Well, it's been a few days now, and I must say I'm generally very pleased with the results of this thread. About 85% of the voters in the poll apparently agree that when determining someone's "common name", the number of different titles that a person worked on trumps the number of profiles - I'll use this consensus in future debates. Also, an update in which I added "Lon E. Bender" as common name to a "Lon Bender" credit, referring to this thread in my contribution notes, got approved - so it seems the screeners agree as well.

On the other hand, I have to confess that I was more than a little annoyed by those few users that somehow tried to justify sticking with the IMDb-name in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Sure, if the level of documentation you require is screenshots for all individual copies of all films Lon (E.) Bender ever worked on, then I'm going to have to disappoint you, but in my opinion, what I did is exactly what Ken meant when he said: "The lookup tool is not to be blindly trusted", "if a user documents errors in the database where the credit is not entered properly, that can and should be considered." Again: I personally checked as many of his film credits as I possibly could, as this thread got going several users chipped in by confirming further "Lon" and "Lon E." credits to me, and for the remainder I worked with the CLT results to determine which entries were accurate and which ones were incorrect entries mined from IMDb. I thought I'd share the results of my work here in the forums for the benefit of the community, and I obviously wouldn't have posted here if I wasn't absolutely sure. I certainly don't expect everyone to put in the same amount of work as I do, but I do feel that doing absolutely nothing and just saying "nah, I don't buy it" is a bit too far in the opposite direction.

Lately, it seems that most users that are serious about maintaining correctly linking cast and crew data have given up on contributing, but instead keep their work local. Those few naysayers once again made me see why that is - although the lack of any standards for basic issues like parsing or the formatting of suffixed names doesn't help either. Anyway, I haven't given up yet, and the poll results did give me some hope: apparently, there is enough common sense left. So rather than going off on an angry rant against those few that inexplicably voted for "Lon Bender" last week, I decided to direct my energy towards fixing a few of those incorrect IMDb-mined-entries, and it seems a number of other users have been fixing their Lon (E.) Bender-entries as well. As a result, I'm proud to present the current CLT results for both name variants:

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

So there you go: now it's not just the number of titles (41x "Lon E. Bender" vs. 27x "Lon Bender"), but "Lon E. Bender" has accumulated the most profiles now as well. Again, both myself and 85% of the poll voters felt this wasn't necessary, as the "most-credited form" obviously refers to the number of different titles, not the number of profiles, but still... With this shift in profiles, we should have convinced those last few skeptical users as well. Now that this is finally settled, may I all urge you to add the correct common name to all your "Lon Bender" entries? Wouldn't it be nice if there was only one entry for this guy in the entire DVD Profiler database, instead of two separate, non-linking ones?

Quoting skipnet50:

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Allow me to put in my two cents and i hope some of those people will read and think about this,
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3)IMDb remains the single most inaccurate source for data of any kind relative to the entertainment industry
...
Skip

Wow Skip, when you go out on a limb, you really go out on a limb!

Really now, IMDb has lots of errors, but "IMDb remains the single most inaccurate source for data of any kind relative to the entertainment industry" is one hell of a claim!

pdf

Quoting T!M:

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On the other hand, I have to confess that I was more than a little annoyed by those few users that somehow tried to justify sticking with the IMDb-name in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

As one of those probably on your "annoyed with" list let's be clear...i don't think most people disagreed with your premise that Lon E. was more common then Lon.  It was the method by which you tried to prove it...counting titles instead of profiles...that was flawed and objected to.

With no way to correctly count titles, other than manually, profiles is what we have to work with.  The method you proposed would only work with a great deal of manual effort and would confuse those trying to use the CLT because the source for your reduced data would not be obvious.

I never disagreed with the idea that Lon E. was probably more correct.  Your method for getting it fixed was flawed.  You have raised enough of a ruckus this past week that apparently many went and looked at their profiles and updated them, not corrected, updated.

Since last Tuesday Lon's number dropped 45 and Lon E. climbed 213:

Lon E. Bender: 347 profiles on 6/10; 560 on 6/16
Lon Bender: 521 profiles on 6/10; 476 on 6/16

If i had to make a deduction it would be that many people saw the thread and made additions, not corrections, since few Lon profiles changed.

This doesn't prove your "titles" thesis at all.  New data doesn't make the old incorrect, and the numbers don't support you.  You got what you wanted, and i don't mind the outcome, but not because of the facts you presented at the start of the thread (which i note you have overwritten).

Unfortunately, counting the sheer number of profiles is patently silly when you invariably see both name variants on identical titles.

You still don't get it, surfeur. Accurate data is not based on imagination or the way YOU want it to appear. It is based on the way the data ACTUALLY exists for a given film, many things can be handled through the Alias system, but if it comes down to this how YOU (generic)wnat it to appear then that is a local decision and not an Online issue. Yoiu claimed in another thread that you were talking about you local, your previous posts both there and here belie that statement. You still want the Online to appear as you imagine it should appear or as you want it to appear.

Skip

Quoting surfeur51:

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For Skip accurate data = data which matches with contribution rules = Francois Truffaut, to use a well known example.
As IMDb uses real name François Truffaut, IMDb is inaccurate... That's Skip's plain truth...

Every database has data entry rules.  Those rules define how data is to be entered.  What may be accurate for one, may not be accurate for another.

Invelos is after data that is accurate to the DVD.  I know you don't like it, but your just tilting at windmills here. 

Quoting Unicus69:

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Every database has data entry rules.  Those rules define how data is to be entered.  What may be accurate for one, may not be accurate for another.

I could agree with you if we spoke of Invelos data, as we speak of IMDb data. But when we speak of accurate data, we should use what is commonly recognized as accurate : for example, for a name, accurate form is that used by the owner.

Quoting Unicus69:

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.. but your just tilting at windmills here. 

Yeah, I know, that is my Don Quichotte side... 

BTW, I love your comparison of Skip as a windmill... 

Quoting Giga Wizard:

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Calling names again?

Hugh!!! Giga Andouille has spoken !!!