What exactly counts as appearance?

@LouisWu wrote:
Looking at the Episode extras data policies, we have two slightly different definitions for appearance (emphasis mine):

The way I enter cast appearance is straight from the onscreen cast credits. That is however not always the same as an actual appearance. For various reasons some shows credit cast even if they did not actually appear. One current example is Star Trek: Prodigy.

So should Cast Appearance be interpreted as "This cast member has contributed their talent to this episode"? Or go with "They are credited for this episode", just like we do for the Crew Appearance?

My preference is going for credited in both cases. For one thing, that is much easier to double-check. And prevents discussions about cast appearing in footage from previous episodes for flash-backs, and things like that.

You could also allow for exceptions or enhancements with new flags to show "Credited but did not appear" or "Appeared but was not credited".

if a cast member does not appear even if he is credited we do not add him. :)

@LouisWu wrote:
Looking at the Episode extras data policies, we have two slightly different definitions for appearance (emphasis mine):

The way I enter cast appearance is straight from the onscreen cast credits. That is however not always the same as an actual appearance. For various reasons some shows credit cast even if they did not actually appear. One current example is Star Trek: Prodigy.

So should Cast Appearance be interpreted as "This cast member has contributed their talent to this episode"? Or go with "They are credited for this episode", just like we do for the Crew Appearance?

My preference is going for credited in both cases. For one thing, that is much easier to double-check. And prevents discussions about cast appearing in footage from previous episodes for flash-backs, and things like that.

You could also allow for exceptions or enhancements with new flags to show "Credited but did not appear" or "Appeared but was not credited".

That's more or less why people shouldn't be doing them unless they're watching/have watched the episode. Then they could tell if it was a reused scene and not mark them as appearing, archive footage doesn't count here and for example is mostly only on IMDb due to users adding them. For animation, if the actor isn't actually talking, they shouldn't be marked as having appeared, because they didn't... but with live action you can mark them as appeared even if they just walk across the background once the whole episode. If the an actor has an appearance in any capacity but isn't credited as such (animation can be hard since they don't always list main cast the way live action does) then you could always put them as uncredited in guest cast as long as it's not old footage/voice work.

@JuanArango wrote:
if a cast member does not appear even if he is credited we do not add him. :)

Of course I know that, and have issued my fair share of edit request to fix those situations. 🙂

I was hoping for a little more discussion than this, and Kevin did not disappoint! 😁

In particular you have to wonder how people can add Cast appearances for episodes that have not aired yet? That happens a lot.

And on the terminology: maybe the Crew appearance policy can be updated to using a term without the word "appearance"?

@kevin87 wrote:
That's more or less why people shouldn't be doing them unless they're watching/have watched the episode. Then they could tell if it was a reused scene and not mark them as appearing, archive footage doesn't count here and for example is mostly only on IMDb due to users adding them. For animation, if the actor isn't actually talking, they shouldn't be marked as having appeared, because they didn't... but with live action you can mark them as appeared even if they just walk across the background once the whole episode. If the an actor has an appearance in any capacity but isn't credited as such (animation can be hard since they don't always list main cast the way live action does) then you could always put them as uncredited in guest cast as long as it's not old footage/voice work.

Thanks Kevin, that's a great summary of all the proper uses and common pitfalls for this subject. 👍

Just an FYI animation on the whole is something we are painfully aware doesn't fit some of the current policies. It's something we are planning on discussing thoroughly soon. 

@LouisWu wrote:
[...]

You could also allow for exceptions or enhancements with new flags to show "Credited but did not appear" or "Appeared but was not credited".

As a sidenote, we have Guest Cast roles that cover this already, "Credit Only" and "Uncredited" respectively. But for Main Cast you can only flag appearance on or off.

@LouisWu wrote:
In particular you have to wonder how people can add Cast appearances for episodes that have not aired yet? That happens a lot.

That is usually based on press releases by the network. 

@LouisWu wrote:
As a sidenote, we have Guest Cast roles that cover this already, "Credit Only" and "Uncredited" respectively. But for Main Cast you can only flag appearance on or off.

Yes because that's the easiest way to show the status of regular cast in an episode since the actors are already listed in the database for the show. If they appear, they get checked, and will appear on our cast listing. If they don't appear, they don't get checked, they don't appear on the cast list.