[RESOLVED]Renaming old incorrect entries instead of deleting and creating...

[Wajo357]

I was looking at the website and going through new products sorted by DATE ADDED. I noticed some items were renamed from old records, I guess for reuse. However, I miss those items when I sort by date added. I have written down when the last time I looked at the database and stop at that point going backwards. However, I miss those items that are renamed. Any chance whoever is doing this can just delete old incorrect records and enter in new ones instead of renaming?
for instance: https://www.shmax.com/products?q_filters_toyline=5074 sort by date added to database... it says that titanns return kickback was entered in 2013!

[shmax]

That's a good point, Wajo357, old buddy. I think Engledogg and I kicked that habit long ago, but some of the other mods never got the memo. We'll spread the word. Do you think it would be worthwhile to try to correct some of these records?

[engledogg]

I'm betting that a great number of those older records that were re-purposed as newer items already have users associated with those newer items...so, as far as I'm concerned, they can stay as-is.

Coordinating the clearing out of those users that own those re-purposed records, then creating a bunch of new records, and then reassigning those owners to those new records, all the while maintaining every purchase detail for each of those users/items is certainly not an easy task.  Gnaw, one such re-purposed record, has 194 owners, so....yeah.

I understand the concern overall, but just to address Kickback (and Gnaw), they were carryovers from Generations - remember when Brawn and Gnaw (with Mini-Cons) were planned but never released?  Well, in this instance, those records were re-purposed as Titans Return Kickback and Gnaw, so that explains the 2013 "added to" date.  Again, that's just to explain this specific case, but yes, we have re-purposed unrelated older records in the past.

I'm okay with deleting defunct records from this point forward, but as far as the rest of that goes...not so much.

MIKE
engledogg

[shmax]

Coordinating the clearing out of those users that own those re-purposed records, then creating a bunch of new records, and then reassigning those owners to those new records, all the while maintaining every purchase detail for each of those users/items is certainly not an easy task.  Gnaw, one such re-purposed record, has 194 owners, so....yeah.

I don't know if it's as bad as all that--my idea was that if you could give me a more 'correct' added-to-database date for the records that we know are wrong I would just change them manually in the database (or write a tool that does it, depending on how bad the damage is). I don't think we would need perfect dates; I figure that since they're already horribly wrong the worst we can do is make them better.

[engledogg]

So...you want to change the added-to-database dates of re-purposed records to dates that are sort of close to the rest of the stuff in the categories into which they were re-purposed?  If that's something quick and easy, then go for it.

I'm not sure how we're going to find all these re-purposed records, though. 

Anyway, as long as I don't have to sit and manually change hundreds of records, do whatever you want. 

MIKE
engledogg

[shmax]

I haven't put much thought into it, just musing, but Wajo seems to be able to sniff them out. Do you have some kind of metric for finding them other than eyeballing them, Wajo?

[Wajo357]

I haven't put much thought into it, just musing, but Wajo seems to be able to sniff them out. Do you have some kind of metric for finding them other than eyeballing them, Wajo?

I use the added-to-database sort to help keep my personal spreadsheets pseudo up-to-date. However, items are missing because there are items that get reused from before the last time I checked the database. An easy solution would be that a rename would trigger a new 'add to database' value? Would that work?

[engledogg]

I don't think that would work...stuff gets renamed all the time.  For example, if today I were to notice a typo in a record title from a toy released in 1995 and created in 2009, it would generate a 8/21/2017 added-to-database date for that record.  You'd have just as big an inconsistency in added-to-database dates as there is with Kickback...

If someone were to wrangle all these offending records beforehand, and if it could be done ONLY on those records, then maybe.  But as a blanket operation, nope.

MIKE
engledogg

[shmax]

The question isn't how to fix the records--I can easily add a field to the form where you can edit the "added to database" date (probably mods-only)--nor is the question should we be re-purposing (we shouldn't, unless we have a widget or special checkbox for it). The question is how do we identify the records that have been re-purposed, and how do we decide what the "correct" dates should be?

[engledogg]

The question is how do we identify the records that have been re-purposed...

Yep, that's pretty much what I said:

If someone were to wrangle all these offending records beforehand...

It seems Wajo is pretty good at finding them - I'm sure he'll think of something that might help.

Barring that...is there anyway to run a script or something that would compare all product id numbers within a category or subcategory and have those that are majorly out of range of the others within that category be identified?

I could see that this might work for some smaller "completed" categories whose products were all entered around the same time, so they'd have product id numbers and added-to-database dates that all fall within an acceptable range of similar ids/dates,, but for larger, ongoing categories, perhaps not.

As far as "correct" dates go...I guess use some date within that range of dates found within those other items in the subcategory, since it really doesn't matter as these newly-assigned dates are now fictional and don't need to be accurate, just close enough to satisfy the "date added" sort.

MIKE
engledogg

[shmax]

Analyzing the ids is an interesting idea, and we can go that route if we need to, but I thought what I'd do for starters is add an editable "Date Added" field to the modify product page and just turn Wajo loose on it. If he knows how to find the ones that are wrong he can fix 'em as he sees fit. Beyond that, we'll just have to spread the word to the other mods not to manually re-purpose records going forward. And if you guys *do* want to keep repurposing records let me know and I'll just add a button for it that will automatically clone the old record into a new one and delete the old one.

[shmax]

Okay, folks, you will now find a "Date Created" date input widget doohickey on the modify product page. Wajo, you can use it to correct any dates you feel are wrong (and the changes will wind up in the submission queue, as usual). We'll leave it up for as long as you're using it then remove it again once everything is spiffy again. Let me know how it goes!

[KidTDragon]

I have to cop to being guilty of entry repurposing (I didn't think it would cause any problems; how frequently were people going to look by "date added to database"?). Once I realized that deleted entries still counted toward your submission count, my OCD got triggered and I started repurposing to avoid this. But since we're talking about it (and if no one else objects), can the submission count be fixed so that it no longer counts deleted entries? The attached pic shows the current count for the Masters of the Universe entries. As you can see, I'm credited for four more entries than currently exist.

[shmax]

*gasp* A bug! They told me this day would come! Please add an issue for it in the usual place and I'll look into it. Thanks, KidTDragon...

[KidTDragon]

*gasp* A bug! They told me this day would come! Please add an issue for it in the usual place and I'll look into it. Thanks, KidTDragon...

Ah, wasn't sure if that was a bug or a feature (I thought there may have been complaints about losing credit for duplicate submissions or something).

Issue reported!