[mb-users] AR - avoiding duplication: dates

[John Carter]

I think it's pretty important that we try and avoid duplication of
data, as it's just going to lead to wasted effort & inconsistencies

A lot of the style guidelines may be on the way out, but I think we
need some usage guidelines for AR so that we don't end up with a load
of cruft in the database, and a lot of frustrated users.

One example of this in birthdays & band formation dates.

My proposals:
* Only put birth/death date on the official name.
* Don't put a starting date for founding members of a band.

My reasoning:

It seems wrong to add a birthday to both an official name & a stage
name.  I hope that at some point in the future, marking an artist as
being a stage name will mean the birth/death dates aren't editable,
and the official name's data is shown instead.

A similar case is band "was a member of" dates vs band "from-to" dates.

I don't think you shouId enter a joining date for founder members of a
band - again at some point I'd hope that by default the "from" date
would be filled in from the band's formation date, and could be
overridden if the person joined later (so adding a "from" date would
mark a non-founder member).

Thoughts?

John.