I'm pretty sure there was another topic about this exact issue. Perhaps another moderator can remember. I'll bump the topic back to the top.

I know that Justin Bartha, if I remember correctly) wasn't credited (and didn't appear) in the first two episodes. And Sarah Steele not in the first, I don't know if that changed, and that they are now always credited, but, that was it! It was decided to wait a few episodes to see if they were really gonna be series regulars.

They may not have appeared in every episode, but they are nonetheless series regulars and listed as such at the official homepage. But that's of course up to you guys.

Looks like they are now always credited in the main title since episode 2 and three.

@Imzadi said:

I several times added Justin Bartha and Sarah Steele as a regular cast member and they keep disappearing? Any reason why?

I just saw this thread today - was it private before the last 7 days?

Anyway: I saw that you added Marissa (Sarah Steele) and Colin (Justin Bartha) to the regular cast of the show several times a week ago. I know that CBS treats them as members of the regular cast in their press material on the website, but Marissa wasn't in episode 1 and Colin wasn't in episodes 1&2 - and they were not credited respectively. If we add them to the whole season, they will show up on every episode here on TMDb - and that isn't entirely correct for episodes 1&2. So I deleted both names and added them as guest stars to the other episodes in which they show up and are credited - but that's also not entirely correct, because they're not guest stars.

I had a longer conversation with some of the moderators here on TMDb about it und we "kind of" decided to wait until season 1 ends and then decide about it. Both ways are not entirely satisfactory right now, and the mods said maybe they can use the time to figure something out. I'm sorry that I deleted them without informing you, but I didn't know how to reach you?

By the way, if you can spot the correct spelling of Colin's last name - Morello or Mor*r*ello - within the show, point me in the direction! CBS uses both versions in their press material and it gets on my nerves. If we see his name somewhere in the show, we'll know for sure about the spelling.

Best wishes,

janar

"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page

Thank you for the explanation. CBS doesn't make it easy to decide this, I just think that a regular cast member doesn't necessarily need to be in every episode. Just look at Game of Thrones. It just would be nice to add then, but it also doesn't hurt to wait a bit longer.

@Imzadi said:

Thank you for the explanation.

I wish I'd seen your post/thread earlier ...

CBS doesn't make it easy to decide this, I just think that a regular cast member doesn't necessarily need to be in every episode. Just look at Game of Thrones.

Yes, CBS makes it very hard. But, to be honest, I think the bigger problem is the data model and display here at TMDb. The mere distinction between "regular cast" and "guest stars" is not at all sufficient and prone to lead to making mistakes by contributors, in my opinion. And for shows like TGF and TGW with a lot of actresses and actors recurring, it makes it very difficult to enter the data without compromises to reality.

TMDb is full of such mistakes and very inaccurately en detail. Just to give you an example - I don't watch "Game of Thrones", so I took a look as you suggested. I just looked up the cast of season 6 on the following page:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399-game-of-thrones/season/6

If you scroll down and click on the link "Show More", there are 68 "season regulars" for season 6 displayed on this page (and not a single member from the crew, by the way - this data isn't displayed at all). That means to me, as someone who doesn't watch the show, that all those 68 characters appeared in those 10 episodes regularly (whatever "regularly" means). Then I went to episode 1 to see the cast for the episode on the following page:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399-game-of-thrones/season/6/episode/1/cast

On this page, I see all those 68 "season regulars" again, followed by 27 "guest stars" for this specific episode in their own section, and 8 crew members for this episode (by the way, again, the regular members of the crew of the season/show are not displayed). But - if my count is correct - 12 of those 27 guest stars are already listed within the 68 season regulars (Ben Crompton, Michael McElhatton, Daniel Portman, Indira Varma, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Jessica Henwick, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Faye Marsay, Owen Teale, Hannah Waddingham, Brenock O'Connor, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson)! That's obviously wrong, but to fix this as a contributor, I have to decide which category (regular or guest) is correct? And how should I decide? Number of episodes the actress/actor appears in? Or the number the actress/actor was credited? Or the status HBO gives thoses characters in their press material? Or - any other?

I have no idea how to decide this, and it's obvious to me that the majority of contributors here on TMDb doesn't know either or doesn't really care about that. "Game of Thrones" is such a popular show, but the displayed data in this tiny example looks already like a big mess (if I look up shows that I love and that probably only a few people watch/know, the data contributions are much worse than this). I remember that Travis wrote that he still works on those pages and how the contributed data will be presented, though. That doesn't help to decide in which category you have to put an actress/actor, but it might get a bit easier to contribute correct data instead of those mistakes?

So, to come back to TGF: You "think that a regular cast member doesn't necessarily need to be in every episode". I don't think so; if s/he's not in all episodes, they're not part of the regular cast and they belong in the section of the guest stars per episode.

It just would be nice to add then, but it also doesn't hurt to wait a bit longer.

Well, I added them both to all the episodes they were in so far, so they already appear in the section of the guest stars per each episode. But that's only displayed when you go to the episodes and not on the first page at the moment - and they are not really guest stars. However, I actually think that's the correct way, because the data model doesn't allow me to make exceptions when season/series regulars are not in every episode and not credited for those episodes. Whatever we do, it's not possible to get right at the moment, I'm afraid ...

Best wishes,

janar

"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page

"If you scroll down and click on the link "Show More", there are 68 "season regulars" for season 6 displayed on this page (and not a single member from the crew, by the way - this data isn't displayed at all). That means to me, as someone who doesn't watch the show, that all those 68 characters appeared in those 10 episodes regularly (whatever "regularly" means). Then I went to episode 1 to see the cast for the episode on the following page:"

I think that might be done by someone who added everyone from a listing on IMDb to the regular cast or something. There's been issues before about not understanding that regular cast means here "people who are credited in the opening sequence", hehe. I'll see if I can fix that one.

// UPDATE: Fixed season 1 and 2 now (respectively 19 and 25 main cast members now).

A solution for the Game of Thrones mess would be to use a simply rule: if an actor/actress appears in less than half of the episodes of a season, he/she should be added as a guest star. That would bring down the total number of season regulars a bit. Still, it is the TV-series least suited to our current system due to the multiple story-lines. Even the top actors have only been in about 70 percent of all episodes (quick math in my head here).

@lineker it was an issue that recurring guest stars and guest stars (and maybe even co-stars?) where added as main cast, not just the ones credited in the openings sequence (wether they appear or not, that's never 60, haha)

I don't think we should make that a rule though, because they are still credited for that episode. Only if they're not being credited, and only credited in the opening sequence when they appear. (I then consider then special guest stars tbh)

I think we are on the same page here. Too many actors were added and I see you are fixing it as we speak.

Still, it would be great with a system where we could add them as season regulars only for the correct episodes. Now they get credit for too many episodes.

@alltimemarr Wow, you're always so fast in reading and writing! How do you do that?

You wrote:

I think that might be done by someone who added everyone from a listing on IMDb to the regular cast or something. There's been issues before about not understanding that regular cast means here "people who are credited in the opening sequence", hehe. I'll see if I can fix that one.

Yes, of course, that might be the case here. But I wonder if such mistakes in some cases are just a result of how the data is displayed here on TMDb? Meaning, if someone doesn't find a name of an actress/actor on the main page or the page of the season, s/he adds it there just to see the name upfront. When - in fact - the name is probably already contributed to the specific episode. Maybe this connection between those pages is something people have a hard time to recognize via the design/structure of the site? Perhaps, if you would display a certain number of top guest stars, it wouldn't happen - but that's just me loudly babbling and I didn't think this through ...

I think another point is that it's an effort to watch opening sequences for contributions. It's easier to take the data from somewhere else like IMDb, and they make a lot of mistakes, too. And, also, it's easier/faster to contribute a person as a regular to a show one single time than to put the name into every single episode - I think a lot of people do that, and it leads to mistakes. For me, it's actually pretty exhausting to figure out if someone is a regular or only there for an episode or two; and it's even harder when it comes to the crew members because of many unknown names ...

Anyway, have fun fixing this!

Best wishes,

janar

"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page

Yes, of course, that might be the case here. But I wonder if such mistakes in some cases are just a result of how the data is displayed here on TMDb? Meaning, if someone doesn't find a name of an actress/actor on the main page or the page of the season, s/he adds it there just to see the name upfront. When - in fact - the name is probably already contributed to the specific episode.

True, think it would help to have a note up there too with "Regular/main cast are the cast members credited in the opening sequence and/or at the start of the episode, and not as recurring/special/guest stars")

@lineker said:

Still, it would be great with a system where we could add them as season regulars only for the correct episodes. Now they get credit for too many episodes.

Yes, that would be the solution I would prefer! If this would be possible, the whole "problem" of deciding where to put Sarah Steele/Justin Bartha is gone.

Best wishes,

janar

"Love [...] is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being." - Ellen Page

Believe me I know what a mess the whole actor section can be. People add even animals or favorite couples as characters to thetvdb, because they want to vote on their favorite and sites like tvshowtime.com.