User talk:Robin Patterson

(See archives:
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2005-04 to 2005-10
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2005-11 to 2006-10
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2006-10 to 2007-06
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2007-06 to 2007-09
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2007-09 to 2007-10
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2007-10 to 2008-11
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2008-12 to 2009-06
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2009-06 to 2010-06
 * User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2010-06 to 2011-08)



"Burials" or "Buried"
Should our categories be called "Burials in ..." or "Buried in ..."? I thought the latter is analogous to our "Born in ...", "Died in ..." etc. Thurstan 06:35, August 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * The latter is indeed in line with some of our deliberate departures from Wikimedia. However, in this case the difference is slight (with only one more character to type) and we have only six "Buried" but a screenful of "Burials" and both Wikipedia and Commons have (at least at higher levels) "Burials...": see Category:Burials by country. I'm willing to change the six if we (to preserve harmony, simplify copying, and encourage a prolific newbie) agree on that. Note that it is currently "Burials in" for a settlement or territory etc but "Burials at" for a cemetery or other burial ground: useful and natural-looking distinction, I think. We could copy most of this discussion to a forum for easier reference, with links to and from Forum:Cemeteries and Semantic MediaWiki. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:39, August 25, 2011 (UTC)

Categories
Dear Robin

I have completed the work on the categories and - except for new entries - there are only isolated categories (having only one article) - which are not linked to the other categories.

If you want me to, I can continue maintaining the categories. Otherwise I will work on other projects, provided I get an understanding on how familypedia works so that I do not continue doing stupid things.

Regards

Andrei

Reply to First Time
Thanks for your message. I dont know your friend, but I can add people going back to about 1250 that may interest him

I can confirm that Andrew, Frederick and Charles were joint owners of a woolen business named "Avison Brothers". I am a descendent of Frederick, my gg grandfather

Barry Avison aka BazzaDeaf

81.96.98.167 18:09, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Robin, I saw where you were looking for info on William Lockerbie Thomson. His brother, Hugh Mair was my Great great grandfather. We have a family group with alot of info and photos on myfamily.com.

If you would like to see them, let me know and I will get you on the site.

Joe Kirkpatrick198.207.222.134 18:41, October 5, 2011 (UTC)

[mailto:joekir49@yahoo.com joekir49@yahoo.com]

hi there

i didnt edit page

twas looking around .. i have the family in main tree.. re india and connections

laura

William Reierson Arbuthnot and Mary Helen Anstruther connection

Ronald Reagan
Some time ago you created the article Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). After that the article Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) was created about the same person. This article has several linked articles: /tree /descendants /biography etc. I have tried to transfer some of the linked articles to the Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) which you have created. The descendants and biography articles are there but they do not show in the bar of the main article. I am probably doing something wrong.

Maybe you could look at the problem. In any case, as we are talking about the same person, we should have only one article with the apropriate links (tree, descendants, biography etc.) and not two. I have chosen the title you have created but have no preference regarding the title to be selected, as long as there is a single one.Afil 21:29, October 28, 2011 (UTC)

I have fixed it to redirect to the older version (Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004)). Thurstan 21:37, October 28, 2011 (UTC)

Dear Robin,

I must object to the procedures which are used in Wikia. In the case above, I was attempting to eliminate a duplication which existed for some time in Wikia. This implied the selection of one of the two coexisting alternatives. If Thurstan had a different opinion he could have simply informed me about it instead of blocking my access to some of the articles without informing me of what I was doing wrong. Is there any way in which we can use civilized ways of communicating instead of taking punitive measures which I do not understand.

Are there any rules of civilized conduit in Wikia or do we apply the law of the jungle?

I am extremely upset about such procedures. Maybe I was wrong in trying to work with Wikifamily. I have had some contributions to Wikia and do not understand why some of the contributors are entitled to take arbitrary measures without any explanation. I do not want to have any kind of dispute, but would like to know how such conflicts can be solved without escaladating.

Andrei

Thank you for your message. The entire issue is due to a communication gap. At present it is old history.Afil 05:19, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

hi

sorry i have nt been working on tree or sites of late because i have been sick again\

this time shingles in the eye\

picture of me re eye on facebook

Wikipedia attribution
Is there a standard template we use when we migrate a biography from Wikipedia to Familypedia? Richard Arthur Norton I 21:03, November 30, 2011 (UTC)

Help needed
Dear Robin,

I tried to do something quite simple, i.e to copy the Template:President of the Senate of Romania from Wikipedia to Familypedia. The result is that for some reason I cannot read the file I copied. The system simply gives no output. This is valid also for the file Constantin Bosianu (1815-1882) which uses this template. I did not include the file names in brackets because I was afraid of screwing up your talk page too.

I get the same results with all browsers I tried: Firefox, Explorer or Google Chrome.

What am I doing wrong and how can I get rid of this problem?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Andrei Afil 06:03, December 12, 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance. It works now.Afil 21:08, December 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't achieve anything, as far as I know. Thurstan seems to have fixed things - http://familypedia.wikia.com/index.php?title=Template:President_of_the_Senate_of_Romania&diff=next&oldid=697954. I wonder whether there are many other templates that should have the same treatment; if there are, we should create a help page or an addition to some other page. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, December 12, 2011 (UTC)

Forumheaders
I have reverted the deleted Forumheader.

My point was that if a forum is suggested in 2007, such as Talk about the Seraikela Kharsawan district and nobody has anything to say about it, I simply do not see that anybody is interested in this forum. Assuming somebody is interested in this Forum, the existence of these Fora should be clear and contributors should be invited to participate. I am contributing to Familypedia for nearly a year and have probably been one of the most active contributors. However this is the first time I ran across such a Forumheader and even then I did not understand what its scope was. Will anybody ever participate in such discussions. And even if somebody does, will there be somebody else who answers, as a forum implies a debate?

On the start page there is a Forum window which opens several subwindows such as Help desk, Water cooler, etc. Not the slightest indication that there are various subjects open for discussion.

How are the subjects which justify a forumheader selected. A very short look at the list shows that the subjects are mainly settlements, counties or districts from the United States and a selected few countries. Why only those? Why not also settlements or other territorial units from France, Germany, Poland, Russia and Egypt? Why do we have fora only for geographic units. If this is a site specializing on genealogies, why is the main topic not that of families who have their trees in Familypedia?

Maybe the answers to these questions are somewhere. But if they are they are not easy to find.

Therefore it is difficult to understand why we have hundreds of forum topics with no inputs at all on the talk pages.

Afil 03:14, December 18, 2011 (UTC)

Uncategorized categories
I may have contributed to some of them but not on all.

If you look at the existing ones, some definitely should be deleted:


 * some are simply carried over by copying from Wikipedia, such as "Articles lacking in-text citations" simply because Wikifamily does not require in-text citations. This is also valid for "Articles with obsolete information", "Articles to be merged", "Articles with trivia information", "References cleanup" a.o. If there are no articles for which these categories are used I do not see any reason for keeping them,

I really think that such categories are not useful in Familypedia.
 * some are hardly required and have been carried over mostly from wikicommons with various images. Such as "Chicken in heraldry" or "red, blue, white flags".


 * Some are incorrect, such as People from Switzerland which should be People of Switzerland (which is the form applied by Familypedia for all other countries and which exists already in Familypedia.

They should be deleted, but I cannot do it myself as I do not have administrator privileges.

Some are remains of the discussion we had about naming the categories simply Settled (or established) in... or Settlements established in .... or States or Territories established in... My understanding was that the acceptable categories for Familypedia were Settled in .... or Established in .... But I agree that the discussion has not led to any conclusion.

There are however categories which need further categorization such as Churches in Bulgaria, Marginal Seas of the Atlantic Ocean or others. There are however many uncaracterized articles which are not categories.

I was trying to put some order in the categories. But I have not been active in this field recently, because I do not want to disturb anybody. Just tell me what you want me to do, if anything, or tell me to keep away and not touch categories.Afil 03:52, December 18, 2011 (UTC)

Dear Robin

I posted the discussion on uncategorized pages as you have recommended.

But the selection of the hydroelectric plants category as potentially uninteresting is really a low blow under the belt. You chose the category which refers to an article about a hydroelectric plant in whose construction I was myself directly involved. It may not be the greatest plant in the world, but as a young engineer I helped building it.

Take this comment as a joke. I know there was no mischief meant. But my involvement in the construction of the plant is true.

Afil 19:12, December 19, 2011 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to you too Robin. And Happy New Year. It is nearly a year since I started contributing to Wikifamily. I hope I was not too much of a nuisance. Anyway I enjoyed it and if it is OK with you I hope to continue in 2012.

And I like receiving messages from you. It makes me feel less a stranger in your collectivity.

Again Merry Christmas

Andrei

Response
I also agree that including all the "established" into a single category is far from being the best solution. I did not invent this but simply applied a solution which had been implemented before and which I followed for consistency. The present solution is far from being the best and a decision should be taken on what should be done in Wikifamily. However, one of the problem which we are facing is that in Wikifamily we use information taken partly from Wikipedia and partly from Wikicommons. Each uses a different way of defining categories, and they are conflicting. They cannot both coexist.

In cases such as populated places, Wikifamily seems to have adopted settlements. I have no preference for any of these (well maybe I prefer settlements but that is besides the point. But if until now thousands of categories have adopted "settlements", accepting "populated places" for a few new ones makes little sense. Categories are necessary to anybody who is looking for certain information and is not aware of the title of existing articles. If they are not consistent, there is no reason to use them at all.

In our previous discussion you raised the question of the difference between settled and established, which I understood and I have not done any changes regarding there categories.

For the time being I am using the system which seems to have been applied by my predecessors for naming various categories, regardless of the fact that they comply with Wikipedia, Wikicommons or have been specifically designed for Wikifamily. For other cases, I generally use Wikipedia (except for cases where there are obvious errors in Wikipedia, when I omit such links).

I am willing to participate in any forum or discussion regarding these issues and to follow any rule which is established or which you prefer to adopt. If you want to revert from the unique established to different ones, I have no objections as long as we find a way to change the existing categories to the new ones. If you prefer populated places I again have no objection, as long as we find a way to change the existing settlements to populated places. I am only trying to be consistent. That's all. Afil 01:17, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

Persons
I have requested some advice from Rtol on the information regarding births, deaths and marriages in various localities. I have since discovered that you had also created a separate page to deal with this problem. As you have also sent comments on this matter to Rtol, this is just to inform you that I have responded to Rtol. I agree that a discussion on the matter would be advisable.Afil 02:06, February 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Good. I got an email saying you had commented on rtol's talk page. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:50, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

Valid name
I have contacted Thurstan with some questions on the Valid name categories. However he has indicated that these categories and their use has been initiated by Phlox who seems not to be active any more.

However some questions remain unanswered. I am not sure if these categories are in use any more and if any action regarding them is required. I have the feeling that Phlox is not active any more. Any suggestions?

Afil 02:23, February 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Those categories are important for people such as me who use the input form. They facilitate autocompletion. No action regarding them is required or at present desired, as far as I know, though some of the documentation could be better. While I'm still active, I can look after them and I expect others can if necessary. Ask me questions about them if you like - possibly on the talk page of the highest-level one would be the best place, so that anyone interested is likely to see. (I have been trying to interest Phlox in resuming active service.) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:50, February 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * I posted the questions in the Talk Page of Category:Valid name- nation as recommended. Afil 02:17, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

BDM

 * See Trnava. The little command should be turned into a template once we agree on a name for the subpage. bdm is fine with me. rtol 06:18, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

Ferenc Cseszneky de Milvány et Csesznek
Dear Robin, Some time ago you posted the article Ferenc Cseszneky de Milvány et Csesznek. I have run across another article Count Ferenc Cseszneky de Milvány et Csesznek regarding the same person. This is just to inform you so that you take the appropriate decision on how to merge the articles. If I used my judgement, I would not use the title of the second one, but this is up to you. The information in both articles is incomplete and could be completed from the site. Therefore the years 1876-1924 should be added to the title according to Familypedia standards.

I can merge the two articles, make the appropriate corrections and complete the information, but do not want to do anything which would not be acceptable to you as author of the first article.

Regards Afil 22:45, February 23, 2012 (UTC)

With names as the one you just corrected, duplications are probably inevitable. I shall look at the Cseszneky's, as you suggested, but just give me some time. For the time being I am struggling with some other Hungarians and attempting to make sense out of some conflicting information. Afil 03:24, February 24, 2012 (UTC)

Surname in place
I simply deleted a category with had not further link.

According to me, if we look at the Borlands, there may be Borlands in the Scotland and Borlands in England. A comprehensive category would be Borlands in the UK - which are the categories which exist. The question is how we continue this. Is the upper category Borlands in Europe and then Borlands in the World? It is extremely unlikely that we would have Borlands in Hungary and Borlands in Bulgaria and Borlands in Cyprus who would all be part of the Borlands in Europe.

In this case, we should have a comprehensive category Borland (surname) which would have a subcategory: Borlands by country. This would include Borlands in the United States, Borlands in Canada, Borlands in Australia, Borlands in New Zealand etc. And anybody who is looking for Borlands, would be able to find the ones he is looking for.

And this model should be used for all families which are spread over several countries. If I look at my own family, I have a branch of Wilkinsons who are originally from England, but have some of their members who migrated to Norway. I have another branch of Wilkinsons who are from Scotland, but some members have moved - probably temporarily to Hong-Kong. Probably you could come up with something similar for the Pattersons. So what I would suggest that we should have a comprehensive category for these types of world-wide families, where anybody interested would be able to find out if a certain family is listed there or not. If this family exists he should be able to find a subcategory (such as Borlands by country) where he would find all the countries where Borlands are listed in Familypedia. And this would eliminate the loose categories such as Borlands in Europe which is not linked to anything.

That is what I would suggest. Afil 01:50, March 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for another prompt and commendably-detailed response. The model idea is excellent in principle. Needs copying to Familypedia talk:Surname in place. But I disagree that we have no use for "continent" categories. (Being "not linked to anything" is not a reason for deleting something some other user has created; it should be either left alone or discussed with the creator, so that further links may be created.) If all that you knew about your (hypothetical) great-great-uncle John Borland was in a letter saying "He crossed the Atlantic in 1890" you would want to look at a "Europe" category" in case he was NOT from the UK. So our top specific level is continents, and "Borland by continent" will be the level above that: your "comprehensive category for these types of world-wide families". -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:54, March 28, 2012 (UTC)

Born, Died, Married
Some time ago you seem to have considered having subpages for various localities which would incorporate the list of people born, died, married or buried in that locality. For some reason I am not able to find this tentative page of yours.

I have now created some templates which make this simple. For any locality for which you want to construct this subpage, just include the template BDM on top of the settlement's article. This creates on top of the article the tab for the main article and the BDM page.

After you do this, as the page does not exist, the BDM tab is red. If you click on the red tab, this allows you to create the Born Died Married page. For this you just include a BDM1 template on the page which takes care of all the rest.

It is simple and does the trick. I have tested it on several cities and it seems to work fine. Try it. And I would welcome your comments on it.Afil 01:50, March 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like a very good development, though I haven't tried it. Template:Locality may be what you are looking for. And your recent improvement should be mentioned on Forum:Templates update, where I think there is mention of related templates (in addition to the two fairly recent paragraphs above here in this talk page). -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:54, March 28, 2012 (UTC)

Forlonge Family Album
Hi,

I hope you don't mind my contacting you. I was going through a Victorian photograph album my dad bought in an auction job lot a number of years ago and almost every name I looked up brought me to your page. The album contains 143 photographs including Jessie, Maude, Connie, Florence and Andrew Forlonge, Jenny Guinness (nee Forlonge) as well as the Pooles, Barton Wrights, Hunter Blairs, Guild, Molesworth, Pavey, Hawkshaw and many more.

I thought you may be interested in the photographs but they seem to be sealed within the pages of the album and I wouldn't have the first idea about how to copy and upload them.

Anyway, if the album or the photos are of any interest to you, please just let me know.

Regards,

92.8.78.45 17:12, June 6, 2012 (UTC) Jane


 * Thank you, Jane, a great find! (I'm not sure whether I managed to reply before my recent 5 weeks of being offline.) Photographing with a digital camera would presumably be the easiest way to make the photographs available to other relatives. If they are in .jpg or .png or some other common formats, they can be uploaded to this wiki easily. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:50, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Ventimiglia family
I've met the baron and his family in Geneva. I think he, the younger, goes by Jack Ventimiglia Vallon if that helps. The family has a webpage and is on facebook. Ive read writeups on their estate on the net, in a british newspaper etc. i think they still have an annual ball, as well as tennis tournament. the email address i have for the vallons is

casa-di-ventimiglia@libero.it

I know them as my sister Valentina is their secretary in Palermo. she used to respond to their emails but as mail is quite infrequent i think they attend to it personally now. Personally I've met him, the elder, on one occasion and he and his son are both quite pleasant unassuming people from what ive heard. they are philanthropc and easy going

hope this helps

Giuseppe Barbosa


 * (See brief reply on user talk page. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:50, July 12, 2012 (UTC) )

New image editing
How do I turn off the new image editing. When I click on an image a window opens and just spins and spins and never fully opens. I need to edit images the old way by clicking and getting to that specific page. --Richard Arthur Norton (talk) 16:25, July 11, 2012 (UTC)

Errors
I keep getting errors. The links in the showfacts windows are not working (or not all working) mainly for spouses and parents. The sensor, descendants and trees are also not working. Is this a general problem or is in only my computer which has gone bezerk?Afil (talk) 05:54, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Hi Robin,

Wikia has wiped our properties again. Can you, as a bureaucrat, protest?

Thanks

Richard

rtol (talk) 14:56, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

I have been blocked, can you unblock me:
Your user name or IP address has been blocked. The block was made by. If you believe this is in error, please contact Wikia. The blocker also gave this additional reason: spam.
 * Reason given: This username or IP address is prevented from editing across the entire Wikia network due to vandalism or other disruption.
 * Start of block: 10:59, December 19, 2012
 * Expiry of block: 10:59, March 19, 2013
 * Intended blockee:
 * Block ID: #57424
 * Current IP address: 74.120.190.101

Admin
Dear Robin,

Let me first wish you a very Merry Christmas and then also a most happy and successful New Year.

Thank you for your offer. I am aware of what it means to be an admin as I have admin privileges in the Romanian language wikipedia. As far as disagreaments are concerned, I may be a grumpy old man but I consider that sometimes there are issues which should be debated in order to find the best solution. However I really hope that I have not exaggerated in the views which I have expressed and definitely did not intend in any way to annoy any of the other contributors. So a would be honored if you would submit the proposal for my nomination.

Regards

Andrei Afil (talk) 05:50, December 24, 2012 (UTC)

I posted the consent as advised. Thanks again.Afil (talk) 00:02, December 26, 2012 (UTC)

Ormond(e)
I got your message. Are you sure it was meant for me? Are you sure that other concerned contributors will find it? Afil (talk) 03:44, December 30, 2012 (UTC)

Project Charlemagne
They rolled out the latest version of SMW and all our property values got wiped again. They don't understand why, and seem not to keen to find out. They've also reset all system values to their default. A number of other things go wrong as a result. I've given up talking to Wikia, as I get polite responses but no solutions. rtol (talk) 12:13, December 30, 2012 (UTC)

Vilius
I looked at the comments posted by Vilius. I did not change anything in his articles. I deleted some of the categories which he invented without linking them to anything. These categories are not to be found in Wikipedia or other more comprehensive encyclopedias. I explained this in his talk page. Afil (talk) 03:13, December 31, 2012 (UTC)

Still going through fixing up all the "wrong" names that I have entered, It will take me a while but I hope to get it fixed over the next couple of days.

BTW I knew about the correct meaning of "nee" just couldn;t find another way to express the name changes.

There was method in my madness, but I have now found another way to meet my aims.

I had put in the long "nee" names thinking, albeit naively, that if someone went to put information in a page for this person that they would first remove the married surname(s) and the "nees" before beginning from the parent's children's facts. I wanted to make sure that they knew that these women had married and would include these details. I have noticed in many family trees that they miss many of the marriages, and I like more completeness than this. It also explained why the death was not recorded in the name that the woman had been born with. But I am now undoing these long names that I had put in and am including a list of the daughters marriages below the children's facts. This should then mean that someone coming along later will know which daughters married and changed their names.


 * Several users have listed children in text paragraphs below the automated child box, particularly to show husband's names, as you have done. Good idea. I think we could amend the children box to show spouses, but there's probably not enough room to do it comfortably. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:07, January 3, 2013 (UTC) 

The reason for names like "Fanny Gutsell nee Tomsett", and "John Gutsell alias Gould or Gold" was to help these pages turn up in google searches when people are looking for the details on these convicts. For example Frances Tomsett was sent to Australia as Fanny Gutsell and all the records in Australia about her are in that name. Someone doing a google search for information on her would google "Fanny Gutsell". Again I have hopefully found an alternative way that these pages will still come up in a google search while using their birth names as the page name inside Famiilypedia.


 * Google searches most of our text. Mention the married name and the likely name at death a couple of times in the text and you should get it in a search. Try a search for "Fanny Gutsell genealogy" even without a page name that includes Fanny Gutsell (as I have just done, getting a pleasant surprise). Another point is that a search for "John Gold" (with or without quote marks) might not easily find John Gutsell alias Gould or Gold because the names are separated by four other words. A really search-friendly solution could be to create (or leave) a page that redirects to the maiden name; but I'm not sure whether search engines take any notice of redirects. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:07, January 3, 2013 (UTC) 

Selkcerf (talk) 04:58, January 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Food for thought there, thanks. I've replied above on two points after the specific paragraphs. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:07, January 3, 2013 (UTC)

Labels for footnotes
I have fixed the labels for the footnotes, and discovered that there was a good reason why I hadn't done it before: they create links to old partial forms which don't work properly, in that if you use them, you will lose the fields which don't occur. I am not interesting in fixing these, so I am removing the links. You might like to look at Form:General info, Form:Wedding1, Form:Death etc yourself. It looks like the "partial form" stuff has been changed in the newer version. Maybe you should enquire of the SMW people. Thurstan (talk) 23:39, January 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, pal. That's the old swllowing-data problem; Phlox was aware of it and put a stopper on one of our main forms with an explanation, but maybe the partial forms need more or similar care. Maybe Pedro can make the partial forms work. When I've looked at the links I'll do a bit more study then work out what else we could do. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:07, January 3, 2013 (UTC)

Template

The template on the Logan Lerman page produces this sentence, "Ancestors from the United States", which isn't really right. How do I remove that part? It doesn't show up on the same template in the pages you created of some of his family members. 24.226.124.113 07:40, January 4, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for Grenoble and the family tree
Thanks Robin for the welcome message and the Grenoble article!

Thanks also for introducing me to the family tree template ! ... I've tried to add it to my person page (Pierre_Pham-Phu), it's nice but I am not totally satisfied with the tabs at the top of the tree ... maybe I should use another template ??

Thanks again ! Pierro78 (talk) 10:22, January 4, 2013 (UTC)

facebook and google+ link ?
Thanks Robin for helping me with the naming convention and answering about the family tree !

How did you add a facebook link to you user page ( User:Robin_Patterson ) ?? is it possible to add a google+ link ?? (I would like to add this info to my user page : User:Pierro78)

Thanks again ! Pierro78 (talk) 11:36, January 4, 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my question was unclear, I wanted to have (the link to) my facebook page inside my "user box" at the top of my user page like you have yours (I didn't ask about how to use the address bar). I guess you were able to link your wikia account to your facebook account, so your facebook account shows up in your "user box" ... so probably it's not possible to add my google+ page in my "user box" ...
 * In the meantime I've just added my facebook and google+ information in the regular part of my user page :)
 * Thanks again - Pierro78 (talk) 13:35, January 4, 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, and now we are Facebook friends and have links elsewhere. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:51, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

Dutch
Wat is de naam van die groene sprietjes die op een voetbalveld groeien (tik letters achterstevoren in)?

This is a riddle. The results is a password: sarg rtol (talk) 06:20, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

achterstevoren = back to front

translate.google.com is a great site. It is integrated with Chrome. rtol (talk) 10:20, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

Template to show children on my dad's page
Hello again Robin,

I thought that the Template:Showfacts_children would have (automatically) shown my dad's children (those declared on familypedia) on his page ( Ngo_Pham-Phu_(1936) ) but this is not the case.

Do you know if there is a Template than can do this on familypedia ?

Thanks again ! - Pierro78 (talk) 12:38, January 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks Robin for getting my dad's children appear on his person page by specifying a spouse ! :)
 * Now I understand that if my dad has other children with another spouse and this spouse is not specified on his person page then these children won't appear on his person page, right ?
 * I think this could probably be improved somehow by using a smart semantic mediawiki request ( http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Inline_queries ) but I don't know enough about the semantic implementation of familypedia (properties, categories, etc ...) ...
 * Best regards -- Pierro78 (talk) 13:42, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

User:Vilius2001x
I got your message. My problem with user Vilius is that he includes in his articles categories which make little sense. The ones I have objected to related to players of various video games for children or teenagers. I do not think that they should be included in Wikia especially if we have only one player for each game. Wikipedia does not have such categories. Vilius objected to this. If I would use my judgement I would delete these categories. But others might have different views. So for the time being I left them there. Afil (talk) 23:48, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

b-us
I am a US citizen, but that does not mean that I consider that in Wikia the United States should have a different treatment from any other country in the world.

Generally, if for any country there is a category "born in settlement X" this category becomes a subategory of category "Settlement X" and of "born in county (district or other administrative unit) Y" which in turn leads to categories until they become "born in country Z". For the United States, the template b-us does not permit this. Instead it includes a category "People of X" which does not appear for other countries.

I would have corrected the template, to make it consistent. Unfortunately (or you may say fortunately) the template is blocked and cannot be modified. Therefore, the only solution for the time being is to include the categories manually. Or to accept that the United States deserve a treatment different from Mexico or Australia, which I reject. Afil (talk) 02:05, January 8, 2013 (UTC)

Beckley, East Sussex
We don't need showfacts locality when we have the "bdm" tab for the same purpose. That is the standard, thanks to Afil. Thurstan (talk) 19:17, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * OK. I didn't see a bdm tab. It's showing now. I guess I should look for or edit pages where users are encouraged to use the template or to create the bdm tab. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:11, January 9, 2013 (UTC)

Theodrada (784-)
Another thing that broke in the last upgrade, which I have neglected to write up, is that the function that assembles the dates no longer accepts years with only 3 digits. I have been adding a leading "0", which fixes the dates but create red-links to years like 0993. We probably need some logic in showfacts person which automatically adds the leading "0" for the date calculation. Thurstan (talk) 02:41, January 9, 2013 (UTC)


 * Copied to a forum for wider readership. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:07, January 10, 2013 (UTC)

The Hills Shire
I don't recall any discussion about calling The Hills Shire a "county". Thurstan (talk) 04:44, January 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not surprised, for two reasons. Shires are counties in the sense of being second-level administrative divisions. They are also counties in traditional language. Where do you put the local govt areas? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:06, January 10, 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave William for a while - I was just starting to put in the references. I'll go back to add the references later. Mmm, William the well documented. LOL. Just like the Australan History. William's life brings so many elements together.

The father that he had at the start is just wrong. This father appears to have been made up!

Wikipedia links
How do I link to other language Wikipedias? I use Wikipedia for the English version. Richard Arthur Norton (talk) 02:15, January 12, 2013 (UTC)

Births
I added information to the documentation pages of bdm and bdm1. Please correct anything you do not like or is not clear.Afil (talk) 03:53, January 17, 2013 (UTC)

ifmarried-g1
I see your edit of Ann Dowie (1820-1897): one of the little nasties in the July "upgrade" is that "ifmarried-g1=Yes" no longer works, it has to be "ifmarried-g1=true". So whenever you "edit with form" an "old" page, you may have to reset the "ifmarried" flag. In particular, your edit aforementioned has lost the "ifmarried-g1" flag. Thurstan (talk) 04:43, January 17, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I recall that we used to have a "married? Yes" (approx) thing attached to the spouse list, which I guess was the origin of what's now a problem. Do we need a bot run or are very few pages likely to be affected? Or can we manipulate the property so that Yes=true? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:08, January 17, 2013 (UTC)


 * After a little tidying up, Property:Has improper value for is not reporting any improper values for ifmarried-g1, ifmarried-g2, ifmarried-g3. I think pages are okay until they are editted with the form, and then the property disappears (unless re-selected). If you try to search for them, the query seems to map "yes" to "true", and returns all values. However, the form processing doesn't seem to do this mapping any more, and just drops "yes" when it sees it. Thurstan (talk) 06:17, January 17, 2013 (UTC)

Categories named after settlements
Wikipedia does have such categories. I am quoting just some of them:


 * Category:Wikipedia categories named after populated places in Australia
 * Austria
 * Bulgaria
 * Alabama
 * the United Kingdom

etc. which are all subcategories of

Wikipedia:Category:Wikipedia categories named after populated places.

In Familypedia instead of "populated places" for some reason "settlements" is used. Also, there are not Wikipedia categories but only categories. Therefore the categories have been converted to

Category:Categories named after populated places in ......

I have used these categories intensively, but do not have the feeling that I have invented them. By now, Familypedia should already have several thousands of these categories. The reason I adopted them was that when for a certain settlement you have categories such as born in..., died in..., married in... etc. those should be part of a category for that settlement which would group these categories under a single umbrella.

01:35, January 23, 2013 (UTC)

The system I am using can be exemplified by the settlement of Kadarkút. The settlement has an article which is classified under the categories "Category:Kadarkút" and "Category:Settlements in Somogy County"

Besides the article for the settlement (and potentially other articles on items related to the settlement such as buildings, cemeteries, etc. located in this village) the category is a supercategory of other subcategories such as "Died in Kadarkút‎", "Married in Kadarkút‎" (and potentially other articles such as Born or Buried in Kadarkút), which in turn is included in "Category:Categories named after settlements in Somogy County", which in turn is included in "Category:Categories named after settlements in Southern Transdanubia Region" which is included in "Category:Categories named after settlements in Hungary" which is included in "Category:Categories named after settlements".

I agree that this system is not applied for Ohio. Generally, for some unclear reason, different systems are applied for the United States and for the rest of the World. This is valid also for Wikipedia and concerns not only the geographic data. Unfortunately, the categories which you will find in Familypedia, besides the ones which follow the system indicated above, are generally inconsistent. Without great efforts you will be able to find individual cases in which other views have been applied. As far as I am concerned, I have tried to use the presented system in all the articles which I have dealt with. Afil (talk) 03:25, January 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, I see the system applied in WP (as noted by my creating a link above). You're in advance of WP with your Hungary one! But it's not fair to say our systems distinguish USA from the rest of the world. Greene County, Ohio is meant to be one of our "model" counties, but those of us who have made an effort have tried to make them consistent across the world; we and the Wikipedians do, however, have the problem that not every country divides itself neatly into a single set of non-overlapping regions or states. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:00, January 23, 2013 (UTC)

French communes
1. The reason for the wider boxes (which does not appear in all articles using the template for French communes) is that in Wikia the convert template does not work properly. It converts metric data to English data for isolated numbers, but when there are more numbers which have to be converted simultaneously (such as when upper and lower limits are indicated) then the Wikia system does not work even though the template is copied identically from Wikipedia where it works. There seems to be something wrong with the Wikia system, not with the program which works in Wikipedia.

The glitch appears not only in this or other templates but even in articles if limits are indicated. I agree that this is annoying but probably cannot be fixed by any of us and Wikia administrators would have to be contacted.

2. In the specific case of the commune of Renaison, if you look at the box, you will notice that for the elevations, these are not converted but an error message is displayed. The width of the box is increased so as show the error message.

If you go to the source form of the article, you will be able to notice that for this particular article an (average) elevation, a maximum elevation and a minimum elevation are indicated, which causes the problem. If you delete the maximum and minumum elevation (you have to delete both and not only one of them), these elevations will not be displayed and converted (actually they are not correctly displayed because of the error message) the average elevation will be displayed and converted and the width of the article will not be increased. This is the solution I would recommend for the time being until the administrators can fix the glitch.

3. Generally, I am not very happy with the use of different templates for the localities in different countries, and I use the generalized. This also gives me the possibility of using location maps for regions of countries, which is possible for countries like England, but not France or Austria. As an example of an article in France which uses such location maps, you might look at Saint-Avit, Puy-de-Dôme. In the case of Renaison, I do not have a location map for the Rhone-Alpes region but I am generally developing such location maps as the need arises. But besides that I have used the Infobox settlement for the Renaison where I have also included the picture of the Town hall in the box, which is mostly but not always done. You will also notice that this template correctly displays all the elevations.

I leave it up to you to decide if you want the use the French template and eliminate the max and min elevation in order to keep the width of the box in reasonable limits or if you want to keep the settlement box.

Hope this answers all your questions. Afil (talk) 03:48, February 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Superb. We can certainly do without maximum and minimum elevations, which would be of minuscule interest to people looking for genealogical information here or even on the ground. Presumably we can just cut those elevation parameters out of our copy of the template? I'll tell Thurstan about this posting to see what he thinks. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:23, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

PS. I have completed the Rhone-Alpes location map and included it in the Settlement template. But you have to decide how you want your article to look like. You cannot leave both boxes in the article. While I prefer the settlement box the final decision is yours and you should delete what is not appropriate:

- if you want the Infobox settlement which I prefer and is more complete, the French box and the picture in the article have to be deleted. - if you want the Frech commune template, then the max and min elevations in that box must be deleted and also the settlement template.Afil (talk) 06:38, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

How to fix people created with dates
OK, thanks for the tip on including dates as children, etc are created. What's the best way to fix them now?

R.A. Canfield (talk) 02:54, February 4, 2013 (UTC)R.A. Canfield

Thanks for help on using Rename. I was working with my son to create pages. I added the children's names on the parents' pages for him to add birthdates, thinking it would be easier for him to click on the children's names and add their info. Looks like that's not ideal w/o birth year.

R.A. Canfield (talk)R.A. Canfield

Backlinks
Is it just my imagination or has the tool to find backlinks gone? --Richard Arthur Norton (talk) 23:44, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
 * That did the trick ... thanks!

Location properties
I noticed the creation of the page Oscar Emanuel Rosén (1892-1982), which uses the property:Death address. I am not sure where the documentation is, but I suspect that the "address" properties are the ones which were designed to contain all the location info subordinate to "locality", which I have been putting into the "street" properties. So I suggest that we both change our habits. I propose we: What do you think? Thurstan (talk) 05:55, March 2, 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) define these properties. I think they should be just "strings"
 * 2) convert the existing pages which use "street" and "other" properties
 * 3) put these fields on the simple form (in place of "street")
 * It would probably be a step in the right direction. Maybe I should try to find Phlox's documentation for that area, unless you've searched fairly exhaustively. He was pretty thorough with documentation as far as it went. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:02, March 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, please check the documentation, I haven't really looked. The other thought I had is that maybe Phlox did mean "full address" when he said "address" (as in the Property:Remains address for Stanley Armour Dunham (1918-1992)), and he does seem to have meant "street" when he said "street", in which case the concept I want is a new one. So do we create a new property (eg "street address"), or do we modify one of the old ones (such as "street" or "address"). Thurstan (talk) 00:40, March 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, done a little looking. Category:Facts_templates_docs may be a handy half-way point, worth remembering even if not directly relevant to this question. If really stuck, I guess I might skim Phlox's contribution list! -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:18, March 3, 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't like the look of that category: they look like templates for the first thoughts about SMW, which are completely obsolete. Thurstan (talk) 02:27, March 3, 2013 (UTC)

I have found which seems to cover some of this. Thurstan (talk) 03:05, March 3, 2013 (UTC)
 * Forum:SMW/Archive_2009-05
 * Forum:SMW_articles_update

Forums broken?
When I go to Forum:Index, I get error messages: "Invalid tag extension name: forum". Has there been another upgrade that we don't know about? Thurstan (talk) 02:37, March 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * I've just sent a Contact Wikia with screenshot. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:47, March 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * I checked the forums in Central Wikia: http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Index?mcache=writeonly gets you in. Thurstan (talk) 03:16, March 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * Reply to my contact explained that the site had been having problems all day but is now back to a reasonable state. Wendy kindly sent me a link to clear the cache, which probably did what your longer one does. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:14, March 3, 2013 (UTC)

Latin
Quid fortuitum! Lingua Latina ecclesiastica Intelligo. Whroll (talk) 18:43, March 8, 2013 (UTC)

Moves
Might it not be that P. K. Shukla (living) and S. P. Kumar (1997) are the same person? Thurstan (talk) 02:41, March 12, 2013 (UTC)
 * Different surnames and not quite the same initials. Maybe you know more about Indian naming systems than I do. (Both probably need more disambiguation; we'll see whether their author returns to clarify.) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:45, March 12, 2013 (UTC)


 * I probably don't know more, but initials are "PSK" in some order in each case: that is why I was suspicious. Raj Kumar Shukla may be relevant. Thurstan (talk) 02:52, March 12, 2013 (UTC)

Portland, Iowa
http://iavanburen.org/placenamesvbcv2.htm says "Sometime in the eighties Portland, Iowa, was rechristened Leando". Thurstan (talk) 20:43, March 13, 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent sleuthing. (And I thought everything was on AWT!!) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:38, March 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * I needed Google for this one. I was amused to see that the contributors to Ancestral File also struggled with this place name, and some moved it to the wrong county. Thurstan (talk) 03:05, March 14, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the help
Thank you for your help, Robin. You are much appreciated. Whroll (talk) 16:51, March 17, 2013 (UTC)

Charlemagne
Ordering on the sensor pages is still rather elaborate. If the main pages are properly linked (that is, parents are parents, rather than renamed parents; and parents are properly stored as properties), then the sensor pages need to refreshed at least once, but often two or three times. It's a lot a tedious and boring work, and with the next software upgrade the property database will be wiped, so you can start all over again. rtol (talk) 12:14, March 21, 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there a bot procedure that we could set in motion to refresh each sensor page (maybe restricted to people categorized or otherwise listed as likely to be descendants of KdG?) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:20, March 21, 2013 (UTC)

Template:Famous500s-header‎‎
Well done, sir. Thurstan (talk) 21:02, March 22, 2013 (UTC)

XML gateway to simple GEDCOM uploading (to start)
Robin, I see XML code at the bottom of person pages! This could be the key to importing GEDCOMs. I notice Special Pages:Import page is missing under Page tools on my Familypedia (only Export page is there). That's a disappointment. My Windmillwiki (it's out in the wild) has both Import and Export pages (I'm the bureaucrat). At my Windmolen (Dutch for windmill) site, where I am a bureaucrat, Import page appears... so it limited to bureaucrats.

I think I could write a program (or work with someone) to write one to convert a one person GEDCOM into XML. Then that XML could be imported into Familypedia to an unused person page. The Familypedia pages are only wikitext. Forms would be bypassed in this process, but the pages would be exactly like all the other standard person pages. GEDCOMs are just plain text that has tags in it. XML, as I perceive it, is souped up HTML, which is plain text. The GEDCOM tags would be switched to the appropriate XML tags. Special:Import page would do the work converting it from XML to wikitext.

At first the program would just produce a simple page with vitals and so on; later notes, sources, etc. be added to the translation process. Images are not included in GEDCOMs, so they would be left out. Being able to upload single person GEDCOMs to a new page would ease data entry considerably. Merging with an existing page could be worked out after the import process is worked out. For a while, the merging would be manual.

My reduced version tree has 7,015 persons, and 2,443 marriages in it, and it is growing. I don't think I will live long enough to get all that on Familypedia. My full tree has 67,069 individuals and 28,258 families... wasn't hoping to get all that online, though.

What programming language to use? I'm not sure. The conversion is really a very simple process given we are working with text files: the GEDCOM and XML files. All my programming for the school district was done in compiled Applesoft BASIC, and no one uses that anymore. Perhaps a modern scripting language like JavaScript (I've written some code in this language) could be used for the conversion from GEDCOM to XML. I know some word processors have macros that could be written to do the same thing in a word processor. A GEDCOM can be loaded and viewed in a web browser like Firefox. The JavaScript would be run from a browser. I think the PHP language could be used. I have written some PHP as well. Have the software to write and run it on my computer now. If JavaScript and PHP can't be run on Familypedia's server, perhaps it could be run somewhere else online to convert the GEDCOMs. For my own use, I was thinking about just writing a program so I could import the XML.

Multiple person GEDCOMs, and merging with pages that already exist is a bit beyond me at this time.

Has anyone ever tried this? Is there any code available from previous efforts. Is the person or persons that were involved in past efforts still active at Familypedia?

Although GEDCOM has a standard format, I know that is seldom strictly followed. This can be dealt with through experience, and a long period of testing before going public.

Familypedia is attractive because it may still be there long after I have passed on. WeRelate is permanent too, but is far more complicated to use than Familypedia. My database at Ancestry.com is permanent, but not readily viewed by the public, and even difficult to find for Ancestry subscribers.

You can do whatever you want with this text...I don't know exactly where to put it myself. Whroll (talk) 04:06, March 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * I've put it on the most recently edited forum on the subject. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:18, March 23, 2013 (UTC)

Springfiield, New Jersey or Springfield Township, New Jersey or Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey
Now I am really confused. The last information was to follow Wikipedia. I discovered there are several Springfield, New Jersey, so I went for Springfield Township, New Jersey. No go. I don't like to ask for help, but this is incomprehensible to me. Should I go to each Springfield, New Jersey person, edit without form and enter the long Wikipedia format "Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey" in the locality section? Seems a bit long. I did a disambiguation page for Springfield, New Jersey. But the Springfield Township, New Jersey I set up can't be redirected to Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey. Help, please. :) Whroll (talk) 22:59, March 23, 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the Springfield Township, New Jersey might be better redirected to a disambiguation page? Whroll (talk) 23:02, March 23, 2013 (UTC)

TOCs
Yes, I ~like~ TOCs whenever they are useful. Thanks. Whroll (talk) 02:46, March 24, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you
Dear Robin,

Thank you for your confidence. I will proceed cautiously, until I get the real feeling of what I am supposed to do. Please notify me if there is anything specific you will want me to to.

Regards Afil (talk) 01:00, March 25, 2013 (UTC)

Table of Contents
I do still object to including a TOC. However, if you must have one, I think it will vary page-by-page where it looks best. I don't like the look of William Wilmott (1797-1886) with a TOC as part of Showfacts biography‎. Are you happy with it? My standard format for an immigrant (particularly a convict) is to have the arrival details straight after the biography (see, for example, William Singleton (1752-1835). I don't like the TOC before that line. See also Richard Martin Case (c1814-1863) and Matthew James Everingham (1769-1817) as examples. I would prefer it at the beginning of Showfacts children for these pages, but this won't work for those instances where there is a lot of text in between. Thurstan (talk) 01:19, March 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. I can agree that the pages you listed do not need a table of contents. TOCs there are a waste of space. Whroll (talk) 02:19, March 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, chaps, for lateish response - my internet was down for 10 hours.
 * I've looked at the Wilmott example. TOC isn't part of the mini-bio there (nor probably anywhere else). (And it would look pretty much OK if the article had a few headings; when I was proofreading online law commentary books we would not have allowed such a lot of consecutive paragraphs with no heading.) On the Singleton example, TOC lets a reader get to the Sources and Notes in one click instead of three. If TOC could be organized to be just before the child box but movable, I'd be happy. What I want to avoid is the big white gap that appears on most pages that don't have much free text but do have several lines of infobox (i.e. most articles at present, I think). The clr in the child box pulls the TOC down with it. I also want to avoid having to tell users that they can add a TOC wherever they like - but maybe that's the only satisfactory solution. (I've forgotten - does NOTOC cancel it?) Hey - another solution is to widen the infobox, so that it and the minibio would tend towards the same length.  -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:29, March 25, 2013 (UTC)

Question:Showfacts person template
I hope you're not too far behind. Out internet here is down now and then, but it is improving with time.

I had a question as I prepare to use PHP to insert information into the table produced by the Showfacts person template. I don't fully understand the more complicated templates, but it is not necessary to know the inner workings of templates to get GEDCOMs converted. I notice that only data types (e.g. "birth_year=", "death_year=") that contain data are displayed. Persons have varying assortments of data types. Can additional data types be added, or is the table limited to a particular set of data types? For example, could I add "residence_year=" and "residence_place=" in the table? If the set is limited, where can I see the complete list? The PHP program needs that information, all the data type names, included in the code.

I have written successful computer programs using complex text string manipulation before. I think PHP can handle the job of GEDCOM to Wikitext conversion. It is more highly developed now than it was when I last fiddled with it.

I'm not sure yet if it can be a one or two or more steps operation. As I see it, the user would upload the GEDCOM, with a maximum allowable size. GEDCOMs could be upload as a file using the existing Upload photo link on the left menu. It's not just photos that can be uploaded. Permitted file types listed there on the upload page include ".ged" (GEDCOM). The GEDCOM would be viewed by the arbitrator and approved or disapproved. There are tools to browse GEDCOMS and edit them without loading them into a regular genealogy program. Even Microsoft's Notepad program can accomplish that. Once approved, the GEDCOM would be uploaded to a more open web server, where PHP would be used to convert the GEDCOM into individual Wikitext tables, along with whatever else is needed for each standard person page. Then the pages would be uploaded by a bot (an automated "user") into Familypedia. I'm almost certain Wikia allows bots and limits them to Familypedia's normally accessible content area.

I don't think Wikia will ever give us permission to run PHP at Familypedia. It is too powerful, and therefore a security risk for them the way they have the various wikis on their system set up. Normally a Mediawiki sysop would have access to their wiki's root directory. Familypedia sysops most likely would not be trusted by Wikia to access root. An error would have disasterous consequences. But that will not stop development of GEDCOM conversion, we still have access to the part of the wiki that we need to get the job done. I hope I am not too long-winded. Whroll (talk) 01:46, March 26, 2013 (UTC)