This thread was originally meant to establish that even though a quick glance at the "credit lookup tool" results didn't support it yet, a closer look revealed that Mr. Bender was and is actually mostly credited WITH his middle initial. Since then, however, enough incorrect entries have been fixed to get "Lon E. Bender" the largest number of profiles. That shouldn't have been necessary, as "the most-credited form" obviously refers to the number of different titles a person worked on, not just the total number of profiles, but still - now even those who just want to glance at the total number of profiles for each name variant can consider this case closed:

- Lon E. Bender: 740 profiles.
- Lon Bender: 501 profiles.

So what I was trying to show is that taken on face value, the CLT results don't tell us much. Mind you: when I originally posted this, there were 175 more "Lon Bender" entries than there were "Lon E. Bender" ones. But when I took a closer look, I found that there were actually more "Lon E. Bender" titles than there were "Lon Bender" ones. There are two reasons why our CLT results favoured "Lon Bender". First, IMDb happens to use that name variant as his common name, and as large parts of our database still consists of IMDb-mined data, we could safely assume that a part these alledged "Lon Bender" credits in our database were incorrect. The other problem is that he's credited as "Lon Bender" in a few high-profile movies, which tends to distort things a bit if you're just looking at the total number of profiles. Here's a simple example: there is just 1 single profile for 'Dutch' ("Lon E. Bender"), but there are 90 (!) profiles for 'Shrek' ("Lon Bender")... So neither the number of profiles, nor the number of titles (every translated title or different edition is counted as a separate "title") as returned by the CLT don't really mean much...

Per Ken's instructions, the common name is intended to be the most commonly credited name. To me, "the most commonly credited name" means we're supposed to look at the the number of different titles, not just the number of profiles. Again: it would be ridiculous to let 90 copies of one blockbuster decide what someone's "common name" is, even when there are a dozen movies for the other name variant, of which there just a few copies each in our database. A large number of copies of one and the same movie doesn't ring "most commonly credited" to me. Heaven forbid you're credited in a 'Star Trek' or 'Lord of the Rings' movie with a typo in your name... It might take dozens and dozens of correct credits to ever rise above that incorrect "common name", even if it was used only that one time. It doesn't make any sense to just look at the total number of profiles.

Therefore, I checked all of his twenty entries in my own collection (15x "Lon E. Bender" vs. 5x "Lon Bender"), got a number of credits confirmed from other users as this thread got going, and painstakingly compared the "credit lookup tool" results listed under both name variants, weeding out various translated titles and incorrectly mined IMDb-data. Here are the results:

Credited as Lon E. Bender in:
- The 6th Day
- Alex & Emma
- Beaches
- Bodies, Rest & Motion
- Bull Durham
- Cloak & Dagger
- Coal Miner's Daughter
- Code of Silence
- Courage Under Fire
- The Cutting Edge
- Dutch
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
- The First Power
- Glory
- Inspector Gadget
- The Last of the Mohicans
- Madonna: Truth or Dare (a.k.a. In Bed with Madonna)
- The Man in the Iron Mask
- Mission to Mars
- Mulan
- No Mercy
- Nothing But Trouble
- Nothing in Common
- Overboard
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Pocahontas
- The Princess Bride
- Psycho II
- Renegades
- Road Games
- The Secret of My Success
- She's Having a Baby
- The Siege
- Stand By Me
- Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
- Tex
- True Believer
- Turner & Hooch
- Volunteers
- Wilder Napalm

Credited as Lon Bender in:
- Air America
- Blood Diamond
- Braveheart
- The Bucket List
- The Butterfly Effect
- The Clearing
- Clockstoppers
- D-Tox (a.k.a. Eye See You)
- The Doors
- The Education of Little Tree
- Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- King Arthur
- Knockaround Guys
- L.A. Story
- Legends of the Fall
- Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
- The Prince of Egypt
- The Producers
- Rumor Has It
- The Scarlet Letter
- Shoot to Kill (a.k.a. Deadly Pursuit)
- Shrek
- Strange Invaders
- Talk Radio
- We Were Soldiers
- Young Guns

I left out one title I'm unsure about: 'Cliffhanger'. He's currently listed twice as "Lon E. Bender", but most profiles omit him altogether (there's hardly any sound crew listed in any of the 'Cliffhanger' profiles, I noticed), some sources say he's credited as "additional sound editor", in which case he shouldn't be listed at all - can anyone check on this...?

Excluding that one, I arrived at:

- Lon E. Bender: 41 different titles.
- Lon Bender: 27 different titles.

Oh, and as for those of you who have difficulty believing that both name variants refer to the same person - here are a few links that confirm it (by listing both "Lon Bender" and "Lon E. Bender" credits in their filmographies):

- bfi.org.uk
- imdb.com
- tcmdb.com
- soundelux.com (he's listed under "staff").

So IMHO it's settled, no matter what the total number of profiles for either name variant is: the "most-credited form" and thus the "common name" obviously is Lon E. Bender.

Conclusion: it takes a bit of work to see what the CLT results really mean. When I started this thread, there were 175 more "Lon Bender" credits than there were "Lon E. Bender" ones. Even with those numbers, 85% of the users agreed that Lon E. Bender's 41 titles trumped Lon Bender's 27. Let's remember that for a next time, shall we? Still, this thread has apparently resulted in many people checking and fixing their Lon (E.) Bender profiles, and as such, many incorrect, IMDb-mined profiles have since been corrected. That means that we now suddenly have a healthy lead for "Lon E. Bender" - not just in different titles, but also in the total number of profiles. While the number of profiles number may shift again - imagine a new super-duper-deluxe 'Shrek' edition released throughout all localities - the 41 vs. 27 lead in number of titles should keep the "Lon E. Bender" name variant the common name for some time to come. We'll talk again if he's credited as "Lon Bender" in another 14 or 15 films, okay? As always: it seems highly unlikely, but should you find an error in one of these lists lists - please let me know, and I'll correct it immediately. I'm also still looking for confirmation on his credit in 'Cliffhanger'.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
Ken has stated that we are to use the CLT unless we can prove it is wrong.

I'm almost 100% sure, based on the facts T!M provided, that the results shown by the CLT are wrong.

Quoting Unicus69:

Quote:
Ken has stated that we are to use the CLT unless we can prove it is wrong.

And that's exactly what I've tried to do here - proving that these results are wrong. I scrutized the CLT results and came to the conclusion that he's credited with the middle initial in 41 movies in our database, and in 27 without it. What more could you possibly want? Why the desperate need to cling on to obviously incorrect IMDb-data?

Quoting Voltaire53:

Quote:
but if the prime purpose is to find a common name so the profiles link together

It is, obviously. And to accomplish that, we cannot ignore the shortcomings of our "credit lookup tool", or else we're going to keep ping-ponging between name variants as more and more IMDb-data gets "cleaned up". As I explained; a closer look at the CLT results shows you that he's credited with his middle initial in about 41 movies in our database, and in 27 without it. IMHO, that's all there is to it.

I can't see why you're giving Tim such flack? He's trying to find out if the CLT is wrong or not for this name, that's all. It's not the first of this type of post, and it won't be the last.
We all know the database is full of imdb data that shouldn't be in there, but we still all follow the CLT results blindly without any attempt to verify it's accuracy. We've also never been told which numbers to use from the CLT: titles or profiles. Should Shrek count more than Dutch simply because there are more profiles or do we count titles only?

Tim, I'm assuming the credits you've listed are all confirmed by yourself. How about a list of films you've been unable to confirm and we can see if we can check them for you?

Quoting northbloke:

Quote:
We all know the database is full of imdb data that shouldn't be in there, but we still all follow the CLT results blindly without any attempt to verify it's accuracy. We've also never been told which numbers to use from the CLT: titles or profiles. Should Shrek count more than Dutch simply because there are more profiles or do we count titles only?

I use profiles and based on contributions i've seen most others do also.  Why, because the titles number is inaccurate because a unique (movie) title/year combo can be listed many times, skewing the title count (the raw numbers favor Lon Bender over Lon E. Bender while Tim's processed numbers favor Lon E.)

I don't dispute Tim's numbers.  But Bender's situation is not unique and we shouldn't have to expend that level of effort for each person's data.

I agree an explicit statement about whether to use titles or profiles would be useful...after we get a good titles number.

Quoting tweeter:

Quote:
i have enough Bender discs at home i may try and figure it out tonight

Please do! I urge everyone to check on your Lon (E.) Bender credits, and correct them if necessary. Maybe that will help to shift the "number of profiles" balance.

As for the rest: I always believed the number of titles (even while it's currently quite a bit of work to establish that) trumped the number of profiles. If not, the influence of one or two high-profile titles will decide which name variant is "common", and that doesn't seem right. I already mentioned 'Shrek': there are 90 'Shrek' entries for Lon Bender among the CLT results, while there isn't a single "Lon E. Bender" credit of which there are so many copies. Going by your reasoning, if he was only credited as Lon Bender in 'Shrek' (90x), and as Lon E. Bender in 10 different other movies, each of which had five copies in the database, you'd favor those 90 profiles (just 1 title) over 50 profiles (10 different titles)? I certainly wouldn't.

I don't know exactly what the CLT looks at when compiling the results, but I can't see it being that hard for it to represent titles more accurately.
If the CLT compared original titles as well as dvd titles then the foreign profiles of films would get merged, so the only problem would be where production years don't match, or where editions have been accidentally added to the title field.

You've also got the added problem of TV series, currently a 6 disc boxset would count as 7 titles or profiles! Is this what Ken wants, or do we count each season only once?