[Admin] Data Accuracy (All Editors MUST Read)

[Guest]

Over the past several months, we received lots of complaints regarding the accuracy of data, especailly about the change of PRIMARY DATA. Ryan and I did a research today with the change log and we found that some editors are not acting IN GOOD FAITH to our data.<br><br>The most important thing regarding the PRIMARY DATA is TO BE ACCURATE. This means that YOU SHOULD NOT CHANGE THE NAME UNLESS YOU ARE CERTAIN THE CHANGE WITH SOURCE. You should know the frustrations for your data being changed without good reasons. Don't tell me accommodation of common use is a reason to change the primary data, as you can do it by ADDING ALIAS.<br><br>The database is for accurate data, not for one's favor. Since Ryan has been given lots of freedom to editors, I am afraid we need to restrict it a bit now to protect our data accuracy. In this connection, FROM NOW ON, any change for THE NAME OF ACTOR/ACTRESS on PRIMARY FIELD must not be performed until the written endorsement by Ryan's e-mail (ryan@glink.net.hk). Anyone who fails to do so, his/her RIGHTS FOR EDITORS WILL BE CEASED until further notice.<br><br>Administrator<br>Hong Kong Movie DataBase

[STSH]

First of all, sorry, I've been so busy with data work that today is the first time I've been able to read the data forum. I, for one, am happy to comply with this. In all the name changes I have input, I have always tried to keep existing or known names aliased. Names which can't be found are not useful to users, which is of course the main reason for the existence of this Db. There are also questions and clarifications arising, to be addressed .....<br><br>First up, I am very glad to see this happen, particularly the part about adding aliases instead of changing.<br><br>A few questions arise from this -><br><br>* For Dave - is there any mechanism in place to auto-report such changes to a forum, so that others can review and be aware of them ? Failing this, would it be better to post any such changes here on the Data forum ?<br><br>-> Would the proposed new system (i.e. where editors were able to approve changes put in by ordinary members) be given a finer grain, to enable greater protections for existing data ?<br><br>- > In the meantime, would it be easier for suggested changes to all be posted here on the Data Forum, awaiting approval or objections, as the case may be ?<br><br>-> Also, what about merging duplicated entries ? This is at least as big an area which needs attention and, perhaps, some procedure to deal with.<br><br>Lastly, I'm very pleased to see someone else who is taking an accurate interest in the integrity of the data in this database, and attempting to tackle the issues involved. There is still a huge amount of work to make the database more complete and accurate. Of course, as more and more people (hopefully!) get involved in working with the data, there may be a number of different ways of each person approaching the task. A bit of working out and agreeing on how to handle data issues such as these is very much needed, and welcome.<br><br>C'mon, other editors, have your say about this ! Messages of support would be great.<br><br>

[STSH]

I take it the thrust of this message is about changing names to something structurally different, which makes it more difficult to search on a known name.<br><br>This raises another question - what about adding English names ? I mean here when an English name is added and the rest of the name is not changed. If a Chinese name is xx yy zz, the name can be changed to, say, Bob xx yy zz (if that is the person's known name) without affecting the ability to find the name by xx yy zz.<br><br>Would you prefer these sort of changes to be notified as well ?<br><br>Also, this connects neatly to an issue I have been raising repeastedly - the need for a naming policy. I do NOT mean by this that there should be dictated one particular way of writing names. See the post misleadingly headed "Who Moved Shi Jun" for more about this subject. Briefly, Shelly and I traded views on the subject of naming. Shelly's position, if I understand it correctly, is that there is usually one correct way to transliterate any particular name, and that that correct way can be found in authoritative sources. Reading my posts under this thread, I hope to have comprehensively disproven this method. Basically, I content that most Chi names on this Db probably need to be multi-aliased, and list the reasons.<br><br>A good recent example is Cheung Gwok Chue. Someone, and it weren't me, changed him to Chang Kuo-Chu. Now, considering that this guy is a Taiwanese actor, the correction is accurate. However, whoever did the change forgot that this actor has been on the Db from day one as Cheung Gwok Chue. Those who didn't know he was Taiwanese, or who read his name and sounded it in Canto, may not be able to find the name after this change. And only because whoever made the change neglected to alias him. Fortunately, I noticed this, and aliased him in Canto (hooray for me). The one comfort is that this change must have been recent, as I have added CGC to several movies in the last few months, and he was still CGC then. -> Just to illustrate the original point of aliasing. Fellow editors, pls don't neglect this !