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I will continue to vote yes on T!M's submissions without a second thought (providing they are right of course). I would like to right now thank T!M for his many submissions that have improved the database, especially for titles I own.

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Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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I will continue to vote yes on T!M's submissions without a second thought (providing they are right of course). I would like to right now thank T!M for his many submissions that have improved the database, especially for titles I own.

Hear hear - thankyou Tim and James for rolling up your sleeves and improving the database, as opposed to whining about it 

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This would be goo, richie, IF they were properly documenting their work, which neither one of them is doing and as a result all both are generating is CHAOS.

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Quoting Woola:

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I have said NUMEROUS times now that there is a way to make the existing system work but it will takke teamwork, it will not happenmagically. So far, I am the only person who is willing to actually try and help do something about it. NO ONE has raised his hand and said Ok Skip, let's get to it, what's the plan. They don't even talk a good game, they want ti all done FOR them and if it won't just magically apear they will endlessly carp about it.

...

Skip

OK, I will bite! 

What is your plan?

pdf

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Quoting Woola:

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The good news is that the monster is beatable.

Woola, I admire your optimism    I don't think you will ever reach the goal of having all profiles correct per the rules. Many of them are clearly abandoned and will never see another update. Does this represent a problem? Not really! It's only a problem if you think the purpose of the CLT is to list a person's most commonly credited name. If you see the CLT only as a tool to allow all users to select the same variant as the common name, which is what it was designed to be, then errors in unused profiles become a non-issue.

Quoting Woola:

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I see a lot of people who want to go on and on about how wonderful they think IMDb, which makes me ask why they are here then

I'm not advocating getting IMDb data into the DVDP database. What I praised IMDb for was their strong focus on providing value to their users. This has made IMDb a tremendously successful web site with a user base DVDP can only dream of. You may scoff at this, but I'm sure Ken does not.

To give a practical example: Consider how often you turn to Profiler to find out what roles a certain actor/actress in your collection has played. Then consider how often you use Profiler to find out exactly how those roles were presented in the end credits. Myself, I do the former all the time, but very rarely the latter. As a rough estimate maybe 100 cases of the former for each case of the latter, meaning the exact presentation of the role is not very important to me. Would I like to see the exact credited role? Sure, it's an added bonus, but hardly the be-all and end-all of DVDP that many make it out to be.

Another example: I want to find the DVDs I own that feature François Truffaut as director. So I type in "François Truffaut" in the crew filter. Done! Except ... I can't really be sure that I see all my DVDs with M. Truffaut. I have to consider the possibility that his name was listed capitalized in some of his films. So I need to make another filter, this time entering "Francois Truffaut" to see the rest of the profiles! This constitutes a broken user experience in my book. Fixing this problem has a higher value to me than maintaining strictly as credited roles. If forced to choose I know what I would sacrifice.

In the above example there's no reason why we can't have both effective filtering on accented names and capturing on-screen roles. It is more an illustration that there are more important concerns than whether profile data is copied exactly as on screen.

And before you pounce: I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself. I realise that the relative importance of individual features will vary from user to user and Ken has the unenviable task of deciding what aspects of the database should be given priority. I don't expect the result will fit my usage pattern exactly, but I can always hope. 

Thanks for listening!

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Quoting TheMadMartian:

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In the above example there's no reason why we can't have both effective filtering on accented names and capturing on-screen roles. It is more an illustration that there are more important concerns than whether profile data is copied exactly as on screen.

Not trying to be an arse, but how do you know there's no reason why we can't have both?  If there weren't, I am quite sure that Ken would have added that ability some time during the past 10+ years that I have been using Profiler. 

Because there is a simple way of achieving this that doesn't even require any programming: When transforming credits from all caps to mixed case, do include accents. This will allow linking and filtering of cast and crew with accented names regardless of the style chosen by the person in charge of the on-screen credits. The only downside I can think of is that data entry becomes slightly more complicated. However, sacrificing correct name display, linking and filtering for the sake of data entry is a strange priority and really underestimates the power and ability of the contributing membership.

Ken's instruction on this topic has yet to make it into the rules, so here's hoping he will have a change of heart.