Prevent duplicates in episode cast

tnt wrote 9 years ago: 1

Is it possible to prevent adding a person as a guest star to the episode, where they're already exists as a main cast (playing the same character) and vice versa? Or at least give a warning about that. It's a common mistake which come up quite often.


TomSouthwell wrote 9 years ago: 1

there's tons of shows were main cast either start or return as guest cast. I don't understand what benefit this would have

tnt wrote 9 years ago: 1

Sorry, maybe I was not clear enough.

I mean: prevent actor to be listed twice in the same episode (playing same character).

I'm seeing it quite often.

Gadfly wrote 9 years ago: 1

You can override the existing default character name that comes up.when you enter the actor name and he's already been in a previous episode. You have to if he's playing a new totally different character.

It'd be nice if when you type in an actor name, it brings up all the roles that they are listed for that show. Right now I believe that it only brings up their previous character name if they have one character name.Otherwise the character name is blank.

Had that situation come up last night. Typed in James Griffith for Trackdown. Since he played two different characters on the show that are both in the database and one is recurring, neither name comes up when you enter his actor name. I suppose someone might come along, only hear his recurring character's first name onscreen, and add that as a third "new" character. The actor name, when it comes up, doesn't have Trackdown listed as one of its shows, so since there are two James Griffith actors, you then have to determine/guess which one is the right one, further complicating matters. and hope the name they're typing in is a near-match for one in the database. And that the system catches the near-match and gives them the existing name as an option.

Or maybe they just add the same character name again, because they don't know how the system works.

Then again, I've seen some times when people just ignore the default name when it comes up, and create a duplicate. Why they would do that (unfamiliarity, stubbornness, the fill-in feature isn't working for them), I have no idea.

Presumably that's what tnt is talking about in general.

tnt wrote 9 years ago: 1

Gadfly wrote:
Presumably that's what tnt is talking about in general.

Almost :) The problem you've described is one of the reason of duplicates. I've was cleaning The Astronaut Wives Club today, so some characters was added 3 times, once for each occurrence.

I'll try to give an example of what i really mean. I've never thought that my English is that bad ((

Let's say, John Smith is playing Otto in some show. At season two he was promoted to main cast (and listed in opening credits), but in press-release he is still mentioned as guest star.

Somebody (who doesn't watch the show) adds Episode 1 cast based on press-release. John Smith as Otto is added as guest. Then somebody who watches the show adds John Smith as Otto to the main cast without deleting him from guest cast. So now in Episode 1 we have John Smith as Otto listed two times, in the Guest Stars and in the Cast Appearance.

So, the question is: is there a way to prevent this or at least warn user, that John Smith as Otto is already added to this episode?

Gadfly wrote 9 years ago: 1

That'd be about the same thing, although I'd like to see it that there is a way to warn a user of all the appearances that an actor has made. That would include as a show star and as a guest star.

If the actor played different characters, then the warning would hopefully include saying what each of the character's names were. For show/guest cast, it would presumably say (Show Cast) or (Guest Cast) after the character name in the pulldown menu.

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