A new section for Birthdays, Please

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.

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