The Movie Database Support
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Why lock a Chinese character's name with English name?
posted by 白鸽男孩STAFFMOD on January 30, 2019 at 7:24 AM
it's ok for display the English name of Chinese Character in English (default) tab, however I've translated it in Chinese tab with Chinese name, why the hell do you lock it back to English name even in Chinese tab, for example, the Zhang Guoli Zhang Guoli who's Chinese name actually is 张国立 and I just want it display the Chinese Character in Chinese translated web, why the hell someone modified back to English name and lock it?
Or do you website totally don't allow display the character's name other than English name? So that means the translated function is actually fake one and my work is in vain?
Reply by 白鸽男孩
on January 30, 2019 at 7:44 AM
What's more, if display a Chinese character's Chinese name in Chinese translated web is disallowed, why display a Chinese Movie/TV's Chinese name in Chinese translated web is actually allowed? Do you mean your site has double standard between Movie/TV name and Character name? I could not understand it.
Reply by genplant29
on January 30, 2019 at 12:43 PM
Hi, bimzcy.
In the TMDb Contribution Bible https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/movie/59f3b16d9251414f20000003#59f73ca39251416e7100000d, one of the stated rules is:
Characters
Non-English TV/movies:
Names have to be readable in English (i.e. romanized). Descriptive names (e.g. Cop 1) and titles (e.g. Mr. Müller, Dr. Müller) should be in English.
Reply by Samara
on January 30, 2019 at 1:40 PM
@bimzcy you've got a message about your changes
Reply by 白鸽男孩
on January 30, 2019 at 2:08 PM
I see maybe the rule is in your bible for many years, but nothing is fixed in the world. My real question is this:
①In language preferences if I select default language to en-US, no matter I use English word (for example 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon') or Chinese word ('卧虎藏龙') to search a movie, the result is always the English title Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; On the contrary, if I select default language to Chinese (zh-cn), no matter which language I use to search, the result is always the Chinese title 卧虎藏龙, and both Chinese user and English user would not disturb each other, it's really amazing due to the power of translate function.
②So why not apply the rule in people name system as well besides the movie title system? Thus the user whose default language set to English could always modify, search and display the English name, and the user whose default language set to Chinese could always modify, search and display the Chinese, they should not disturb each other like movie title as well.
Reply by Rebecca
on January 30, 2019 at 4:29 PM
The movie title rule doesn't apply to the people name field because the people name field is not localized for translations yet.
Reply by Banana
on January 30, 2019 at 8:16 PM
Notice how, on people profiles, only the "Biography" field is marked as a translatable field:
The other fields (Name, Place of Birth, Homepage) are not localized at this time. Most translated fields are similarly marked e.g. Translated Title (English), Translated Tagline (English), Translated Overview (English), and Translated Name (English). I believe the only fields who are translated but not marked as such are the movie runtime and homepage fields.
Well, it's easier said than done. Travis is constantly improving the database and probably works a lot harder than the average person, but he's still no superhuman. And there is most likely a very long list of new features and features improvement that are higher priority.
Reply by 白鸽男孩
on January 31, 2019 at 12:44 AM
I see, best wishes for TheMovieDB, can't help seeing the site be better and better :-)
Reply by talestalker
on January 31, 2019 at 7:33 AM
As a fresh non-English contributor to TMDB I need to say that the ability to use localised transcription for people names and the ability to translate cast roles is on the top of my wishlist as it is the only problem marring my experience with TMDB. It is hard for English users to imagine how painful it must be e.g. for Russian contributors to transcribe all their names to English, or for any non-English contributor to see their niche local movies/TV show cast being randomly and half-way translated to English :-(.
Reply by talestalker
on February 8, 2019 at 3:51 AM
Just one last note, thanks to Travis Bell, there are now tickets for translated character and person names, which can be voted up! Thank you!