Rejected Contributions Even When Proofs Added

Not even a simple response all these days, congrats on losing one of your long-lasting contributors here for nothing.

From now on, I will only contribute when I want to make an exception, definitely not on a regular basis like I have since forever thanks to your so-called editors continously refusing factual additions on IMDB thus keeping them wrong or deficient.

For your information, I re-submitted some of my rejected submissions as I added here and they were approved so I continued my other additions and they were rejected (they  shouldn't have been). That inconsistency was the last straw.

Cheers!

I created a post here last week about the same issue,

but I was ignored so I just wanted to let you know (I don't mind if you care/reply or not) on this brand-new post that:

From now on, I will only contribute when I want to make an exception, definitely not on a regular basis like I have since forever thanks to your so-called editors continously refusing factual additions on IMDB thus keeping the information about people listed wrong or deficient. 

I am convinced more than I can count that most editors here don't carefully examine what we provide for them, (I even provide explanations in quotation marks to help them process but because they are ''unwilling to verify'', they reject all submissions even with multiple reliable proof-materials added as to the point it is not possible to say unable to verify.

For your information, I re-submitted some of my rejected submissions as I mentioned on my previous post and they were approved this time because that editor, unlike the others, knew they were eligible to be approved.

Given that, I continued with my new additions and they were rejected (they shouldn't have been). That on-going inconsistency was the last straw.

No one here in-charge of these things seems to do anything about it much less give feedbacks.

Why do we have to keep on re-submitting when the information we try to add here in the first place is factual, important and supported with convincing evidence?! Are you joking?

If you are okay with losing important and loyal contributors, guess what? Your wish has come true as far as I am concerned.

Cheers!

Hi jabrenner -

My sincere apologies for the delayed response.  We appreciate your submissions and the effort/time given, and I understand the frustration when data is rejected with limited information provided as to why.

I investigated all 18 birthdate data submissions you referenced to identify the reasons for the declined statuses, two of the submissions were processing errors and should have been approved, for these particular submissions I re-submitted and approved.  For the remaining 16 submissions, I can confirm that the issue was with the sources provided, in most cases there were sources that were valid but only partially verified the information (often day & month), but may not have fully verified a birth year or birthplace, which would have lead to a declined submission.

Just an additional note on evidence, for birthdates we need to verify the information, ideally we are looking for links to public records, printed publications, or official documents.  When a media article mentions the age of the individual but does not provide a specified birth year, we cannot accept the source because the birth year has not been clearly stated and we need a verifiable source before we can accept the information.

I have provided the submissions below with additional notes to help clarify the reason for rejection:

210603-205904-809000: The evidence provided was not verifiable, we need further information from more reliable sources before we can approve the birthdate.

210603-205357-119000: We were unable to verify the birth year.

210603-203543-682000: The day & month verified by Twitter, however, the year was not mentioned specifically. Also one of the provided links was unavailable.

210603-143524-479000: We needed more verifiable sources.

210603-141854-580000: Twitter verified the day month, however, the place of birth needed a more verifiable source.

210603-133608-145000: This should have been approved, I have now approved the information.

210603-100749-309000: We need more verifiable sources to approve the information, additionally, agent website's are not verifiable sources.

210531-180940-292000: We were able to verify the birthplace which has now been approved, but we need further evidence to verify the date.

210603-132550-394000: This should have been approved, I have now approved this information.

210531-225616-535000: We need further verifiable sources.

210531-224430-540000: Birthplace verified, but need further evidence for date.

210531-001228-543000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year & birthplace.

210530-134901-693000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year & birthplace.

210530-132514-041000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year.

210531-142312-149000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year & birthplace.

210531-152030-051000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year.

210602-162258-775000: Based on evidence provided we were unable to verify the full birthdate.

210602-174744-738000: The day/month were verifiable, but further evidence is needed to verify the year & birthplace.

I hope this helps provide further context, if you have further questions let us know!

Thank you Michele for taking the time to investivate and giving me a detailed feedback.

Much appreciated. I can understand as to why some were rejected. It is normal because not all of them were supported with really solid sources and I was not surprised but some really surprised me because I thought they would be approved. Now:

However some points you made are arguable. 

1 - How come the agency websites are not verifiable when the actor is clearly registered to them? I think they are one of the most important official sources to be used in the box for verification. Why is there a redundant doubt?

2 - Why the interviews made with the person in question are not reliable for you? Why do you need the exact year of birth referenced in an article, interview etc. when they already reveal the interviewed person's age. Is it so hard to do the math when the published date of the article is shown? Can you image the number of interviews where they obviously reveal the year rather than the age? Is it logical? Then we wouldn't have many people with their birthdates listed on IMDB when you take away the interviews. I even try to help (or truth be told, I should say used to) the editors with quotation marks how in the interview they refer to the relevant information needed to be verified to no avail. This was one of the main hurdles in their rejections. It is as if I make up the dates with no solid evidence and they reject. 

3 - When the person in question verifies his birthday on his official social media page, why isn't it enough when the year (and sometimes the birthplace) is supported with reputable sources? I used The Irish Times in one of them, which supported the year. So you are saying The Irish Times, Daily Mail, The Sun etc. are not valid sources, I do not agree with you at all because if they are not valid, what is more valid besides a birth certificate, passport copy etc.? I try to reference them all the time to support my submissions and they get approved once a certain, reasonable editor checks each properly. What makes me frustrated is sometimes these sources are not considered as valid like you mentioned when in fact they are and as I said, some editors accept these and I think they are right. It all depends on the editor's choice and judgement of the materials' validity. There should be a common ground about this because each time I submit something solid, I can not be sure if it will be approved due to the obvious discrepancy here. Reason: you sometimes accept for example Daily Mail as a reliable source and sometimes not, it is confusing for us contributors.

In the end, my time is wasted. I have done my best to enhance IMDB all these years. Thank you for those accepted my submissions. I wish there were more of you.

Hi jabrenner -

To answer your additional questions:

1) In short, Agency websites are not verifiable as a standalone source because while they may be a representative of their client, they are a third party and we cannot verify the accuracy of the information posted on their websites. 

2) I absolutely commend you for very detailed and organized evidence that you provide (which I've seen first hand), which makes it very clear for our editors to sort out the information provided, we truly appreciate your efforts! 

Regarding Interviews, these can be tricky, we are not just looking at the content of the interview, but are also looking at the media source to ensure it is reputable and trustworthy (for example, an interview from The New York Times would be more distinguished than The National Inquirer).  When we verify information we need to make sure that it is accurate before making an approval, when an age is simply stated is is not confirming the actual birth year, we could compute a math equation and make an educated guess, however, that would risk potentially being off by a year or two, and guessing doesn't meet our current standards for accuracy which is why we decline them.

With that being said, I have passed along your feedback for future considerations and improvements regarding how we process this data type and treat evidence such as this.

3) I agree completely, The Irish Times, Daily Mail, and The Sun are reputable and valid sources and we should approve birthdate information that is supported by these sources.  I think the issue you may be facing is that if the news article only confirms half the birthdate data (such as a birth year) but another source is used for the day/month where we can't verify, the submission will likely be declined, as most editors review the data as a whole.  So if you provide an additional link, for example to an Instagram post where a third party is wishing the individual a Happy Birthday, we may not be able to verify this as the accurate day/month.  When we review social media, we are mainly looking at the handle page to see if the individual has their birthdate posted.

I hope this additional information helps clarify the questions you had regarding your submissions, As mentioned above I have passed along your comments to the appropriate team for visibility and future processing improvements.  Again, we appreciate all your efforts and dedication to the data you have contributed over the years.

Cheers!