Database Design Question
Sep. 16th, 2017 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
If you are designing an Excel database with creator names how do you handle entries where the creator is listed as "possibly Morgan Dawn"?
I can think of several ways...
Creator: Unknown-Morgan Dawn might be best. That way if you sort, all the Unknown-Morgan Dawn works will still be listed together. They won't be listed next to the confirmed Morgan Dawn works, but still searchable. If and when the ID is confirmed it could then be moved to "Morgan Dawn" or even updated to "Mary Sue Lamb". It could also handle multiple guesses: "Unknown-Morgan Dawn-Mary Sue Lamb
The idea is to leave "Unknown" for those were we have no clue, and keep the ones where we are guessing in another grouping.
The other way is to have a second column that would add a Y/N in "Presumed Creator" but I don't like separating data. Plus one more cell to fill in is a pain.
I can think of several ways...
Creator: Unknown-Morgan Dawn might be best. That way if you sort, all the Unknown-Morgan Dawn works will still be listed together. They won't be listed next to the confirmed Morgan Dawn works, but still searchable. If and when the ID is confirmed it could then be moved to "Morgan Dawn" or even updated to "Mary Sue Lamb". It could also handle multiple guesses: "Unknown-Morgan Dawn-Mary Sue Lamb
The idea is to leave "Unknown" for those were we have no clue, and keep the ones where we are guessing in another grouping.
The other way is to have a second column that would add a Y/N in "Presumed Creator" but I don't like separating data. Plus one more cell to fill in is a pain.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 04:31 am (UTC)Especially since you want to use unknown as a choice for name, moving their status to a separate flag column will give you maximum flexibility for the future, as well as aggregability.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 04:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 04:49 am (UTC)Vidder Name Unknown
Vidder Name - Best Guess - Morgan Dawn
How would we handle multiple guesses? Ex: I have narrowed this vid down to wither Morgan Dawn or Mary Sue Lamb
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 05:05 am (UTC)Vidder Name | Confirmed (y/n) | Name of Vid | etc
and the data would populate like so (each return is a new row):
Morgan Dawn | Y | your-vid-name | etc
Unknown | N | another-vid-name | etc
Mary Sue Lamb | N | another-vid-name | etc
and you're probably not gonna like this, but to handle multiple guesses, the best way to do it is to create a new row for each guess, with only the vidder name being different.
That's not intuitive, because it feels like it's redundant--and if you're only ever gonna be using this for personal use and only reading it with your eyes, then you don't have to--but if this is ever going to grow or be used as an actual database, then it's best to do it that way. I call it 'machine readable' -- it's called first normal form.
In an actual database, you'd want to do this and attach a unique identifying number to every vid name and every vidder name.
Doing it like that will also help you set up pivot tables, where you can condense info and sort quickly.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 06:37 am (UTC)A vid entry will always have
Title Fandom (even if unknown) Vidder (even if unknown)
Each vid will have its own unique identifier. Since most of the names will be "unknown" we want to hold off assigning identifiers to them. We also need to address fan names/real names. Other constraints - this must be worked on within Google Sheets (to start).
Col 1 Vid Title XXXX Col 2: Vidder Name Confirmed Y/N (in this case N) Col 2 Vidder Name Unknown Col 3 Vidder Name Alternate 1 Morgan Dawn Col 4: Vidder name Alternate 2 Mary Sue Lamb
For a known vid
Col 1 Vid Title XXXX Col 2: Vidder Name Confirmed Y/N (in this case Y) Col 2 Vidder Name Morgan Dawn Col 3 Vidder Name Alternate 1 ---- Col 4: Vidder name Alternate 2 ----
This is not for personal use - this will be used for many other purposes and many people.
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(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 07:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-17 02:49 pm (UTC)