What's your point exactly?

Should we wait for the determination of a common name until a majority/all of the profiles have been properly audited? And when exactly will that be?

Personally for me is a working linking system more important than any "correct" spelling of any name as long as I still recognize it.

If I click on RDjr I want to see all the movies with him and I couldn't care less if there's a comma or not.

The forementioned is strictly IMHO of course..

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
I am going to break my exile to expound on this topic some more. We are using a system which is broken.

Permit me to explain

Robert Downey Jr./Robert Downey. Jr.

I corrected 10 or 15 of a single title some weeks back. Today I edited a title that supposedly had recently been corrected based on the CLT to Robert Downey Jr. The ACTUAL CREDIT On Screen is Robert Downey, Jr. Yet there are numerous copies of the same title which erroneously list Robert Downey Jr. How can we rely on this topic when users refuse to follow the Rules. I am willing to bet that if all of his films were CORRECTLY audited and edited we would fiind the vast majority of his credits would in fact be Robert Downey, Jr. Until such time as this data is correct then it cannot be relied upon to deliver ANY actual data and this includes those who insist on creating cultural interpretations of the names. If this tool is EVER to work properly then the data has to be done EXACXTLY as it is ON SCREEN, no exception, no insertion of non-existent cultural data, no nothing.

YOU(generic) broke it, you figure out how to fix it. It does not benefit the Community to have a tool which cannot be relied upon.

Skip

I hesitate to answer; but I do:

The system will cure itself.

Since the credit Lookup Tool does NOT reference to the "common names". It counts the "as credited" names.

In your example this would mean: if you are right and "Robert Downey, Jr." is the most commonly used name of this person, then the following will occur:
- profile after profile will be edited to Robert Downey Jr. [Robert Downey, Jr.]
- out of this the credit lookup tool will swap and show more Robert Downey, Jr. entries than Robert Downey Jr.'s
- then we all know, that the system was (!) wrong and reverse all profiles: the ones which had "credited as" entries loose them and get back their "as credited" names and the other profiles have to be replaced by Robert Downey, Jr. [Robert Downey Jr.]
- ... and everything is OK... in the far future

And vice versa, if you are not right and "Robert Downey Jr." is the most commonly used name:
- more and more profiles will be changed either to Robert Downey Jr. or to Robert Downey Jr. [Robert Downey, Jr.
- the more profiles will be changed, the clearer gets the credit lookup tool and shows that the decision was right
- ... and everything is OK... in the near future

So the only difference is, if the name is fixed in near or far future. It will be fixed!

And a last word from my personal point of view: I for myself would wish, that some higher instance - Invelos - would be able to change a common name all accross the database. This would help us out of the first scenario (the "if you were right" one) in a nearer future. Since after the pendulum swings to Robert Downey, Jr. some admin could automatically execute the following two changes, without harming the integrity of the database:
Robert Downey Jr. [Robert Downey, Jr.] -> Robert Downey, Jr.
Robert Downey Jr. -> Robert Downey, Jr. [Robert Downey Jr.]

Regards, AA

Quoting DJ Doena:

Quote:
Personally for me is a working linking system more important than any "correct" spelling of any name as long as I still recognize it.

If I click on RDjr I want to see all the movies with him and I couldn't care less if there's a comma or not.

The forementioned is strictly IMHO of course..

I personally agree with you. I don't care very much if the Common Name is "a1" or "a2" or "a3", as long as it links to all the Credited Names for that person.  That's why I say: let's stop arguing if it's "a1", "a2" or "a3". Let's use "a" and that's it! With that I mean: let's use a few standards for COMMON names.
For instance:
- titles and prefixes (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names);
- suffixes (I say: let's use ", Jr." , in COMMON names);
- accents (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names).

Did I mention I am only referring to COMMON names, not to Credited Names?     

For those who are thinking that the system will cure itself, they are correct up to a point.  Many golden age actors will never be cured.  I discovered this myself when working on Harry Carey, Jr.  Of the 11 titles I own, 2 were comma-less and 5 had a comma.  The remaining 4 profiles were for uncredited roles.  Presumably the original source for these was IMDB because...wait for it...his name was comma-less.  Now, in my personal database I have 6 without comma and 5 with.  All well and good, but the choice of a comma for an uncredited role is completely arbitrary...by definition.  Now, if I want to actually submit changes to all these uncredited roles, by the rules I am forced to suddenly justify all this junk.  Obviously, that is never going to happen, so the name will never get fixed.

Now locally I just made a command decision and changed all that uncredited crap to a comma, but it'll never happen in the online.  Granted, this is but one local example, but it serves to highlight additional issues with the credit lookup tool.

Quoting mdnitoil:

Quote:
the choice of a comma for an uncredited role is completely arbitrary...by definition.

One more reason - as if there weren't enough already - to set an official DVD Profiler standard for entering suffixes! I'm doing it locally, you're doing it locally, and dozens, maybe hundreds of others who are also busy trying to remove superfluous double entries from their database are doing it. So why are we still faced with an official policy that has us propagating IMDb's standard through our database - maybe for years to come? I truly can't think of a single good reason.

Quoting mdnitoil:

Quote:
All well and good, but the choice of a comma for an uncredited role is completely arbitrary...by definition.

That is an important point that uncredited "credits"  in the lookup tool can skew results if they're included. They should be excluded by definition. If Ken hasn't excluded them yet, he should.

Quoting mdnitoil:

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Now locally I just made a command decision and changed all that uncredited crap to a comma,

I picked "without commas" for my local db. Ah, the beauty of choices. 

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

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this has all been discussed over and over again... and I am fine with that...

I am glad to hear that. 
Would you also agree with
- titles and prefixes (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names);
- accents (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names).
?

Quote:
but we really are to the point that the ball is in Ken's court.

Of course, the last word is his.

Quote:

It is now really up to him if he wants to change his mind on the subject. As I said many times before.... I will be thrilled to go with whatever he decides... whenever he decides. Until then we can only do it the way he has lead us to do it... which is strictly by the look-up tool. (of course unless you can document it being wrong).

Sorry, but in my view that just doesn't work. One problem is that what "can document it being wrong" according to someone, is not enough documentation for others.

Quoting EnryWiki:

Quote:
Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
this has all been discussed over and over again... and I am fine with that...

I am glad to hear that. 
Would you also agree with
- titles and prefixes (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names);
- accents (I say: let's just ignore them, in COMMON names).
?

Quote:
but we really are to the point that the ball is in Ken's court.

Of course, the last word is his.

Quote:

It is now really up to him if he wants to change his mind on the subject. As I said many times before.... I will be thrilled to go with whatever he decides... whenever he decides. Until then we can only do it the way he has lead us to do it... which is strictly by the look-up tool. (of course unless you can document it being wrong).

Sorry, but in my view that just doesn't work. One problem is that what "can document it being wrong" according to someone, is not enough documentation for others.

I personally am strictly for doing it as Ken has said so far... if we are going to go by the credit look-up tool for the most credited then there should be no exceptions and no standardizations.

That doesn't mean I think this is the way it should be... I personally think the whole system needs to be re-examined. That is should be the way Skip said long ago... and the way Hal said not that long ago. Changing the alias system all together.