Backward compatibility of data over time

[sparklingrobots]

How do we deal with the data this project collects over time?

I’ve worked with orgs that tracked these questions over like a 40 year period and the kinds of answers they were getting (or offering as options) in the 70s were very different from now, but they needed to compare the answers from the 70s to the answers now. How can we support backward compatibility as our understandings and best practices shift? How do we ensure that we are not incorrectly translating/erasting identities collected in the past as we develop new language?