The first time a creator is encountered, their username on the source site being submitted is used as their "name"
A previously-unknown source is assumed to be the same entity as an existing creator if their username matches an existing creator's name
So, if a mini by a Thingiverse user called "dutchmogul" is submitted, then we add a Creator whose Name is "dutchmogul". If a Patreon user called "dutchmogul" is later added, then we assume that this is the same Creator. If a Patreon user called "illgottengames" is added, then we assume that this is a different Creator.
Proposed:
There should be a moderator tool for merging Creators with different usernames into one Creator record
There should be a moderator tool to change a Creator's primary Name by selecting from one of the various sources they appear on, or (possibly) by directly typing in an override.
There should be a moderator tool for splitting a single Creator into multiple records, and choosing which of the known sources belong to which, in order to resolve incorrect merges.
Looks like we've got some creators that have the same name with differing capitalisation. This feature would let us clean that up, but some smarter automatic matching would help too.
Currently:
So, if a mini by a Thingiverse user called "dutchmogul" is submitted, then we add a Creator whose Name is "dutchmogul". If a Patreon user called "dutchmogul" is later added, then we assume that this is the same Creator. If a Patreon user called "illgottengames" is added, then we assume that this is a different Creator.
Proposed: