Guest Appearences Submission Guide

The Guest Appearances section includes information about guest roles in television series. Note that to be eligible for acceptance to the guest appearance section, a person must have appeared in at least one feature film or tv series (as a full time cast member).

If this is not the case, the only way to get them accepted is to research their past and submit any appearances in movies/tv first. Guest roles can only be added to an already existing filmography, so the person must have at least one other non-guest credit.

The web interface provides a very easy to use and convenient interface to the IMDb additions system. Please click the button labelled "Update" near the bottom of every IMDb name/title page to access that interface. This page describes how to update guest appearance information directly via e-mail; it also provides an explanation for the formats generated by the web updates system.

We recommend all contributors use the web based update system and avoid the complexities of the direct email interface described below.

Character Set

When sending e-mail you must use either the ASCII or ISO-8859-1 character set depending on what data you wish to submit. If the data has accented characters such as äöñàé... you must use the ISO-8859-1 character set. ISO data MUST be MIME compatible, encoded using 'quoted printable' notation. This is usually a setting in your mailer; if in doubt contact your local user support services.

Please do not submit 8bit data since many mail systems still drop these characters silently and submissions will end up corrupted.

Additions

1. mark the start of a block of actor additions with the keyword:
   

   GUEST

2. for each addition, include on a separate line an entry of the form:
   
   name|title|character name|attributes|episode title|original air date|episode number
   where:

   name is the actors name in surname, first name(s) order.

   title is the title TV-series in which the actor appeared. Note that regular on-going appearances are not eligible, they should be recorded under the ACTOR, or ACTRESS, sections; this section is for one-off, or special occasional, guest appearences in a TV-series.

   character name is the character name of the actor. Do not include descriptive text about the character, simply the name of the character. If unknown, leave the section empty.

   attributes records any special notes but in most cases will be empty. Example attributes include:

       (voice)      = only a voice contribution (eg for cartoons)
       (uncredited) = no on-screen credit given
       (as ....)    = credited under a different name
   

   episode title The title of the episode. If unknown, leave empty, do not use descriptive text as a substitute for the actual title.

   original air date The date the episode was aired in the country that produces the show. The format for air-dates is m/d/yyyy, eg.

       11/21/1997
       5/1993
       1991
   

   Any non-conformant air-dates will be rejected.

   episode number The episode number of the episode. If unknown, leave the field empty. The format for the episode number is either season.episode or, if the show didn't run in seasons, simply use episode.

   Pilot Episodes are treated specially. A pilot episode is assigned the episode number 1.0. The first show after the pilot is always 1.1 or 1 (for continuous shows).

   Notes:
   • Apart from the name and title all these fields are optional, but please leave the "|" separator for any blank fields, otherwise the some of the data may be lost.
   
   
   
   • The name and title must already be known to the system or the entry will be rejected.
     
     
   • If the actor is not listed in the credits please include an (uncredited) attribute.
   
   
   
   • If the show is a cartoon, please include a (voice) attribute.
   
   
   
   • Please only credit individual names. For example, if all the members of a particular rock group appeared in a show then include them under their individual names and not the name of the whole group.
   
   
   
   • If a person appears as themselves on a show, list their character name as himself or herself, not Guest, Host, etc.
     
     
   • If a entry is too long to fit on one line and you wish to split it across multiple lines you must place a continution marker as the very last character on a line. The marker is the \ character. The additions interface will then reconstruct the line for you - without such markers data will be corrupt and therefore rejected.

   Examples:

   GUEST
   Long, Shelley|"Frasier" (1993)|Diane Chambers||Diane|2/13/1996|3.14|
   Grammer, Kelsey|"Simpsons, The" (1989)|Sideshow Bob|(voice)|Brother|2/23/1997|8.16|
   

   Wrapped line example:

   GUEST
   De Jesus, Wanda|"Spider-Man" (1995)|Dr. Silvia Lopez|\
   (voice)|Spot, The|1996||
   

   Note: Without the continuation marker the above will be rejected.



3. Mark the end of your data with the word:

   END

   on a separate line.

4. Mail the data to adds@imdb.com. The mail-server will mail a receipt back to you and place the data in the queue for processing by the list managers in the next update.

Deletions

GUEST
!name|title|character name|attributes|episode title|original air date

For example:

GUEST
!Duffy, Patrick|"Jeopardy!" (1964)|

Note: Not every field must be supplied but you must submit sufficient information that the correct guest appearence to be deleted can be determined, otherwise the request will be ignored.

Corrections

1. Correcting a name across the whole database.
   If you spot a spelling error in a name in the database, use the keyword:

   NAMECORRECT

   and the format:

   current name|correct name

   For example:

   NAMECORRECT
   Bogart, Humphry|Bogart, Humphrey|
   

2. Correcting a name specific to the actors database.
   If you spot a spelling error in a name specific to actors database, use the keyword:

   NAMECORRECT-ACTOR

   and the format:

   current name|correct name

   For example:

   NAMECORRECT-ACTOR
   Bogart, Humphry|Bogart, Humphrey|
   

3. Replacing an individual entry
   Replacements can be made by deleting the incorrect entry and adding the correct version. For example:

   GUEST
   !Tarantino, Quentin|"Simpsons, The" (1989)|Mr. Magenta|
   Tanatino, Quentin|"Simpsons, The" (1989)|Mr. Magenta|(voice)|
   

4. Other corrections
   Finally, if your correction cannot be expressed in the forms above, use the keyword:

   CORRECT-GUEST

   and then include a description of your correction in a free text over as many lines as you need.