[Babase] Interpolation (MEMBERS) changes
Karl O. Pinc
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Mon, 04 Apr 2005 14:49:38 +0000
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