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)

Miscellaneous Catchup
Hi Robin...I missed several messages form you, and am catching up. Re: VitaBox---I agree, the name is ugly. Have the same feeling toward the alternative (Information box). Have no solutions.

Re how to handle duplicate spouses. Yes, probably does need some guidance on this. I'll try to add something on the Project:VitaBox page.

Yes, the HTML coding is ugly. I've tried the wikitable approach, and semi rejected it (regretfully) as (a) its not transportable to other enviroments (should one be so inclined and b) is very odd to someone not working the wiki a lot. I figure people will have a hard enough time if I leave it in standard HTML, let alone in WikiTable.---But yes, the display does look better in WikiTable. I've taken some steps to simplify the HTML coding---deleting terminal cell and row tags---not needed if everything is spread out as is done in these tables.---only need this if you try to put several cells on the same line.

A MUCH better approach would be if the wiki allowed text boxes, etc. Then you could create stuff on the fly without having to fiddle with the HTML. Something for a future project perhaps. Rather have the wiki people do it for us, though---they're the ones with this kind of expertise. I've done enough programming to know that I could do this myself, but I don't live and breath programming---and somethings are better done by the experts.Bill 23:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User Tasc

 * Thank you Robin very much for the Welcome!


 * Although my first article will be in Spanish, I intend to right it also in English, after completion (although my grammar and style will need some help, since I am not a native speaking in English).


 * I will add the Babel labels as you suggested.


 * Regards from Argentina, Tomás A. Santa Coloma, --Tasc 12:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC).

Robin, please, do you know how to add Notes (instead of references)? I know how to add references using, and in Wikipedia I added notes using the template , but here this template does not work. This is because I prefere to separate the Notes from the autor from the references citing other sources. Thanks a lot, --Tasc 15:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome!
It's a very good message. We need to adopt something like it on WeRelate. I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to Wikia, but we'll see. I've been working hard trying to get gedcom uploads ready by the end of the year.--Dallan 05:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Centuries/Siglos
Robin, I have the following suggestions:


 * Since the main language of Genealogy Wikia is English, I would just create a redirection from Siglo XX (Siglo XIX, etc.) towards 20th Century, 19th Century, etc. Otherwise, we would have to create a different Category, Template, Rule, etc. for each language, which might be a redundant and enormous work for everyone (especially you).


 * Perhaps could be a good point to indicate within the main page that articles are welcome in any language, but Categories, Templates, Rules, and any other similar pages or links written in other languages should preferable be redirected to the English version or directly use the English version. Do you agree? --Tasc 04:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Robin. I think I found a better way to deal with Centuries and Siglos. I have made links of this form  Siglo X and 10th Century for Siglo X and 10th Century respectively.  This is better than the above mentioned redirections, since those are redirections to Categories, not to dates.  I think this could be a better option.--Tasc 14:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Got your Message
...about the inviting of experts. I will look in and see what I can do--either to help with that effort, or be more involved myself.

I also saw someone's been adding the kind of material I am interested in myself.

--IFaqeer 09:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration
Hi Robin. I didn’t realize that I had to vote. It is done. I would suggest to incorporate better editors, including Redirection, small, etc., such as the one that comes with the monobook-Suite in Wikipedia. --Tasc 20:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Robin, I have to be absent from Genealogy for about one month (I need to pay full attention to a grant application that I am writing). I will continue editing the article Santa Coloma by January 2007. I'm sorry for the delay. Have a nice Holydays. If you need to contact me, I'll be available by email.--Tasc 20:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Robin, my best wishes for 2007!--Tasc 12:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Stuff
Hi Robin, yes I realize that I did it the hardway. Didn't realize I was on the talkpage when I called for the move. Enjoy your Holiday---it would seem to be difficult to get into a Christmas kind of mood when its the middle of the summer, but perhaps its boxing day and "summer vacation" for you. We will see you when you return---but I notice that I haven't noticed much collaboration as yet---perhaps it was too much to hope for. Was Mr. Reike a collaborator? if so, I was unable to get a conversation going. Perhaps more will happen after Christmas.

Retirement looms, and I'm really hoping to be ablet spend some quality time with my moldy ancestors, and the wiki, beginning February, if not sooner. The more I work the wiki the more I realize how well suited this environment is for doing what I want to do. Nothing else comes close---Werelate has some advantages, but so far, I haven't seen anything there that would make me want to utililze their capabilities. Bill 23:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

==Wecome Back--

Hi robin, and welcome back. Now that your home system is up and running properly, life on the wiki should be getting easier for you.

As you may have noticed there's been a fair number of folks trying out the wiki during your absence. I welcomed some, but most are waiting for your kind touch. Bill 13:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

My goodness
We certainly seem to be having a lot of activity today. Perhaps its because its New Years Eve, and people have the day off tomorrow.

At anyrate, you might want to take a look at Hamilton, undated/Atrocities. This is the beginning of an annotated and hyperlinked article by Emory Hamilton (deceased), a local historian in SW VA. The folks mentioned in this article are mostly Wigton Walkers or related to them, and you'll get some idea of the shape of things to come with this group. This is part of a very complex skein of information, of which you are seeing a single thread. There's more information available on this group of folks than you can shake a stick at, but little of it has been put into an orderly and comprehensible form. That's what we are shooting for her. Just thought you'd like to know. Bill 17:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

But just taking a quick glance at my sun-clock, I see its the wee hours of the morning for you already, with dawn just breaking. Happy New Year! Bill 17:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Wlecome Change
Liked the addition of the "box" in your welcome message---good idea. Bill 13:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

And congratulations...so a toast to the young couple courtesy the Irish side of the family...


 * May their troubles be less
 * And their blessings be more.
 * And nothing but happiness
 * Come through their door.

Bill 19:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

And I suppose I should be shouldering a greater load on the Welcomes...but then, you have a nice touch with that. Bill 19:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Decade XX
Hi Robin,

I don't like the Category:Decade XX format. I think Category:980s, and Category 990s would work better and be easier to remember. I like following most Wikipedia standards, unless they really don't work. This date standard seems to work ok, and it's used elsewhere in the wikisphere, so I think we should follow the existing patterns. Chadlupkes 20:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Listing Order
Tried it with AA previously. Didn't work. the "*" takes precedence over both numbers and letters. Bill 19:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi robin, I'll check into it. I need to finish off (or at least reach an end point) with Indian Captives, as well as finish off some left over "real" work.

Bill 16:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Broken Links
Thanks Robin, I'll attend to that. Bill 14:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Admin needed
Thanks for the welcome. I'm gonna need to chat with an administrator at some point. I'm not quite ready yet. But maybe you can help pointing me in the right direction - with whom should I chat? I think I need someone patient as I am often verbose (a novelist as opposed to a poet, meaning it takes me several paragraphs to say something someone else could say in one line) and someone kind as my heart is super sensitive to criticism. As a further hint about my style, someone can see my chats with Angela at my user page on the podcast wikia; as a further hint about what this will be about, someone can see my suspended request for wikia space. But, again, I'm not ready to chat yet - just looking for someone to chat with eventually. Sorry if this strange.

Respectfully,

Zephyrinus 22:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your willingness to help at some point in the future. You needn't look at the references provided - save your time.  My health - some days are better than others and it might take me a while to gather together a well-thought out proposal for your review.  Thank you.  Respectfully, Zephyrinus 13:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Mr. Patterson -

I thought I would be ready for the assistance of an administrator before this. Alas, my medical condition and consequential use of medications has delayed my ability to think clearly enough to refine my thoughts into a clear form. Writing now - I hope you can read this in event of another period of down-time as a result of the 1.9 upgrade.

I have been involved for several years in a Cemetery Transcription Project and I was going to ask that a Wikia be created based on that project. That Wikia, however, would have created an article for each person who has ever lived (well, ideally), much like the remit for the genealogy wikia. I see no sense in duplicating that effort, in having two pages for each person - one on Genealogy and one on Cemetery, so I withdrew my request. (My original vision for a Wikia may be of some assistance to you. My original Cemetery Wikia Request can be found here.)

I have tried to create a Grave Template which would simply append cemetery/grave information to any existing Genealogy entry there might be. Granted, it might be a rare case now, with such a limited database, that grave information would match a genealogy article, but there we go.

In addition to people, an entry for the cemetery itself would also need to be created. This, I expect, could be done in parallel to the existing genealogy information and would not interfere with anything that has been or would be happening on the genealogy side of things.

Two additional hiccups to consider. A small one at first: there are pet cemeteries. While my records contain only one or two, it would create entries similar to people but for animals. I hope this would not pose much of a problem. If you think it will, we can try to append "(pet)" after the dates of birth and death to create a distinct entry - just an idea.

The much larger problem: The true nature of the project I have been involved with is Cemetery Photographs. I have thousands of them. Literally. Of different sizes. Is the Wikia software able to handle such an influx of data? I think we would need a positive reply before going forward, if it is decided that a joint genealogy/death records database is preferable to a separate ones.

Please take your time. I have gotten myself into rather a big project at the moment: a listing of Wikias. And it's about all my clouded brain can handle. Think picture puzzle.

I hope all is well in New Zealand.

Respectfully,

Zephyrinus 22:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Your reply - I have not read it yet, but I wish to thank you. Goodness me, you've been busy.  Thanks.  Zephyrinus 13:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Place names
Yes, I see. I will harmonize mine with yours. Do you have any access to German or French databases. I have family in Alsance I want to do more research on. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

A rose is a rose
I see where Zephyrincus has started adding in "animal cemetery" kinds of entries. He's created an article for a horse named Rose (?-2002). Guess we need to talk about whether this is OK within the framework of this wiki. I don't have a problem with it per se, but suspect this would be better done on a separate wiki. Bill 17:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Kindly forgive me for butting in here, but I have a fear. Perhaps this discussion would more appropriately be had on a forum or watercooler or some other (more public) place rather than a user's discussion page.  I don't wish the others in the community to think there was a conspiracy - that decisions were being made without regard to their input.


 * But I bow to your vast more experience in this Wikia and its dynamic.


 * Respectfully, Zephyrinus 00:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * HI Zephyrincus

You're hardly butting in. Yes, this might be a water cooler discussion. But nothing is very secretive here, especially where things are displayed in the open....and a user page is a pretty open place. Of course, ther are always back doors if and when people want to use them, but this is fairly open place, and obvious. But, sure, we can transfer the discussion to the water cooler. Bill 00:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Email
Are you going to turn on your email? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Miscellany
Thanks for checking on the {McCormick County Cemeteries} template's use of italics and underlines. I used to know that stuff too. In fact I used to teach it. Long time ago. Thanks for all your hard work. Do you need more work to do? How about archiving watercooler discussions at some point? :-) Don't stay up until 2:30 a.m. but if you're bored some time . . .  Thanks.  Best wishes.  Zephyrinus 20:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I knew if I used two "{" I'd be in trouble - and I was too lazy to type the link in properly - so, actually, the single {braces} around the {template} was on purpose - but thanks for the tip anyway - usually you can't trust me to know what I'm doing! :-) Zephyrinus 00:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome
Hi - I was at wikipedia for a while (same user name - ie wikipedia:user:Golden Wattle) so I am familiar with quite a lot of wiki mark-up etc. Not sure how much I will be able to contribute (I have retired from wikipedia because of real world pressures) but every little helps I guess. Regards --Golden Wattle 19:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the ongoing pointers as I find my way around Regards --Golden Wattle 21:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello
I am sorry; I have been more than usually distracted and didn't see your message about getting Wikians involved till today. I will try to spend more time on the G-Wiki. I just added some help stuff.

--IFaqeer 23:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Hi! Hope you are well. I know we have some loose ends to chat about. I hope to get to those at some point.

But thanks for creating {AlsoWP} - and I mean the simple redirect page. I could have sworn I tried to create a redirect on a template namespace and it didn't work. Your simple creation showed that it does work. Even your "simple" acts are appreciated.

Cheers,

Zeph

K'zoo
Medications really getting to me. In bed most of the time these days. Have to make this short. No energy for anything. Sorry, I don't want to complain.

Amazing. I thought I had more time to write a little (e-)note. Sometimes regular mail is fast.

Rats. Just lost train of thought. Let's see.

Oh, "Smede" or "Smeade" or something like that - used to be a paper company in the area. I don't think it exists anymore. Perhaps bought out by 3-M. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of. But that was a long time ago. Gosh, we're getting old.

BC=Battle Creek, which is actually named after a river. Used to have a house on the BC river. I miss that house. K'zoo/BC International Airport, located in K'zoo - what a joke - one flight to Canada! :-)

Hmmm, let's see, what else - oh, they are currently widening I-94 (Interstate 94) to three lanes in each direction from the US-131 interchange (which they are also redoing) to the stadium at Sprinkle Road (just South of I-94, not specifically list on map). What A Mess !!! They completely removed the bridge at Oakland Drive. Ghastly.

Mauris is new subdivision - not even listed on Google Earth. But look South of East Main Street (east of 131, north of i-94) and West of 9th street: that corner. Basically just under the "14" - that's it.
 * Got it - at the elbow of a major bend in the river near where the Norfolk Southern RR crosses it. But no sign of a 9th Street - not surprising to me, because one of those is in its proper "column" running through Oshtemo village. Robin Patterson 13:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Where are you looking??? I don't think you got it.  I don't see "elbow of a major bend" of anything and the nearest RR is Amtrak.  Let's start over.  On THE map:


 * Find the Oshtemo Township Hall. Go East.  The FIRST - VERY, VERY, VERY FIRST thing to the East is a red and black road going South.  I'm rather hazy at the moment and forget the name of that road.  The next thing to the East is another black and red road - which is 9th street; the next thing to the East is the "14" which is referred to above (and below).
 * Now I see your mistakes: as colored red above, you said "east" twice when you meant "west". And as a possible related error, the "14" is wholly east of 9th street. Lots of people confuse east and west. Robin Patterson 01:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * (Note: as you know from your surveyor's experience: each township has its own Section 14; maybe this was where some confusion was borne?)


 * A former surveyor, huh? In that case, I might have something else in my collection you might be interest in.


 * That's all I can manage today. I wish you all the best.  Zephyrinus 00:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

14 is a Section Number. Oh, but that's a longer story. Counties are divided into Townships which are divided into sections. All squares. Boring. And there is a part of each section in each township (or maybe an entire section) reserved in the state Constitution - reserved for a school. Now, whether there is enough students for a school is another matter. And some one-room schoolhouses have long been abandoned in favour of bigger districts. And Districts can be combined by contracts and so on.
 * I can see the block arrangement very easily, but thanks for telling me the numbered squares are "sections". New Zealand had a similar system of square Survey Districts divided into small Blocks and smaller Sections. Robin Patterson 13:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A collector of maps, huh? I'll have to go through my box again, sometime. A good non-thinking project. Unlike trying to explain sections/townships/counties - I get a feeling I botched that one.

Best wishes, "Zeph" Zephyrinus 01:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Zeph. Thought I'd butt in on Robin's page a bit.  Your comments remind me that we probably need an article explaining the Township-Range-Section System (TRS).  The TRS is one of the most confusing things in American Land records.  Most of my kin are from VA, or New England, where sections and townships are not entrenched in the land records, but occasionally they show up in my mother's line because they settled in the northern tier (North/South Dakota, down to Iowa.  All of those states were settled when the TRS was introduced.  So occasionally I have to deal with them.  I have to figure it out everytime I use it, because it's a system designed to keep track of land title management, and it's not meant to be very informative in terms of locating a specific point.  The areas covered by the TRS are shown in the map at the bottom of the page at this location:

BLRM TRS map

I'll start working on an discussion page for that, and perhaps, when you're up to it, you can comment. Bill 02:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia probably explains it better than we should try to! Let's start with Township (United States). Robin Patterson 13:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right. No point in reinventing the wheel.  The article at  is sufficient for our purposes.  I'll create a page whose only content is a link to that article.  Bill 14:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * He did - very promptly: Public_Land_Survey_System. I may arrange for a link to it from Township (United States). Robin Patterson 01:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

WP templates
Hi Robin Thanks for stopping by PW. The template issue at Visual cycle still hasnt been sorted so we would appreciate your help. Another feature I would like to get working is the WP Template:DEFAULTSORT - any ideas. Best wishesDr Joe Kiff 07:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Morgan Morgan
Good points. I'll check around. However, this particular Morgan family is a fairly big deal in West Virginia, dealing with descendants of Col. Morgan Morgan, generally acknowledged as the first settler within the state's boundaries. Morgantown WV (a substantial city) was founded by his son Zacquill Morgan. Another well known son, David aka "Indian Fighter", lived near Prickett's Fort and is buried their, along with his brother Zacquill. People who descend from Morgan Morgan, and have an interest in genealogy, would also know something about Prickett's Fort. But there's no point in placeing a listing here without better contact information---so we'll check this. Bill 13:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Santa Coloma's main page translated
Hi Robin.

I have now translated almost all the Spanish version to English except the section Anecdotes, which is now in a subpage.

The translation of the Anecdotes will take some additional weeks (months), since it is very long. In the main time, the main page is ready. Please, made the necessary corrections to the English when you have some time.

In addition, I have made the English version the main page for Santa Coloma (instead of the Spanish version). The Spanish version is now in a subpage. I have divided the sections regarding other countries (Argentina) and Anecdotes as subpages in both languages, in order to reduce the size of the main page.

Thanks a lot again for your help. Regards, --Tasc 17:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I need your help changing a user name
Can you come to my user discussion page and help, it seems only you have the powers to change a user name. --Richard Arthur Norton I 17:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous Welcomes
You welcome many people. Should we delete the welcomes given to anonymous users? I mean, if I go to a library and log in to a terminal and go to the game.wikia.com I think I might find a message waiting for me from you given several months ago to an anonymous user who sat at that terminal before me who surfed to the genealogy wikia - right? Won't the screen flash "You have new messages" - I ask out of befuddlement.

If so, I can do this. Deleting old messages is a good mindless task for me - oh, unless I can't because I'm not an administrator - and I DON'T want to be an administrator. I suppose blanking them won't help. I can put a redirect there to a general "please create an account, we want you" page.

Oh, and did I do something to you that I should apologise for? You seem a bit distant. Email me. Thanks.

Zeph Zephyrinus 01:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If I thought some youngster with an old brain was going to delete my welcome messages I would not be pleased. The recent ones - template:welcIP - all have the "please register" box, so they won't confuse anyone. Even the old ones that were like a standard welcome have a software-created note at the bottom of the IP user page advising that the message may have been meant for someone else and also recommending registration. Each has a chance of attracting a real contributor who might not have bothered if there had been no welcome note. I don't think they work across Wikia, so a gamer won't find a genealogy message or vice versa; you don't get cross-messages despite having the same usernames throughout Wikia - no different from an IP name, structurally?


 * A slightly mindless task that would, by contrast, have positive value is to grab some Special:Oldpages and convert Wikipedia place links (many of which don't work) into Genealogy-Wiki place links, with the resulting place stub pages having links to WP if poss and city/county/state categories. Most of the earliest will be Brian's 3,000 semi-automated ones, largely with Australian places but having some U.K. birthplaces.


 * Another easy useful task would be to do some of the welcoming!! (I have suggested to Bill that he welcome people who are obviously in the Wigton Walker clan; I even created a template for him to use or improve.) You could create your own welcome template by adapting one of the standard ones.


 * The truth here is that I'm in fairly close contact with any Wigton Walker who wants to start doing this. I believe the conclusion of many/most is that doing the wiki is just too gol-durn hard.  I still have a solution for that, but it keeps getting pushed off by interferring things.  I need a solid block of time to try this out, but eventually I'll be able to go forward with the problem.  I can become more active in the welcoming bit, But if Welcoming folks to the Wiki is something Zephyr would like to try his hand at, sounds good to me. Bill 03:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But have you done all the cemetery work? It's great having a specialist doing something like that.


 * I certainly second that thought. I've made some suggestions privately how this could be usefully continued when Zephyr runs out of his own hard collected data....to be honest, there's more data out there than anyone person could possibly do---but no one says a single person has to do it---but there should be plenty of this kind of information for Zephyr to tackle. Also, I've given Zephyr a laundry list of straight forward articles that could be developed, and related taks---like a genealogy dictionary, etc.  I'm all for takeing anyone up on an offer to build the wiki.  Bill 03:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Apart from floating the idea that you might delete my welcome messages, you've done nothing near bad enough to apologise for. My apparent distance may be because there's an ocean (not to mention several hours of timezone) between us or because I've been contributing to several other wikis, including the new government.wikia.com.


 * All the best - Robin Patterson 02:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * One of the reasons I asked is because I did welcome an anonymous user and I was worried about this issue. Apparently, however, I welcomed the user wrongly because I did not include the language that the message might be "meant for someone else".  THIS is why I usually don't welcome people (or venture into new things ) - I do have some fear of doing things wrong.  Alas.  I'll try to find that anonymous user again and delete my message.  I will henceforth consider the welcoming of new users to be an administrator's task.  I'll take your and Bill's hint that I should concentrate (instead) on cemetery stuff.  Best wishes, Zephyrinus 11:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Deleting welcomes is one of the "new things" I hope you won't again "venture into". You didn't carefully read what I said about "meant for someone else". Now study my latest note on your talk page if you haven't already. Goodnight. Robin Patterson 14:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

FamilyTree
I checked out your suggestion, including some pages that used the template. Obviously a skilled wikipedian. Not sure how this would work in practice---everyone in your family tree would need a special designation ---"maternalgreatgreatgrandfather". Quite precise, but quite exacting, with a lot of mental overhead to keep up with. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Bill 14:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Time Check
Hi Robin, its about 9AM here. Just been cleaning up some "nitnoids" (another military term). My day is just starting, though I suspect your's is drawing to a close. We may need to send a message out on the genealogy email to ask folks to please log in! We seemt o be having an uptick in spammers AND unregistered edits. Bill 13:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)