I must admit that I haven't really bothered to read all the threads about various common names, so maybe this has been discussed before. If so - I apologize.

My understanding of the idea behind common names is to find a common denominator that can be used to link all entries for a certain person, regardless of how he/she has been credited. This I can understand.

However, I have to say that I'm a bit doubtful about the way some users go about this. Instead of just following the CLT results, the popular trend seems to be to try to research the actual credits rather than the entered credits, thus not following the CLT results.

To me, this seems to be counter productive. Those who do not necessarily read the forum will use the CLT and arrive at one common name. Those who do the research and count actual credits may come up with another common name.

Thus, depending on how we research the common name, we can come up with different common names, and therefore create non-linking credits. That doesn't make any sense to me. Wouldn't it be better to always follow the CLT, even if it sometimes leads to common names that aren't actually the most used in reality, if this gives us better linking?

Common Names - What's the Point?

For me simple, I have come across quite a few profiles, older and some fairly recent ones that I have sat through the credits entering them into DVDP, then after doing a all profiles update find that my results don't match the online DB. Resulting in me taking the DVD back out of the case to re-check only to find I have what is in the credits but the online has IMDb scraped (or enter website of your choice) credits that don't correspond with said credits.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for GOOD Name Linking. I would prefer a system that says Helen/Bonham/Carter and Helen//Bonham Carter (the later being her actual name) are one and the same person but until Ken comes up with a system that does just that we will continue to have Common Name Threads.

So until Ken does come up with a system I will still go by the outcome of the Common Name Threads but leave a note in my Notes section for the reason that it is different.

Steve

I feel exactly the same way most of the time.

However, there are occasions (my Garry/Gary Chalk thread for example) where the CLT results just seem to be totally wrong.
With Garry Chalk I had my local database showing Garry as the most frequent name (approx. 20 entries) compared to Gary having 7.

But the CLT said Gary was more common.

For my piece of mind, starting a common name thread seemed the best way to go.

However, on the vast majority of people I go with the CLT results because it's easier and what the rules say.

Also, it was recently pointed out to me, that Ken did make a statement saying that challenging the CLT was to be encouraged to ensure correct data gets into the online db.

Hopefully, all this will be moot when 3.8 of Profiler is released - because Ken has stated that the common name/CLT process getting a major overhaul.

"the popular trend seems to be to try to research the actual credits rather than the entered credits, thus not following the CLT results."

If the entered credits could be trusted, it would be a different story. Too many are all wrong, the common name threads prove them to be time after time.

It's easy to just take what's there and assume it's correct, so kudos to all who start the threads and get the facts. I don't want to give in and just blindly accept imdb cloned info, if that was the case I wouldn't need profiler.

I personally think it's a big waste of time and effort.  But my wife says the same about all the time I spend entering credits into the Profiler in the first place.

Quoting GSyren:

Quote:
Those who do not necessarily read the forum will use the CLT and arrive at one common name. Those who do the research and count actual credits may come up with another common name.

What is the definite way to count credits of a TV series again? And then the vote wars CLT (Credit Lookup Tool) against CNT (Common Name Thread).

Yes, it's grotesque.

Quoting Merrik:

Quote:
I'm absolutely not wasting my time by helping out the community by finding correct common names.

I know that what you do is, in your mind, to help the community. You also know what I think about "correct" common names that may be neither the one used by the actor/actress to speak of himself/herself, nor the one on credits, but an invented one by Invelos rules.

Fortunately, few users work on this system, and hundreds of correct CLT results (wrong by Invelos rules) have not yet been changed to what you call "correct" common name (invented by Invelos rules).

Ken is aware of this problem and wrote he would correct it in the future. Waiting for that, it is a waste of time to go on contributing such data.

What exactly is the problem with Surfeur's viewpoint? Everyone seems to be so against him, yet all he's advocating is that names be spelled correctly only in situations when the rules dictate to use proper capitalization. Why is that a bad thing? Why is everyone so against him?