Main Database Conventions & Consistency

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jonwienke

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What I'm proposing won't require any changes to the field structure of the RR database, and therefore it will not affect any manufacturer's ability to extract data from the RR database.

It will benefit the end user, particularly item 6.
 

byndhlptom

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DB Consistency

jonwienke

" b. "Cty." shall always be substituted for "County". "City" is not to be abbreviated, to disambiguate between county and city. "


I would suggest "Co" for county abbreviation. Most people will "read" Cty as city (it's the way the brain usually works). It is also a fairly standard abbreviation for city.

$.02
 

GTR8000

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One would think that someone so concerned with the database would have at least one submission to their name. :confused: You know, to make some sort of effort to improve things, rather than just complaining about it. :roll:
 

jonwienke

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And what would the point of making submissions be, if they simply get ignored???
 

QDP2012

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And what would the point of making submissions be, if they simply get ignored???

From everything I have seen, I am confident that submissions do not get simply ignored. Each submission is evaluated individually. Submissions that are rejected usually have an accompanying note from the DBA explaining the reason for rejection, and (when possible) an explanation of what else would be needed for the submission to be successful and accepted.

The DBAs are volunteers (with possibly a few exceptions), are different people, have different amounts of responsibility, have different amounts of time with which to attempt their duties, probably have some other non-RadioReference activities once in a while in their lives, and with all that, as a whole they still try to handle each DB submission with professionalism, punctuality, and whatever else it takes to keep the DB accurate and up-to-date.

There are some inconsistencies in the DB that are correctable, which have been and continue to be addressed as the current DBA Handbook is enforced by the administration.

if you consider it futile to make DB submissions, then you certainly are entitled to your opinion. But, that might not be a fair opinion if you have never tried to submit info to the DBA Team. If everyone else also considered it futile, we really wouldn't have much of a site here, would we? (If you have made submissions and had them rejected, then those situations would need to be considered individually, based upon the data submitted and the DBA involved.)

Only one opinion,
 

GTR8000

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And what would the point of making submissions be, if they simply get ignored???

I never ignore submissions that address valid concerns.

But, if you've never tried, how would you know? :confused:

We have standards in place. We have a Database Administrator Handbook that provides guidelines (which was linked in an earlier post). We have a lead administrator that does a good job of addressing issues privately, which the public is not privy to.

All of that is fine and well, but when dealing with dozens of administrators across the entire database, the human element comes into play. There are hundreds of thousands or more conventional frequencies and trunked talkgroups in the database, so if you think it's an easy prospect to have every single listing over the past 15 years all conforming to the same rigid standards, that's simply unrealistic.

The bottom line is that if you truly seek to improve the quality of the data, then start contributing by way of making submissions to point out egregious errors that need to be corrected. That is the productive method, vs having zero submissions to your name and calling the admins out publicly. :wink:
 
D

DaveNF2G

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1. No abbreviations, except for the following:
a. 2-letter state code shall always be substituted for the state name ("PA" vs "Pennsylvania").
b. "Cty." shall always be substituted for "County". "City" is not to be abbreviated, to disambiguate between county and city.
c. "Par." shall always be substituted for "Parish" when referring to the county-equivalent governmental unit in Louisiana, but shall be spelled out when referring to a subunit of a Catholic diocese.

I agree with a and have no informed opinion on c. As for b, I would suggest omitting City entirely, as City and Cty might be hard to distinguish on a display.

You actually got there yourself with number 5 below.

5. If a county has a city with the same name within its borders, the use of Cty. or Par. shall disambiguate county-level entities from city-level entities. "Podunk Cty." indicates a county entity, and "Podunk" indicates a city-level entity.

Good suggestions.
 
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