Whether or not the Special Effects Coordinator is a or a  depends on the rest of the credits.

If there is a Special Effects Supervisor credited, it is a 
If there is NO Special Effects Supervisor credited, it is a 

Okay, so for the credits in question (which are for Jonah Hex) - you think I should only list the Supervisor?

Oh, and if there is a Visual Effects Coordinator, but no Visual Effects Supervisor, I should list the Visual Effects Coordinator even though there is a Special Effects Supervisor, right... ?

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Quoting Danae Cassandra:

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Okay, so for the credits in question (which are for Jonah Hex) - you think I should only list the Supervisor?

'Special Effects' is a valid Profiler credit, so you can enter those 12 people.

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Oh, and if there is a Visual Effects Coordinator, but no Visual Effects Supervisor, I should list the Visual Effects Coordinator even though there is a Special Effects Supervisor, right... ?

The rule says, "A Special Effects Coordinator can be added & credited when No Special Effects Supervisor is credited anywhere in the credits."  The Profiler credit covers Visual, Digital and Special Effects, but the coordinator exception only mentions 'Special', so I am torn. 

This rule only mentions Special Effects Coordinator, so it doesn't apply for the Visual Effects Coordinator.

Quoting CharlieM:

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Unfortunately, as the rules are written the "Special Effects" personnel are allowed via the rules, although I do not personally put them in, and do not feel that is what we are after.

I don't understand. Why do you feel that they're not what we're after?

They're the guys that do the Special Effects. There's no distinguishing addition to the credit to show that they're doing something other than Special Effects for the film. It specifically states, their only job apparently, was Special Effects. Not Special Effects Lead, Special Effects Art Director or something else, straight forward Special Effects guys. They may not have the tag Supervisor or Coordinator, but I'm not sure why that should make a difference. If there's a group of six guys who do Special Effects on a film, and one of those six guys happens to supervise the other five guys, but the five guys are still doing the special effects work... then they're special effects guys. Correct?

And I almost seem to remember a conversation where the rules were actually worded this way on purpose to allow for crew credited as Visual Effects, Digital Effects, Special Effects and Special Visual Effects to be entered into the crew with no questions asked and without having to have the extra word of director, supervisor or designer attached to the credit.

Of course I can't find that conversation  and it's only a vague memory, but I seem to remember it.

Quoting Merrik:

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If there's a group of six guys who do Special Effects on a film, and one of those six guys happens to supervise the other five guys, but the five guys are still doing the special effects work... then they're special effects guys.

You're right in that they're allowed per the rules. However, I can see CharlieM's point of view as well, and I think I can explain why. I've re-audited quite a few profiles to add the new 3.6 crew credits, including special effects, and the problem is that you often find the exact same people credited occasionally as "Special Effects" (can be entered), "Special Effects Coordinator" (sometimes it can, sometimes it can't be entered), "Special Effects Technicians" (can't be entered) and "Special Effects Crew" (can't be entered). So now you're auditing a film which has a "Special Effects Supervisor" which can be entered, and six "Special Effects Technicians" which you leave out. So far, so good. Then the next film you audit, the format is exactly the same: first a "Special Effects Supervisor" is credited, and then yet again six people working under him are listed - only this time, they're just called "Special Effects", instead of "Special Effects Technicians". Both groups have done the exact same job, and I'm often finding the same names. However, it seems we enter one bunch, and leave out the other. As far as I'm concerned, that's a bad thing, since I'm a big fan of "either we track something, or we don't". Not just sometimes, which this boils down to.

It all gets even worse when there is a "Special Effects Foreman" (or more than one) credited, and the hierarchy is clearly seen on the screen: first the "Special Effects Supervisor", then the "Special Effects Foreman", and then a bunch of "Special Effects" guys (or, as illustrated above, with the word "Technician" or "Crew" added). While the hierarchy is clear, we credit the first, we credit the last group (although only in the random cases that the wording happens to match our rules), but we leave out the "Foreman". That just doesn't make sense. We should either track the supervisor, or all of them, but certainly not leave out the one in the middle, or to disregard the same job when the word "Crew" or "Technician" is added.

This is why I too have problems with the Special Effects category. What we're doing is terribly inconsistent. Now, none of these problems exist for the guy in charge - it seems like he always gets in, no matter whether he's credited as "Special Effects", "Special Effects Supervisor", or even "Special Effects Coordinator". So far, so good. But the rest has such obvious problems, that I too tend to think that it wasn't really the intent to track additional groups of "Foremen", Technicians" and "Crew", even when the credits omit that extra word and just refer to those groups as "Special Effects". Unfortunately, it's hard to make that distinction in the rules, and so any "Special Effects" can indeed go in. It's just unfortunate that when the exact same people, doing the exact same job, are credited with a "Foreman", "Crew" or "Technician" suffix, that they're suddenly out. Again: that, to me, says that these aren't the people we're after, so I can certainly understand CharlieM's point of view. Unfortunately there's little we can do about it.

Quoting tweeter:

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I can't speak for anyone else but i'm interested in those people who did the creative design, not those who implemented the vision someone else came up with.  So i'm happy to submit supervisor/designers.  But then when i skip over some mid-level people (we can't submit them) to get to even lower level people we can add...well i'm not interested in the lower level people.

This. We're after the production designer, not the team that actually built the set. We're after the costume designer, not the person who draped the fabric over the actor's shoulders. And so on. I try to apply that same reasoning to all crew data. Additionally, the mid-level/lower-level note is also spot on - that's what I just tried to say: if we already can't enter the mid-level credit in the chain Special Effects Supervisor-Special Effects Foreman-Special Effects, then why would we want the lower-level ones? It just doesn't make sense, and the fact that those lower-level SFX guys are also regularly credited as "SFX Crew" and "SFX Technicians" in which case we diligently ignore them - that too tells me they're not really what the rules are after. If it were up to me, I'm with tweeter, and like we do for the production and costume design examples I just gave, I would prefer to restrict things to the supervisor. I honestly believe that's the intent, too, but unfortunately the rules don't make it clear enough...

Quoting T!M:

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Quoting Merrik:

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If there's a group of six guys who do Special Effects on a film, and one of those six guys happens to supervise the other five guys, but the five guys are still doing the special effects work... then they're special effects guys.

You're right in that they're allowed per the rules. However, I can see CharlieM's point of view as well, and I think I can explain why. I've re-audited quite a few profiles to add the new 3.6 crew credits, including special effects, and the problem is that you often find the exact same people credited occasionally as "Special Effects" (can be entered), "Special Effects Coordinator" (sometimes it can, sometimes it can't be entered), "Special Effects Technicians" (can't be entered) and "Special Effects Crew" (can't be entered). So now you're auditing a film which has a "Special Effects Supervisor" which can be entered, and six "Special Effects Technicians" which you leave out. So far, so good. Then the next film you audit, the format is exactly the same: first a "Special Effects Supervisor" is credited, and then yet again six people working under him are listed - only this time, they're just called "Special Effects", instead of "Special Effects Technicians". Both groups have done the exact same job, and I'm often finding the same names. However, it seems we enter one bunch, and leave out the other. As far as I'm concerned, that's a bad thing, since I'm a big fan of "either we track something, or we don't". Not just sometimes, which this boils down to.

It all gets even worse when there is a "Special Effects Foreman" (or more than one) credited, and the hierarchy is clearly seen on the screen: first the "Special Effects Supervisor", then the "Special Effects Foreman", and then a bunch of "Special Effects" guys (or, as illustrated above, with the word "Technician" or "Crew" added). While the hierarchy is clear, we credit the first, we credit the last group (although only in the random cases that the wording happens to match our rules), but we leave out the "Foreman". That just doesn't make sense. We should either track the supervisor, or all of them, but certainly not leave out the one in the middle, or to disregard the same job when the word "Crew" or "Technician" is added.

This is why I too have problems with the Special Effects category. What we're doing is terribly inconsistent. Now, none of these problems exist for the guy in charge - it seems like he always gets in, no matter whether he's credited as "Special Effects", "Special Effects Supervisor", or even "Special Effects Coordinator". So far, so good. But the rest has such obvious problems, that I too tend to think that it wasn't really the intent to track additional groups of "Foremen", Technicians" and "Crew", even when the credits omit that extra word and just refer to those groups as "Special Effects". Unfortunately, it's hard to make that distinction in the rules, and so any "Special Effects" can indeed go in. It's just unfortunate that when the exact same people, doing the exact same job, are credited with a "Foreman", "Crew" or "Technician" suffix, that they're suddenly out. Again: that, to me, says that these aren't the people we're after, so I can certainly understand CharlieM's point of view. Unfortunately there's little we can do about it.

Thanks for the explanation.  Put it in  a way that I would have had trouble explaining.

Charlie

Quoting mreeder50:

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That helps a lot. I think I will make an adjustment to the way I submit Special Effects crew in the future.

The only problem with leaving out "Special Effects" (if that's what you intend to do) is that someone will come along after you and contribute them. Everyone has to vote again. Screeners have to evaluate again. Everyone gets notified of a new update. Double the work. As much as it seems helpful to discriminate and only input the ones "we're after", it really just causes extra work in my opinion.