User talk:WMWillis



People templates
Bill, I have used and improved the standard one, but I know that most of the recent contributors haven't.

I like some of the ideas on yours. Probably worth commenting at its Talk page some time; probably not today.

Adding a button on the sidebar isn't too hard but I've never personally done it. You could read w:Help:Sidebar to see. It needs sysop status, so I have plans for that!

Robin Patterson 01:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It may be a while before I can arouse the interest of someone with power to make you a sysop; so I'll tinker with the sidebar myself. Robin Patterson 03:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Bill, have a look at Template:Familytree created by our newest member! Robin Patterson 14:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Admin nomination
Four tildes at Genealogy:Requests_for_adminship, please! Robin Patterson 02:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

See User_talk:Robin_Patterson and invite Margie and a couple of others to put a word in for you. Robin Patterson 20:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * As you may know, Bill, I invited Angela to use her powers to give you the "status", but she bestowed the anointing power on me (not the first time she has made me a wiki bureaucrat). I checked out the other nominators: good reliable contributors, apparently. So you now have some extra capabilities, including such timesavers as instant rollback of spam and obscenity. I have every confidence that your use of the powers will be considered and responsible. --Robin Patterson 00:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "Category:...Walker" has been deleted. Before you had the power to do that, you asked for the deletion. Understabndable that you then forgot about it - no links. It was rather obvious at the top of Special:Uncategorizedcategories when I looked at that today. Robin Patterson 00:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Formatting tips or reminders
(That's just in case you hadn't caught up with those.)
 * 1) Hash at the start of a line creates a numbered item.
 * 2) Paragraph straight after a starred or hashed line will be new paragraph without needing "break" code or blank line.
 * 3) Star and hash lines can both have sublists using two or more of said symbol.
 * 4) How many do you want?!
 * Don't overdo it; the hash ones in particular can get their numbers wrong if too much gets inserted...
 * 1) Clear as mud?

Bibliographic references can be done as footnotes with clever MediaWiki template coding (which produces superscript numbering in the text and lists the detail at the bottom if you're lucky). We have some of that already copied to this wikia, used for my great-...-great-uncle Lord_Protector_Oliver_Cromwell_%281599-1658%29, but I can quickly (and anyone else can theoretically) do more of that sort of thing if it's useful. Find a Wikipedia page with lots of them, look at and below its Edit box, and you may get enough ideas to see whether we need better systems.

Robin Patterson 03:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Page creation and sidebar link to it
I can probably do the button today. I spent some of yesterday (along with major work on making the anonymous but excellent Shivas page much more useful and dealing with New page!) making the button's intended target really comprehensive; and with one addition that came to mind last night it should be ready in the next 5 hours (allowing the employer 4 hours!). See Help:Starting pages. Robin Patterson 20:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Community_Portal
Genealogy_talk:Community_Portal Robin Patterson 22:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Bill, I printed out the current portal and ticked things off when comparing with Test Portal. I think we could do the substitution now. The mailing list and spam links need redirecting, but are tolerable with even their present targets. (Now back to High Court of New Zealand judgments for a few hours with brief interruptions!) Robin Patterson 01:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous users
Bill, I read your very recent proper comment on a talk page. But in case the addressee never looks there, you could copy it to User talk:67.39.242.130, under a suitable heading to distinguish it from my welcome message. Robin Patterson 06:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Rainbow table talk
Bill, please see my recent addition to my talk if you haven't already. Our one-to-one discussion would be easier for us to follow and much easier for anyone else if we put it on a single specifically-headed page. Robin Patterson 23:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Vita Box
You could observe "proper" Mediawiki standardisation by calling it "Infobox personal vital statistics". Now back to decent practicalities, I think the demonstration and discussion is big enough to move to a page such as project:Vitabox.

The display is really neat! (My only initial query is about placing parents after spouse(s). Next query - on reading those parentheses I just typed - is whether your box has easy instructions for multiple spouses.)

The coding is not fearfully neat. Maybe if you had fully mastered wikitables you would have used pipes instead of those tags. On the other hand, beginners might welcome the distinction between td and tr, which make it a little easier to remember where one is. Food for thought; I suppose I should brush up my table skills and present a vitabox in wikicoding for comparison. Maybe not in the next couple of hours. What's your bedtime in UTC/GMT? Robin Patterson 02:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Created Using Research Template
Browsing idly while having my afternoon cuppa, I reread what's below the above heading on that page and saw "It may also help guard against near-duplicates." Just below that, what caught my eye? -


 * Patrick Henry Morrow (1881-1939)
 * Patrick Henry Morrow (1881-?)

They are near-duplicates; have I mentioned them before? Curiously, the one with poorer spelling and no death date is the one that has been worked on more recently. I suggest you merge them.

Robin Patterson 02:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Word order
N   04:19:36 Category:Surname Melvin (diff; hist). . WMWillis (Talk | contribs | block) N   04:19:12 Category:Melvin Surname (diff; hist). . WMWillis (Talk | contribs | block)

? --Robin Patterson 21:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Playing around trying to see why something wasn't working right. Problem solved. Had nothing to do with the order of words, but rathr with the waythe system initializes the surname page---you actually have to put somethinginto that blank text area---maybe a carriage return---for it to recognize that there's a page there when you press "save". Otherwise it ignores the page, and its like the page was never creatted.Bill 23:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You may be talking about MediaWiki category pages in general. They don't show everywhere you would expect unless there is something in their editable portion (preferably at least a link to a parent category!). But I think they do show up with their subcategories and/or "child" pages even without editing. (Now I hope your people are being rescued from the near oblivion of "Category:Surname Melvin".) Robin Patterson 00:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Bill's Hints
I notice a small addition to that page, doing rather more than the edit summary suggests. Maybe the page should be renamed, perhaps with "Wigton Walker Portal:" at the front?

And a small point - changing "" to "" is probably a complete waste of time apart from making things a little more uniform in appearance for editors. Mediawiki automatically capitalises the first words of every namespace and of every pagename unless specifically altered (eg as in Wiktionary).

Keep up the marvellous work, atom!! Robin Patterson 19:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Abbreviations ...
Good move, Bill. I too prefer having that word first in the title.

Looking at the move log, I wonder whether you did more work than necessary; do you know that moving an ordinary page automatically moves its talk page too (except in unusual circumstances)?

Very honest edit comment, but no need to run yourself down! The origin of the original page name could have remained virtually secret. Even I didn't know who started it.

Anyway, onwards and upwards (unless the current mailing-list-dominating spate of "cache" problems worsens). My Web use may cease for a couple of weeks starting about 35 hours from now, but I may manage to get my jackpoint at home fixed.

Robin Patterson 19:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Santa Coloma
Bill, thank you very much for your help correcting the translation of Santa Coloma (family) from Spanish to English. --Tasc 18:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Bill, my best wishes for 2007! --Tasc 12:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Returning; greetings; "Bill Willis"; dates

 * 1) Good to see someone else (just above) using this page at last!
 * 2) I think I've greeted all the other newcomers (finishing just before a very late signoff); your welcome was good but unsigned and possibly less informative than it could have been; maybe you need a short informative welcome template of your own, which you can zap in quickly then augment with personal sentences?
 * 3) Please examine http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Bill_Willis and its talk page (then maybe officially relate it to your standard pages?)
 * 4) See latest project of mine extending date categories.
 * 5) My home internet use can't be as "constant" for long periods as the "work" internet - I have to share with household phone line.

Robin Patterson 22:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Mark has written some ideas
See http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Genealogy:Collaboration_of_the_month#Contribution_from_Mark.2C_inventor_of_the_genealogy_.22webBase.22

Robin Patterson 11:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I saw that, and followed up with the sites. I'm still digesting it.  It sounds to me like he's suggesting an external data base that the wiki would draw on to update pages.  Not sure if I understand that correctly.  There would be some problems with that which would have to be overcome.  Bill 13:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I imagine you and Mark can overcome any such problems. Best solution could be extensions to this site's functionality. An alternative might involve having material here that a zoho application links to. Robin Patterson 19:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Family matters and greetings
I'll go offline about 5 hours from now, probably not returning for 2 days. Daughter gets married about 30 hours from now, and I doubt if there will be free internet where they are.

Talking of welcomes - you could incorporate that "box" (or one of your own design) in the short informative welcome template of your own or any variant of it. Give you more time for real work. The template currently using the box is, of course, for a welcome to an "IP", with the starting message urging registration, and anyone can use it.

Robin Patterson 19:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Categories - listing order
"Lets try that with "AA", since "1" inserts it last on the category page" - "last" will not be for long after we add any of the ordinary pages. Numbers precede letters! Robin Patterson 19:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I was amused to see that your variation left the /introduction in 4th place, even further from where an introduction would be expected. My "1" at least put it in its own group. However, now that the asterisk section is growing bigger, you may want a way to arrange pages within it, because they seem to list in the order they are created (ie not alphabetically by pagename) if they have the same "pipe expresssion". Try "*1", "*2", etc. (I found the same with Cowans when I gave them just "|Cowan", so I've given some their full names and may do more if you don't.) - Robin Patterson 10:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Meet the newest contributor
"She is the CEO and owner of a webdesign company" and may therefore have ideas about your input problems. Robin Patterson 10:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you talked to her yet? Robin Patterson 13:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Last of the three broken redirects (for now)
http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Index_to_Articles_Related_to_Indian_Activity_Stories&redirect=no

Maybe you then simply deleted the page that had "Activity" corrected? I'll leave you to fix the link to go to wherever the stuff is now. Robin Patterson 13:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Genealogy:Beyond webBases
Please continue the discussion with Mark, now on Genealogy:Beyond webBases. Robin Patterson 13:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Email
My email was turned on this morning, can you give it a try. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Watercooler
Would you be so kind as to archive some of the discussions on the watercooler? It may be time - or am I wrong? Thanks for your comments. Cheers, Zephyrinus 18:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Counter
Here's another message from you which I just discovered:


 * Bill 00:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC) Thank you, some of the data in the above link is very helpful. I found the statistics page particularly enlightening.
 * Is there a "magic word" that shows the number of page views that have occurred? This would be helpful to know, as it would allow us to keep track of how useful this wiki is proving.  One index of that is the number of edits, but most genealogists find the data entry process too cumbersome to do much.  We're working on making that process easier, but it would be helpful to know on a routine basis how many "hits" the site receives.

There is a counter (if I can find it again) but I only saw it on one page. I don't know if that counted all the hits on just that page or on the entire wikia. If you want, I can try to find it again.

I have your talk page (this page) on my watch list, so if you wish to reply here, I should find out about it.

Respectfully,

Zephyrinus 04:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki toolbar
Please see the last line at Genealogy:Watercooler/Archive_2.

Your addition to the original watercooler in apparent defiance of the request gave me 15 minutes of despair at 2 am because it gave me an edit conflict after I had made major deletions (moving stuff to the archive) and tried the final Save. I copied your addition to where it belonged then did a rollback of the watercooler, which allowed my save without conflict.

I'm off to bed. Keep up the great work!

Robin Patterson 14:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Forum
Hi Bill, the bug is fixed, see wikia:Forum:AWOL Article. Thanks for reporting :-) --rieke 15:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Business and Smalltalk
Business: I was doing some cleaning. Now that you are an administrator, you can delete John Richard (1855-1894) yourself. :-)

Smalltalk: I have copied your boxes and template code for List of Icons and other pages. It has been most helpful. Thank you very much. Your hard work is much appreciated.

Respectfully,

Zephyrinus 02:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, I picked you to delete the article because you were the last person in the history to touch the article.


 * Respectfully, Zephyrinus 02:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

John Richard (1855-1894)

 * I needed a place to write a public apology to Bill, and I guess this will have to do. As a note, I am writing this today before reading any of the comments left me on my user page which, deservedly, should be nasty.  At any rate, I threw a cheap shot at Bill accusing him of refusing to delete this article.  That comment of mine deserves an apology and I do so now.  I am sorry.  I apologise.
 * We are all volunteers. We all have lives outside this digital realm.  We all have massive amounts of work to do, and massive amounts of work to do on this Wikia.  And I must remember that I am the first person who needs mercy and understanding.  My statement about Bill, one of the hardest working volunteers here, was unfair.  And I am sorry.
 * Respectfully, Zephyrinus 22:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, one other note, the accusation was made in public, so I believe strongly that the apology should be in public, but I repost it here so that you won't miss it. Zephyrinus 22:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Email
Are you getting e-mail these days? Please reply on your talk page (here). Thanks. Zeph aka Natalis 22:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Children
Living children are always omitted in my postings here. What specific record did you see that did not have children listed? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 13:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

U.S. townships
Please don't spend time explaining TRS unless we really can't find it on the Web. See my conclusion to http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Robin_Patterson#K.27zoo and follow to the new page. Maybe you shouldn't try to explain it anyway - I trained as a land surveyor many decades ago and can therefore possibly understand and translate the jargon better than you could.

Robin Patterson 13:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Morgan Family Reunion
I suppose all the Morgans who know where Prickett's Fort is will be able to get there under their own steam; any who don't are probably not entitled to (though some Morgans who find that page may wonder); but maybe a contact address would encourage some of them to share someone else's vehicle and perhaps to find out whether it is their Morgan family that's reuniting? Robin Patterson 06:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 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.  People who descend from him and have an interest in genealogy, would also know something about Prickett's Fort. But there's no point in placing a listing here without better contact information---so we'll check this Bill 13:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Bill! And maybe move the page to give it some likelihood of remaining unique. Current events does say please give it a name that is likely to be unique, NOT just, say, "Bloggs family reunion, London"!! The Morgan one is even less likely than that. How about Col. Morgan Morgan - 100th reunion at Prickett's Fort or Col. Morgan Morgan - 100th reunion 2007? Robin Patterson 13:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Of All The Bad Ideas
Your point regarding the "terrible idea" terminology is taken. Being rather new, I didn't know of the history of the term on Wikipedia. Is there or should there be a Wikia created for these kinds of general help/collected conventional wisdom of the Wiki? I fear, for example, that no one will see your "cautionary note" buried in the midst of an article/half-poem on caulk/chalk on the genealogy wikia and make the same mistake again.

Alas, the Vicodin is taking effect and I'm losing my train of thought. Things tend to get fuzy around the edges.

Best wishes - and happy memorial day,

Zeph Zephyrinus 12:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Zephyr


 * Waxing philosphical....


 * The Wikipedia (and by extension, the Wikia community) has a very well developed viewpoint on alternative points of view, and how differences of opinion should be handled. That's particularly important for genealogists simply because people often do have strongly divergent opinions about whose descended from whom. That can lead to acrimonious discussions. So, even though this list, because of its nature, does not embrace ALL of the Wikipedia viewpoint (e.g., we obviously accept and encourage original research), I believe key features of the underlying philosophy (e.g., relating to conflict resolution), should be emulated.  Keeping the viewpoint objective is a key part of that philosophy.  Its always better to discuss facts, rather than to debate opinion.


 * And on another note, I'm glad you're back with us. I'm looking forward to seeing your future contributions.  At some point I supsect you will run out of cemeteries where you have collected stone data.  When that happens you might want to consider looking at some of the published cemetery lists where the source material is out of copyright.  Transcription and presentation of such lists should be enough to allow you to continue your cemetery project  more or less indefinitely, if that's what you would like to do.  WPA Tombstone transcription project would be a good place to start, since those records are federal government, and therefore public property. Bill 12:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the above and more recent comments, Bill! Robin Patterson 03:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Time
Hello, Bill; Wikipedia's taking ages to load tonight; not often you and I start sessions at about the same time; what's the time at your place? Robin Patterson 13:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, you are a mere 4 hours behind UTC and therefore 8 hours ahead of New Zealand winter if one ignores the "day".My wife has just meaningfully opened and closed the computer room door.

The email list could do with another item - a reminder about logging in would be a good idea. Please do it - you have the appropriate nuances for most readers! Robin Patterson 13:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Main Talk Page
Hi, can you archive this at some point? We just got spammed and it would make it easier to spot in the future. Thanks; oh, and you might want to block or do whatever magic y'all do to User:Wwwzhudan. Cheers, Zephyrinus 15:57, 9 June 2007 (UTC)