures.