Data API - Add a non-changing unique identifier about police-brutality HOT 15 CLOSED

I'm imagining a random person coming in, hitting the github edit button, and trying to figure out what that id should be. I don't think they'd know the PR id when they're editing.

We can always blame to get the original submission.

from police-brutality.

@ubershmekel -- it should be super easy for the end-user adding the ID. In this case, we'll just need to worry about collisions (duplicate IDs). Realistically this is a problem for thousands of records. If this is hundreds of records, it might not be as risky.

Using the ID of a PR seems like the easiest option, as its pretty simple for anyone adding a new PR to do. If a UUID is being used, ksuid is pretty cool, as it can be sorted based on time.

from police-brutality.

Could the new issue template include a link to https://www.uuidgenerator.net/ and ask the contributor to paste one in?

from police-brutality.

Thank you for this issue. I was just thinking about it too. Because the source of truth is the markdown - there are two options I see:

• A github action script that gives each issue an id. I dislike having bots editing the raw files.
• We create an id that will be unique, and editors can write in the markdown.

Here's an example:

## Compton

### Police beat person on the ground | (believed to be) June 1st

Two police offers have someone pinned to the ground and proceed to kneel on their head/neck, punch and kick them. A third officer joins them, also striking the person.

[This Reddit comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gvdl01/they_secluded_him_behind_a_wall_and_looked_around/fsolupz/) asserts these police are members of the LASD.

**Links**

* https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gvdl01/they_secluded_him_behind_a_wall_and_looked_around/

* Incident id: ca-2020-06-01-secluded

That format is <state-abbreviation>-<iso-date>-<letters>. What do you think? Would love to hear feedback or a better idea.

from police-brutality.

Hi @ubershmekel,

Why not just use the PR ID? That way it can be traced back to the source. That's the easiest in my mind... but truth be told, any unique id is better than none. Maybe a combination of your suggestion w/ PR ID?

<state-abbreviation>-<iso-date>-<letters>-<pr-id>

In this case, the PR id is still present for reference purposes to trace the object and original submission.

from police-brutality.

@ubershmekel -- it should be super easy for the end-user adding the ID. In this case, we'll just need to worry about collisions (duplicate IDs). Realistically this is a problem for thousands of records. If this is hundreds of records, it might not be as risky.

from police-brutality.

Sorry -- I just had an idea. If you incorporate the person's username, initials, etc, then you can do:

20200604-2114-949mac

That is...

<date in hhmmdd>-<24hrtime>-<username>

This will give you a unique username for every generation without the need to check any external sources, regardless of timezone. The same could be done w/ a user's preferred word, if usernames complicate things.

Just a thought.

from police-brutality.

@ubershmekel -- it should be super easy for the end-user adding the ID. In this case, we'll just need to worry about collisions (duplicate IDs). Realistically this is a problem for thousands of records. If this is hundreds of records, it might not be as risky.

Using the ID of a PR seems like the easiest option, as its pretty simple for anyone adding a new PR to do. If a UUID is being used, ksuid is pretty cool, as it can be sorted based on time.

Using a UUID would actually my preferred option. +1 on that

from police-brutality.

Doesnt using PR id assume that only one incident is ever added per PR? I didn't see that in the contribution guidelines and it appears people are updating states daily.

from police-brutality.

Doesnt using PR id assume that only one incident is ever added per PR? I didn't see that in the contribution guidelines and it appears people are updating states daily.

That's a good point. I think UUIDs would be best if the contributors could find a consistent and easy way to add it.

from police-brutality.

I'll write a script that will give the existing incidents a uuid

from police-brutality.

Actually, the thing is, I worry that these ids will be used in URLs and uuids would make these URLs very long and less readable. So I'll make the script do something like <state-abbreviated>-<city-abbreviated>-<num>

from police-brutality.

After #324, it seems eight events are still missing ids.

from police-brutality.

Here is a script to identify problematic records (from the json): https://gist.github.com/cwilper/2e192e3ea15ca689c4d891f4f9c77c26

It will identify any duplicates and list any records currently missing an id.

(Edit: Removed question and updated description of script, as I changed it)

from police-brutality.

Thank you so much for the hard work on this @cwilper. I'm calling this task done. Feel free to comment or reopen if needed.

from police-brutality.