Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:

Here we go on culture again. Psst, Enry it's an American Program, not Italian, French or whatever. Don't argue it. It changes nothing from the perspective of the program, if you can document something other that the starting point be my guest.

John Edward Doe is going to look excatly the same, no matter how its parsed, it is just an easy place to start from.

Skip

I think your argument is moot. You're saying we should be US-culturally biased, even when profiling foreign movies and actors (which I was referring to). I would agree that that would make things very easy, but that would also bring inaccurate data, especially when profiling actors from countries where middle names are not used, so think about it.

However, you should keep in mind that we have Rules for contributions. If Ken wants that we enter as a middle name anything in the middle, even when we know it can't possibly be a middle name because in that country they do not use middle names, then I will do as Ken wants. Until then, just stick to the Rules and keep local your "it's an American Program" interpretation.

Quoting Unicus69:

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Did I say there was a consensus?  Don't think I did.  Did I say there was a majority?  Nope, didn't say that either.  In fact, I was quite deliberate in my word choice, so that I did not make either claim.

Again, it seems like you are being purposely obtuse as you are arguing against a point that nobody made. 

No, you did not talk about a forum consesus. You were talking about "many of us" and gave the following method for parsing names as a starting point:

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Many of us have agreed that we should start from a simple standard.  That standard is what Skip outlined above.  This allows everybody to start on the same page.  If the name does not fall into one of the catagories listed in the rules, the following standard should apply:

A one word name would be '1/ /'
A two word name would be '1/ /2'
A three word name would be '1/2/3'
A four word name would be '1/2 3/4'

Keep in mind, those are just starting points.  The parsing can be changed if you can document it.

To complete the picture I have given a different method which another "many of us" agreed as well:

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Many of us have agreed that you should do your best putting all the words of the first name into the first name field, the words from the last name into the last name field, and the rest into the middle name field. If you know that the parsing of a name in an existing profile is not correct, you can and should correct it giving some documentation.

And then when kdh1949 said:

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(...) And I believe that's why we agreed to do it that way unless documented otherwise as Unicus says.

I have asked who is meant with "we" in order to make sure that kdh1949 as well is not talking about a forum consensus.

I don't think I am obtuse, specially not on purpose. Maybe I am not so eloquent in the English language as you are though. (e.g. I had to lookup obtuse.)

Quoting RHo:

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(...) And I believe that's why we agreed to do it that way unless documented otherwise as Unicus says.

I have asked who is meant with "we" in order to make sure that kdh1949 as well is not talking about a forum consensus.

I don't think I am obtuse, specially not on purpose. Maybe I am not so eloquent in the English language as you are though. (e.g. I had to lookup obtuse.)

Perhaps I was being to harsh.  The fact that kdh1949 ended the post with "as Unicus says," tells me that he was refering to the 'many of us' that I spoke of.  I sometimes forget that, what might be obvious to me, may not be obvious to someone else.  For that, I apologize.

Quoting EnryWiki:

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Quoting skipnet50:

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Here we go on culture again. Psst, Enry it's an American Program, not Italian, French or whatever. Don't argue it. It changes nothing from the perspective of the program, if you can document something other that the starting point be my guest.

John Edward Doe is going to look excatly the same, no matter how its parsed, it is just an easy place to start from.

Skip

I think your argument is moot. You're saying we should be US-culturally biased, even when profiling foreign movies and actors (which I was referring to). I would agree that that would make things very easy, but that would also bring inaccurate data, especially when profiling actors from countries where middle names are not used, so think about it.

However, you should keep in mind that we have Rules for contributions. If Ken wants that we enter as a middle name anything in the middle, even when we know it can't possibly be a middle name because in that country they do not use middle names, then I will do as Ken wants. Until then, just stick to the Rules and keep local your "it's an American Program" interpretation.

WRONG, Enry. What you do affects every other user in every other area of the world and mnakes a hash of everything. All that was donme was established a simple starting point that all users can execute EVERYTIME, I am not saying that if you can document something different don't do that, quite the contrary. But YOU are saying, no I don't like that starting point, it's an American starting point, I want to use my starting point. I am simply saying it IS an American Program, it tries the as best it can to adapt to everyone, but it is still American and there will be peculiarities there, it is for YOU to adapt to those peculiarities, which have a reason, and proceed from that point.

I repeat it is merely a place to start and a point which all users should be able to execute. I have not seen a problem with its execution in three years , except when some user decides he wants to make a deal of it. But if you can document something other than the starting point then do so and you have my thanks for doing so.

To use a famous example

Helena Bonham Carter, Helena Bonham/ Carter, Helena/ Bonham/ Carter, and Helena/ Bonham Carter, all appear exactly the same way to the database, the only distinction is the color of the type. Ignoring the color all appear as Helena Bonham Carter, and the color ONLY appears in your local database. Appearance wise the data Online makes NO distinction between First Middle and Last, the color is the same for all.

I adopt as open and inclusive a position and try to compromise as much as I am allowed to, sadly we have users not interested in ANY compromise of ANY kind...until somebody starts stamping there feet and saying NO do it my way because I am a Martian (apologies to unicus  ) and on Mars we do it THIS way. Just deal with the starting point and move from that point.

Skip

Here is a realtive unknown

Wayne Thomas Yorke

I know I don' have a clue who he is and based on my library he doesn't have a great body of work. Let's enter him into a cast list. You would probably apply your culture centric theory and parse him as //Thomas Yorke, someone else might say Wayne Thomas//. I am only saying start him at W/ T/ Y, if you can back up something else fine simply provide dcumentation and do it. The ONLY reason that I say W/ T / Y is because it is American based and we do use middle names and the VAST majority of users are going to be at least North American if not US. If the program were based in UK then  I would be saying that we should follow that cultural standard and move from THAT point but its not. If you can provide documentation to parse something other tha W/ T/ Y great do so, but iu also know enough about the various cultural  possibilities to knwo that using that as basiss is just wrong. He may not even be W/ T/ Y in the US, I would have to research him, thus it is only a place from which to start. I am looking at him in Cast list and I am dealing with what I see and that is W/ T/ Y, I can see that, Unicus can see it, Enry can see it and even Rho can see it. Now along comes Enry and say its W/TY and here is the documentation to support it and I say GREAT. But Enry can't just enter it as W/TY just because its the way his culture says to do it, I don't want to know how your culture does it, I want to know how the actor does it, and for that culture is not relevant and even if it is the actor or crew may NOT follow culture.

Skip

Quoting northbloke:

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Why should we follow a US naming standard when profiling say, Italian actors in an Italian film? If Enry knows an actor is from a certain country and knows that that certain country parses their names in a particular way, why can't Enry parse the name that way? It's more likely to be right than following a naming standard from a different country.

I don't believe that it is a US naming standard.  In fact, I don't believe there is a US naming standard.

This is a 'data' standard.  3 names, 3 fields, 1 name per field.  If that is not the case, then document the change.  Why do I ask for documentation?  Because someone may come along later, not knowing the cultural standard, and try to change it.  If the original parsing is documented, this can be avoided.  JMHO

Hi everybody.
Did anyone realize that bbbbb didn't even give us the name of the actor, just a fragment.

Possibly this is just another of "These" discussions that he loves to start.

Quoting skipnet50:

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I have not seen a problem with its execution in three years

I have! It's not just the color, and how differently parsed entries "all appear exactly the same way to the database", the problem is that for each and every name consisting of three or more words, there are multiple entries in the database. And we need to get everyone on the same page quickly to eliminate all those superfluous double entries. And the umpteenth forum debate about it just isn't enough to accomplish that.

If I have a dozen profiles, spread over various regions and localities, with a rather unknown actor in it whose name consists of three parts, then how do I get them correctly linked together? Let's say the parsing is split evenly: six of the profiles I've downloaded use A/B/C, six of them use A//B C. What do I do? Let's say that I can't find any documentation on this guy - which will often be the case - how do I go about to fix this? I can tell you from experience that whichever variant you pick and try to propagate through the other six, you're always liable to get some no-votes on either side. It seems you just can't win. I'd like to see a hard and fast rule to get everyone on the same page - even if that rule may not be to my liking, it seems better than the mess we're stuck with now. Or maybe even a single name field... Anything would be better than this mess: various camps claiming they have a consensus, and the 95% "silent majority" of the userbase just doing whatever they like...