Dash symbol in network codes?

[flofux]

Is there any reason to not allow the dash symbol in network codes? I imagine it could create some confusion if people can use it for station and location, but not for network ...

It could also be nicely used to separate the year from the (old) network name: 6A-2019

[crotwell]

My only objections would be it is a wasted byte and makes it a little harder to parse as there is an extra deliminator in the mix. Not sure either of those are very strong reasons given we allow it in station and location codes.

I do think that we should strongly pin down the way that existing 2-char temporary networks are mapped to longer network codes. The one thing that we should avoid at all costs is some old temporary networks using XA2014 and others using XA-2014. i care much more about that being consistent than about how it is done.

[crotwell]

related #9

[crotwell]

Two other thoughts. If dash is allowed now, but its use is not specified, then we lose the ability to make it mean something later. I don't think that there is a reason delimiting network codes would be useful in the future, but who knows.

Second, if dash is allowed, it should not be the first or last character. So -9-SEIS- should not be valid.

Lastly, adding a char here probably should come with a good reason. The separation between 2 chars and the start year doesn't seem that strong, since it has to be exactly 2 chars followed by 4 numbers. Without a compelling reason to add it into the mix (as exists with station codes and location codes within arrays of stations or grids of location at a station) I probably would lean against allowing dash at this point.

[chad-earthscope]

I do not feel very strongly one way or the other. The station and location fields could use a dash for an organizing scheme within a network. I couldn't come up a good reason to add it to network other than "for consistency" and so left it out for simplicity.

[flofux]

I just wanted to bring this up ;-) It's totally OK if we don't allow the dash for networks. If you already have some doubts about it, it's enough of a reason to not do it guess.

[chad-earthscope]

Heh. This is exactly the kind of question others will bring up when this gets to a larger audience so it's good to consider and record some reasoning, so thanks for raising it!

[WayneCrawford]

I do agree that a new delimiter shouldn't be brought in unless necessary...