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Why won't "New York, USA" display as a birth location?
posted by genplant29STAFFMOD on November 10, 2018 at 2:48 PM
I've experienced this issue multiple times before, and have always just accepted it and moved on, though don't at all understand why it happens.
Let's use the following person page as the example: https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1171267-lewis-jacobs?language=en-US
Via the Social Security Death Index I a short time ago was able to determine that Mr. Jacobs was born somewhere in the state of New York. Could have been anywhere in that state. I twice attempted to save "New York, USA" as his birth location - and the screen does allow me to create and add that. It even shows in the editing history as having successfully saved, twice, as "New York, USA". However on Mr. Jacobs' TMDb overview page, it continues to show simply "USA". Why won't "New York, USA" display on his overview page? I don't want to select "New York City, New York, USA" or any other NYC-specific location option since I don't know where in the state of NY he was born.
As mentioned, this is an issue I've experienced multiple past times, when working on other TMDb person pages. Is this a bug, or was a past TMDb decision made to never permit "New York, USA" as a birth location option? If so, why isn't "New York, USA" considered a good/legitimate option?
PS: I've just now noticed, since posting the above message, that there is a "New York, United States" birth location drop-down option. Still, why that but not "New York, USA" when every/any other state's name in the US, followed by ", USA", is readily addable and displayable on TMDb? Too, that's the usual uniform way to present an American place name on TMDb, is to tidily, consistently follow the city/town and (or just) state name with ", USA", rather than sprawlingly spelling out ", United States".
Reply by lineker
on November 10, 2018 at 6:03 PM
There are a few mysterious bugs like this (yes, I don't believe it's an intentional block). Perhaps Travis can take a look to see why this is happening.
Hopefully we will eventually get some tools to be able to merge locations. There are several annoying dupes where a space gets added either at the beginning or the end of the location. And, of course, all the spelling variations (like the ones you point out) and no comma vs. comma variations and so forth. I think once we get to clean all that up we could tighten up the style rules a bit.
Reply by genplant29
on November 10, 2018 at 6:27 PM
Thanks for the response, lineker. I wholeheartedly agree that a tremendous number of locations need cleaning up.
What would be excellent is if something could be added that would automatically appear on every selectable location drop-down list, that would allow for a listed specific variation that's decidedly messy or otherwise not good to be clicked "Report" about, so it could be considered for elimination. There are so very many bad location listings, anything from, as you mentioned, dead space at the beginning or end of the line, or a blank space (or two) before a comma, or "U.S." (I've a time or two even seen "America") following a place name, or a town/city that doesn't have a comma between its name and the name of the state; we all encounter lots of those type listed options. Not to mention, every now and then there will be a place name that's outright misspelled or isn't capitalized.
Reply by Marr 🇳🇱
on November 11, 2018 at 5:24 PM
And websites of wiki/imdb overviews in the place of birth 🤔
Reply by genplant29
on November 11, 2018 at 6:03 PM
We definitely have some members who have bad creativity.
Reply by Travis Bell
on November 12, 2018 at 11:57 AM
Definitely a planned fix. Just need to get to it.