Bison Dele Forum

1. That is definitely a response from Admin. L8s don't have any reason to twist his words to you guys.

2. When searching for only part of a name, no matter the sport, the order is typically all first names that match or come close to matching (e.g. all the "William" cards when searching for "Williams"), then all last names that match, then aliases at the end of the list. When searching "Williams" on Basketball, Brian Williams does come up...as the 156th choice since it's an alias.

3. Anyone that changed their name during their career is usually listed with their most recent one. Chris Jackson is listed as Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Ron Artest is listed as Metta World Peace. Cassius Clay is listed as Muhammad Ali. Following that pattern, Williams is listed as Bison Dele.

Jon, I apologize - when you said that you found it difficult to believe that Admin would give that response, it sounded to me like you did not believe that I was accurately or honestly repeating what Admin had told me. 

As others have alluded to, utilizing the "Search" function, not the "Browse" function, will lead to the correct location. Browsing results will only bring up the active PID name, so you won't find "Brian Williams" that way. To use an earlier example, "Artest, Ron" will not appear under Browse either - it is not the active PID name. But when using "Search", the function will scan all entries in that categories - sets, teams, names, and aliases.

I can also see where this would be an issue; while we are discussing a different example, I also think of wrestling PIDs, where wrestlers can go by several different names in their career - Luke Gallows has 20 different aliases on his PID for auto-linking purposes, but only his full name (Luke Gallows") will appear when Browsing.

I would think that the justification for still not switching anything would be that one way or another, aliases won't show up in "Browse" - only active PID names. Whether the PID is Brian Williams or Bison Dele, someone is getting left out of finding their desired results under "Browse" (the person with the Bison Dele or Brian Williams card, respectively). The work-around, then, is making aliases searchable so that when the desired result isn't under Browse, the next step is to search for what you need and finding the result that way. 

Since one of the two names gets left out under Browse, I can see that being justification to keep it that way (whether you want to discuss the respect/disrespect issue is something I will leave to any others who choose to debate it). Bison Dele was his current legal name at the time of his death, and just as we have "active" PID names (my words, not the site), it makes sense that they are the "active" legal name of the individual.

Thank you, Jason. Your explanation and reasoning makes the best sense of any I have heard so far. 

I have always used Browse, and never Search, so it is clear now why I'm not always finding what I'm looking for. Now I have two options!