Quoting Ken Cole:

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Unfortunately we receive a great number of contributions which include cast/crew and yet do not indicate the source, which have to be declined.  This field is designed to prevent that issue.

If the main contribution notes contain "cast", "crew", or "credits", then this field can be left blank.

It's still annoying. For example I contributed today a BY, so then you don't use any of those "keywords".
There must be some other solution, that doesn't affect us serious contributors.
You're going to receive a lot of "see notes" in that field. At least from me. I'm just glad my browser has the ability to remember form data, so I just click in that field to get the text and don't have to type it...
When mass contributing, you copy and paste data so I wouldn't want to have to copy and paste that text as well.
Still, things can go wrong if you're so quick that you miss that field, or whatever may occur.

Anyway, like someone here already pointed out, if you want to contribute 3rd party data which isn't verified or even accurate, this isn't a way to keep that from happening.

So maybe we could discuss what counter-measure would be effective?

Maybe it's possible to eliminate/hide the field for "Star Contributors", and only show it to those that aren't "Star Contributors" (yet)? Surely, the "Star Contributors" know how to document their cast/crew data already. It's the new(er) contributors this seems to be aimed at - so why not just show it to only them?

Quoting T!M:

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Maybe it's possible to eliminate/hide the field for "Star Contributors", and only show it to those that aren't "Star Contributors" (yet)? Surely, the "Star Contributors" know how to document their cast/crew data already. It's the new(er) contributors this seems to be aimed at - so why not just show it to only them?

Non-"Star Contributors" aren't just new members, I say keep it for everyone and just ignore the field if you don't want to use it.

Quoting AiAustria:

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Quoting rdodolak:

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Non-"Star Contributors" aren't just new members, I say keep it for everyone and just ignore the field if you don't want to use it.

It is not about non-star contributors being newbies, but about star contributors being familiar with contributing and therefore with documenting their contributions. Many of them have prepared templates for the contribution notes (I don't say that I think all of these templates are sufficient from my point of view), which are copied and pasted into the contribution notes field. An additional field breaks up this mechanisms. And most important of all: the entered information is already included in the template.

Leaving the field empty for star-contributors is similar to the already established approach that the notes can be empty if some key-words are included in the contribution notes. I for myself will alter the templates and be happy.

But I still can't see the improvement - see my second post in this thread...

But non-star contributors can also be familiar with contributing and the rules, such as myself, although we may not contribute as frequently as star contributors.  I don't think it's fair to equate "non-star contributors" to "[not] being familiar with contributing and therefore with documenting their contributions".

My understanding per Ken's previous post was that field is currently optional for all users as long as the source of the cast/crew data is mentioned in the overall contribution notes.  This seems to be an additional mechanism to help users ensure they give the contribution notes a second thought to ensure the cast/crew data is properly documented.  Since this change was implemented, I've used both the new field and the original contribution field to mention the source of the cast/crew data.  In all cases, I haven't had an issue with the contribution getting approved.

Quoting Ken Cole:

Quote:
If the main contribution notes contain "cast", "crew", or "credits", then this field can be left blank.

For new alternate ID entries, the second field has to be filled, even if the word credits is in the first field.