Forum:Proposed change to name/date convention so as to eliminate the question-mark

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Proposed change to name/date convention so as to eliminate the question-mark

Pages are called Given_name Surname (Year_of_Birth-Year_of_Death). In case YoB or YoD is unknown, it is replaced with a question mark (?). Question marks are not very informative and they cause problems with forms (as they are a reserved character in the user interface).

It would be good to replace the question marks with something else. rtol 07:25, April 13, 2010 (UTC)

Robin's proposal

1. Birth year unknown: do an estimate (using "c"). Make it the same as spouse birth year if any unless there's contrary indication such as parent or child birth year; if none, make a stab at it. If we later find we have a duplicate, we can fix one or other to distinguish. Better than a question-mark, which would be more likely to create a duplicate and has its own problems. Even a fairly wrong estimate doesn't actually matter, because we don't take date from pagenames as a rule.
2. Death year unknown: omit hyphen and question-mark entirely, just as we do for people known to be still living. Do an estimate if you think you're within a few years but otherwise nothing.
3. Both unknown: do just the birth year estimate as above.

Do it gradually as pages come up for edit. Move existing pages; change redlinks on sight.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:57, April 12, 2010 (UTC)

Rtol's proposal

1. Birth year unknown: do an estimate (using "c") -- Birth years can be estimated from the age of the parents, siblings, children and spouse, and from the time of death. Record the reasoning in Birth_date_notes.
2. Death year unknown: do an estimate (using "c") -- Death years can be estimated from birth year, wedding year, and birth years of children. Record the reasoning in Death_date_notes.

It does not make sense to me to come up with a rigid procedure on estimating birth and death years, as circumstances vary and we have little experience with what works best.

We should, however, provide some guidance. SMW allows us to calculate such things as the average age of the mother at birth (in case the birth year of the mother is known), the average age at the first marriage (in case the wedding year is known), and the average life span (in case the death year is known). I've made a start here. rtol 07:25, April 13, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the second and third paragraphs, but I doubt if we should encourage estimates of death dates, because:

• There's a wider range even if we do have another life fact to go on
• If someone finds a better estimate, there will be page moves: not a big problem, but can get messy, especially if (because of the wider range) a third estimate is made

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:06, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

Comments

I don't know if I am invited to this conversation, since I'm not an admin...but...I think estimating is a really bad idea. I read the c#### as a 'close' estimate. Say, within a year or two..five at the outside. Say I was looking for a person whom I knew was born in 1854 but knew nothing else about them. The circa could be off by decades and I might not follow up on a 1873 death record because information here could be entered as c1900 just to fill the box.

I guess what I'm saying is that people might use information from here as 'fact' and build their plan of research off of it. If people start estimating without sources (based on average life spans and whatnot) we could send people off in the wrong direction. I wouldn't want to be reading microfilm for hours based on an average or uneducated estimate.

I would prefer that some way be found to note that the date is unavailable. I like the bef. and aft. abbreviations, but a common replacement for the question mark would be useful for places where even that is lacking. Perhaps a 'U' or a different symbol? Ideally, the question mark would be 'made' to work, somehow. (I know - you've probably already tried to make it work, but it's just so perfect!)

Anyhow, that's my two cents, Lanica 20:15, April 15, 2010 (UTC)