The other significant step in preparing to create a new model record is determining the ID for that model on a relevant site. While not absolutely essential, it really does help if we have a publicly recogniseable Handle on who this model actually is. This is perhaps less important if you're running your own site with your own content, but there's still lots to be gained by offering cross links to other sites especially if they offer commissions for referals. A lot of the WACS tools, particularly those related to migration (see Chapter 12, Migration Tools) will find things a lot easier and drop the ball less often if they have these references.

Consider for a moment these two URLs screen shots which are taken from a web browser exploring the Sapphic Erotica site:

What you'll see is that the URL is largely the same, changing only in two places with each different model you select from the model directory on the site. The things that change are the aid= and the name= values. In other sites, it's quite common for the name to not even be mentioned at all and there simply be a model id number that determines which model should be shown. Often the what you're looking for varies, it might be md_id= on one site, modelid= on another and so on but if you look at several of the URLs it should become apparent what is actually changing when you look at different models. Sometimes this can even be a simplified version of her name as it used to be for instance on the Karup's PC site.

Karup's PC has now changed to using purely numeric model numbers and here are the examples for Sabrina and Roxanne from the new KPC site:

What you'll see is that the URL is essentially the same, the bit that is changing is the number between showgal.php?g=groups/ and the /4_1&s=32. We can only really guess at what those two pieces mean, but looking at the number between them as we explore the model index shows that it is only that bit that is changing. This therefore tells us that Sabrina's number is 1026 and Roxanne's number is 1018. This is the bit you want!

From the examples above, we now know that to refer to Sabrina M from Sapphic Erotica, we know her reference there is 422; we also know that her number on Karup's PC is 1026. Similarly if we're referring to Jo May, we know her reference there is 421. All of this information goes into the Identity Map (idmap) table in the database. Each model can have many different IDs across a vast range of sites - usually all we actually need is one solid one in order to be unambiguous as to who we're referring to. Here's the information we actually need to make a site record: site code, site reference number and name on this site.

With this information on our model gathered and a nice pair of headshot icons prepared, we're now in a position to move forward and actually look at using the Wacs collection administration software. There have been a lot of concepts to understand in the last three chapters but hopefully it'll give you a clearer idea of what we're trying to achieve going forward. In the next chapter, we look at what you can actually do with model records...