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Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion |
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Credit Name Parsing |
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| Registered: March 10, 2007 |  Posts: 4,282 |
| | Posted: | | | | Desktop version 3.7.2 will soon begin beta testing, with some desktop fixes and iOS sync improvements. iOS version 1.1.0 will also be submitted to Apple this week for release alongside 3.7.2. We have a small number of users who have run into some specific conditions that are not allowing them to use the application at all. Identifying and correcting these issues has been my top priority.
Now that this is complete, I can return my focus to version 3.8, which is already in progress.
Version 3.8 will begin the process of improving our cast and crew entry and linking system. At present, we have removed the First/Middle/Last name system and replaced it with Given Name and Surname. On a member-by-member basis, the default display order for these can be reversed (commonly used for Asian names). In anticipation of this, DVD Profiler for iOS already uses this name system - Given Name and Surname.
We anticipate this will reduce the parsing issues. Although a single field for names would go farther, functionality would be lost, such as the ability to display names as "Surname, Given Name", and to sort lists by Surname.
Although I think this is a step in the right direction, I realize we have a ways to go. I've drawn up several potential directions we can head from here, based in part on suggestions made by the community, but a clear single path is not yet apparent.
It's time to open the discussion and hammer this out. So, use this thread as a repository for credit linking system ideas. If you have a partial idea, please feel free to share it as such. If you've previously posted an idea, feel free to link to the prior discussion, but please also include a complete synopsis here.
If you post an idea, be prepared for positive and negative feedback. We won't be vetoing anything, but everyone will be encouraged (ourselves included) to shoot holes as needed, in a polite and civil manner.
We will not be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Any replacement system must support the base functionality of the current system, and must maintain the linking work that has already been put into our database. Ideally any replacement system will also improve upon the current system:
- Eliminate the birth year in the online database
- Eliminate the CLT as a name determination tool
- Allow entry of properly accented and formatted names
- Require no changes to existing profiles when an actor changes names (e.g actress gets married)
Please keep this conversation on topic and civil so we can leave it in the general contribution discussion forum and get the widest feedback possible. Moderation in this thread will be strict. | | | | Invelos Software, Inc. Representative |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 1,328 |
| | Posted: | | | | This is the best news I've had all year. Thank you so much. | | | | My Home Theater |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 1,328 |
| | Posted: | | | | My proposal is as follows:
1. All actors/actress/cast gets a unique ID. It can be a name/number/code or combination thereof - Call it ID#. This is system wide online and off.
2. All actors/actress/cast also gets a display name. This is also system wide, but can be modified locally to whatever you want (including unicode if possible). This is the name that is displayed for your actor/actress/cast when you pull up their list of films. Call it Display Name#. You can parse this into given name/surname or have a separate sort name.
3. All movie credits then have cast/crew# that is linked to ID#. Cast/Crew# is how the name is credited on the movie credits in a single name field.
The advantage with this system is that
1. We don't have to mess with birth years
2. You can have perfect "As credited"
3. You can have the names of your actor any way you want in your "Own" database.
4. If in the future, community can prove that ID#1 = ID#5, then you can easily combine the 2 ID# or similarly separate them out.
To start out and to keep the functionality of the existing database, you can initially set
Display Name# and Cast/Crew# = existing Names and just assign Unique ID# to all names. The Cast/Crew input function would need some sort of a look up table to see if there is an existing entry and to make unique new entry if one is not available. I think you already have something similar for making Studio Names, but entry system would need to be little more streamlined since there will be many, many, more names to go through. | | | | My Home Theater | | | | Last edited: by xradman |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  | | Posts: 17,310 |
| | Posted: | | | | I am thrilled to hear this is being worked on. I do have to wonder how you plan to go from the 3 name field system to a 2 name field system... when first introduced... will the database automatically be changed to the middle name going to the given name field or the surname field? I know that no matter what is chosen some names will be initially parsed wrong. Some localities more so then others depending on the direction it goes.
I would think in most cases the middle should be changed to the given name field for most... but will this mean major changes needed in certain localities or not?
I would have still preferred a single name field and do away with virtually all parsing problems. But I understand your thoughts on it.
I am thrilled with the idea of no more birth year being needed... though have no idea what it could be replaced with.
And more then curious about getting rid of the CLT and how it will be replaced.
But I am looking forward to where this thread will be going. | | | | Pete |
| | Registered: March 24, 2007 | Reputation:  | | Posts: 2,044 |
| | Posted: | | | | I've got only one thing to say and that's.... Hell Yeah!  Rory  | | | DVD Profiler for iOS as of 3/5/2013
DVD Profiler for Android as of 5/17/2013 |
| | Registered: September 18, 2008 | | Reputation: |  Posts: 2,650 |
| | Posted: | | | | Excellent news and will solve a hell of a lot of problems if done right.  |
| | Registered: March 29, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 4,479 |
| | Posted: | | | | Thanks very much for taking in account the different problems that have been discussed in many threads about cast and crew names. To come back to what you suggest, I'm very much in favor of given Name/family name concept, about the possibility to reverse Asian names (and stage names), to replace BY, and choose correctly spelled names. I think this will allow some people who stopped contributing cast to complete profiles where they are missing (at least it will be true for me). Though I'm not sure about what is possible or not for the programmer, a solution as described by xradman seems interesting and would answer most problems we face with linking. | | | | Images from movies | | | | Last edited: by surfeur51 |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 17,310 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting xradman: Quote:
My proposal is as follows:
1. All actors/actress/cast gets a unique ID. It can be a name/number/code or combination thereof - Call it ID#. This is system wide online and off.
2. All actors/actress/cast also gets a display name. This is also system wide, but can be modified locally to whatever you want (including unicode if possible). This is the name that is displayed for your actor/actress/cast when you pull up their list of films. Call it Display Name#. You can parse this into given name/surname or have a separate sort name.
3. All movie credits then have cast/crew# that is linked to ID#. Cast/Crew# is how the name is credited on the movie credits in a single name field.
The advantage with this system is that
1. We don't have to mess with birth years
2. You can have perfect "As credited"
3. You can have the names of your actor any way you want in your "Own" database.
4. If in the future, community can prove that ID#1 = ID#5, then you can easily combine the 2 ID# or similarly separate them out.
To start out and to keep the functionality of the existing database, you can initially set
Display Name# and Cast/Crew# = existing Names and just assign Unique ID# to all names. The Cast/Crew input function would need some sort of a look up table to see if there is an existing entry and to make unique new entry if one is not available. I think you already have something similar for making Studio Names, but entry system would need to be little more streamlined since there will be many, many, more names to go through. I know absolutely nothing about programming so forgive my ignorance... but Ken said... Quoting Ken Cole: Quote:
...We will not be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Any replacement system must support the base functionality of the current system, and must maintain the linking work that has already been put into our database. Ideally any replacement system will also improve upon the current system: See the two things I put in bold. So I was just wondering if your idea met both of these requirements as it sounds good to me at this point. I just wasn't sure if it met Ken's stated requirements. | | | | Pete |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 4,245 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting xradman: Quote:
My proposal is as follows:
1. All actors/actress/cast gets a unique ID. It can be a name/number/code or combination thereof - Call it ID#. This is system wide online and off. All for this. However, how would the ID be done initially? Would it be done automatically be Ken via a program or something or would it be user defined? Also when another cast/crew name matches a current one with an attached ID# again would the program automatically choose an ID# or would it be user chosen? Or would there be a check-box on the contribution page that would allow a user to check to note that a cast/crew member needs a new user ID# because there is more than one in the database and the person would give details in their notes just like they do now regarding birth years. And then Ken would choose an ID# and it would be downloaded via the next update of that profile. |
| | Registered: March 10, 2007 | | Posts: 4,282 |
| | Posted: | | | | Before we get too carried away let me add that unicode is a 4.0 kind of thing.  | | | | Invelos Software, Inc. Representative |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 17,310 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting CubbyUps: Quote:
Quoting xradman:
Quote:
My proposal is as follows:
1. All actors/actress/cast gets a unique ID. It can be a name/number/code or combination thereof - Call it ID#. This is system wide online and off.
All for this.
However, how would the ID be done initially? Would it be done automatically be Ken via a program or something or would it be user defined?
Also when another cast/crew name matches a current one with an attached ID# again would the program automatically choose an ID# or would it be user chosen?
Or would there be a check-box on the contribution page that would allow a user to check to note that a cast/crew member needs a new user ID# because there is more than one in the database and the person would give details in their notes just like they do now regarding birth years.
And then Ken would choose an ID# and it would be downloaded via the next update of that profile. Another thing I wonder about xradman's idea is will we then have to have the entire cast and crew database downloaded into our database or just with those in our collections as we do now. I don't think I would want countless cast and crew members in my local database that I have no titles for. | | | | Pete |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 4,245 |
| | Posted: | | | | I hope this isn't a dumb question.
How would single names such as Cher, Madonna or even Flipper be handled? Given name or Surname?
Same for Stage Names.
Also what about names that contain nicknames? And I don't even know if it's ever been seen, but what if a nickname is the last name?
Just asking. |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 1,328 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting CubbyUps: Quote:
I hope this isn't a dumb question.
How would single names such as Cher, Madonna or even Flipper be handled? Given name or Surname?
Same for Stage Names.
Also what about names that contain nicknames? And I don't even know if it's ever been seen, but what if a nickname is the last name?
Just asking. I don't know about Flipper, but Madonna and Cher are stage names IMO and belong in the Given Name field. | | | | My Home Theater |
| | Registered: March 14, 2007 | | Posts: 1,328 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Ken Cole: Quote:
Before we get too carried away let me add that unicode is a 4.0 kind of thing. That's okay. That's why I said for local only and only if possible. Please also make any sort of searches accent neutral. If we are going to support adding accent characters, I think it's essential that searching for e returns all variations of e with accents. | | | | My Home Theater |
|   | T!M | | Profiling since Dec. 2000 |
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: |  Posts: 8,667 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Ken Cole: Quote:
At present, we have removed the First/Middle/Last name system and replaced it with Given Name and Surname. Excellent!! I've never ever seen any upside to having a "Middle Name" field whatsoever - it has caused us nothing but trouble. Quoting Ken Cole: Quote:
We will not be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Any replacement system must support the base functionality of the current system, and must maintain the linking work that has already been put into our database. That's good news, too! I wouldn't presume to know how to handle it from a programmer's point of view (a unique ID for everyone certainly seems a logical step), but what I'd like as a user is, ideally, that when I'm auditing a DVD, and I enter a name - say "John Doe", is that the program asks me which "John Doe" I mean. I'd like the program to show me a list of the existing people named "John Doe", including people whose real or common name may not be John Doe but who have been credited as such. If at all possible, it would be great if something extra was thrown in to further identify the various John Doe's, like maybe including two or three of their film titles, their production years, or when it's about the crew section, maybe the job category in which they're mostly credited. Basically, when I type "John Doe", I'd like to be asked whether I meant the actor that acted in this-and-that, the sound mixer who worked on so-and-so, or the editor that worked on such-and-such. I'm afraid I'm asking a lot here...  One of the more basic things I would really like to see, is that whenever two (or more) name variants are linked together, that it immediately propagates through the entire database. Once it's established, it should be made available to all users around the world, regardless of which region or locality they're in - as opposed the current system where for each and every profile of the same film, the same wheel needs to be invented by the users of each separate locality. Quoting Ken Cole: Quote:
Ideally any replacement system will also improve upon the current system:
- Eliminate the birth year in the online database
- Require no changes to existing profiles when an actor changes names (e.g actress gets married) I agree with xradman that the only way I can see that happening is when profiles no longer store names, but unique ID's for everyone instead. If the profiles store unique ID + "credited as", then you've eliminated the need for birth years and there's no need for updates when the common name shifts, since such a shift wouldn't affect either the ID or the "credited as" value. There would just be updates for whenever someone's put the wrong ID in the profile (say someone entered John Doe #2, while it should really be John Doe #3). I guess there'd be a separate contribution process for establishing links - a process that, as I just indicated, should be a database-wide phenomenon, instead of being tied to just one single profile in one single locality. | | | | Last edited: by T!M |
| | T!M | | Profiling since Dec. 2000 |
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 8,667 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting CubbyUps: Quote:
How would single names such as Cher, Madonna or even Flipper be handled? Given name or Surname?
Same for Stage Names. As far as I'm concerned: all in the "Given Name" field. Quote:
Also what about names that contain nicknames? As far as I'm concerned: part of the "Given Name" field. Quote:
And I don't even know if it's ever been seen, but what if a nickname is the last name? I'd have to see a couple of examples to be able to properly form an opinion on that. |
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Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion |
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