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    Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion Page: 1 2 3 4  Previous   Next
Parsing of Chinese/HK names
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DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantnuoyaxin
prev. known as ya_shin
Registered: March 13, 2007
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Taiwan, Province of China Posts: 3,436
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As I also just wrote in PM, Chow Yun-Fat is the worst example to present in this thread. His name is virtually the same across all his movies, American or Asian. It's always Chow Yun(-)Fat. So we have a parsing problem, but that's it.

The problem is with people who are credited differently in Asian or Western films.
Ling Bai vs. Bai Ling
Zhang Ziyi vs. Ziyi Zhang
How do you decide there so that it matches all across the board? If we had a basic setting how to proceed, we could get somewhere.
Achim [諾亞信; Ya-Shin//Nuo], a German in Taiwan.
Registered: May 29, 2000 (at InterVocative)
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorWinston Smith
Don't be discommodious
Registered: March 13, 2007
United States Posts: 21,610
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I have already described this, Achim

Step One As Credited
Step Two Document the name so we can use Credited As

Skip
ASSUME NOTHING!!!!!!
CBE, MBE, MoA and proud of it.
Outta here

Billy Video
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantnuoyaxin
prev. known as ya_shin
Registered: March 13, 2007
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Taiwan, Province of China Posts: 3,436
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As Credited. Good idea.

Some Asian movie: Ling Bai
Some Western movie: Bai Ling
Everybody does As Credited and we get nowhere.

PLease try to understand that this is a global issue which goes way beyond R1 DVDs.
Achim [諾亞信; Ya-Shin//Nuo], a German in Taiwan.
Registered: May 29, 2000 (at InterVocative)
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorLopek
Lovely day for a...
Registered: March 13, 2007
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I'm not an expert on this all, despite having some Asian cinema in my collection, so I am happy to go with the experts to get the name linking working. Hopefully we can agree a way that does not insult an entire continent by ignoring their naming conventions to shoe-horn them into another.

This is not an area that I specifically considered when putting together then "credited as" database  , so if there are any changes/additions that would be helpful in making Asian names in it clearer, then let me know and I will see what I can do!
Andy

"Credited as" Names Database
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorWinston Smith
Don't be discommodious
Registered: March 13, 2007
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You may not have considered it, lopek. But I did and so did Dan very carefully in the preparation we went through to get ready to write the Rules, it was ALL considered VERY carefully. But you did hit the nail on the head, an entire continent getting themselves worked into a lather over what they consider a slight, the Euros are equally guilty of the same nationalistic self-pride, without even attempting to comprehend  what was being done and why.Or in some cases understanding what and why, but they were going to be offended anyway because it wasn't their way. We stii have this problem.

Now with Credited As piggy-backed on top of As Creditedit it is now possible to correct this.

My big sin was figuring the users had enough COMMON sense to understand what was being done and why. We knew the shortcomings going in, we also knew that they would ultimately become non-issues, but we figured that they would understand this, instead they shrieked like banshees on the prowl.

Btw we are also aware that we still have soime issues as it relates to oh, Kanji, Cyrillic, Greek, etc, but that is outside our perview and I certainly hope that one day Ken will have the program recognize those characters so that such listings can be PROPERLY dealt with.

Skip
ASSUME NOTHING!!!!!!
CBE, MBE, MoA and proud of it.
Outta here

Billy Video
 Last edited: by Winston Smith
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
Registered: March 15, 2007
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Skip, you have obviously missed the entire point of this poll.
This has nothing to do with "credited as", but everything to do with entering the common name.
How are we to use "as credited" as a basis for the common name when some profiles, for example,  list Ling Bai and others list Bai Ling? Which one are we supposed to know to use?

And RHo, thanks for the link - I intended to put that in my opening post but forgot. Unfortunately that thread never seemed to reach a resolution, which is why I started this poll. Though it looks like most people are as confused as I am over this issue! 

Being a Brit, I've always interpreted the phrase "last name" to mean surname, or family name. That's why I preferred putting the asian family names in the same field, even though they would place this first. That way, when you look at the database you would find all the family names in the same field, which may be an advantage to some people.
Obviously, if this would lead to confusion, with people wondering why the family name isn't in the "first name" field where they would normally put it, then we need a rethink.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
Registered: March 15, 2007
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Quoting northbloke:
Quote:
Skip, you have obviously missed the entire point of this poll.
This has nothing to do with "credited as", but everything to do with entering the common name.
How are we to use "as credited" as a basis for the common name when some profiles, for example,  list Ling Bai and others list Bai Ling? Which one are we supposed to know to use?

And RHo, thanks for the link - I intended to put that in my opening post but forgot. Unfortunately that thread never seemed to reach a resolution, which is why I started this poll. Though it looks like most people are as confused as I am over this issue! 

Being a Brit, I've always interpreted the phrase "last name" to mean surname, or family name. That's why I preferred putting the asian family names in the same field, even though they would place this first. That way, when you look at the database you would find all the family names in the same field, which may be an advantage to some people.
Obviously, if this would lead to confusion, with people wondering why the family name isn't in the "first name" field where they would normally put it, then we need a rethink.


Edit: I had to laugh at Chow Yun-Fat too Achim, that they use as an example the one asian name that they write the same in the West!

Edit 2: Bugger! I thought I'd pressed the "edit" button, obviously not...
 Last edited: by northbloke
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorWinston Smith
Don't be discommodious
Registered: March 13, 2007
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North:

I thought you were starting YET another discussion on this topic.  The way I handle this issue, generally speaking is an involved process, granted but when i am done with it I am absolutely confident of the results. My first step is to do comparative screen caps, to make sure I am indeed dealing with the same person and not simply two different people with similar names, I make no such assumptions. To illustrate i reecently worked on a Tv Series where they credited Herby Fein, I happened to see him On screen and said I KNOW that face,  so I checked Herbie Fein who I already had a file copy stored for, and indede they were the same actor. From there is was just a matter of confirming that he is FAR more commonly known as Herbie. little did i know at the time that halfway through the third disc of the set they would change his On Screen credit to Herbie.

So the key to all of this as with almost everything is documentation. Some of our shortcut minded users might be inclined to say someything like I know it is this because i am Chinese, which may or may NOT result in a correct dataset. It carries SOME credibility but i would not consider it conclusive, I don't how difficult it will be to provide any kind of documentation which might be consisdered reasonably conclusive.

Something for Oriental "experts" to keep in mind, and yse I am about to use an old joke in a new form, so get ready. My own personal knowledge aside re: Ling Bai/Bai Ling, I am not aware of visual cues which would lead one to be able to diiscern which might be the surname, they all look alike , a bunch of words. What I mean by that and i don't even know what the cue is for this, but if someone says Smith, I think most of us might say LAST NAME, though i suppose it could conceivably be a middle (not likely methinks), I don't believe anyone would say FIRST NAME. So the whole tale revolves around documentation, and if the data means that much, then no one should have a problem supplying the documentation to back up their claims, this applies to ANY piece of data.

Skip
ASSUME NOTHING!!!!!!
CBE, MBE, MoA and proud of it.
Outta here

Billy Video
 Last edited: by Winston Smith
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
Registered: March 15, 2007
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This discussion isn't about how you work out which is the family name or which is the given name. If you don't know you obviously enter as credited until corrected.

This discussion is about what you do when you do know how the name is parsed. When you know the family name is Bai and her given name is Ling - do you enter it as Bai//Ling so it looks correct on screen, or do you enter Ling//Bai so the family name is in the same field as everyone else's but is parsed incorrectly on screen.
This poll is to try and work out which people feel is more important to have.
I also don't have enough experience with Chinese or Hong Kong documentation or traditions to know whether they even use the phrases "first name" and "last name".
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorAiAustria
Profiling since 2004
Registered: May 19, 2007
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Quoting northbloke:
Quote:
This discussion isn't about how you work out which is the family name or which is the given name. If you don't know you obviously enter as credited until corrected.

This discussion is about what you do when you do know how the name is parsed.

That's what YOU want it to be about! - But you are EUROpean. - And therefore you DON'T EVEN TRY TO COMPREHEND that there are people around who don't want to follow any discussion.

I have to read the same arguments for third time here. And, since I'm European too, I don't continue to try to understand why some people are that narrowed.

AA
Complete list of Common Names  •  A good point for starting with Headshots (and v11.1)
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
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In some places in Britain, you'd get hit for calling someone a European!   
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorhayley taylor
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Registered: March 14, 2007
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Quoting northbloke:
Quote:
In some places in Britain, you'd get hit for calling someone a European!   


EDIT

In MOST places in Britain, you'd get hit for calling someone a European!   
 Last edited: by hayley taylor
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
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Quoting richierich:
Quote:


EDIT

In MOST places in Britain, you'd get hit for calling someone a European!   


You can't blame me for trying to be diplomatic! 
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
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I don't know if this will help the discussion, but I went and put some names in the credit lookup tool:

Bai Ling: 135            Ling Bai: 262          (family name: Bai)
Zhang Ziyi: 178        Ziyi Zhang: 199      (family name: Zhang)
Gong Li: 175            Li Gong: 90          (family name: Gong)
Chow Yun-Fat: 334  Yun-Fat Chow: 135 (family name: Chow) {there were results without the hyphen, but very few in comparison}
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorWinston Smith
Don't be discommodious
Registered: March 13, 2007
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North:

All I did was outline my basic procedures, which quite personally I think is the best approach. This is being donevery sparingly by at the moment and will prbably be awhile longer before I shift gears and focus on it. I will only say, that based on what i am seeing supplied by most users as documentation for any Common Name usage, let alone Oriental, is THIN at best. They seem to be operating on the assumption that similar names are the same person and are therefore only using the look-up tool. The common names I am presently even allowing anywhere near my databases are the ones that are demonstrating to me that they have satisfied themselves that they are more than similar names.

In the case of Oriental names, I doubt the lookup tool will be of much help at all, I reserve my ultimate judgment for a later time, but we may ultimately have to depend on users like xradman to help all of us here, and it would be my sincere hope that he and others will document his conclusions for all of our benefit and not base the conclusion on something vague.

I have a very strict set of Rules which I apply to myself, north. This doesn't mean i don't make occasional typos or skip a name.   But if I have to document something, I leave room for very little doubt, I have confidence in my work and I want you to have the same level of confidence. You won';t ever have to PM me and say...what because you say so?   I also never go into research mode with a pre-conceived notion of what the answer is and evaluate the data based on that notion, which I have seen MANY users do, I go where the data takes me. I see a lot of ummm  I can only call nationalistic or cultural offense taken over things. You will never, ever see that from me, I don't care whether it is H/B/C or H//BC nor do I care what culture says, I do care what the data tells me and if I can verify H//BC (strcitly an example) then I am a happy camper, if I can't then I am a happy camper, WHATEVER the data tells me is good. I don't know if you were here for the whole HBC debate, but what it finally came down to was we found a 1994 credit for HB-C, a 1995 credit for HBC and a 1997 for HB-C. You might ask why that is important, because taken on its own merit the 1995 MIGHT indicate that the actor had moved the 2nd name to the middle spot (it happens), the flanking credits indicated that while possible, that was not the case.

Rambling I know and covering a lot of ground. I hope this was useful for you.

Skip
ASSUME NOTHING!!!!!!
CBE, MBE, MoA and proud of it.
Outta here

Billy Video
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributornorthbloke
Registered: March 15, 2007
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Sorry Skip,
but from what I can tell - none of that answers the question at hand.
Do we (A) "westernise" oriental names or (B) do we type them in as written?
Option (A) keeps all family names in the same field, option (B) displays the name correctly.

Simple question - is the common name Bai Ling or Ling Bai?
Just not so easy to answer.
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