Quoting lmoelleb:

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I know it is part of American culture, but I disagree it would be disrespectful to have them entered into the same field - just like I would not consider it disrespectful to me having me entering both my first and last name into a single field  for the "Full name".

I agree it's not disrespectful to change the three separate name fields into one, but I do think you're not respecting the American way by not wanting just the middle one.

Hal...
I may agree with you that what Ken came up with is not the answer for this problem. BUT... That is what he decided to give us and as of yet that is the only answer he gave us. So what does that mean?... for the online database that is what we have to work with... and the only way it is allowed to be done at this point. Whether we like that answer or not. At least until Ken decides otherwise.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

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Hal...
I may agree with you that what Ken came up with is not the answer for this problem. BUT... That is what he decided to give us and as of yet that is the only answer he gave us. So what does that mean?... for the online database that is what we have to work with... and the only way it is allowed to be done at this point. Whether we like that answer or not. At least until Ken decides otherwise.

I don't disagree with the fact  that we have to follow the current direction provided to us from Ken for now.  I don't believe I've ever advocated anything else.

I was fully on-board when this was first released and even argued against those that were complaining about it.  But now we've lived with it for almost a year and it is clear that this is not the best solution.

It is time that we get together as a group and make sure Ken knows that we are not happy with the current solution and not just say "well, that's what we have so we'll make the best of it".

One or two voices crying in the wilderness is probably not going to get his attention.  It will take a concerted effort to turn the ship.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

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And I agree with that... I will happily add my voice in saying maybe something else should be tried on Ken's side. As I have said before... I never been satisfied it was the best answer. I definitely will go with whatever Ken decides to do... but I also will openly say I would prefer another solution.

But for the record I don't think that standards (which many has suggested in the past) is the answer either... I believe the whole alias system should be completely re-thought.

That is my opinion at least.

Standards would not be needed in the solution that I am talking about.  All "credited as variants" of an actor would be linked together, therefore no standards would be needed.  There would be no "Name" field required in any profile.  Just the "credited as" name, whatever form the producers decided to use.

The problem with this whole thing is that it's nearly impossible for Ken to satisfy everybody. One one side there's a big chunk of mostly silent users: they don't visit or contribute much to these forum discussions, but they do want DVD Profiler to be able to show them a list of what films a certain cast/crew-member worked on. They don't really care whether it says Robert Downey Jr. or Robert Downey, Jr., as long as there's just one entry that brings up all his credits. When they download profiles for ten different movies starring this actor, they expect those entries to automatically link together. Apart for a few of us here, it's pretty hard to explain to someone why this doesn't happen. That is one of the major problems with the database today. This silent majority of the userbase is also happy to put in some effort into actually contributing to our database, but they're soon discouraged by the complete lack of consistency and the fact that no matter what you do, there's always a risk of getting no-votes (you contribute something "as credited" and people vote no because you didn't use "credited as"; you use "credited as", people vote no because your documentation isn't good enough). In the end, if you want your cast and crew to link together correctly, you'll have to do it all yourself, and you'll probably be forced to keep large parts of it local. So much for sharing the workload.

On the other side there's about two dozen of us right here: two dozen very vocal forum regulars, each with very outspoken but often conflicting ideas about how things should be solved. It's obvious that there's no "easy way out". Not for the users, but also not for Ken. There's no way he can please everyone, let alone immediately. Personally, I feel the need to set up linking between name variants is one of the most important features of having cast and crew data in our profiles - for some it may even be the single most important feature. However difficult it may be, it's such a basic feature that forcing all users to do it for themselves is out of the question. We have to be able to share the workload, but we also cannot demand from all users the "epic" level of detail in documentation that some users deem appropriate.

In short: I actually LIKE the current "credited as" feature. Sure, it's not perfect, but looking back it's obvious that what we had before was flat-out ridiculous. We might as well have stored the cast and crew lists as a series of JPEGs: though highly accurate, they were of no use to anyone. At least today, I am able to link all my cast and crew entries together as I see fit, and as such, I am 100% happy with my local database. I can assure you that when it comes to accuracy, it beats the Invelos-database, IMDb or any other movie database hands down. So I'm perfectly happy with it. My problem remains with the fact that it's sometimes not possible to share that painstakingly collected, researched and processed data with the DVD Profiler community, due to the lack of any standards and due to different cultural interpretations in various regions/localities (this is something that I run into quite often because I own DVD's from all over the world). I would like Ken to focus on setting a few standards, ground rules, whatever you want to call them, to get the entire userbase on the same page. If he doesn't, we'll be arguing about prefixes, suffixes, titles, parsing and so on for years to come. Once again: I can well do without the online database, as I'm perfectly happy with my local version. It's just that I'd like to share my work with the community as much as I can, and to allow for that, Ken HAS to set a few ground rules. And saying "use the most-credited form" just doesn't cut it.

This thread is an excellent example: I still haven't voted on a pending update of Martin in which he indeed proposes to change Mary/Jean/McAdams to Mary Jean/McAdams. What should I do? The poll results are rather ambivalent. Just going by majority, I'd have to vote against it. If I say yes, I'll have to update the other appearances of this actress in my collection, and the 9:18 ratio doesn't give me much hope that I'll succeed. The current lack of any guidance means that, just like the earlier Robert Downey Jr. example, that there will probably be two separate entries for this actress for years to come. That, to me, is the entire problem right there, and it won't solve itself by saying: "use the most-credited form". And it's not just parsing; there are examples enough: this week we've seen the people who feel a "Senator" title can never be part of a "name" argue with those who do feel it should be included, and again this will probably lead to double entries for the same person for the foreseeable future. Although it won't be easy, Ken really needs to find a way to address these issues.