Merging profile pages

I'm planning on merging the profile pages of actors/artists/authors/directors into one profile page which will show all of their work.

Unfortuantly this will create more problems with people sharing the same name. For music and books this can be fixed by renaming the artist for each album or author for books.

If you have any thoughts on other issues that this could create please post here or any other comments on if this is a good or bad idea.

I think merging them is a good idea. What is the plan on handling searching for people with similar names? The IMDB method of showing primary occupation (actor/writer/composer) and year of birth is very helpful.

Unfortuantly this will create more problems with people sharing the same name. For music and books this can be fixed by renaming the artist for each album or author for books.

On IMDB people with same names are called "John Smith (I)" and "John Smith (IV)" or something to that end. Could that work to separate people on Listal?

Yes but the album or book pages have to be edited with that name.

Is there a way for users to be able to extract someone with a duplicate name?

David Williams
www.listal.com/person/david-williams

Is not the David Williams who appeared in "There Will Be Blood".

I know that merging helps with people like Clive Barker, who would have a profile as a writer, director and actor but I sort of miss them being individual profiles.

Sorry if my question isn't very clear.

I created a "David Williams (VII)" profile thinking that it would ask me to verify the person using an IMDB link but it didn't. I used the Roman numerals that IMDB uses.

So, is it possible to add someone that would gather the Filmography information for that person?

I'm sure a mod would have to go back and remove those items from the original "David Williams" profile that don't apply but it would be a start.

No it works the other way around you add a movie and then the person pages are generated, the filmographys are based on movies people have added. Unfortuantly it doesn't distinguish between identical names yet. This is on my list to fix after the profile merges are complete.

OK, I realize this is extremely lame of me to suggest another method after you have started the merging project.

But another idea would just to let the previous functions to continue to work but have master profiles for people who work in more then one field. From that profile would be links to the film, music and book profiles. Could use the 'person' page as more of a master fan page.

[Edit]

Ha, yes... silly idea I forgot about the horrors of having images being posted on various different profiles. Cheers... and back to my cave :)

Aside from the multiple people with the same name problem there is always the issue of double images being added for people with two profiles. Such as with singers who also have actor pages. I suppose it will just take a lot of monitoring and reporting though.

I like the idea of finally being able to make lists of people that include actors and singers who don't have acting credits. :)

There is always the option of having seperate credit pages for movies music etc but for now it is all on one page. Having seen it locally I like being able to see a persons credits across all the mediums even if in some cases the page is quite long.

The important thing is that lists and images are all in one place. It should sort the sections so a person most know for directing will have directed movies at the top of the profile and someone most known for music will have music at the top etc...