You know how you can use the "replace" option with studios, to replace all instances of one studio with another.

I think it would be awesome to have something like this option for cast & crew members.

Say a new common name is found for someone.  Instead of having to individually change all the profiles, you could go to one of them and use this option to replace all instances of them.  It would have to preserve the current entered name in the 'credited as' field of course.

The idea would be something like this:  say there's an actor named John Bob Doe, who's also credited as John Doe.  Once the common name is figured out - for our example, John Bob Doe - you could use this option to change all occurrences of John Doe to John Bob Doe [John Doe].

I have no clue if this is even workable in a programming sense, but I think it would be cool if it could be.

Agree that similar names do not make the same actor.  But for people we know are the same I think it would really be good. 

Using a real example this time, one whose common name I determined:  Gabby Hayes / George "Gabby" Hayes / George 'Gabby' Hayes.  If the program had an option like this and a user had lots of old westerns in their collection, after the common name had been determined they could go to the cast list and use the option to replace all of the Gabby Hayes and George 'Gabby' Hayes credits in their database with George "Gabby" Hayes, without having to go to each individual profile.  It would save so much time!

Sure, they'd still have to document for submission, or point to the documentation (the common name thread for whichever cast/crew member).  I'm just thinking of time saved in the local. 

(I thought of this idea when I found I had two entries for John Cleese, one with a BY that a quick check showed to be unneeded.  If I'd had this option I could have changed all the ones with the unneeded BY to the one without the BY in one fell swoop.)

But documentation will be a problem for you no matter how things are changed in an individual's local, whether with the current way of changing each profile individually, or with an option to change all profiles in the local at once. 

If something like this was implemented it would change nothing toward documentation, or lack thereof, in the online submission process from what is current.

It sounds reasonabledogg and so does cass basic premise.Let me play around and see what i think, I'll get back to you.

  to Danae Cassandra and mediadogg for their constructive ideas.
Charlie has a point which I think needs to be taken into account.