Hey Admins,

Is there anyway you can start a new section just for Birthdays?

I believe this has been discussed before:

http://z3.invisionfree.com/The_110_Club/in...dpost&p=2831907

Basically, for me at least, I can envisage a forum subsection with 366 topics in it, no more, no less, one for each day of the year. If possible, it would probably be better to disable the creation of new topics to ensure the only topics in there will form a day-by-day index of the long-lived, organised by birth date.

Cases with a known and at least claimed birthday can be added and filed under the corresponding "day-topic". To quote Chris, it will be "A real time database that everyone can contribute to, and can be called on at anytime. "

If this does happen, I will be very excited indeed. A veritable amount of information has made its way into both the supercentenarian birthday threads, mostly through the effort of hard workers like Chris and VV, plus the assorted people who manage to pick up on a missed supercentenarian death. However, finding the exact piece of information I need can be quite a job, since I would have to switch between several pages in the thread to find what I want. If this happens, all I have to do is search for the date in question I want, click, and voilà -- a topic full of people born on that day and that day only.

This idea was proposed by CalvinTy in one of his moments of brilliance.

It makes a lot of sense, and I second the proposal.

(It would be great if he could put it together.)

That would be cool if there was a sticky with the links in it to all days otherwise it'd be a mess.

No, I’ve thought about this.

There is a folder with 366 sub-folders. That’s not a lot: We have lists with 1500 names.

When a press release is issued, anybody, not just Brendan, vv and I, can place that report into the birthday sub-folder. Remember there are only a few people a day. With the rectangularisation of the mortality curve it might go up to 10 (a folder within a folder within a folder — a standard database layout.)

Most people will have a time span of about three years, more if they are exceptional.

When the person in question is deceased, that person’s sub-folder is then removed and sent to the GRG for confirmation, with the whole life story encapsulated.

There is a method in the madness. ;)

Precisely what I was thinking, Chris.

Like I refined in my last comment in previous thread:

A global moderator (like Baxi) should have enough permissions to --- actually, no, I think only people with access to Admin CP (only Ben at this time) would be able to add a new "forum" (section, I prefer to label it) called "Birthdays".

The administrator will need to set the "sort order by title (alphabetical order)" (not by newest post). That is very important to set up or else it would be a mess like onewarmslime said.

The topics can be created by any member as long as they follow the exact alphabetical order format for each date:

"MM-DD Birthdays" or something like that... as long as the days get numbered in order for that month, i.e. April.

Then we are set for good. The rest should be clear in good time, I hope.

At a minimum, a person would be mentioned only on his/her birthday (once a year). Just like we do now, when a year has gone by, we refer to the previous year's thread to see what last updates we had for that person (which can be few months after their birthday if they show up online)!

P.S. I can set it up if Ben would like to delegate this to me (since I have previous Admin CP experience while Robert had not) or let Baxi to do it if he's comfortable doing this setup.

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

I would rather you do it Calvin
I am not very savvy with these things

Understood, Baxi. Not a problem. :-)

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

It has been created. Enjoy.

I'm still not quite 100 per cent sure how to structure this, but I'll have a go.

Do we list the cases in age order or alphabetical order? I prefer age but it doesn't matter.

Ben, if I stuff up, hope you can undo it all and we will start again.

Let's get it right from the start. Here goes!

Now I have created five topics for birthdays for 24-04-2012.

I've realised that the alphabetical ordering will go from the given name unless we put the family name first. Now you can see where the Japanese are coming from!

So we don't crowd out the index is it possible to put these entries into a master sub-folder titled "24-04 Birthdays".

PS: I wish to apologise to other normal sane members for messing up their day. We'll get this right eventually ... I hope.

PPS: Message for Ben. We should remove the 2012 from the topic head as these files will be used over several years if my understanding is right.

Chris,

That was why I was thinking of "all birthdays on a given date" like you already did previously, not by person (although that is neat but it can be 10 per birthday so quite messy that way, I think).

Basically, all we want Ben to do next is to make several sub-sections:

Birthdays (created)
+++++2012 - 04 (April)
+++++2012 - 05 (May)

In this format: YYYY - MM

Then, you... me... anyone... can post a birthday thread *under* April 2012 like this:

(section) Birthdays (created)
(sub-section) +++++2012 - 04 (April)
(thread of date) ++++++++++04 - 29

In this format: MM - DD

==========
So, for the thread of April 29, 2012, it would have multiple birthdays like in the past (from oldest to youngest) -- for example, grins:

*** CalvinTy's twin daughters, 3 years old

Reference: CalvinTy says so. :)

*** On April 29, 2009, Mr. and Mrs. CalvinTy announced the births of their twin daughters. Twin A was born 10:59pm American Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) via natural birth; Twin B was born 11:31pm American EDT via C-section.

:D

==========

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

Could the first two birthday in the Top Ten section be moved into the Birthdays section as well? For archival value...

Riiiight ... Gotcha.

Can you guys bear with me for a while, while I go back and restructure.

Just curious--will member birthdays now be celebrated in thse new date groups/threads as well?

No, no, no no!

Futurist, it worries me when you ask questions like this, because that means you do not understand what we are trying to do here.

Post members' birthdays in the Lounge section or wherever ... unless the member is 108 years of age or older.

Allright, sorry--I just wanted to clarify.

I wish to pass on my thanks and appreciation to Ben who has now rectified the birthdays thread by setting the default mode to "sort by topic title".

The birthday dates will now automatically set themselves in date order.

Members are urged to contribute any useful information to the birthday threads. If you know of anything about a claimant, supercentenarian or near-supercentenarian in your country or region please feel free to add.

But because you — that's you, the members — are building up a dynamic database on the world's oldest people that will be used for serious research later, please keep silliness to a minimum.

Thank you.

Chris, just to clarify. What happens once one year rolls around, since the titles of the topics also include the year (which, in this case, is 2012)? Is there a new topic created, for instance, for "2013-04-30", or are the birthdays one year from now still posted in the "2012-04-30" thread?

Thanks for what you do, Chris.

Brendan, good question.

I was wondering about this myself. I guess the titles should be MM-DD, rather than YYYY-MM-DD as the birthdays will continue to roll around.

But I just followed the instructions of CalvinTy, who knows more about these things.

I will wait for advice and instructions from Calvin or Ben, and then I can always go back and modify the headings of the topics.

Also I presume that a general monthly topic, for example, one used for non-specified birthdays, would be YYYY-MM-00 or MM-00 depending on which way we go.

I defer to the experts' input.

Chris, I'd say you're more of an expert then I am! The benefit to having birthdays identified by year is that there wouldn't be clutter in a few years (theoretically) from having discussions about people who may then be deceased in the thread. For historical purposes, it might be interesting to see who was turning what age a year ago. Then again, that may lead to HUGE clutter on the board as opposed to doing it simply by date.

For some reason, I'm able to see this forum now from my workplace. Hope this lasts, but I wouldn't bet on it. I'll post while I can right now.

To comment on Chris & Ben's replies, I personally think that by excluding the year -- we then are trying to say that each day, i.e. "April 30" gets re-used every year. I don't like that approach because:

1.) based on the mortality rate, half of last year's birthdays are deceased and we have about the same number of new birthdays (i.e. 106/107 last year not listed; now 107/108 and added this year).

That makes each birthday in a given year unique... for the days we may have 10, five is probably new this year (and 5 from last year became deceased) and five celebrated a birthday last year and repeating this year but a different birthday -- not 109th, but instead now a 110th birthday this year.

2.) When we get to "2013-04-30" (next year today), we still can refer to "2012-04-30" for birthdays to re-post some cases (or not) with any new info.

I understand that we would be trying to update cases on the daily thread continuously. I guess -- umm -- we should only be updating any info about that particular birthday (which typically happens during the days after the birthday).

Naturally, I do not recommend that we have the birthday section to end up having 731 topics in 2 years all in the main section (366 days this year, 365 days next year).

That's why I mentioned the monthly format:

Birthdays
+++++2012-04 (new sub-section; made by an admin)
+++++2012-05
++++++++++2012-05-01
++++++++++2012-05-02
++++++++++2012-05-03

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

Thanks to Ben and Calvin, years it is.

But one question, Calvin. Please clarify the admin's monthly sub-section. How does it work? What goes in it?

Is it a holding folder for something? Does later information go in it?

Just have to clarify exactly how it works.

Please bear with me.

Thanks

Rather than the current setup of Birthdays section and 300+, 700+ topic threads such as "YYYY-MM-DD" ... the sub-section basically is like a sub-folder like you say.

I see that there is no sub-sections yet on this 110C forum; I never realized that so I can see why there is no visual to go by yet.

Okay, what I'm suggesting is:

Birthdays (main section)
+++++"2012-04" (another folder; it should appear as another blue bar in this theme, I believe)

Then put the current birthdays there..... (for April 24th to 30th ones)

+++++"2012-05" (another folder)

Put May birthdays here.... (May 1st to 31st). Members can make the topics themselves. Just that the "sub-folders" needs to be made by an admin only.

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

Roger (There's that Roger character again.)

Yep, nice and neat. I fully understand.

When Ben is free and if he wants to do it, I'll leave it up to him.

Over and out.

OK - I'm lost LOL. What exactly do you need me to do?

Sorry. :-)

I cannot remember InvisionFree's format in Admin CP, but Ben, just create a new "forum" (section) to be placed UNDER Birthdays.

Make a couple of months' worth, and they need to be named like this (w/o quotes):

"2012-04"
"2012-05"
"2012-06" (less time you have to tinker in Admin CP, LOL)

Ensure that all of them are sorted by topic title in descending order.

That's it.

The members will do the rest by creating topics under the appropriate month.

(Oh, by the way, move current April birthdays from main Birthdays section to April 2012 section, too.)

Thanks. :-)

* CalvinTy

Notice to administrators

Before posting birthdays for the month of May, do you want to create a sub-folder 2012-05.

Otherwise I can post and they can be moved later.

Thanks.

Chris,

Since it's past 10am Eastern Time, I'd say you go ahead and post today's birthdays. Ben will just move to the appropriate month when able.

Thanks,

* CalvinTy

OK - is that what you had in mind? I think so... :blink:

Yes, you got it, Ben! *high five* :D

* CalvinTy

:D

I've also added Chris as a moderator for that section in addition to the four of us who can globally moderate.

Cool, Chris would do well moderating. He'd say that it wouldn't need moderating. :)

One last tinkering... (years ago, my AIM screen name was "TinkerMark", LOL)....

Realize that for months, we would like it to be ascending order instead... makes sense? Viewing current month on top, last month below.

Maybe we just delete June 2012 for now? Or leave it blank but still on top?

* CalvinTy

We have a very slight problem, but it probably is not a problem.

People who are not club members cannot see the monthly sub-folders, therefore cannot get back access to the data.

I'm a big believer in open democracy with knowledge, if you get my drift.

Any ideas?

Duh me... the months are "sub-forums" so the sort only applied to topics in Birthdays!

Correction to make: Ben, this is even better suggestion... just do a re-order of the sub-forums manually. Same idea with how you made the "Birthdays" being the last in order in the Supercentenarians category.

* CalvinTy

Shouldn't be a problem. When creating a sub-forum, the default permissions probably excluded guests -- easily corrected by adding guests with read rights.

* CalvinTy

Right Calvin.

My preference is not to be a moderator. I have no wish to have political power of any sort.

But if I can make the system work better, sure thing. I'll do my bit.

Ben or yourself might want to send a pm to me on basic instructions on how it works, But I'm sure it is not rocket science.

Regards,

CJ

I must admit.

The new format of birthday postings make it actually easier to post birthday confirmations at the right places..if you know what i mean.. :)