Bikeshed indeed -- this seems to be a project that could soak up a lot of
time. I'm with Aaron -- let's be consistent with the principle of least
surprise and use an existing identifier. The database seems as good a place
to start as any.

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 11:00 AM, Aaron Halfaker <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> Woo!  Bike sheds.  So.
>
> There is no namespace table, and so the namespace is not an id.
>
>
> So, I'm not sure that is necessary for the term "identifier" which I
> assume that "id" abbreviates.  Regardless it seems clear that these numbers
> are thought of as primary identifiers of a namespace that can otherwise
> have many names.  For example, see this snippet from the result of this
> query:
> http://es.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=namespaces|namespacealiases&format=jsonfm
>
> "1": {
>                 "id": 1,
>                 "case": "first-letter",
>                 "*": "Discusi\u00f3n",
>                 "subpages": "",
>                 "canonical": "Talk"
>
> },
>
> Yay more names!
>
> Veteran researchers can rid themselves of the pain of old names, but new
>> researchers shouldn't have to deal with legacy naming.
>
>
> I don't see us getting rid of legacy naming right now.  I don't see how
> adding a new name helps anyone -- veteran or newbie.
>
> However, if we were to develop a mapping of canonical names and pursue
> that from here forward, we might be able to move beyond the old names for
> the most important data sources in a few of years.   However, I'm skeptical
> that we'll ever be able to change any production DB field names.
>
> -Aaron
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Andrew Otto <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Oh I would never imply TOO verbose.  I am a verbose kinda guy!
>>
>>
>> On Dec 10, 2014, at 16:20, Dan Andreescu <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Are you suggesting we buck any ugliness of the xml field names and choose
>>> the most consistent and elegant ones we can think of?!  :D :D
>>>
>>
>> Are you implying I'm too verbose?  If so - you're right.  And I like how
>> you put it.  Yes.  Just because many people have tried it different ways
>> doesn't mean they had the liberty to think of good, clear names that make
>> researchers happy.  But that's exactly what our mission is here - so let's
>> make researchers happy.
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