Alternate Names for People (Actors/Directors etc.)

[iceblox]

I've been trying to backfill a lot of Indian movies into the Criticker database (in fact, hundreds of them), and in the process, I've been hitting upon an issue quite frequently - alternate spellings for the names of many of the actors/actresses/directors.

For people who have their names originally defined in English, or any English-like alphabet, for them, it's easy - the spelling in their names don't fluctuate. But, when it comes to India, there are a lot of complex languages like Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil etc. which uses different types of scripts like Devanagari, Brahmic etc. When translated to English, these can end up having different spellings, since it's all up to to the translator as to how he spells it. The point is - there is no correct way to spell these names, as long as they sound right. iMDB especially suck when it comes to Indian movies - I've lost track of how many errors I've seen in their pages.

So what I am requesting is the ability to enter/select alternate names/spelling for people (iMDB already has this feature, where they list alternate names). e.g.: This actor's name, in some places, I've seen it spelt as 'Dilip' and in some places it's spelt as 'Dileep'. Criticker should allow both spellings to exist, but internally recognize that they both refer to the same person (like put a redirect or something).

Hope my rant makes sense.

[mpowell]

That does make sense. I've written it down as an enhancement, as "Allow alternate names for people". Given the length of our to-do list, of course, I won't make any promises as to when we might get to it... but it's on the record!

[iceblox]

Thanks.

[KGB]

This is also true for israeli directors, more than once I had to consider every possible spelling to find a person. If anything I think the original spelling, as in the original language (Russian, Hebrew, Arab, etc.) should be considered.

[iceblox]

Can I humbly request that this be given a higher priority? This has become a major stumbling block for me as people are credited differently in different movies and I am having a tough time cross-checking every name before submitting. Even then, mistakes happen.

[iceblox]

Any update on this? Please allow me to remind you that the database is already a mess due to the inability to provide alternate names, and because of the inability to distinguish multiple people who have the same names and spelling.

Here is an example:

The actress 'Meena' in this movie, is NOT this person, but someone else. But, there is no means to differentiate between them, right now.

[mpowell]

There's no update on this yet. We've got a large number of outstanding bugs and enhancements to make, and a lot of them are high priority, so I can't promise when we'll be able to get to alternate actor names.

Please be patient... we have very limited resources, and every day are working as hard as we can!

[iceblox]

OK.