Well as I said in our PMs I can only go by the rules and Ken Statements. Which was Not to use a 3rd party database... and in a case like this (adding Birth year/role names) Ken said we could use imdb... but not as a sole source.. you must have other sources to go with it.

So with the above in mind I had to vote no... from here I would say it is up to Ken and Gerri if you can't find any other sources.

and it being the sole source is the reason for the no vote.

OK, my thoughts are this:

1) Given two different actors with the same name, it's better to have them disambiguated than not.

2) Birth year is not primary data in DVD Pro, but is only used for disambiguation. Indeed, adding a birth year for any other reason is against the rules. Therefore, it shouldn't necessarily be held to such a high standard as the primary data.

3) If specific birth years can't be tracked down for either actor, then putting an unambiguous string in the birth year field (eg. "Quincy" in one of these cases - can the birthyear accept non-numeric data? Has anyone tried that?) would be preferable to leaving it blank. This also raises the issue of how actors with the same name and birth year should be handled; is there a consensus on that?

Given this, it makes sense to me that if the only available data for birth year comes from IMDb (and I have taken all reasonable steps to track down other sources), and that provides unambiguous and distinct data for both actors, that data should be used provisionally to disambiguate them. If sources are found at a future that invalidate these dates, then they should be used instead.

However, the consensus here seems to be that it would be preferable to pretend that these two actors are in fact the same person, rather than risk their birth dates not being exactly correct. If this is what the community wants to go with, I can accept that, but I have to say I think it's a very odd decision.

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
Edit: the BFI database confirms the dob of the American John Nolan as 1933.
It doesn't list the UK John Nolan's dob unfortunately, but this should let you submit the US one at least and separate them.

Unfortunately, that link doesn't include his credit for Quincy, ME (but comparing the list to his IMDb filmography makes it clear it's the same actor), which is where I submitted the disambiguation. Which means that I'm not sure it would count as sufficient source for the contribution I made. Any thoughts?

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
I haven't looked at it till now... it doesn't list his filmography... not sure what to say there. I would be open to opinion on it.

Did you try clicking on the Flimography link?

Winter:

Since I have yet to begin work on BY and Common Names, I can only say that I am aware of the possibility of two actors for which wew cannot obtain BY data. How pervasive this might be I probably won't know for awhile. The last time this came up it was suggested that, in such hopefully, relatively unusual an event, we could perhaps use the Year of a person's first credited appearance, this would seem to be more easily obtainable piece of information.

But you only need the BY data for ONE of the John Nolan's, both are unnecessary...unlessa thiord is uncovered.

Skip

Quoting wintermute115:

Quote:
Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
I haven't looked at it till now... it doesn't list his filmography... not sure what to say there. I would be open to opinion on it.

Did you try clicking on the Flimography link?

actually I diidn't... missed it.. thanks

I think as a general principle, the point about which is more important, differentiating actors or getting dead solid birth years, is still a valid question.  Personally, I could care less if the birth years are correct.  I'd gladly suffer some incorrect birth years if it meant getting the proper actors credited for their work.  Of course that's just my opinion.  It will come up more often as people start to get serious about this and dig into the golden age films.  I've been working on my database for a while and information on many of these older contract players is hard to come by.  That and their name variations over the course of their careers.