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anonym
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 266 |
Merging duplicate entries
Hi guys,
there's some duplicate entries in the database. For example Offence has got an ex-member called Pal and an active member called Rooster, but both are the same person.
Could we maybe merge those two somehow so no information would be lost (as opposed to deleting one of them)? And then again, this is just an example, I am pretty sure that there are more of those.
/Frank
PS: Keep the great work up! |
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Mermaid
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 338 |
In the case of Pal (Rooster), this morning I took the liberty of copying most of the information from the newest entry over to the oldest entry and then deleting the newest entry.
I found a couple of these double entries yesterday too, and merged them manually.
People: Make sure to fill out the AKA field with older/alternative handles for people if you know them, so they turn up when you search for them using an old handle.
That lowers the risk of someone adding a scener who is already listed in the database.
I don't think the "handlestory" or "trivia" fields are searched, so fill in the AKA field with that info.
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Celtic
Administrator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 807 |
There a bunch of these duplicate entries.. i know since i come around here pretty often, for example commander has made 4 or 5 entries of himself with all his different handles (so commander please merge yourself too)... anyways, congrats mermaid for your great work on the csdb lately!!! and people please don't make duplicate entries...
if i wanna enter someone new
i always do this:
1. search for the handle i know of...
2. search for former handles
3. search for the real name of the person
if you are possible to do all this, you are sure that there will be no double entries.. especially when you enter someone you fill out the same information...
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
Quote: There a bunch of these duplicate entries.. i know since i come around here pretty often, for example commander has made 4 or 5 entries of himself with all his different handles (so commander please merge yourself too)... anyways, congrats mermaid for your great work on the csdb lately!!! and people please don't make duplicate entries...
if i wanna enter someone new
i always do this:
1. search for the handle i know of...
2. search for former handles
3. search for the real name of the person
if you are possible to do all this, you are sure that there will be no double entries.. especially when you enter someone you fill out the same information...
I still think that former handles can be mentioned separately, sometimes a whole different scene history happened under one of the other handles... In my case, it is like that. How can people find someone in a certain group, when that same person has been (is) in another group with another handle (maybe even with some different functions, older sceners know what I mean) and isn't mentioned in the list of one of these groups...?
Some people don't want some things to be merged, so they can show the people the different histories in an easy way.
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
And don't forget, if you merge different handles (but all from the same person), then you delete them from group-lists in the database (because you won't see some former handles in some grouplists, info which gets lost forever!).
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1677 |
I'll try to spread a little light over this topic! :)
About merging:
If you find two (or more) entries that are the same you can either merge it manually (like Mermaid) or if you find a lot of doubles you can mail them to me and I'll merge them with my special CSDb-merging-tool. :)
Just state the id's of the entries to be merged, and which one of thoose id's to be the master record. (The one the information is collected into)
About multiple handles:
All from the begining of designing CSDb we were aware that some sceners have more than one handle so our database design does actually support that!!!
That means that any given person (the persons real name, address etc) can be asociated with multiple scener-handles which each can have their own assignments to releases (credits) and groups (members), etc.
When original creating CSDb we couldn't figure out a way to easily and logically add this feature to the edit-pages so that one could edit this information, but I can see that it is in fact a problem that this feature is missing, so I'll look into it now.
Have patiense!! :)
/Perff |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Perff,
first of all once again my compliments for setting this up, but certain problems you describe here make me wonder if anybody in your team has any experience with database-design?
Because, like the problem with voting that was discussed in another thread (not being able to see what your previous vote for a person etc. was), this is something which could have been prevented quite easily I think.
A good model is the foundation of all databases, if you want I can take a look at your someday (I'll have to have a description/dump then ofcourse). |
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1677 |
I have now made the initial code so you can add multiple handles to the same scener. More coding still awaits, but it works now so go ahead! :)
It works this way:
When you enter the edit page of a scener the 'main-handle' will be at the top as always, but below where you add groups of which this scener is/was member you can now also add 'old handles'
Thees handles will be atached to all the information above (real name, address, phone, email etcetc) but not the relative information below like memberships, credits etc.
The only way (for now) to make one of theese 'old handles' a member of a group is to do it from the groups edit-page and the same for credits - go to the releases edit-page.
Hope this will solve some problems! :)
/Perff |
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Celtic
Administrator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 807 |
and to all others, this way you could merge your handles... (hint commander :) )
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Jayce
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 39 |
With the risc of sounding like a mr knowitall, but is the HANDLE of a person the primary key in your scener database?
Because if so, i think that's not a good idea. Handles can change, multiple handles do occur, if you took for example a combination of both (handle and realname) as a primary key you'll have a pretty unique combination. And a much easier starting point.
But to prevent further polution of the database, maybe it's an idea to temporarily de-activate the adding of new sceners while cleaning the current database. I know it's a lot of work, but as i can see it, it's currently the only way to get the consistanticy of the database back in order.
(and while your at it, maybe you can delete the 'gamecompany' records aswell :) )
I realise myself, that this project isn't your dayjob and me idea are a bit radical. But to me nothing is more irritating then a inconsistant database.
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1677 |
Quote: With the risc of sounding like a mr knowitall, but is the HANDLE of a person the primary key in your scener database?
Because if so, i think that's not a good idea. Handles can change, multiple handles do occur, if you took for example a combination of both (handle and realname) as a primary key you'll have a pretty unique combination. And a much easier starting point.
But to prevent further polution of the database, maybe it's an idea to temporarily de-activate the adding of new sceners while cleaning the current database. I know it's a lot of work, but as i can see it, it's currently the only way to get the consistanticy of the database back in order.
(and while your at it, maybe you can delete the 'gamecompany' records aswell :) )
I realise myself, that this project isn't your dayjob and me idea are a bit radical. But to me nothing is more irritating then a inconsistant database.
A little technical information about how sceners are represented in CSDb.
We have two tables. One for the sceners personal data (real name, address, phone, email etc.) This table can be viewed as the main table of the sceners.
The other table contains the sceners handles, handlestory, aka etc. and it's from this table relations to group, releases etc are made about memberships and credits etc.
And from the handles table there are a pointer to the scener table so more handles can point to the same scener.
I think this is the way to do it. :)
/Perff
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Set up seems okay, so why not use the real name on top of the scener page, maybe with the 'primary' handle attached to it?
We're real people, please treat us as such :) |
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CyberBrain
Administrator
Posts: 392 |
Please, don't use the real name on top of the sceners pages!! :) We're sceners please treat us as such. (and who cares about the real names of sceners anyway?) (don't hope this will start one of those xtream discussions :) ) |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
If the scener (whose name is his key) is the root record, it would be sensible to have at least a page with his/her name on top. On that page could be links to other pages dealing with his handles.
You could also use a 'main' handle, but that's very hard, because different people may know a certain scener under a different 'main' handle.
As for your remark about "who cares about real names": I guess that's the difference between us, to me the most interesting thing of our scene was that it consisted of people.
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1677 |
I see the point in using the real name when the same person (scener) can have multiple handles BUT the only thing that is required to create a scener in CSDb is a handle! So you might find sceners with no real name (or at least no real name entered in CSDb. :) )
I'm still working on (re)coding CSDb to cope with the new feature of multiple handles and will do what I think is best. heh. ;)
When I'm done we can discuss if there are a better solution. |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
So create a super-user (heh) called 'anonymous' (sorry Frank) and connect all the handles without users to that one, use that as the mainpage. Ofcourse it would have to be possible to 'transfer' handles from one person to another, just in case somebody would find out that Jeroen's Tel real name is .. well .. |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
you're so close to the light, TDJ, I let it out: I am Jeroen Tel! |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Let us all bow before the Lord! ;-)
(Damn, I knew it....) |
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
I think that it is good that it starts with the handle and not with the real name! It's still a scene database, why making thibngs so difficult...? It's our own kind of world (a hobby for most of us), let's kep it like that. And my opinion : the guys of No Name did very good work with this Database, I don't agree with TDJ. If some people like it in their own way of taste, then start your own and see which database is the most popular... People should be happy that someone started this great project!!! Some of the people here don't have real critics anymore but simply look down to other people (even if they say it's not). Let us try to do our best, I think that the database is already a very nice thing for the moment and the webmaster improves it from time to time when he has time for it. I am greatfull for that.
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
Quote: and to all others, this way you could merge your handles... (hint commander :) )
Celtic! I tried to merge two old handles, but I saw that I can't add a group to it (some handles I used only in another group...), so there's no point to delete the other entries untill the webmaster fixes also a group to the older handles-thing. That's what I mean with losing some good information about some handles in the scene. Some handles have a history of their own, and it is too much to put that in the trivias and so on. It's still better to put every handle that excisted separately according to me.
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
wake up, commander
Multiple handles for same scener now possible |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Commander, I never once claimed that the NoName guys did bad work, all I did was wonder about their database model. As for me not giving real 'critics' (which is bad English by the way), I think my recommendations about tackling both this problem, and that of the downvoting are not real enough for you?
It seems you're really bent on trying to make me look bad, but all you do is make yourself look very very stupid indeed. So from now on I'll give you the attention you deserve and ignore you. |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
One thing I want to make clear: I'm not for replacing the current handle-pages with scener-pages, but adding a scener page on top of the handle-pages. That's all.
Anyway, I made my point to the NoNamer's and will see what happens :) |
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
Quote: wake up, commander
Multiple handles for same scener now possible
Seven, wel I try to wake up... Maybe it's now more complicated to add things or so... But I can not find a way to add to the older handles a group, but maybe you know how?
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
I might know how if I could figure out what exactly your problem is, but for some reason I cant seem to understand your english... |
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1677 |
Quote: Seven, wel I try to wake up... Maybe it's now more complicated to add things or so... But I can not find a way to add to the older handles a group, but maybe you know how?
I'll try to explain the workings:
First of all you need to gather all the handles under the same scener.
Go to the edit page of one scener and add the handles. (The add new handle button just below the upload photo button)
When this is done you click the "add group" as you usual find the group and now you discover that there is a new selector with all the handles in it.
The same goes for founding of groups, credits and organizing an event.
You can also edit one of the existing entries and change the handle.
Happy editing. |
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Commander
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 106 |
Thanks Perff!!! I will try it immediately, thanks again!
:)
Problem solved!
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 942 |
Wouldn't it be nice if this merging tool is available for the public?
Yesterday I found out I got merged with my brother. It's not yet time to get merged with him, but I am curious how this could have happened. And here I find the answer.
This merging tool seems handy, because there are quite some people using different handles, like I encountered some time ago, when I tried to 'merge' Mirage with that Drive guy, what's his name. |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Quote: Wouldn't it be nice if this merging tool is available for the public?
Yesterday I found out I got merged with my brother. It's not yet time to get merged with him, but I am curious how this could have happened. And here I find the answer.
This merging tool seems handy, because there are quite some people using different handles, like I encountered some time ago, when I tried to 'merge' Mirage with that Drive guy, what's his name.
Eh, the one who was in Guns & Roses?
Yes Lars, I remember everything. EVERYTHING! |
