Community Suggestion: Calculated Character Age Should Account for Months and Days

Go back to the Voting Board

Calculated Character Age Should Account for Months and Days

Feature Upgrade · Articles & templates · Created by Masha Medov
declined
What is the current situation?
When I put in a year of birth and death for my characters, the system automatically calculates and displays how old they were when they died. However, in many cases the character was born in a later month of the year than the month of the year they died in, which the system doesn't take into account.   As a real-world illustration:
A person is born September 9th 1956 and dies March 4th 1999. The current system would list the person's age of death as 43, even although they would still only have been 42 when they died.   This means that if I want their years of birth and death to show up in the Family Tree (for instance), then their actual character page lists the incorrect age.   While imputing an age into the Age text field overrides the calcuated age when only a Year of Birth (i.e. no Year of Death) is included, however, the calculated age still displays when Years for both birth and death are input.  
How can this be fixed?
There are a couple of possible solutions that I can see:
If the calculated age could take into account the actual day and month of the character, that would fix the issue.
Alternatively, just removing the automatically calculated age display whenever the Age text field has anything in it would at least fix the automatic inclusion of the incorrect information. As mentioned above, this is already the case when only the Year of Birth is included, so it would just mean doing the same thing when both Year of Birth and Year of Death are included.

The Team's Response

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, this is not possible due to how the system currently works. However, the "age" field should override the age calculation—if it doesn't, could you report this on our bug tracker? We'll make sure to fix it.
Login to Vote
Current score

63/300 Votes · +13711 points

Votes Cast

  • +1

    by Fox Desert0
    on 2023-05-25 09:24

  • +1

    by FFSoul
    on 2023-05-24 20:45

  • +300

    by Justin Hamersly
    on 2023-05-24 15:27

  • +300

    by Davekachel
    on 2023-05-24 14:15
    simple and not important but i have to many coins

  • +100

    by R3ap3rG
    on 2023-05-24 12:33

  • +300

    by 4pocalyptic
    on 2023-05-24 10:35

  • +300

    by iuniperus
    on 2023-05-23 20:48

  • +300

    by tibiaTreatise
    on 2023-05-23 16:07

  • +300

    by A_Aelis
    on 2023-05-23 14:35

  • +300

    by Rayna Fairbell
    on 2023-05-23 08:04

  • +1

    by jasonthescholar
    on 2023-05-23 04:09

  • +300

    by A Cute Kitten
    on 2023-05-22 20:55

  • +300

    by UNKLE_JOE
    on 2023-05-22 17:07

  • +300

    by astraldireparrot
    on 2023-05-22 11:45

  • +100

    by Odenia
    on 2023-05-21 22:36

  • +100

    by Pete Nelson
    on 2023-05-21 17:54
    I support this idea, and I think it has been suggested before. A major issue, though, is if a world has a custom calendar (like mine does) the coding required to account for the custom calendar would probably be pretty difficult.

  • +300

    by imly2k
    on 2023-05-20 14:17

  • +300

    by A Roaring T-Rex
    on 2023-05-20 06:14

  • +100

    by SpiderStorm
    on 2023-05-19 03:51

  • +300

    by Tiberius Fursten
    on 2023-05-19 02:59

  • +300

    by Mme88
    on 2023-05-19 00:39

  • +300

    by Jolene Jynx
    on 2023-05-18 17:35

  • +300

    by A Fluffy Dryad
    on 2023-05-17 19:40

  • +100

    by lullabydust
    on 2023-05-17 18:27

  • +300

    by Observer of the Stars
    on 2023-05-16 00:11
    Reiterating what others have said regarding the removal of the calculated age when the Age Text Field has anything written in it.

  • +300

    by Goose80
    on 2023-05-15 20:53

  • +100

    by HomeboundREx
    on 2023-05-15 18:39

  • +300

    by MrJollyham
    on 2023-05-15 13:35

  • +300

    by Grota Mistrza Gry
    on 2023-05-15 11:56

  • +300

    by Xanth_Oskar
    on 2023-05-15 10:38

  • +300

    by A Roaring Cthulhu
    on 2023-05-15 05:32

  • +300

    by A Roaring Skeleton
    on 2023-05-15 01:10

  • +100

    by Plethoramania
    on 2023-05-14 20:19

  • +1

    by Rawilow
    on 2023-05-14 18:02

  • +300

    by LNalls
    on 2023-05-13 19:42

  • +300

    by The Voidwalker
    on 2023-05-13 13:57

  • +300

    by Aria Nicest Reynard
    on 2023-05-13 07:16
    I totally agree - age field should always override the calculation. The prompt actually says that this is how it should work:
    "Use this as a simplification for a character's age. No calculations will be made. (This replaces DoB/DoD).".
    Just at the moment, in this specific case, the calculated age is still displayed.

  • +300

    by Zurchonic
    on 2023-05-12 05:09

  • +100

    by connor.phoenix
    on 2023-05-12 01:24

  • +1

    by A Cute Bananafolk
    on 2023-05-11 05:18

  • +300

    by Careen Ligh
    on 2023-05-10 19:07

  • +300

    by Lyriumelody
    on 2023-05-10 18:47

  • +100

    by CTF97
    on 2023-05-09 11:05

  • +100

    by Foxyowlet
    on 2023-05-08 20:51

  • +1

    by PrismCoalition
    on 2023-05-08 04:40

  • +300

    by restlessGalaxy
    on 2023-05-08 02:49

  • +300

    by cow2face
    on 2023-05-07 14:50

  • +1

    by storyauthor
    on 2023-05-07 05:39

  • +300

    by Torinn_N
    on 2023-05-07 02:04

  • +300

    by dragonshadow58
    on 2023-05-06 18:58

  • +1

    by AvalonArcana
    on 2023-05-06 12:47

  • +300

    by UnknownWriter88
    on 2023-05-05 15:26
    Yes, please!

  • +300

    by ss2020
    on 2023-05-05 04:08

  • +300

    by A Filthy Mlem
    on 2023-05-05 03:48

  • +300

    by Kazeraith
    on 2023-05-05 03:19

  • +300

    by Ratha
    on 2023-05-04 22:34

  • +300

    by LittleSister
    on 2023-05-04 21:51
    Both options are good, but I agree that (if nothing else) having any text in the Age field should override the calculated age in all cases.

  • +100

    by Willow H.R. Harper
    on 2023-05-04 20:01

  • +1

    by Scalenex
    on 2023-05-04 16:40
    I would like to see this, but I recognize this would probably be a LOT of programming for a relatively small result. I understand if it is more trouble than its worth.

  • +1

    by ddaniel
    on 2023-05-04 16:21
    Having a global era/time system instead of an archaic before christ system would solve this issue too

  • +300

    by JetpackMonkey
    on 2023-05-04 14:01

  • +1

    by A Mischievous Mimic
    on 2023-05-04 10:26
    Changing the calculation itself has been suggested and denied before. I don't remember the exact reasoning off of the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it was related to the varying calendars worlds use. Having the Age field override calculated age in all places I think would be good for website consistency, and I would support that.

  • +300

    by SebGreg732
    on 2023-05-04 10:09
    The second option (just not displaying the calculated age when you have anything in the Age field) seems entirely possible. And would make the website design more consistent.

  • +300

    by Masha Medov
    on 2023-05-04 09:22
Hello! <3 I hope you are having a nice day!

Find your way!

Resources

WHO WE ARE

LEGAL

Get the news

Worldbuilding Academy

Listen to our Podcast

Gold Ennie 2019 for Best Digital Aid
by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.050 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 22:28, Oct 12 2026