[Important Notice] Chinese Title for New Movie/Person Entry

by **Guest** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 11:53 am

Dear all editors, Under the review of HKMDB.com, we notice that there are tons of titles/persons without Chinese entry, which gives users confusions. This also raises lots of difficult issue for management. To tidy up the entries, with immediate effect, all entries on new movies/person MUST COME UP WITH CHINESE TITLE. This is to tidy up the whole database as a BILINGUAL database. To start with, we note that Film entry for the past 24 hours, i.e. Movie ID 10506 to 10527 are without Chinese titles, anyone who entry that item should fill in the Chinese titles on or before 20th September or we will delete those titles. For the old entries, we will start the clearance in mid-Oct/Nov. Anyone who put on the entry and without Chinese titles should get prepared for Chinese titles. In case you cannot enter it yourself, please scan the title and send to Ryan (ryan@glink.net.hk) for input. For Chinese input, please be reminded that you have to do it in Big-5 mode, not English mode. Administrator, Movie DataBase

by **STSH** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:23 am

Could we have a link to a list of all these movies/names ? This would enable all of us to work together and fill in these blanks. It will be a great shame to lose such a large amount of valuable information (a result of a lot of hard work), so let's all contribute to the tidy-up.

by **STSH** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 1:25 pm

I am assuming that only movies which are not well-known without Chinese titles would be deleted. For instance, I added some current (cinema) release films earlier this year, for which I was unable to transcribe titles. And a number of those lacking Chinese titles are famous (e.g. Shaw Brothers). A less confrontational approach might be to deactivate these titles, rather than delete them outright. They could be made accessible to editors only, and would be made accessible to the general viewer as soon as the Chinese title was added. This would save a whole lot of work all round, considering that it will take a long time (way past Nov) to find titles for all these movies. Also, people's names. Some gwailo actors and crew don't have Chinese names, or even Chinese phonetic names. Will they all be deleted ? People like that guy who was only ever billed as "Alexander", and appeared in many movies. Also, please consider exempting movies where there is a review already written, and especially where there is more than one review.

by **Guest** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 4:33 pm

1. An entry is a complete entry, meaning entering BOTH CHINESE AND ENGLISH input. We tried the approach in the past resulting lots of holes in Chinese. I wish editors would consider how frustrated when you use a Chinese search and resulting a film without title but only with year. It is MEANINGLESS. 2. The database has no deactiveate function, which just makes more chaos. There is only two option - complete input and delete. For movie names, unless the Chinese titles is in full English (like PTU or BB30), CHINESE TITLES MUST BE INPUTED. 3. For foreign actions without Chinese names, the Chinese entry should input the English name and should not be enpty. 4. We care the data and display first, reviewers when putting up reviews and enter the titles should have known about this RULES OF GAMES. 5. I have to make it clear that it is the responsibility of all editors to keep the database data tidy and clear. For the discussion on this issue, please reply here. Joseph Au

by **MrBooth** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 9:00 pm

If there's to be any chance of us filling in these Chinese names then we definitely need a list of the films/people that it affects. How can we get that information? Checking every film in the DB individually is obviously not practical in the time scale you suggest. Perhaps somebody can write a script that will find all the films/actors without Chinese names and dump out a list, and also automatically copy the English name into the Chinese name so that at least something is displayed? We can then go through the list and fill in the information as it becomes available. Bruce, does this script sound like an easy task? That would seem better than removing films altogether, since in many cases the information on HKMDB may be the only information available on the film anywhere on the net. Alternatively, perhaps the search function can be modified so that it doesn't return results without a name in the search language? This would prevent people from the confusing result of being returned a film with no title, without penalising the users that speak the other language. As for the rules of the game, when I add an actor or film I always post in the data forum requesting somebody to fill in the Chinese name, which is exactly what Ryan requested of me when I joined the team. But sometimes it can be difficult for people to even find out what the Chinese name of a film is from the English. Obviously not all the editors can read Chinese or type in Big-5 - when I was made an editor Ryan told me not to worry about the fact that I don't speak/read/write Chinese, since 90% of the site's content was in English. Obviously you're now hoping to make the Chinese language section of the DB as complete as the English, but it sounds like you're blaming the editors that don't understand Chinese for not filling it in. We do what we can, but cannot do more than that. Are there any editors that only speak Chinese, and don't read these forums since they're in English? If so, we need a way to communicate with each other so that each editor can do the tasks they have the knowledge to complete.

by **Guest** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:21 am

1. Even editorial have to check the Database one by one to know which entry is missing the titles. It is time consuming, but we need to do it still. ID missing Chinese titles posted every time ang give 7 days for finish. After 7 days, we will decide to keep or delete the film title. 2. For people ID, it not a bad option to put English names in Chinese entry. Don't think modify search function. The programmer is also burnt out now. 3. The past we try one way and not working. Now is the time for having another way. Painful but it works. Currently Chinese version of HKMDB.com got columnists but they not willing to join as core crew. For Chinese entry, as say previously, if you cannont input it yourself, at least scan or take a digital photo for others to input or give URL. 4. Whole editorial team is reforming, we are recruiting both Chinese and English editors. Database review will start next month.

[Important Notice] Chinese Title for New Movie/Person Entry

[Important Notice] Chinese Title for New Movie/Person Entry

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