agentphoenix
commented
13 years ago Anders - Sun May 10, 2009 4:14 pm
I began to type up a suggestion when I suddenly realized the depth of the paradox. A character biography page can be updated by many different people with access to the varied information. Not just the player but others. Promotions, Awards, etc. Even name changes from a character's advancement in life (marriage, divorce, or perhaps a new name because of some other social demands).
However, Ensign Joe is technically quite different from a future Lieutenant Joe. Likewise, someone who gets the "Legion Cross for Cleanest Quarter" award might find the database entry for it changed to "Replicator Rationer of the Month" -- quite the dilemma.
Part of any experience is being able to look back over the advancement. Looking back over archived biographies to see how far your character has come is not just enjoyable it can provide inspiration, research information and even laughs.
However, if you were to archive every version of a biography change (much as a wiki might) it seems you'd end up with quite the bloated database, rather quickly... especially if individuals were prone to tweak their characters, sentences, grammar, spelling, etc.
Nevertheless, I think it's imperative that you provide for static archived biographies that aren't subject to future database changes. Of course, the implications of such a statement are broad, with so many dynamic database links. You might find yourself in a jungle.
I'll venture a dangerous solution. What if you allowed for a "major change commit" (or perhaps "publish") that dumped a completely static bio page into a bucket for saving. It'd be dated and use only permanent links and be marked appropriately as an archive. It could be labeled "Official Service Record File" -- or whatever campy name you desire -- and still provide a "Stats" page where it is completely dynamic and the latest information possible.
This does not solve the problem of an award database entry being changed and propagated through a biography system (as near as I can see) but that should really be handled by the awards system ("Warning User: By changing the name of this award, you change it for everyone who ever received this award. Perhaps you should create a new award?").
In other words, what is bios were handled like static posts and dynamic information was simply a "current status".
Yes, this is how I handle my system So forgive my bias.
update: Reading further through the forums I realize that "on-the-fly" generation of the bios seems highly preferred. So, I anticipate a lack of enthusiasm for my suggestion. The only other suggestion I would have, would be changing the database to save the date of commits for each field in a biography and then being able to generate an on-the-fly biography for any date... but that seems rather cludgy to me.
Though I'm left with the question. How do you access the Lieutenant Joe's biography from a year ago when he was an Ensign? Is that information not valuable? I would argue it is.
http://forums.anodyne-productions.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2205#p14095