[Babase] Interpolation (MEMBERS) changes
Catherine Markham
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Mon, 04 Apr 2005 10:28:49 -0400
My concern wasn't so much about the group associated with the members
row, but rather the date. The fact that the group would be "unknown" is
fine by me, but it seemed misleading to automatically have that date
pulled into members in cases where the the birth status is a rough
estimate .
Anyway, just my two cents on a relatively minor point. With regard to
the bigger picture, I think the other changes Karl mentioned to the
members table sound good.
Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>
> On 04/04/2005 08:14:36 AM, Catherine Markham wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> If you're making changes to the members table, the only thing that
>> comes to mind right off is whether or not it makes sense to have
>> birth act as a "census" in members if the bstatus is not 0. There
>> were a couple messages about this on the listserv last month ending
>> with Karl's response below:
>>
>> "Of course it's simplist for the computer if it treats all
>> birthdates the same way, and in some sense easiest to understand for
>> the rest of us. But this is really a science question so I leave it
>> to the scientists. Regardless, I would think that estimated
>> bithdates would affect the interpolation of any subsequent censuses
>> within the next 27 days. (Interpolation goes up to/down from
>> 'halfway' to the next/ prior census, unless halfway is longer than 14
>> days.) If we want to consider estimated birthdates as "different" we
>> should figure things out face to face."
>>
>> Still hold off on discussing this till later? Does it even seem
>> like an issue to folks who have been working with the database longer?
>
>
> We may still want to talk about the fuzzyness of birth estimates
> but I'm going ahead anyway as the result
> of my conversation with Susan was that we really do know what group
> the individual was born into (even if that's 'unknown') so it makes
> sense to put _something_ in MEMBERS.
>
> Karl <kop@meme.com>
> Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
>
>
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--
Catherine Markham
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Princeton University
Phone: (609) 258-6898
Fax: (609) 258-2712