James:

The linking as I have described is a local matter anyway. The Online doesn't have Search capabilities per se. The current system, James will always remain BROKEN as long as it is (1)dependent on user input to create a Commonly Credited Name and as long as users are allowed to make assumptions based upon the Name Variant Tool and nothing else, we will wind up with someone linking David Arnold to David K. Arnold, and they are two different people. The credibility of the Online will always be in question as long as users are allowed to take shortcuts. This is why I keep saying good enough is not good enough.

Under the link system I have previously described, if ken wanted to give us Name Search through the Online we could conceivably be able to Search the online to find movies which have Actor A in it that we may have overlooked. But otherwise the link system is a strictly local issue, and thus the simple association works best, I suspect that Ken could convert the existing CLT to Simple Association, though I am not certain of that.

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Quoting Ken Cole:

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Quoting m.cellophane:

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Quoting Ken Cole:

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However, reverting to a simple "as credited" for the online database, and allowing the linking to be local is something we are considering.

After all of the effort some of us have put into this, I'm stunned that you could throw it all away. 

No existing work would ever be thrown away - the change would be for new contributions only.  However, even that is nothing we would ever do lightly.

Another alternative would be to allow each user to set their local program copy to download the credits "as credited", removing the extra linking data at the time of download.

I think that is the perfect solution.

That was quite an interesting test, thank you for sharing. My results:

Blue 13
Green 10
Orange 10
Gold 3

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

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Ideally, you'd do something like IMDB and assign each person a unique identifier.

It's called a name.          

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Quoting Ken Cole:

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And, more on topic, simple linking does not solve the problem where "Tom Smith" can really mean one of several actors.  Although it does allow linking of disparate credited names as the current system allows, it would also result in links where none should exist.

However, reverting to a simple "as credited" for the online database, and allowing the linking to be local is something we are considering.  At the moment, I would lean towards the current system, which allows one user to contribute links for others to benefit from, a philosophy which after all is the heart and soul of DVD Profiler.

No linking system can be "perfect", but personally, I'd much rather deal with the rare occasion that you describe than the mess that we currently have.  If you decide to go local with this, I sure hope it's a "simple linking" solution.

Quoting jgilligan:

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One question for all... On the subject of the linking being local only, am I understanding it right that every user would need to go through their data and link the actors (or crew)?

I shudder to think... We really should remember, getting back the the original post, that the "group 1" and "group 2" users mostly do want, and even expect, various name variants to link together. Apart from a few hardliners in here in the forums, it's really hard to explain to anyone else why you'd go through lots of trouble collecting cast and crew data, which is subsequently completely pointless if these painstakingly copied-from-the-screen cast and crew entries don't link together with other credits. Really: the next time you're at a birthday party or something, try to explain that to a real-life person...  If we wanted that, we should just store JPEGs of the credits: highly "accurate", but of no use to anyone.

Those that are thinking back with fondness to "the good old days" when we were supposed to do everything "as credited", should realize that in reality, that meant that over 90% of our data was mined from IMDb. For the reasons I just described - why would you bother to do the work if the data is of no use? - hardly anybody ever bothered to actually do that. Say of it what you will, but the "credited as" feature certainly has resulted in much, much more "as credited" data than we've ever had before - worse: most IMDb-mined data still dates back to those alledged "good old days"...

Really: our demands for cast and crew data are the highest that you could possibly imagine - we ask the users to painstakingly copy everything exactly as it's seen on-screen. Again: our demands couldn't possibly be any higher. To get people to actually do that, there has to be something in return. That something is linking. If the entries don't link together, why would anyone - again, except a dozen "group three" users - bother with the rather tiresome data entry process? If there's no incentive, you might as well just mine your cast and crew for IMDb, lock your database, and live happily ever after. In fact: that's exactly what almost everyone did back when we were supposed to enter everything "as credited", and to this day a number of people still do it that way because it's quick and easy.

Quoting Unicus69:

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That is a huge assumption.  I hardly think that Ken would consider reverting to a simple "as credited" for the online database if your assumption was correct.

As I said: try and explain it to some random people outside this forum. That'll make things clear enough in a few seconds.