Hi,
On 10.10.2012 15:51, Luca Martinelli wrote:
2012/9/30 Neil Harrisneil@tonal.clara.co.uk:
On 30/09/12 13:00, benedix@zedat.fu-berlin.de wrote:
Hi, I think a valid_from and valid_to-field would be a great idea. Especially for queries on the db. But I think it is a fundamental design decision and I'm not sure if it's possible to integrate now...
LB
Seconded.
This would, for example, allow next year's train timetables to be loaded into the database prior to their period of validity, and for the cutover between last year's and this year's timetables to then happen automatically at the appointed date.
-- N.
Sorry if I get back on this issue, but I don't think that the train timetables will be THAT important in the future - except for the ones who have to use DeutscheBahn's services.
It may be, by the way, that this example is just a wrong one to illustrate something that Wikidata WILL need, that are "historical data".
The idea was just the result of a recent public discussion in Germany.
As you read the open letter from Deutsche Bahn, you may can understand what was meant. Unfortunately it is only in German. I translated it to English, but do not want to publish it anywhere before it's proved by the original Author.
There's plenty of datas that are "valid" only from $DateA to $DateB (i.e. the affiliation to a particular federation, the use of a particular flag, the definition of a particular capitol city...). Is this something that you guys already dealt with or not?
E.g. laws, incumbencies, memberships, employments, jobs, periods in history, seasons, crises, special offers in shops, etc.
Some of those examples are relevant for Wikipedia, but WikiData may be used in other cases as well.
Plus, there's also another thing. Let's say that I want to add to [[Item:Football Federation of Israel]] a particular property "Member". Now, the Israelis were:
- full members of AFC from 1952 to 1974,
- associated members of OFC from 1974 to 1979, and from 1984 to 1991;
- associated members of UEFA from 1979 to 1984;
- full members of UEFA from 1991 on.
How do we deal with the second statement ("valid from $DateA to $DateB and from $DateC to $DateD")? Is that something already resolved?
Sounds like a datatype like this:
function period (start, end) { // [...] var _start = start; var _end = end; this.set_start = function (start) { _start = start; }; this.get_start = function () { return _start; }; this.get_end = function () { return _end; }; this.set_end = function (end) { _end = end; }; this.get_duration = function () { return _end-_start; }; }
var Israel = { memberships:{ OFC:[ new period (new Date(1974, 0, 1), new Date(1979, 11, 31)), new period (new Date(1984, 0, 1), new Date(1991, 11, 31)) ] } };
or anything similar.
Marco