martin_695862's profile

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Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024 7:15 PM

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Error when submitting a credited-as "The as attribute "as Frances Churchill" is not eligible for submission."

I notice that a lot of the credits for actress Frances Wilding nm1544089 have the attribute "(as a different name)" without listing that name. When I tried to correct one, to the attribute "(as Frances Churchill)", I got an error

The as attribute "as Frances Churchill" is not eligible for submission.

Interestingly, "(as Frances)" passed the form validation - though of course I didn't submit it!

Can an admin find out what the problem is.

The episode was "Casualty" (1986) {The Ties That Bind (#13.4)} tt0537521 and the relevant credit is https://i.postimg.cc/85jjV36X/Classic-Casualty-20240403-1035-020-Drama.png

I am assuming that the information (submtted by someone else) is factually correct, that the actress playing the part was Frances Wilding aka Frances Churchill. There is no actress called Frances Churchill in IMDB. https://www.bodalgo.com/en/voice-over-talents/fran-churchill shows a link between Wilding and Churchill names: the URL ends "fran_churchill" and some of the sound samples include the name - eg "Franchurchill Commercial Voicereel". Seems that she has changed her name - exactly the situation that the "(as ...)" IMDB attribute is used for.

The correction will probably be needed for her appearances in other episodes of Season 13 of Casualty which are due to be repeated (so I can verify them) in the next few days. It is tempting to speculate that her credits for other titles should be changed from "(as a different name)" to "(as Frances Churchill)" but that is probably an assumption too far which would need to be verified by sight of the credits. ;-)

I wonder if "(as a different name)" was someone's attempt to bypass the "not eligible" error ;-)

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8 months ago

If this is another example of a person who has claimed their page and blocked references to their prior name, the contribution form might need to be more specific about why corrections are rejected. It seems we get a fair number of posts on this topic that could be preventable.

Perhaps a notice on the Edit form that the Named person has opted into this "as a different name" choice?

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I hadn't even realised that it was possible for people to block their entry from displaying their former name. I presume the former name should be recorded in some other way in IMDB, such as a Crazy Credits for the film/TV programme.

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@martin_695862

"I hadn't even realised that it was possible for people to block their entry from displaying their former name.".

Don't blame yourself, it seems IMDb didn't really care about you or other contributors finding out, as they only published the announcement on the IMDbPro board: https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbprocom/imdbpro-introduces-additional-control-options-for-professionals/6398881090844c35240ee041

When I asked about why this wasn't announced on this board (https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbprocom/imdbpro-introduces-additional-control-options-for-professionals/6398881090844c35240ee041?commentId=639905586bc4c47d61d9634a) they simply ignored my questions.

The Contributor's Charter is not a two-way street, it seems...

(edited)

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@Marco​ 

There are a lot of recent changes that have made me rethink how much free time I'm giving to IMDb to enter data since they do not seem to care about their contributors.

Employee

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7 months ago

Hi @martin_695862 & All -

My apologies for the late staff response here.  I appreciate all the feedback and have relayed your comments to the appropriate teams; I have also filed a request to review our contribution form and highlight this use case for future notification improvements.

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Thanks. If actors are allowed to block credits by a former name (and I don't agree with that policy - IMDB should not allow history to be rewritten or airbrushed, just as it should not allow dates of birth to be hidden) then there needs be a much clearer explanation for the unsuspecting contributor to explain why "Fred Bloggs (as Joe Soap)" submissions are blocked. "This is not possible" is not good enough: it needs be be "This is not possible because the actor has blocked reference to their former name". There needs to be some record in IMDB of the former name, even if it is not attached to the actor's entry: that's why I did it as a Crazy Credits entry for the titles (episodes) in which the actor appeared.

I am left wondering why someone hates their old name so muich that they want to airbrush it. The irony is that the actress in question is still listed on her own site as her former name (in the URL) although her new name is given in the body of the page.

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@martin_695862​ 

I have to wonder if these people even know what is happening. It seems highly doubtful that so many people want to hide their middle initial or a suffix or some other trivial part of their name.

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@adrian​ Do you think that the requests to hide their former name might be spurious, and not explicitly requested by the person who is named in the IMDB entry?

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@martin_695862​ In some cases, it might be possible that the request to hide the former name might be spurious and not explicitly requested by the person named in the IMDb entry.

In other cases, it might be possible that the person who made the request misunderstood the point of the (as a different name) attribute. Perhaps they were merely trying to indicate that a certain variation of their name (say, with a middle initial) was not the preferred form of their name, rather than trying to suppress the existence of that name variation.

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5 months ago

Hi @martin_695862 & All -

I wanted to thank you all again for your feedback concerning Contribution Form Warning improvements for hidden name text.  As already mentioned, I have escalated the issue to the appropriate team who have logged a review. While we are not always able to take immediate action on every issue, please be assured the feedback has been captured, in the meantime we will be marking the thread 'Closed'.

Thanks again!