[AccessD] Estimating Help

Those aren't always spelling errors.  Sometimes they're intentional.
Users try to enter data and the app won't let them because it would be
duplicate, so they do something creative like adding a space before the
value to get the system to accept  the record.  Then they can't
understand why the application loses some of the records when it comes
time to report!

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: John Clark [mailto:John.Clark at niagaracounty.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 7:18 AM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Estimating Help


>>> I once read of a data-cleansing study in Framingham, MA where they
found the city name
"Boston" spelled 19 different ways! I'm not sure how that is
possible...<<<

I had to write a new program to track pistol permits for our County
Clerk, a couple of years ago, and there were, if I remember correctly,
17 different designations for New York...some of them "not so logical"
and some of them, because of the lack of authentication, were simply
spelling errors ("NY"; "N.Y."; "N Y"; "NY."; "Ny"; "New York";
"NewYork"; "N..Y.." (belive it or not); and several more that I can't
think of at the moment).

I am surprised at how many of my users fight me on authentication...they
want to control this via "policies", but what they don't realize is that
their constant "altering" of policies is half or the problem (i.e.
they'll decide six months down the road to re-title something, and then
again in six more months, etc.). I stick to my guns on this issue
though, because I will be the one having to fix it down the road. And,
this may be job security, but it always happens, when I am trying to
pump something new out. Unlike a independant, like many of you, I get
paid the same either way, so I'll opt for "no problems" way.

John W Clark
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