Who removed "Shi Jun"?

[shelly]

So, fellow editors: who removed the spelling "Shi Jun" from the data for "Sek Jun" (from Dragon Gate Inn, A Touch of Zen, etc.)? <br><br>I'm not sure that this is helpful. I've spent a lot of time adding appropriate transliterations and correcting automatically generated Cantonese spellings for a number of actors, recently. I check reference sources and, wherever possible, onscreen credits, first. Shi Jun is referred to that way in two authoritative sources: the HKIFF retrospective catalogue "Transcending the times: King Hu and Eileen Chang" and in Stephen Teo's "Hong Kong Cinema". And he's called "Shih Chun" (the Wade-Giles spelling) in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Film. <br><br>Shouldn't those two forms of the name be in the database? How does it help users if they're removed? If I put them back, does whoever removed one the first time plan to remove them again?<br><br>And, on a more general note, shouldn't editors be very very reluctant to remove information that someone else has added, without some standard way of checking first? Otherwise, we run the risk of going in circles: wasting effort addings stuff that gets removed, re-added, etc.<br><br>Shelly<br><br>

[STSH]

This is yet another example of why a policy on naming conventions would be a useful thing. As regular readers of these forums would know, I've been trying to raise interest in this since the forums started.<br><br>Shelly, I'm glad to see you register interest. Would you be willing to help formulate such a policy ? Cutting down on such time-wasting would be just one benefit.<br><br>For the record, when I first noticed this actor on the Db about a year ago, the name was entered as Sek Jun, which was consistent with the way names were generated on the Db. That is, the names were first entered as big5 text, and the names fields were generated from the phonetics attached to those big5 chars. As I know little about this actor apart from his name in Chinese, I left it as the Cantonese phonetic.<br><br>Please, if you change the primary name field to something other than the existing name, especially if the primary name is cantonese, don't forget to enter that primary name as an alias. A few of us are getting familiar with the phonetics used on this site, and rely on those phonetics to search.<br><br>Your post implies giving preference to transliterations cited in authoritative sources. I agree that this should form part of a comprehensive naming policy. In part, this will rely on people who have access to authoritative sources actually sitting down and doing the work of entering this data. And, of course, ensuring that valid existing data is not lost in the process, which is another aspect which should be covered in a naming policy.<br><br>By default, until about a month ago, I've been largely responsible for how people's names have appeared, simple because, with rare exceptions, I've been the only one who's worked on the names. This has had the practical effect of the Db reflecting the limitations of my knowledge, which is a shame. One of those limitations is that, for many older actors in particular, that I know them only by their Chinese names and, because Cantonese is my dialect of choice, my bias is towards keeping their names in canto. <br><br>Briefly, the Db relies on a group of people to pool their accumulated knowledge, to correct the information deficiencies and biases of individuals. It is my fervent hope that well informed people, such as yourself Shelly, will continue to contribute.<br><br>Back to the main point. So far, in my frequent calls for input on a naming policy, the only person to repsond favourably and with input has been SilverFox. Shelly, would you like to join us ?<br><br>

[mpongpun]

Wasn't me. I always went with Shih Chun. That's how I've always saw his name. I believe he's Taiwanese also. I've always seen him in the DB as Sek Jun. As long as his alt names are listed as aliases (Sek Jun, Shi Jun, Shih Jun), it shouldn't really matter. It's all semantics. I never seen the spelling of Shi Jun until recently as the two books Shelly referenced, so I would go with Shih Jun, a name that I have known him as for many years.<br><br>Silver Fox

[shelly]

Shih Jun makes sense to me, too. The current dbase formatting now looks good.<br><br>As for general principles on this sort of thing, I agree that it needs to be formalized, to a certain extent. Certain cases are easy: Hong Kong actors in Cantonese language films should have their names transliterated by the Joe Fierro / SCMP method. This is largely what we have all been doing here. And that implies that many (most?) of the automatically generated transliterations need to be changed, to conform with the method above (this seems to have largely been done with the better known actors from more recent films, and is slowly progressing with other names, on a case by case basis).<br><br>2nd obvious case: mainland actors from Mandarin language films should have their English names transliterated according to the putonghua standard (e.g. Zhang Ziyi).<br><br>Then there are the interesting, murky, middle ground cases. Hong Kong actors who starred in Mandarin language HK films from the 50s, 60s, and 70s... putonghua, Cantonese, or modified Wade-Giles (as is common in Taiwan)? Mainland mandarin-speaking actors who starred in HK films (e.g. Chen Yanyan)? and all sorts of permutations... <br><br>Now, I don't think we really need to decide on an ad hoc basis: there are lots of reference works, in English, that cover these films. Why should we have to make up naming conventions when they already exist? So, I propose that we figure out some clear and agreed upon way of connecting our decisions to _existing_ standards. <br><br>Also, there has to be a way of marking or listing names that have been "fixed" (even a viewable alphabetical name list of names fixed and decided upon, to which we can refer), so that someone's name doesn't get changed by one person working on one set of rules, only to be changed again by someone else who has a "better" idea of how to do it, only to be re-fixed... ad nauseam.<br><br>Shelly<br><br>

[shelly]

So, who removed "Chen Yanyan" as an English name, from the HKMDB?<br><br>Again, this is not helpful: to erase the work I've done, and not even leave a name alias? Who are you? Why are you doing this?<br><br>I've checked her name, again, in several reference works: "Yan Yan" doesn't even make any sense: it's not putonghua (extra space), it's not Wade-Giles (where's the hyphen?), it's not HKMDB/SCMP style...<br><br>If someone is going to undo other people's work, at least post here leaving a detailed list of what you've changed, especially what you have removed, so it can be reviewed.<br><br>Shelly<br><br>

[mpongpun]

Hmm. Beats me. Again, I've always seen her in movies as Chen Yan Yan. I guess the "-" would not be necessary in this DB, because it makes it hard to search under. But again, her other names should've been added as an alias. I will add Chen Yanyan as an alias. The only reason behind the spelling I can give for Chen Yan Yan, is that there are three Chi characters for each of the words of her name. Again, I could care less how the top line one's name is displayed, as long as the names I've known her as were aliased. <br><br>Silver Fox

[STSH]

Thanks for elucidating a few of the issues, Shelly. We should also consider something discussed months ago, which is making the coded phonetic transliterations directly searchable. Dave, any chance for this one in V2 ?<br><br>I'm puzzled about ChanYY. As previously clarified, I've manually updated most of the older names (but not the very recent ones, which I'm assuming Shelly has largely taken on ?). ChanYY clearly appeared originally as Chan Yin Yin, which is the generated phonetic. I knoew her only as that name, though I think beijingvideo referred to her as Chen Yan Yan. If I updated her to this one, it would have been at least six months ago, and I would have kept the canto phonetic as an alias.<br><br>Shelly, the list of possible conventions you wrote is pretty comprehensive, and it makes clear the scope of the problem of trying to cover several different systems in the one Db. But it has to be accomodated somehow. The Db is here to serve the interests of a number of different audiences. HK films fans all, of course, but there are segments of people who expect to access this Db in different ways. This must include<br>- Cantonese phonetic (which is not monolithic)<br>- Wade Giles<br>- Pin Yin etc<br>- English names<br>- other Mandarin phonetics (there seem to be quite a few of these, too !)<br><br>General Mandarin formats are a pain. As you say, they really should be xx yyzz or xx yy-zz rather than xx yy zz. But I remember a series of posts a few months ago when you pushed for the inclusion of hyphens and Dave pointed out the technical headaches, and he later said something about eventually wiping them out altogether. As far as putting the 2nd and 3rd names together without spaces, why not simply alias them with and without spaces ? It's a little extra work and a bit more storage, but not much. My concern with composing these names is that, for myself, all I have to work on are names from English-dubbed films (which are often very misleading) or the generated phonetics on this site. I have very little access to the authoritative works, so this would need to be largely up to others.<br><br>Finally though, relying on authoritative texts has severe limits (as does any single system, which is why we MUST cover several different systems). The main limit is that they tend to document only the well-know actors, and a few lesser ones which happen to be researched by particular talented enthusiasts (and the Lord bless them, amen !). And that leaves many many names which will need to be dealt with in more "straightforward" methods. And what is to be done where, as is not uncommon, there is significant disagreement among the authoritative sources ? This could leads to quite long lists of aliases. I don't see this as a bad thing. It just means a lot more work.