It is about linking of names and obviously the existing system is not working and I think I understand the reasons it is not and have explained in detail why it does not work, the current practice of users running around based on the assumption that ALL Credits are the same across all Regions and Versions is well-meaning but wrong and is not really helping, it will only ultimately make matters much worse.

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Quoting Dr Pavlov:

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The tick box will not allow what i think is at the root of the problem and that is somehow representing the cultural issue Online while still retaining the As Credited foundation.

The tick box resolves the sorting issue for asian names and stage names, that is not at all cultural. We'll have Chow Yun-Fat with the C, and Queen Latifah with the Q, not before the A.

Quoting surfeur51:

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Quoting Dr Pavlov:

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The tick box will not allow what i think is at the root of the problem and that is somehow representing the cultural issue Online while still retaining the As Credited foundation.

The tick box resolves the sorting issue for asian names and stage names, that is not at all cultural. We'll have Chow Yun-Fat with the C, and Queen Latifah with the Q, not before the A.

But that is local is it not, Yves. It has no impact on the Onlin, at all, which is my sole concern

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Quoting Gerri Cole:

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If you use the credited as feature, you could link up all these names, correct?

Yes. The two problems are:

1. It's not always easy to determine what the "most-credited form" is. That's a common problem, of course, but it's even worse for these names. Because there's no consensus on how to enter them in the first place, the CLT results are even less trustworthy than for Western names.

2. For those of us who are more used to the "last name-first name" name ordering, it can be somewhat difficult to knowingly have to put a last name into the "first name" field and vice versa. If you see dozens of "last name-first name" entries on-screen, and that's the way names are generally presented to you, you'll have a hard time putting the last names in the "first name" fields and vice versa. Putting it into the "credited as" field is one thing ("proper" order ["reversed" order]), but there will be cases where the most-credited form is actually in the last name-first name order, and for a part of the userbase, that will just go right against what they've learned since kindergarten. IMHO, the problem is the field names. As long as the fields are called "first name" and "last name" and so forth, people are bound to want to put the actor's "first name" and "last name" into those fields.

Doing something about the field names may also help address parsing problems for Western names, as that's severely hampered by similar problems as well (for instance: if the country you grew up in doesn't have something like a "middle name", it's pretty hard to recognize what exactly qualifies as a "middle name" in other countries - especially since there are no hard and fast definitions anywhere). Here as well, users are bound to put the names they see on-screen in the fields they feel are the appropriate place they should go. If you recognize something as part of the last name, you'll put it in the "last name" field. But someone else might recognize it as a "middle name", and put it there. Without further guidance, these opposites will never meet, and we'll be stuck with multiple, non-linking entries for all affected names in the database.

As it stands currently what you should do is try to establish the most commonly credited name, then use that with the credited as feature for the name as it appears on screen.  This is how you can and should submit them to the online.  The only problem with this is that different releases of the same film may have different credits (between countries here) so it may be difficult to establish the common name.

OPINION ON LAST NAME=SURNAME:

I would prefer to use the first name/last name fields as positional fields, but that preference is built on the fact that if we use them as last name=surname, a Japanese name would not display properly in the database.  I do not wish to see a ruling saying that we should enter Yamadera Koichi as Koichi Yamadera since last name=surname and Yamadera is his last name.  I would much rather see a ruling that says enter Koichi Yamadera as Yamadera Koichi since this is how his name is actually placed positionally and would therefore display as such next to actors like Tom Cruise.  (Yes, I know I can reorient how my profiler displays names so that last name would be first, but it isn't Yamadera, Koichi where as it would be Cruise, Tom.)

However, I would not mind using last name=surname if there was a tic box to say it is a reverse-order name.  Therefore entering Koichi/Yamadera and clicking the box would get you a display of Yamadera Koichi.

OPINION ON LINKING PROBLEM:

It seems to me that we could use the credited-as option to accommodate both the desires of those of us who wish to preserve correct name ordering and those who wish to preserve on-screen data. 

It's just not possible the way the rules are currently set up.  Right now what one has to do is to use whatever CLT results one obtains for the cast member and use that name [credited as you see him/her on screen]. 

I think that the better solution in the long run would be to use each actor/crew member's true name as the name with [credited as you see them on screen].  Exceptions here being for people who changed their name for show business (John Wayne) or generally use a pseudonym (a lot of wrestlers and rappers).  For people who have used a pseudonym and later begin being credited under their actual name, that name would take precedence (therefore getting us Dwayne Johnson [The Rock] rather than The Rock [Dwayne Johnson].)

An aside - like Taro, I am using Japanese names as the example, since these names are what I understand and know about.  I do not know much about any other Asian names, except that surname is placed first in many Asian cultures.  My background is in anime, as opposed to Taro's more scholarly Japanese, but roughly a third of my collection is anime, so this is definitely a concern for me.

If we had a system where a person (cast or crew) was assigned their actual, true name (or commonly held pseudonym) we could then use the credited-as feature to represent the data on-screen.  Thus, we would get Yamadera Koichi [Koichi Yamadera] for the US releases of his films (preserving the on-screen data for them) and still linking to Japanese releases.

However, given the rules as they stand right now, one cannot do this in the online.  I also believe it would be hard to implement, because the common person may not know that these names should be given in what will look like reversed order to them.  Someone who is not a hardcore Asian film or anime fan will see these names given in correct form and may go 'WTF, that was entered wrong' and this would result in potentially a lot of ping-pong contributions.

Locally, you can do whatever the heck you want.  What I'm going to do when I get to auditing the anime part of my collection is audit for the rules, submit, then throw that out and correct them as I want them locally and lock those fields.

(late to the discussion because of having to get the computer fixed, sorry - and also sorry for being so long-winded)

Quoting Gerri Cole:

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Quoting Taro:

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I'm trying to say. Here's what I mean, and what is currently happening in DVD Profiler:
A is in movie 1
A is in movie 2
A' is in movie 3
A" is in movie 4

Where A = the official, correct name of an actor, A' = said actor with a spelling error, A" = said actor but with first and last name reversed

When cross linking with A, I'll only get movies 1 & 2 as results, because the computer won't make the assumption that A = A' = A".

If you use the credited as feature, you could link up all these names, correct?

Gerri, that is correct.  However, Ken has stated that Asian names are excluded from the parsing rule of Last name = family name for now.  The reason for this is that so many Asian names are so messed up in the current online database that some vocal users have threatened to boycott the program if things are changed from the status quo.

Taro,  I don't know why you want to separate out Japanese name from Korean/Chinese names.  Korean/Chinese names are also surname/given name with 1 or 2 syllables for each name.  If you say Korean/Chinese names have 3 parts, that's like saying most Japanese names have 4 parts.