Can we come to an agreement on what is the "correct" parsing for Mary Bond Davis? She appears in stuff like 'Hook', 'Coming to America', 'Romance and Cigarettes', 'Twin Peaks' etc. I have her in several profiles, some parsed as M/B/D, some as M//B D. I want to know which ones I should "fix". I honestly don't care which way we go - I just want to be consistent and clean up these two separate, non-linking entries in my database. To do that, I'm afraid I'm going to need this forumthread to refer any no-voters (either way) to...

Of course I've looked the net. The best thing I could find was her official site, which in itself sends mixed signals. It can be found at www.marybond.com, which for some may be a signal that "Bond" is part of her last name instead of a middle name, but on the site itself, she's constantly referred to as "Ms. Davis".

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
The best thing I could find was her official site, which in itself sends mixed signals. It can be found at www.marybond.com, which for same may be a signal that "Bond" is part of her last name instead of a middle name, but on the site itself, she's constantly referred to as "Ms. Davis".

I do not find incoherent what is on her site. Marybond may be her given names used for the name of her site, and Davis her family name. In France I know people who use their double given names for internet adresses, for example Jean-Pierre X becomes jeanpierre@z.com and Marie-Claire Y becomes marieclaire@w.fr . The fact that she uses Mrs Davis on her site makes me bet the correct parsing would be Mary/Bond/Davis.

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
I agree with Surfeur, the fact that Ms. Davis is used on her website strongly suggests a Mary/Bond/Davis parsing.

For the record: I agree as well, obviously. I just need to be able to refer to this thread to convince some of the voters...

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
Can we come to an agreement on what is the "correct" parsing for Mary Bond Davis? She appears in stuff like 'Hook', 'Coming to America', 'Romance and Cigarettes', 'Twin Peaks' etc. I have her in several profiles, some parsed as M/B/D, some as M//B D. I want to know which ones I should "fix". I honestly don't care which way we go - I just want to be consistent and clean up these two separate, non-linking entries in my database. To do that, I'm afraid I'm going to need this forumthread to refer any no-voters (either way) to...

Of course I've looked the net. The best thing I could find was her official site, which in itself sends mixed signals. It can be found at www.marybond.com, which for some may be a signal that "Bond" is part of her last name instead of a middle name, but on the site itself, she's constantly referred to as "Ms. Davis".

the rules say mary / bond / davis.

why try and complicate anything - doing anything other than this will just lead to ping ponging as people 'correct' your submission.

it's a no-brainer.

Don't start , Tim

Skip

Quoting T!M:

Quote:
Quoting pauls42:

Quote:
the rules say mary / bond / davis.

No, they don't. If you think they do, show me where. The fact that the rules don't say anything about this is the reason that we're stuck with multiple, non-linking entries for about EVERY three-piece-name imaginable in our database, and it is exactly why threads such as this one are needed.

so you are really suggesting that every single 3 part name has to have a vote/discussion on the forums - which will be seen by a fraction of the users of dvd profiler?

You don't think that having three fields to enter the name might suggest vaguely that Ken was thinking we would have a surname (or last name) in the last name field. And that we might want to have a first name in the first name field? And that middle names (every other name) might go in the field called middle?

I don't have dvd profiler on my work PC so I can't look at what they are called again. But on MY HOME PC I have three name fields. Of course if your version of dvd profiler has a completely different number of name fields then I can understand the confusion.

You are of course correct, in that Ken may have thought that the surname should go in the 1st name field, the 1st name in the middle name field and any other names in the surname field. After all - he didn't say exactly what he expected. He made some, obviously faulty assumptions. 

Quoting pauls42:

Quote:
You don't think that having three fields to enter the name might suggest vaguely that Ken was thinking we would have a surname (or last name) in the last name field.

Do we really have to start this all over again? I fully understand what you mean, but unfortunately none of it is in the rules, as others have also already confirmed. You refer to the field names as giving the obvious clue, but in fact that's exactly where the problem lies. Note that they're called "first name", "middle name" and "last name" - they're NOT called "first word", "middle word(s)" and "last word". And there you have it: DVD Profiler has an international userbase, and "middle name" means something else entirely for you than it means to a user from a different continent. Wikipedia: "In the West, a middle name is effectively a second given name." By naming the fields "middle name" and "last name", users are bound to use the field for what they feel are "middle names" and "last names". I do that, you do that, and any other user does that. The results are just different based on what your definition of "middle name" is - and there is no "right" or "wrong" definition, just different ones. A rather large part of our userbase would not recognise "Bond" as a middle name, but would enter it as part of the last name. They'd parse, say, Mary Jane Davis as M/J/D (recognising "Jane" as a "second given name", and thus as a "middle name"), but Mary Bond Davis as M//B D. You wouldn't, but it's important to realise that per the rules, neither way of thinking is more "correct" than the other. Both parties enter what they feel is a "middle name" into the "middle name" field, and what they feel is a "last name" into the "last name" field.

Quoting pauls42:

Quote:
so you are really suggesting that every single 3 part name has to have a vote/discussion on the forums - which will be seen by a fraction of the users of dvd profiler?

Looking at the CLT results for any three-piece-name, I'd have to say: yes! As I pointed out before: since this is not addressed in the rules, and the field names mean different things to different users, we have separate, non-linking entries for essentially EVERY three-piece name out there. You may not have a problem with it, but the database as a whole is a mess thanks to issues like this. Though this thread may seem pointless to you, it really does help in getting a few of these superfluous entries cleaned up. Of course it's just a drop in the ocean, and at this rate, it's going to take years, but still... The bottom line: dismissing the problem won't help in getting erroneous entries cleaned up.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
that does not mean that Europeans get to impose their will.

Did I try to impose my will? No! Have I even declared a preference for either point of view? No!

Quote:
You may consider that typical arrogant American

I haven't said that anything like that either, and I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from trying to make it look like that. Once again, in this particular example I wholeheartedly agree that she should be parsed as M/B/D. Furthermore, I'm using this thread to fix a few incorrectly parsed entries. All in all I'd say you should be pretty happy with what I'm doing.

Yet I get bashed - though I'm merely pointing out one of DVD Profiler's main problems: the fact that this issue is not addressed in the rules has resulted in our database having multiple, non-linking entries for basically EVERY three-piece name imaginable. I'm just trying to fix data here - how does that make me the bad guy?

You do this all the time: if a problem doesn't stretch itself out into your own local database, you ignore it (evidenced here once again by your initial "Duh!" comment). But again: the Invelos database is filled with multiple, non-linking entries for about ANY three-piece out there. That may not affect you personally, but it is a serious problem - these thousands of superfluous entries need to be cleaned up. Dismissing the problem by posting "Duh!" doesn't help at all.