...even if it is taken from a previously approved profile.

Case in point: There is a contribution up for voting that adds cast and crew for the US blu-ray of The Rift. The contribution notes just say "Added cast and crew from previously approved US DVD profile ". It doesn't even say which profile. Even if there is only one DVD profile, it would be nice if the contributor mentioned the UPC.

However, the problem is that the contributor of the DVD profile copied the cast (and almost certainly also the crew) from IMDb. It doesn't take much to see that the role names do not match the end credits. Just because the contribution notes say the cast and crew were copied from the credits it doesn't necessarily mean that it is true. In this case the DVD contributor lied.

The moral of the story is this: Never trust that someone else did the job correctly. If you take the info from anywhere else but the actual credits, check to make sure that they match the credits. One way to do that is to use CastCrewCheck . It makes this really easy.

Quoting ateo357:

Quote:
Or maybe they could actually visually check the credits, instead of relying on a program to do the work for them.

And maybe you should actually find out what the program is about before you make stupid remarks. 

Quoting ateo357:

Quote:
I don't use it or any other program that would promote a short cut, that would limit my involvement, wouldn't want my brain to become unnecessary. A monkey can be trained to push buttons without having to know why.

And still you make assumptions without having any idea about what the program does. 
It's not a short cut, just a tool to help you check the credits more easily.

I'm doing it right now.
Watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) (2008).
and have noticed that the cast credited name of Zac Mattoon-O'Brien is credited incorrectly in 32 profiles in the database (31 as Zac Matoon-O'Brien & 1 as Zac Mattoon O'Brien) and on futher investigation into variables by using my lap top and streaming his other work and checking the credits, have found that the common name is indeed Zac Mattoon-O'Brien. all without switching screens. Got a program to do that?

Yeah. And this thread isn't really about the program. It's about not trusting other approved profiles, but rather checking for yourself, whether by doing it manually, with CastCrewCheck or by any other means.

This topic comes up every so often and I have always taken the stand that Copy and Paste is a great, time saving tool, even if it contains some incorrect data, and will continue to advocate its use. 

When I use this tool I will check the contribution notes to see where the contributor took the data. If the notes tell me the data is taken from the credits or other legitimate  sources that is acceptable to me.

I try to always remember to document exactly which DVD I am copying by documenting the UPC, EAN, or Disc Info I took the information from.  I also make a note about what the contributor's notes say the data came from.

So, when I copy and paste my notes will say something like "Cast and Crew copied from the invelos' database UPC 000000-000000. Documentation notes this data came from the DVD credits.".

Of course there is always a chance that someone might not be telling the truth about where they took the data. Thankfully in all my years using this program I can only remember one person who deliberately lied about where they got the data.

In most cases in when mistakes happen it occurs because the person does not follow the guidelines invelos' has in place regarding the contribution process.

So, even if there are occasional honest mistakes, I don't have a problem with them and neither does Ken or Gerri. There are a few reasons I fell this way.

First, when I contribute to the database I am likely to be contributing a complete profile. Cast and Crew are only a small part of what I am checking and updating.

Secondly, Ken has stated that a small mistake contained within a larger contribution is an acceptable trade off. But, I haven't found that cloning Cast and Crew contains that many mistakes.

Finally, Cast and Crew are, in the majority of cases, the same. The people that worked on the film does not change. So, I am confident that the data is correct in most cases.

There might be the rare instance that the Cast and Crew differ from one DVD to the next but they are few and can be dealt with on an individual basis.

I often am updating hundreds of obvious mistakes that are rampant in the database. These are time consuming enough as it is without having to spend more time double checking the work of others. I might as well do everything myself and that is not what this database is about.

The database is built on the contributions of the community. Eventually every DVD will be checked and any errors or omissions will be taken care of.

I would also like to add that my impression of Ken's statement is that he meant that it isn't necessary to reject a contribution because of a minor mistake. I don't think it implies that you shouldn't make every effort to ensure that your data is 100% correct.

Quoting Kathy:

Quote:
I won't spend lots of time trying to achieve something that can not be. I prefer contributing dozens of contributions correcting many mistakes rather than submitting one that is 100% correct.

I get a feeling that maybe we're partly talking cross purposes here. I am not saying that when you are correcting a profile you have to make that profile 100% correct by correcting everything. I am saying that I think that you should make every effort to ensure that the data that you provide is correct. And that includes data copied from other profiles, in my opinion.

Just because we cannot make the database perfect there is no reason not to make it as good as we can. If you can't verify the data, you shouldn't include it. That's how I feel, anyway.