how are these birthplaces approved?

I'm considering the possibility that some of these are vandalized profiles. Regardless, the IMDb data editors should be ashamed of this situation, unless there is some kind of mechanism in place that automatically approves some submissions that have even been reviewed by a human being.

@Michelle​ Thanks, as far as I can see, you handled the name pages I posted above, but I found a new one: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10557263/bio/

Hi @mbmb​ -

Yes, all the birthplaces are now cleaned-up, including the most recent page you reported.

Thanks again!

@Michelle​ here's a new one, just a newly created page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14377837/bio/

Aside from the fact that IMDb says Wikipedia is not a valid source for this data, not only this was approved with Wikipedia as a source, the Wikipedia page provided does not even have any birthdate info in it, but your editors found that good enough evidence to approve, with the URL as a birthplace as a bonus.

Anyway that newly created nm14377837 page should be deleted because it's duplicate and all credits are already on the correct page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0883305/

(it should not be merged to not create an "as AKA" mess)

Also, you should delete the following duplicate pages:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13303807/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13510344/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13303673/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14159007/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13048204/

These latest empty duplicate pages made me discover a much wider vandalism that would require deletions of dozens of name pages and title pages, and the vandal should be stopped. I will open a new thread for that now, and will edit this post with the link of that thread when I do.

Who and why merged these pages?

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13303807/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13510344/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13303673/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14159007/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13048204/

I was gonna use that to demonstrate what this vandal is doing with dozens and dozens of names in my new thread about this. Anyway I will use another name to show as an example but please don't merge things when I do that so that staff can check.

@Michelle​ Here's the thread for huge vandalism I noticed via this: https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/huge-indian-vandalism/64462e6e00bd3f7acdb40620

@Michelle​ The new thread was handled by @Bethanny , two things left here which is deleting these two name pages:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14377837/

and

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13048204/ (@Bethanny might want to check the creator of this name page to see if she blocked them already because this one is surely created by that vandal, nm14377837 might be a honest mistake by someone else though)

@Michelle​ Are you not seeing this thread anymore? Here's a new one: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0800219/bio/

How this pure spam site was found as a good enough evidence to approve a birthdate?

You should delete this date entirely because aside from the fact that this spam site is not a valid evidence for it, there are contradicting sources for it. I saw Wikipedia users removed the birthdate from her article because they found a public record indicating it could actually be 1959: https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=oqoSH9fUNnuSkNRaSptQ5g

And some sources say November 30, some November 15, some 1959, some 1960 and combinations of these. Since there is no definite date with a good evidence, and you clearly did not receive anything other than a pure spam site because we can see it, you should delete it.

@Michelle​ Even though you didn't reply, it seems you handled everything above, thanks. But a new one appeared: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4550478/bio/

@Michelle​ Is this thread not visible anymore?

@Michelle​ A new one: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11545813/bio/

How this was even regarded as a valid evidence, I don't know.

Hi @mbmb​ -

My apologies for the delayed response.  All the above call-outs have now been handled accordingly.

Thanks again for highlighting!

@Michelle​ I see this thread was converted to "Solved" from "In Progress", so I think that means this ticket (V873775980) was closed, what was the result of it, is it solved and closed, or still in progress?

Hi @mbmb​ -

I just reviewed the ticket and can see that our tech team is still investigating.  I have set this thread status to "In Progress".  Once the tech bug has been resolved I will confirm the details here.

Cheers!

@Michelle​ A new one: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14586195/bio/

I don't like you keep these bad additions with invalid sources but only remove birthplace field. The link provided here is not a valid evidence, you should delete the birthdate entirely. It's one of these bot generated spam sites you even don't allow as an external link on name pages: https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/names-biographical-data/links-to-external-sites-for-names/GJ6MHXQ7AHEMZL2Q

See: Links not eligible for listing: ...,sites containing machine-generated biographies or profiles which cannot be verified.

You don't even allow these spam sites as external links but you accept it as a valid evidence to add a birth date?

@Michelle​ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14898332/bio/

This link reveals this person's ID card and email address, all publicly, both supposed to be private.

Hi @mbmb​ -

Thanks for reporting these additional examples.  I have now removed the applicable data and can confirm that our tech team is still investigating.

@Michelle​ I think this bad design makes people confused about it. When adding a date of birth, there is no label to indicate what that box is for and "place" label is in wrong place:

A new one: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13934600/bio/

Hi @mbmb​ -

Thanks for this new report, I have now cleaned the data.  Thanks also for your observations about the placement of the "Place" identifier, I agree that it needs to be moved and I have highlighted this issue to the tech team. 

Also, just to clarify, I initially referred to this situation as a bug because at first the root cause was uncertain as per if there was a bug at play, perhaps referring the issue at hand as a "problem/issue" would have been more ideal.  Will keep my phrasing in mind for future problem reports!