Stardardization: hard vs soft
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@Tiffany Farnsworth Nash - for my benefit and perhaps for others, can you please explain what you mean by hard and soft standardisation? I only know of standardising - the process of linking a "displayed" place name to an entry in the standardized place name list. What is the difference between hard and soft, and where does that terminology come from?
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These terms as used by @Tiffany Farnsworth Nash are sometimes used casually (never officially) to refer to the standardization of places (or dates) in Family Tree:
- "Soft standardization" means that a standardized place (or date) has been selected in the standard field. The display field may not match.
- "Hard standardization" means that a standard has been selected and that the display field matches it exactly.
Some people mistakenly think that "hard standardization" is desirable, when in many cases it actually leads to data loss (since the display field can contain more helpful details than the standard field could possibly hold).
There was a time when Family Tree showed a standardized place icon when the display and standard field matched in a way that unfortunately led people to assume that "hard standardization" was somehow superior. Fortunately that is no longer the case.
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Thanks for the explanation@Alan E. Brown
I totally agree that enforcing an exact match ("hard") is a seriously bad idea. In this case, I might have prefixed the exact standard text with the plot number, keeping the place standardized. "Might" - that's just an illustration from me of why my display place name might not exactly match the standard text.
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Re: Hard/Soft Standardizing
I used those terms in order to work with Rue Snell and help answer her question. We are trying to determine what criteria allow a person to show up in a Cemetery Search. Please move any debate regarding hard/soft standardization to another post. Thank you.
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