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Quoting Giga Wizard:

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He is credited many times as Ken Campbell, both Ken Campbell are crosslinked, you can only undo this be year of birth, for as far I understand the crosslinking.

Then I'm afraid you don't understand it correctly. Theoretically, the problem can be handled in two ways:

1. Use "Ken Campbell" as common name for both of them - then indeed we need the birth years to keep them separated.

2. Use "Ken Campbell" as common name for one of them, and "Ken Hudson Campbell" as common name for the other. No birth years would then be necessary: a "Ken Hudson Campbell [Ken Campbell]" credit would not link with a "Ken Campbell" credit.

So there ARE two options. It all depends on what the "most-credited form" for Ken(neth) (Hudson) Campbell is, and I thought we were still busy trying to establish that. If he, too, is mostly credited as "Ken Campbell", then we have no choice but to use option #1. But if a few more "Ken Hudson Campbell" credits can be found, option #2 would be the way to go.

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Quoting Unicus69:

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My understanding, from what I have seen Ken say, is that the preferred method is option #2.  The BY is to be used only as a last resort.  I could, of course, be remembering this wrong. 

Option 2 can only be used if their "Common Names" are different according to the CLT.

If both have common names, based on "Credited As" data, of 'Ken Campbell', then you cannot "create" a "Common Name" of 'Ken(neth) (Hudson) Campbell.  You would still have to use BY's.

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Quoting T!M:

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Quoting hal9g:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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My understanding, from what I have seen Ken say, is that the preferred method is option #2.  The BY is to be used only as a last resort.  I could, of course, be remembering this wrong. 

Option 2 can only be used if their "Common Names" are different according to the CLT.

If both have common names, based on "Credited As" data, of 'Ken Campbell', then you cannot "create" a "Common Name" of 'Ken(neth) (Hudson) Campbell.  You would still have to use BY's.

I too remember when birth years were supposed to be a "last resort", but I believe that the "use the most-credited form" principle has trumped that. So if Ken(neth) (Hudson) Campbell turns out to be mostly credited as "Ken Campbell", that's what I believe we have to use. Please share your credits for this guy here, so we can determine what variant he's mostly credited as.

The problem with this is that the 'common name' is not set in stone, and what's most common today may not be next month.  I've already ran into this problem, and had to adjust a couple of credits to use a new 'common name'.

I don't understand what the phobia is about using documented BYs.

I would also like to see the database establish 'common names' that don't change.

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Quoting scotthm:

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What was the reason for generally disallowing BY?  I don't think using them for everyone would make things any more difficult than they already are.

Birth year data is generally unreliable.  The only reason for adding it into Profiler in the first place was to provide a means for differentiating between two persons with identical names. And this was done so that a user could link link all the titles which include that individual.  It was used as a last resort means of uniquely identifying a person when that person's name (common name) wasn't unique.  BY data is difficult to determine accurately, however, and if BY were allowed for everyone it would open the door to frequent ping-pong changes made by people who disagreed with the BY shown.  Not to mention the fact BY often cannot be determined.