I have always been a little skeptical of using only the lookup tool as source for changing names.

Currently there is a contribution that changes "Howard E. Smith" to "Howard Smith" based solely on the results of the lookup tool. The problem I have with that is that there are lots of "Howard Smith". IMDB (yes, I know...) lists 18 Howard Smith, plus Howard A. Smith, Howard E. Smith and Howard P. Smith.

I don't know exactly how the lookup tool works, but surely it can't be a reliable source when there are so many other Howard Smith out there?

I believe the discussion resulted in a "Don't rely solely on the Look-Up Tool" as it is based on the contents of the online database. Which means if the online is incorrectly assigned actors then so is the look up tool. So like Kevin Coed post I would say source from other to confirm.

Steve

The more interesting problem will be, if a determination can be made that Howard E. Smith did indeed sometimes get credited as Howard Smith, then we are forced to use the common name tool to determine base name.  If there truly are many individual Howard Smith's, then it would be difficult for that NOT to be the common name....for every last one of them.  It would obviously be the most prolific of the possible name variants.  Not particularly useful.

Quoting Kevin Coed:

Quote:
In which case birth years would need to be established first.

I agree that's what the rules would have us do.  However, when there are these middle initial variants, wouldn't it make more sense to establish that as the common name, therefore reducing the need for BY?

Just my opinion, but given how often I've had to clean up Harrison Ford in my local database due to BY sillyness, this other approach seems much more sensible to me.