General Forum

Should a band name be listed as a PID, or sent to admin as a TID (Team).

I just added PID's for Roy Hay, Jon Moss, and Mikey Craig, all members of the band 'Culture Club'.  Thing is, Culture Club is listed as an alias for Boy George (who was the lead singer), so has me wondering how bands get added (as I just uploaded checklists for a few years of Panini's 'Smash Hits' and there are a bunch of bands to add)..

The band name should be a TID.

Culture Club being listed as an alias for Boy George makes no sense at all.

Perhaps Jon Bon Jovi aka Bon Jovi makes sense. 

Non-sport category doesn't have TIDs.

Admin can put them in if he chooses. 

Personally, I don't believe a band should get a PID. P in PID stands for person, and a band is not a person.  A solo musician using an alias would though. Example being MC Hammer in the Pro Set music sets. 

I actually had asked Admin about this several years ago. This is official word:

Absolutely NO to using TIDs for band names.

Yes, bands can have a PID, as well as each of the members having PIDs. In some cases, cards may depict one or more members of a band. If, for instance, let's use Queen as the example, John Deacon (bass) is the only one shown on the card:

This CAN get both Queen PID and John Deacon PID linked to the card. (This particualr example only has John Deacon linked.)

I checked my old e-mails - here is my question and Admin's answer (Admin's answer in bold):

• Music groups (do we PID "Queen", or do we PID the 4 members "Freddie Mercury", "Brian May", "John Deacon", and "Roger Taylor" and any time Queen is on a card, tag all 4 individuals? Same for like Hall & Oates?) - PID for the band itself, PID for each member if the member has solo cards, link both

I spend a good bit of time working on Nonsport, and this is a rare issue where Billy and I disagree. There are many PIDs for non-person entries, such as stadiums, racehorses, ships, and cartoon characters, so I view a PID as referring to an identifiable entity instead of limiting it to a "person." I do note that most of those are individuals rather than groups, but I don't think it benefits anyone not to have a simple way to link all the cards for a band together, and for the obviously lesser known groups with only a few cards I don't see using a PID as improper. I can see the logic of a TID (or maybe BID is a better term) for a musical group, but bands present an interesting question due to the varying degree of recognizability of their members. I think most people would have little difficulty identifying the members of the Beatles, and I can easily see how a given collector might be interested in cards showing John Lennon and not those of Ringo or vice versa, so just using the collective PID/BID "Beatles" without linking cards to the individuals might not be ideal. But what about cards that refer to the group but might not picture all the members, say a card in a hypothetical events of the 60's set for the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show that only shows John and Paul? Is it "right" to link that only to those two members instead of the rest? And what about cards that refer to lesser known bands, such as Blur, East 17, Parmalee, or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, or bands with changing membership over time? Just using PIDs for the band members without the group name does not seem like to best way to set things up, and, conversely, a Beatles collector might not be interested in Paul's cards from Wings. I like the TID/BID idea as a way to link to the individual as well as the group, but that currently reqires Admin's involvement each time, which I see as inefficient. Until/unless it gets added as a user-entered field, I favor using PIDs for bands as well as their members, and linking cards to both as appropriate.

HutNut - what you describe is a great alternative, however, I also ask if we were to implement the TID/BID concept, how many sets would this actually affect? (This was the point Admin brought up when we were seeking solutions to the stickers/sticker back dilemma. He didn't want to have to add code for about a dozen sticker sets.)

So, working within the confines of the system as it is, we have exactly what Admin told me more than 2 years ago - give the band a PID, give the individuals PIDS, and link them as appropriate. It's a shot of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show? And it only shows George and Ringo? 3 links. Shows all 4? 5 links.

Ok, so its how I thought it should be, the band should be a separate PID...   i fixed the Boy George / Culture Club one, and am linking the individual band members to the Culture Club PID...   Believe it or not, I do know quite a few people that follow obscure 80's band members that most people wouldnt know without the band they are associated with :)

I haven't researched it, but it clearly would be a small number of sets. I'm fine with using a PID for bands and double linking the members, but just a quick look at the entries for the Beatles (120 cards) and John Lennon (311 cards) suggests we're not doing that consistently now.

I don't think that's what Dan is saying.  You link Boy George to the Boy George PID and you link Culture Club to the Culture Club PID. You don't link Boy George to the Culture Club PID.