Registration autocorrects to first-cap names (without existing license)

1 votes

Or would this be too tricky, because of parts of names that aren't universally first capitalized, like van der da etc...

Seeing a bad number of registrations with all-lowercase names... autofill or lazy typing?

Not planned Suggested by: N6ATF (25 Jan, '21) • Upvoted: 25 Jan, '21 • Comments: 11

Comments: 11

25 Jan, '21
Cory NQ1E
I've found that a good way to approach this programmatically is to test if the name is all uppercase or all lowercase and only then change it to title case. That way, if a name is already mixed case, you can assume they did it correctly and leave it as is.
25 Jan, '21
N6ATF
How would you deal programmatically with entries I've been seeing like jane Doe or John doe, though? :-p
25 Jan, '21
Cory NQ1E
I apply that logic to each separate word, so it would have fixed the examples you gave.
25 Jan, '21
Nick n1cck
Of course, this brings up the serious question of “is it up to us to “fix” case issues for the applicant without warning / telling them first? I leave them and submit as the applicant typed it unless they indicate otherwise. If someone wants JoHn dOe, who cares?
25 Jan, '21
Cory NQ1E
Personally, I would always give the applicant the ability to have the final say. Unfortunately, one of the major VEC forces every applicant to use all caps, regardless of what was entered. :(
25 Jan, '21
Heather KM6ZQB
We should probably ask how they prefer their name. The upper lower case may be making a statement of some sort. ;)
26 Jan, '21
N2YGN
We already ask them how they prefer it by letting them enter mixed case and not enforcing a standard on them. Maybe we should not fix what's not broken. WHICH MAJOR VEC DEMANDS ALL CAPS? Are the VEs going around editing every candidate in examtools to comply with that?
26 Jan, '21
n2ygk
Alphabetic case does not matter in any of the processes. Names are matched irrespective of case.

e.e. cummings would have a problem with your proposal to initial-caps words in his name:-)
26 Jan, '21
Kent Petty
While we will certainly review Section I of the form 605 with and for the applicant, we always remember that Section I of the 605 is the "applicant's" section...THEY sign section one and are ultimately responsible for the format and contents within Section I.

Again, this being said, we certainly review it to make sure it has the necessary info to file.
26 Jan, '21
Richard Bateman Admin
I'm not going to do this one -- it's the applicant's responsibility and their problem if the capitalization is weird. Anything I add automatic may mess things up in other cases.
31 Jan, '21
Nick AA0NM
I agree with Richard - I don't change it, its their responsibility