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)

Come back soon, please
I hope your wikibreak is not too long. But it is well deserved. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It is summer here, we go a long weekend with our camper enjoying "Deventer op stelten" streettheater

2011 we hope to rent a camper in New Sealand for 2 month travelling--Fred Bergman 11:51, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!
Hi Robin,

Thank you for your words of encouragement - yes, once I found how to use the "Create info page" and related articles I was off and running!

I see what you mean regarding the Marriage tag - I've updated a couple and will work the rest soon.

One question I have is with regards to maiden names vs. surnames. As you might have seen I've been putting (maiden) names in parens and using married names as surnames. Your advice regarding the usual/standard method used here would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again for your help!

Blhotka 20:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes after a delay of a couple of months. I have come back to give you more information on my Family History.

I have been trying to organise myself!

No being able to get more in my day.

At present I am going through your latest weekly digest

Eridge1 15:13, October 3, 2010 (UTC)

Our SMW statistics
One reason we have lost values is that now "ahnentafel" and "descendants" are not set by info categories. Thurstan 07:08, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I restored this, as well as the inbreeding and descendency tests. The descendants list and the Ahnentafel require re-saving every page in a particular order (old to young for the Ahnentafel, young to old for the descendants list). Switching off set ahn and set dsc for only a few days implies that we can start anew. rtol 15:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

CSV limit
See Life expectancy at the very bottom. SMW allows for the creation of a comma-separated file (that can easily be manipulated in MS Excel, in this case to make a graph of year of birth v age at death). However, only 500 rows can be downloaded. Phlox says this limit was set at installation, so I need to discuss this with someone at Wikia. Can you kindly point me there? rtol 22:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't say it was set at installation. I said that I suspect it may be configurable.  Please research the setting in semantic mediawiki documentation.  Once you know what the variable is (if this indeed true), then we may proceed with getting the request to wikia.   00:26, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

AWB
AWB is marked as minor. rtol 12:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Graphs
Can you kindly put in a request that Google Charts for MediaWiki be installed? It is the same technology as what's behind the pie chart on Genealogy:Statistics/SMW tidbits but with code that is far easier. rtol 06:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I contacted them. I thought, mistakenly, that only administrators and bureaucrats could talk to them. rtol 09:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Revert of alsoWP with less justification than Phlox thought necessary
"Might" be on WP is a weasel word as explained on the AlsoWP talk page. It is unacceptable for an encyclopedic reference and is against WP guidelines. Please support your position why this is not on the case on the talk page of AlsoWP. 08:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Think about it. It's like saying you are "kind of" pregnant. If there was an external link on wikipedia that said some other site "may" have an article on the subject, the link would last about two seconds before an experienced editor would delete it without comment. I can't say this any more delicately. It's a junk link with the weaselly non assertion that there "may be a link". 08:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I have been thinking about it, off and on for months. I hope you examined the edit summary so as to see the stated justification for the reversion. Clearly a better expression is needed while still avoiding what you did, which was making several dozen or hundred pages say something untrue (a much worse crime, guaranteed to put off some new readers). I'll put some ideas on the template talk page. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you give specific examples of the classes of articles that would be untrue? Are they all of the form people from placename?  If so, what are the patterns of the article names?  Do they all belong to specific categories?   16:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The two classes that spring to mind are the hndis pages and the county-related categories, about which I have said more on the  alsoWP talk page. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a case of a junk link. The contributor does not know that there is anything on wikipedia for person disambiguation pages, and in the vast majority of cases there isn't one.  Even a "Search Wikipedia" link would be filler.  Seems to me the solution is to delete AlsoWP from those pages, and add it only when a link is known.   17:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

User pages
Interesting things you are doing there. Some of it was overdue. Just take care, please, not to make anyone feel that their privacy is threatened!

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I only use information they used theirselves also. I try to stimulate persons to contribute and I think it is usefull that persons can find fellow contributors from their own country.--Fred Bergman 12:59, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

category redirect.
"Fred, #REDIRECT is not designed for categories. Please leave well alone and don't do any more like this: http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Streefkerk_Surname&diff=0&oldid=219195

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I try to improve category mistakes, but how do I change the wrong name of a wanted category ?

Wrong is (born,married,died,etc in) America, existing and right is United States--Fred Bergman 10:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Use category redirect (as I had done on that example) so that nobody tries to re-create the category. But each page that is currently wanting to be in that category must be edited to put it in the correct one; bots can help do several category redirects in one session, I think: check with User:AMK152 or rtol. Thank you for making an effort! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Main page in Dutch
"Fred, please see http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Main_page:_Familienforschung_und_Genealogie-Wiki#Dutch and add a comment."


 * You can count on me. I will cooperate to translate to Dutch, but tomorrow I leave again for a short camper trip.--Fred Bergman 10:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Charlemagne
While set order of Charlemagne can be done manually, it should not. Humans introduce error, and as information percolates so do the errors. Restoring the damage would be a lot of work. rtol 06:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't remember ever using it myself. I've not kept up with the changes in that area. I guess I should study it anyway. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Welcome
Fred, why have you categorized it as "outdated"? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Robin !
 * as you obviously saw, I am busy to try improving this site and then I discover things that look double or outdated. I changed this to outdated because I see almost every day a new version:--Fred Bergman 12:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * [[Image:180px-Sasha Kopf's Celtic knot ring.jpg|right|160px|thumb|Sasha Kopf's Celtic knot ring]]

Haeremai, welcome, talofa, Willkommen, bienvenue, welkom
Hello, and welcome to Familypedia, the Genealogy wiki! We volunteers hope you can continue making contributions to articles and/or discussion and other improvements.

If you are new to Wikia or wikis in general, a visit to Help:Contents will be well worth while. And all intending contributors, even those experienced with wikis, will get something of value from that page because our "Help" pages are much more than an editing guide.

You could check out the "Community portal" for an outline of some of the main features, links to pages that tell you how to edit, and the link to a guided tour of selected pages that illustrate ways you may enjoy using the site.

Please consider adding a "Babel" template to your user page, if you have not already done so, so that others know which languages you are comfortable reading. The site is basically in English but there is no prohibition on other languages and we have ways of linking to translations. We already have, for example, over 100 kB in Spanish, dozens of pages in French, and a little Russian and Norwegian, with easy ways of linking languages.

A good place to start each visit is the "recent changes" page, where all edits and their authors (anonymous or signed-in) are listed. Bookmark it, maybe. (And help delete spam - unpleasant but a fact of life.)

There's an email list system used to get messages to all listed members: see Genealogy:Mailing list. "Traffic" is not high, so you will not risk flooding your inbox by joining.

You're invited to add your name to a category for your country - see Category:Contributors and create a category if yours is not there.

Discussion of any aspect of the site, and enquiries, can be made through the Forum or on the "discussion" page associated with each article. Sign and date your contributions there (by typing " ~ " or clicking the "signature" button), so that readers know "who to talk to" and whether your message is probably still of current interest. If you write on a user's "talk" page, that user will get an alerting message on next visit.

It would be good if you could indicate on your user page how you discovered this site.

Please leave a message on my talk page if you think I may help with anything! -- Moli.wikia (Talk) 12:47, 18 August 2009

Mistaken edit to the Info_pages/person_article_template
Hi Robin,

I'm a new user struggling with the learning curve. I seem to have edited the following template thinking it was an info sheet for one of my pages. I tried to undo it, but don't think I did so correctly.

http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Genealogy_talk:Info_pages/person_article_template

Please help me straighten it out. I realize this could be a big deal since it's a high-traffic template.

Jschulte 18:38, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

FYI...
In case you missed it on your watchlist, I provided the requested information at F:RfA. Best —DeGraffJE talk 17:27, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

I've discovered this page...
Probably searching for someone's particular genealogy. SavetheArchduke 18:42, December 4, 2009 (UTC)
 * By page I meant website. SavetheArchduke 16:24, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

You were right about the country lists
Hi Robin. Hope I find you here. I put the country list on my user page to remember the link as it seemed a useful tool for later on. The lists in the flu wiki are useful variations. Thanks for the tip. Dr Joe Kiff 00:34, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

API Key
Hi Robin, I have two pages where the Google Maps no longer display because they need new API Keys, error message on page reads "This web site needs a different Google Maps API key. A new key can be generated...."? I've visited the relevant Google website http://code.google.com/apis/maps/ what I should do from there or if it is something relevant to FamilyPedia in general and whether they should be doing something for the whole site etc.

The relevant pages are:-

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Baglin_%28surname%29 and http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Edward_William_Burgess_Baglin_(1906-1969)

Do you or your colleagues have any help and or advice?

07:56, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

tree and sensor subpages - other-place fields
Hi Robin,

I am back on Familypedia after a nine-month hiatus and I am generally pleased with the changes I see. It appears that tree and sensor subpages have been created automatically for existing person pages. Where can I find information on these pages: how to create and edit them.

Also I see that in converting to the new info page form, the new other-places fields have been filled with a concatenation of other place fields and these other-places fields are displayed in quotes follwing the individual place fields, which of course is redundant. I find that when I change the other-place fields to blank the redundancy goes away. Before I undertake to blank out all the other-place fields in all the info pages I have already entered, I want to check with you whether I might be doing something I will regret. If this redundancy is a problem generally for converted info pages, could someone create a bot to blank out all other-place fields that were created during the conversion of existing info pages?

I see also that a new contributors section is redundant with previously entered contributors sections. I don't suppose anything can be done to automatically transfer old contributors to the new section.

Thanks, DennisDoty 17:55, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

Confuzzled
Hi Robin, I was quite confused for a moment by your message on another wiki... Then I saw you were replying to my welcome. Just so you know, that was an automated welcome from me... if there are no active admins on a wiki, the system uses a name from one of the community team :) I hope all's well with you and Familypedia - sannse (talk) 01:18, February 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Not like you to be confused, my friend! Actually I wouldn't have bothered normally, but on that particular empty wiki I thought I could give a couple more of the red links a bit of a readable target redirecting here. Now I've found the latest almost empty Genealogy Wiki... — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:23, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Question marks
A questions mark as date of birth or date of death indeed causes problems. We had almost converged on a solution just before Phlox went away. We should resume that discussion next week when he's back. rtol 13:27, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

Fred on Rodovid
It's not nice what Fred is doing. Knowing him, it probably did not occur to him that he cannot do this.

I would drop a note to one of the bureaucrats at Rodovid. I have nothing against sharing data and templates, but acknowledgement should be given. rtol 13:36, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

SCat
(That was a very short wikibreak!)

Why do you want Template:SCat/nl deleted? (Five categories use it and there could be thousands more eventually.)

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:32, February 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, Robin. I was copying SCAT/nl to Rodovid, but it didn't work, so I wanted to delete it on Rodovid, but I made apparently a mistake and did it here...--Fred Bergman 21:28, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations
I seem to be the first person congratulating you here on continuing to put energy into a genealogy wiki. Enjoy! Robin Patterson 14:01, 21 February 2010 (EET)


 * Hi again Robin ! I had a lot of inspiration and I learned a lot here on Familypedia that will be give good results to Rodovid since now I am a sysop there ! Perhaps you will cooperate with me to answer my questions if I meet problems ? Kind regards,--Fred Bergman 22:22, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

Robin, it is unfortunate that Rodovid and Familypedia not go together, because with the advantages of both would create a much better site than either is now![http://en.rodovid.org/wk/Template:StatisticsPersonsFamilies Rodovid Language Databases at a Glance for all the localizations. ] --Fred Bergman 05:22, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

Beard5
Can you kindly have a look at user:beard5. He's made over 400 edits in a short time, all of which violate our naming conventions. He also introduced a number of duplicates.

I sent two friendly messages, but to no avail. rtol 08:35, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

George William Barnes (1841)
Hi Robin, Thanks for help and advice. However, I tried as you suggest to move the duplicated George William Barnes (1841) page to his son Benjamin, but the system would not allow it. Therefore, I moved him to Philip Barnes (1879), another son of George, thinking that I would correct the duplication in that way. The move was successful, but now it shows Philip as a son of George Barnes (1815), not of George Barnes (1841) and of course the box info on the right is incorrect (as it refers to Philip's parents).

I read that I need to request an administrator to delete a page. I am sorry that I am unfamiliar of how this site works, but could you please delete Philip Barnes now - hopefully the duplication of George William Barnes itself has now gone - and then I should be back with all the correct links in place. Many thanks John.

Old Bones 20:48, February 25, 2010 (UTC)

Defaultsort
I know nothing about Defaultsort. You'll have to be patient and wait for Phlox to return. At that time, we'll need to discuss categorisation more generally, as a lot of categories (incl. surnames) are redundant because of SMW. rtol 05:53, March 2, 2010 (UTC)

Gelre / Gelderland / Guelders
Note that the earlier Gelres are there already.

I suspect that your Arnold, Duke of Gelderland (1410-1473) is a grandson of Maria van Gelre (?-1397). rtol 12:54, March 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * See http://www.thepeerage.com/p469.htm#i4689 and "Marie von Geldern" on http://www.thepeerage.com/p10724.htm#i107239 — Robin Patterson (Talk) 20:36, March 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * I keep an eye out for duplicates, not on you.
 * I'll rename Arnold when I've figured out who he is. "Duke of Gelderland" is weird, because it is half Dutch, half English, and because present-day Gelderland only roughly corresponds to the historical duchy of Gelre. rtol 14:38, March 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Mary now has a proper tree
 * The Dutch wikipedia traces her father back for several generation. rtol 19:23, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, Ahnentafels and other musings
Hi Robin,

Thank you for your support and words of encouragement so far.

I guess that I was of the philosophy that the more types of information and navigation options displayed on each page the better and hadn't honestly really considered the implications on server load or the fact that such limitations may exist. Although, if this is the case, then I tend to agree... particularly given that no extra generations are displayed.

However, along similar lines I also tend to wonder about the categorisation of locations to the "nth" degree and what implications such a policy may hold for the future, for example, when a researcher may be trying to search for a particular matching individual but is unsure of the exact place of birth other than a general location or region, especially for very common names (e.g. a John Smith born in either 1885/1886 somewhere on the Yorkshire/Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border).

Searching through every possible individual with the matching name within the relevant Surname category, or alternatively through every possible birth location category, may prove unfeasible in such a circumstance even if the exact person is already on Familypedia somewhere.

I'm sure that the Semantic MediaWiki software may be able to provide a cleverer solution to such a problem somehow by discounting those individuals which can be eliminated automatically (and would be something that would really set this website apart).

I suppose that this is only an issue for the far future though when many hundreds of thousands of individuals may be in the database, and is a bridge that may only have to be crossed when we get there! I'm the type of person that often likes to ponder over the "bigger picture" and explore what sort of new and exciting possibilities the future may hold. So far, this website appears to offer great promise and unique new opportunities (global collaboration and consensus surely trumps the error prone aggregate mess that Ancestry.com can create!).

Long may this great concept flourish!

Pmalish 03:40, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

What are you doing changing David Rogers death fro 1880+ to after 1879
I would like an explanation why youy felt it was neccisary to change the Date? David Rogers is in the 1880 census so he was alive at the time. He is not even your ancestor, if he is, what is your relation?

Help deleting
Robin, would you delete John Doty (c1682-/tree and John Doty (c1682-?)/sensor. Thanks, DennisDoty 16:53, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I did it again. Would you please delete Isaac Doty (bef1675- and Isaac Doty (bef1675-/tree. Thanks, DennisDoty 19:20, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

Surname categories
I have just changed Showfacts person to fix the sort key for surname categories. Thurstan 00:09, March 14, 2010 (UTC)

You have done nothing wrong: I had just fixed it when I noticed your message to User:Rhojo45 to say that you were going to fix it, so I thought I'd better try to catch you before you tried. Thurstan 00:34, March 14, 2010 (UTC)

Anne de Foix not -Candale
Anne de Foix is so called in French. Girls take the family name (Foix) as they are not in the line of inheritance. Boys take the qualified family name (Foix-Candale), revoking their claim on the larger property (Foix). rtol 12:35, March 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * So maybe rtol should correct the English-language Wikipedia. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:02, March 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is a lost cause. Let's get things right here. rtol 14:21, March 15, 2010 (UTC)

Naming Conventions and template
Okay, so I'm new here and admit I haven't had time to read ALL the available information, but...it seems like I'm missing something. I created a new person - unattached to anybody - Henry A. Meyer (1871-1957) I used the proper naming conventions, then went about filling in the info via the form. Then I clicked on his wife and did the same...why didn't the red link created by the form follow the naming conventions? I had to move the page from Margaret Heitmann to Margaret Heitmann (1873-1964).

Did I do something wrong, or will I have to account for this in every new page I create? Thanks, Lanica 02:33, March 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah, that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. I'll make sure to be aware of it as I move forward.Lanica 20:46, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

Appearance of Familypedia
Hello Robin,

today I see Familypedia not with brown but with blue colours on my PC. Is this the new outfit of Familypedia? I cannot agree with this, because the colour blue come across cool on people. Cucullus 21:02, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

Appearance of Familypedia
Hello Robin, today I see Familypedia not with brown but with blue colours on my PC. Is this the new outfit of Familypedia? I cannot agree with this, because the colour blue come across cool on people. Cucullus 21:03, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

The %3F trick
I see the %3F trick seems to be working for Edward Doty (1705-?). However, when I went to add a /tree page, there is no button for adding it on the edit with form screen. The %3F trick seems too complicated for the average user like me. We still need a fix to the create/update sensor page button. DennisDoty 13:28, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Census Images
Hi, I have a few census images I'd like to upload, but the discussion about naming conventions has stopped me for the moment. What would you suggest? It's a 1860 U.S. Census from Minnesota State, Wabasha County. I have several townships, so should I break them down further? Lake Township, Chester Township, etc?

Also, I see that there are very few user on this site, so I thought I'd just double check to see that I am welcome here. If you're still in beta and I'm here too early, let me know and I'll go away, for a while at least. If I can do anything to make this site better, I'd be willing to help out where I can...this is an excellent idea! As it stands I am interested in the filling out information on towns and people related to my own genealogy. But I love history and sociology as well, so I often get sidetracked by other peoples genealogy that is only tangentially connected to my own.

Thanks, Lanica 19:18, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

Help
You made a page Pier Gerlofs Donia (c1480-1520) which looks pretty good. It is about the famous Frisian warlord Pier Gerlofs Donia, an ancestor of mine. Could you also make a similar page of Wijerd Jelckama, his nephew? His page is a copy of wikipedia article. Thanks in advance, Dr. Magnus 10:10, March 29, 2010 (UTC)

Update?
Hi again. Sorry to bother you, but you often seem to be on line at the same time I am. I see people creating new pages for people, but the Forms error message is still up. I tried to start a new person yesterday, Arthur Francis Lynch (1863-1938), but after I entered all the information and hit save, all that came back was the gender. So, I guess the error is still valid. So how are the others creating the new people pages? Thanks again, Lanica 13:16, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * No bother; I'm happy to be consulted, but my hours fluctuate and I'm often not the best at answering, so the forums may be a better place for some questions.
 * I've changed the forms error message a little. My Firefox browser seems to allow page creation, which is why I'm still creating a few. I did have one "deletion" on trying to add to a page, but I saw it and reverted to the previous version. You seem to have one of the less compatible browsers. Try (free) Firefox! Or ask User:rtol how he creates new articles - he said something about copying batches of templates. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:55, April 3, 2010 (UTC)

re: Wikipedia Copy: Okay, I'll do that in the future. I just hate red links and thought they were mostly useless. Lanica 20:00, April 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Any red link is an easy starter for a potential page; but some we redirect back to Wikipedia. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:55, April 3, 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if I'm related to mmcghee the user or not

Talk:Beatrix de Meschines (1146-?)/tree ‎ (Flaw)
No flaw. You should renew the intermediate sensor pages (or wait for a bot to come along). If that does not work, one of the intermediate generations has an error like "not mother's son". rtol 18:18, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Progress with Henry Behle (1842-1898)
He already has a descendants page and a tree page, though they don't display properly yet.
 * Thanks.

''One thing about people whose death year is unknown - those question-marks can cause coding problems, and it's OK to have just the birth date, e.g.Robin Forlonge Patterson (1940), even when death is known to have occurred some time. I'd be inclined to edit his children facts for that, before you use any as links.''
 * I'm not creating pages for any people who have question marks in their titles, so I think I'll leave those I've already done, but move forward using blanks. I'm adding info as I find it, so there will be a lot of blanks for a while. I have a ton of definite information, but I'll wait to add it until forms are up. I'm just playing around with Family Search and indirect lines right now. When I really get started there will be very few question marks. Thanks for all your help! Lanica 15:08, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Oddity within template?
Peter Paul Ockenfels (1868-1938)/descendants shows his descendants, but the spouse is listed as the persons mother in all cases, not their actual spouse. Now what have I done to break your templates? Lanica 16:38, April 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Thanks. Lanica 21:46, April 8, 2010 (UTC)

Project Charlemagne
I see that you are getting involved in Project Charlemagne. That's good news.

However, I also note that you are adding people in generation N but not deleting people from generation N-1, and that you are adding redlinks.

So far, I worked with the following logic:
 * 1) Someone is added to generation N if she has a page and all her ancestors down to Charlemagne have a page.
 * 2) Someone is removed from generation N if all her children have a page.
 * 3) At the same time, generation N+1 is added.


 * 1) If some children are without trace, this is noted in the section on "difficulties"

We need a strict protocol to make sure that we're not forgetting branches of the tree.

If you're intention is to add family members, you are free to do that without changing the page on Project Charlemagne. I will systematically work through the generations and register them on the project page. More importantly, they will be automatically registered in the Order of Charlemagne.

Thanks. rtol 06:39, April 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * Generation number is added automatically as the minimum of father's and mother's generation number plus one.
 * People without children are added to count numbers, fertility, infant mortality etc. People without children can be interesting in their own right, by the way.
 * Note that Project Charlemagne is not a registry of the descendants of Charlemagne. It is the account of the project to add all descendants. It only has the tips of the branches of the family tree. Live ones under "to be done" and dead ones under "difficulties".
 * I'll clarify the rules, and weed out your inadvertent introductions. rtol 11:55, April 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * All restored now. You removed Pernelle de Chambon and added redlinks to her children, effectively deleting the record as redlinks hold very little info. rtol 12:52, April 10, 2010 (UTC)

sensor pages
Sensor pages should have sensor on. detect tabs is but a small part of sensor. Note that if you break a sensor page, the fault will percolate up and down the family tree. rtol 17:44, April 13, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Sensor pages should have either
 * detect tabs
 * SMW templates
 * Special:Prefixindex//

or
 * sensor

But not both.

The forms add to the sensor page in two stages: detect tabs and SMW templates Special:Prefixindex//.

When adding a sensor page by hand or bot, sensor is easier.

Without SMW templates, the lists of ancestors and descendants are not created. That means, that the lists of ancestors of the children and the list of descendants of the parents are incomplete. Ditto for grand-children and grand-parents. And so on and so forth. If these lists are incomplete, the /tree page is incomplete, family relations are not detected, and inbreeding coefficients are wrong. rtol 05:38, April 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * I rarely use the forms, so I'm not sure that is going on. However, I think I have fixed your problem. Please try and create a new sensor page and report back if detect tabs is not there or twice. rtol 11:30, April 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Did that, I think, soon after. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:27, April 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * You had two detect tabs on Mahlon Pitney (1858-1924)/sensor. I removed one from the sensor page, and one from the form. Should be fine now. rtol 13:12, April 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * I see. Well, it seems the form put the two of them there. Not guilty, m'lord. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:27, April 21, 2010 (UTC)

detect tabs is part of sensor. Please do NOT put detect tabs on a page that has sensor already. rtol 17:53, April 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I doubt if I have ever done that. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:12, April 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * In order to update a sensor page, you should do "edit page" and "save". Using the form is slower and not robust. rtol 17:32, April 21, 2010 (UTC)

Order of Charlemagne
Someone's sensor page says she is Order 11. Her spouses have no "orders". What exactly is needed to ensure that her child's sensor page shows Order 12?


 * You do not need to do anything. If mother has a generation number, then her children get one too -- automatically.
 * If the automation does not work, try this:


 * 1) open and save mother's sensor page
 * 2) check that Order of Charlemagne is still there
 * 3) if not, go to mother's parents
 * 4) check that her children are listed under "descendants"
 * 5) if not, check the main page to make sure that the children are indeed listed
 * 6) open and save the main page
 * 7) open and save the child's sensor page
 * 8) check whether Order of Charlemagne is there
 * 9) if not, see whether the page is categorized as "not mother's child"
 * 10) if that is indeed the problem, go to the main page and update the mother's name
 * 11) open and save the child's sensor page

if none of this helps, drop me a note rtol 11:39, April 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * John Pollok of Pollok is now sorted. This was a legacy effect: For a while, he was listed as his mother's father. rtol 15:54, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!
Hi Robin,

Thanks for your comment on my page. I wasn't aware that there's a new input page. I'll have to check it out. :-)

Have a great day!

Best wishes,

Pamela 68.98.46.223 06:07, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

/tree
Some /tree pages repeat the information on the main page, and so assume the properties of the main page. The main page then also has all information twice. This is the result of one of Phlox' experiments. It is easily fixed. I do not know how many pages are affected. rtol 07:07, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

Project Charlemagne/others
You're a brave man. An overview like this works for generation 2 and 3, but then complexity and sheer numbers will overwhelm your effort.

If I were you, I would do the comparison on the pages of people themselves, or perhaps on a subpage. It would be easy to introduce properties like "Number of children according to Stoyan", and then add those up within and across generations.

If you think you can do it, fine.

If there is evidence that Charlemagne had more children than those listed, do add them.

I cannot find any evidence that Hersinde is a daughter of Charles the Bald. As her husband was rather prominent, this would have been noted. rtol 14:15, April 20, 2010 (UTC)

Hersinde and Regnier would then be first cousins once removed, and this would have been noted too. rtol 14:26, April 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Mmmm - judicially and ecclesiastically. I wonder what is needed for "evidence". — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:24, April 22, 2010 (UTC)

Amaudru
Amaudru's line does not go extinct, by the way. I've now linked her to the wife of William I, King of Scotland. rtol 13:12, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I squashed that speculation very soon after I started it. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:24, April 22, 2010 (UTC)

Alpais v Amaudru
You're shifting Alpais (793-855) to the position of her aunt Amaudru (?-?).

I had look a close look at the two, and concluded that Alpais is too young. rtol 10:58, April 22, 2010 (UTC)

Moving pages from Wikipedia
Hi. I copied and pasted Baden-Württemberg from Wikipedia, then started to 'clean it up'. I was going to check with you before deleting things I find less than useful. Should I leave the unlinked templates? What about pronunciations? I looked at your work on Lower Saxony and see that you cleaned up the people and deleted some sections. Would you recommend I use that as my example?

Last, what about the 'ü'? How do I get a redirect to that from teh English spelling? Do I create a Baden-Wurttemberg page then move it? That would create a redirect, right? But would it harm the already existing page? Thanks, Lanica 13:10, April 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Leave everything if you like! I've just glanced at it and seen nothing obviously needing to come out. Pronunciations we have some of and should have more. Definitely the templates: we may have an equivalent and we (e.g. Thurstan or I) may know the quick conversion - or we may import it too; or you can import it if you can see nothing like it on similar pages. My Lower Saxony must have been many months ago. Today (without having looked at it tonight) I'd probably change less of it. Recent place pages I've copied have generally lost only the very modern material such as 21st-century census religious and ethnic breakdown and names of sporting and musical groups. Things like weather (not too detailed) and public transport can be useful for travelling genealogists. Do a minimum, then (with B-W and other pages you copy) if it looks messy maybe post a brief forum item about it so that several of us notice and we can have a discussion about it.


 * To create a redirect to an existing page, use the "Redirect" markup below the edit box.


 * I should be off to bed very soon. Just finishing one Silesian ancestress. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:42, April 23, 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete pages
If you have to create incomplete pages (like Emanuel Filiberto di Savoia-Carignano (1628-1709)), can you at least put a verify on so we can find them back? rtol 21:07, April 23, 2010 (UTC)

Personal notes in public
Robin's fourth cousin 16 times removed?

I would put this on Robin's page, not on the page of Jeanne de Navarre. rtol 21:17, April 23, 2010 (UTC)

long names
Jhr. Diederik Jacob Adrianus Albertus van Lawick van Pabst, Heer van Nijevelt (1795-1881)

Jhr. is a title, not part of his name.

Heer van Nijevelt is a job, not part of his name.

Diederik J.A.A. van Lawick van Pabst (1795-1881) is long enough. rtol 11:19, April 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * We have an agreed naming standard.
 * Long names mess up the display. rtol 11:59, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

First side of familypedia
Hello Robin,

there is a family from Pakistan which I know. They helped me translate the first side of familypedia from German into Urdu, their language. But now I have a problem, because the characters of their alphabet are so different from german language, so I cannot distinguish them. I have uploaded the text in the following files:

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_1-1.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_1-2.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_2-1.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_2-2.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_2-3.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_3-1.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_3-2.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_3-3.jpg http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Picture_3-4.jpg

Maybe you find someone who can read Urdu and help us to complete the side in this language. Thank you.--Cucullus 19:13, May 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * I appealed to our Founder. This was (most of) his promising reply:


 * I am assuming the page will eventually be written in UTF-8 characters and not just graphics, right? I can take a shot at writing it out. I am currently on an Apple Mac, where there isn't as good/natural keyboard software as there is on PC's.


 * Sabahat/iFaqeer.
 * Sabahat I Ashraf ("iFaqeer")
 * iFaqeer @ Gmail/Gtalk, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, .com
 * darwaish @ yahoo
 * darwaish @ yahoo

Charlemagne on Wikipedia
I've been trying to get a link from Wikipedia's entry on Charlemagne to Familypedia. That site is closely guarded, and my attempts have been rejected as our entry on Charlemagne did not have many references. We may try again now. rtol 16:02, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Let's finish the pages around Charlemagne (parents, partners, children) and try again on Wikipedia. rtol 04:53, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Nation-subdiv1
Phlox did that. The current classification (locality, county, subdiv1, nation) is weird for Anglosaxon countries, and does not fit for the Netherlands (5 levels) or Germany (6 levels). rtol 12:04, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Basics
Hi, Robin Patterson. So on this wiki, can I create like a page about me, then like give links to the family members I know? Or is there so me kind of guidelines and stuff on what families etc can have pages? -- Lewis Cawte  (Talk - Contact) 16:20, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Hi Robin

Regarding entry Hugh Johnston. You are perfectly correct. It was a mistake. However, I do not know how to enter anyone who has the same name as a previous entry. I am a new contributor to Wikia and find the use of code as very confusing, particularly that related to disambiguation. Consequenty I've deleted the entry instead.

Yttaiga 01:15, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

Beatrice de Savoie
A quick look at couple ancestors would show that it works with Property:Descendants. That is a recursive property. In order to update the results, you need to resave the sensor pages of Henry and Elisabeth, their relevant parents, grandparents, and so on until you met Beatrice. rtol 19:17, May 25, 2010 (UTC)

new pages
Why did you create George VI of the United Kingdom rather than edit George VI of the United Kingdom (1895-1952)? rtol 15:07, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

How do I fix errors within a Sensor?
I have the same person appearing as mother and wife to one of my ancestors. I must have made a incorrect entry somewhere, but I can't find it. Additionally, I've found every link from her name and tried to edit it that way, but I still end up with Anna Maria Schidt (1831-1907) as Peter Paul Ockenfels (1868-1938) wife (she's actually his mother) and the incorrect (can be deleted) page Anna Maria Schidt (1831-aft1900) as his mother.

Here's a link to the tree: Sensor

Do you have any idea how I can sort this out? Thanks, Lanica 13:35, June 4, 2010 (UTC).


 * Okay, so I've figured it out after trial and error (and reading the files) ;). I have to re-save the sensor first, then re-save the ancestor file and it will clean it up; however, I have to do it one person at a time...is there an easier way? Lanica 13:50, June 4, 2010 (UTC)

Re: Explain
My apologies, I normally leave a message in situations like this, but I forgot to do so -

The adspace at the top of the page was causing an issue in which the ad was overlapping content. I work for Wikia Inc., and I was asked to fix the problem by adding left and right columns so that the ad (which appears at the top right of the page) would not interfere with the page content. Since this would have dramatically changed the look of an already successful wiki's main page, my compromise was to only add left/right columns to the top section where the ad sits, and leave the rest of the page the way it was.

Again, sorry for not giving a heads-up, and feel free to contact me with any concerns. http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o297/SCOTIMUS76/VA3.png† 15:32, June 4, 2010 (UTC)

Demographics
"Population" counts people whose birth and death years are both known. "deaths" and "mortality" count people whose death years are known. Ditto for "births" and "birth rate". Therefore, the number of people in a year does not follow from the number of people, births, and deaths in the previous year.

That is, until we have removed all the question marks (thanks for making a decision) and refreshed all the year pages. rtol 05:41, June 6, 2010 (UTC)

What to do with stuff like this?
Eldon Sebastian Kozaks (1984-) rtol 07:39, June 7, 2010 (UTC)

Lanica
I'm not sure what you did in the first place. I tried to clean up what you'd changed by putting everything back where I'd had it. I don't know what you were trying to fix, but you deleted my middle and last names and so I put them back. Lanica 13:32, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I don't use forms. I'm still having the problem where it deletes all previous work if I save a new version.Lanica 14:10, June 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * No worries!


 * Do the forms actually delete your data or do they just hide it until the second save?
 * I don't know...I've never tried a second save. I enter the info, then when I edit with form - the form is blank, none of the information I had entered is in the form. When I add new information the page only shows the new information I added and it gives me the error about not leaving the surname or short name blank. It certainly seems to delete it. I'll try saving again the next time I get a chance, just to see what happens. Thanks, Lanica 14:30, June 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * Later -Yeah, it actually deletes it. Lanica 20:38, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

????
Skuli was an accident. I forgot to correct his father's page before creating his. rtol 12:03, June 11, 2010 (UTC)

/* Project Charlemagne */
The people listed as "to be done" on Project Charlemagne must have their ancestors completed first, because we do not yet know their definite generation number. I therefore undid your additions. rtol 07:39, June 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * Project Charlemagne is a page that accounts for the progress of Project Charlemagne. It therefore follows an accounting logic. The algorithm is simple:


 * 1) Take someone from the to-do-list for generation N;
 * 2) Create pages for her children;
 * 3) Add the children to the to-do-list for generation N+1; and
 * 4) Remove her from the to-do-list for generation N. rtol 11:28, June 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * I reverted your copies from Descendants of Charlemagne (Generation 12) to Project Charlemagne. There is no reason to duplicate information. If the info on the Generation page should be displayed on the Project page, a transclusion would do the trick. However, there is a link, which should be enough.
 * If you want to help, there are plenty of new pages to be created and existing pages to be cross-checked and corrected. rtol 14:53, June 13, 2010 (UTC)

Balmain, New South Wales
Robin:

Thank you for that information on Balmain, NSW, Australia. I have only been to Balmain about six times in my life. They were during my school life when I used to play Rugby League against the Christian Brothers High School.

As you will find out very shortly one of my ancestors was the Ferry Master for the local wharf back in the mid to late 1800's.

John MasonEridge1 13:53, June 14, 2010 (UTC)

World Cup
Congrats on a NZ 'win'! What a great game - at least in the beginning and at the end...they were a bit sluggish in the middle, eh? Well, that made my day! Lanica 13:28, June 15, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.

I am new, obviously, and need all the help I can get! Can you tell me how to add the children of George and Francis Woolsey? Otherwise I will just plug along until I figure things out!

Best Regards,

Kelly

Doing my best.
Hi Robin,

I see you are hard at work fixing my entries. Sorry I didn't read enough to do things properly. The Wikia site is far from user friendly to me. I build web sites and have a general idea of HTML, but I can clearly see reading the Wikia instructions will be mandatory. All I wanted to do was add the parents of George Joris Woolsey as George Sr and Francis Roberts. The birthdates for George Joris Woosley of 1610 is incorrect, according to my research it should be 1616. I have already built a tree with nearly 500 members and 132 families, with George Woolsey Sr. as the ancestral Grandparent.

Thanks for your help.

KRishor 14:24, June 18, 2010 (UTC)KRishor

Thanks Robin, for moving the Captain!

KRishor 02:46, June 19, 2010 (UTC)KRishor

Wikipedia
I need some support at Familypedia rtol 05:00, June 19, 2010 (UTC)

(He got some. The page survived.)

Firefox
Hi Robin, Thanks for your help on my edits to my grandmother's page (that is, Sissy Herrington's page). I switched to Firefox as my browser and was able to make changes successfully. :D Pdlloyd 18:51, June 20, 2010 (UTC)

Barbara Bush
I wrote up a lengthy page on Barbara Bush (Barbara Pierce (1925)), filling in all the fields about her children, marriage, birth, parents, et cetera. Yet, when I saved the page (the bottom save didn't do anything, but the top supposedly did), it didn't upload any of my info (problems with the editor?). Is that info all gone now, or is it awaiting approval or something?--Tim Thomason 03:29, June 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I guess I missed the big honking disclaimer at the top of the site.--Tim Thomason 03:31, June 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't work with Chrome (my new, but preferred browser), Opera (my old browser), or IE (that came with my computer). I guess it was made for Firefox and only Firefox. It's really messed up on Opera, for some reason.--Tim Thomason 03:48, June 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help. I bit the bullet and uploaded Firefox for just this occassion, and was easy (even if the "show preview" thing scared me). I'm collecting internet browsers like stamps these days.--Tim Thomason 04:03, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Henry II
I stopped. Apologies. I thought you had left.

Henry II is a 13th generation descendant of Charlemagne; generation 10 is now almost complete, so you should be able to find many of his great-grandparents on Familypedia. rtol 12:14, June 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry for making you cross. I did not delete information. I just replaced Adele of France and Robert II of France with links to their pages. rtol 12:28, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Gordon Family
I was hoping you could point me in the direction of Gen. Gordon's memoirs that you mentioned on my talk page. Also, any thoughts on a way to put adopted children on a biopage? I don't mind entering them by hand, and it wouldn't have to fit into the metadata. I guess it might be handy to have them in a table. Alternatively I could just put them in the body of text. Thanks! Plcoffey 17:31, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Nevermind! I think I found the memoirs you were talking about Plcoffey 17:52, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Dan Farnworth
Thank you Robin sir...the page I created for Dan Farnworth, it needs the biography in the main section..but I don't know how to that..thanks man!

I need this adding in the main body of the page > "Dan grew up in Longton. Along with his family, they've climbed a few mountains in the Lake District, these include Helvellyn and the ranges around Buttermere. Alot of their recreational time spent in the Lakes was for the fun of hiking and sight seeing. He often go-karted at his grandad's field down Marsh Lane, who along with Dan's maternal grandma, lives in Walmer Bridge. When he was 10 he got into the 2nd Longton St. Andrews Scouts football club. His favourite football team is PNE, he has been to watch their games many times.

Dan was introduced to the sport of DTL shooting in England at the Dolphin Inn in Longton, at the age of 6. His dad bought him a Belgian .410 bore shotgun, he used this up to the age of 9. His next gun was a 20 Gauge shotgun, this improved the pattern of his shot and was easier for him to use, as he was older and more capable of handling a larger gun. At the age of 12, he and his family emigrated to Canada. Dan and Ian joined Peterborough Skeet and Trap Club. Ian bought him a Stoeger 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun. He continued to use this until he was 15 years old. At the age of 15, his dad bought him another gun, an over and under break-action Winchester shotgun.

His dad has won many high-gun shoots at Bywell Shooting Ground near Morpeth, England. Dan and Ian compete in the Quinte League, it includes shooting clubs from around the Bay of Quinte. In 2008 and 2009, along with his dad, Dan competed in the Canadian Trap Shooting Championship in Hamilton, Ontario, for the juniors team, sponsored by Winchester.

His mum is Jan, she was born in Penrith, Cumbria, her dad was Peter Harry Wilkins, owner of the Agrikem crop spraying plant. Dan's dad, Ian was born in the farming area of Scorton. Dan has a sister named Samantha, she is an aspiring artist, born in 1996. They have had many animals, previously they have owned: horses, guinea pigs, goats and hens. They now have 3 dogs and 2 cats. The Farnworth family have two Arctic Cat snowmobiles, which they ride frequently on the Victoria Rail Trail. Jan worked in the Natwest Bank in Preston and Lancaster, Lancashire and has served many famous people, including: Kenny Baker, Victoria Wood and Victoria's ex-husband Geoffrey Durham. Ian has rallied alongside Colin McRae and Richard Burns. He raced with many cars, including a Ford RS200. "

THANKS! ! ! {24.137.41.9 15:18, June 30, 2010 (UTC)}

Hello sir, I had to protect my Dan Farnworth page as user "92.16.41.39" had vandalized it almost beyond functional readability, he had added disgusting comments and sexual remarks. So please, could you make sure he is seen to about his behaviour, it really is appauling... {Dwf 19:37, June 30, 2010 (UTC)}

Thank you so much sir, that really improved the look of the articles, I'm so happy with your changes, I owe you so much man, thanks...best contributor you are mate, thanks! --Dwf 14:24, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

Henry and Judith
Note that we have a template Notable family. This picks up notable ancestors and descendants, in a uniform style, and is much preferred to ad hoc, manual edits. rtol 14:01, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

Margaret McDermott (c1860-)
Your Margaret McDermott (c1860-) caught my attention due to the Wisconsin properties. I searched out a census for her and her parents so you can have more specific birth dates..., Hope this helps, Lanica 14:24, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

How?
How can I edit this page? Because when I click on edit on form or edit this page, there on appears sensor!--Station7 07:20, July 7, 2010 (UTC)

Regarding this edit:, I see your note about restoring the line with Robert Hope Hester, but that line is also in the SMW table below right? So the DPL table is redundant, no? If there is some purpose to the DPL stuff, I have no problem, but in this case the DPL not providing any additional information, and the info it provides is inferior.

I also think I saw some tech notes about the wikia guys wanting folks to move away from DPL due to performance issues at the server side.

Robert Hester 17:45, July 7, 2010 (UTC) (test user mode Phlox)

Minor edits
I'm sorry about that. What you say makes perfect sense and I will start doing that today. Lanica 13:26, July 15, 2010 (UTC)

Template for dates
I fixed info date. See January 1.

At the moment, it shows births, deaths, and first weddings. (I'll see about all weddings.) It also creates properties, so that we can check whether certain days are more popular for weddings than others.

Feel free to change the lay-out or suggest additions. rtol 21:56, July 19, 2010 (UTC)

Editing
So is what I did on Quebec ok? I wasn't sure if that was a relevant focus for that page, but I thought it would be interesting... SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 02:55, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll add a few things about common family names and whatnot. SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 13:23, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for the list! I'll look a few things up. By the way, is this signature suitable? It's just that on other wikis, I tend to use a template, so I made one here. SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 14:24, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Do we only make articles about famous or significant people, or can we put just about anybody? SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 17:14, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Of course, I just wasn't really sure. SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 14:10, July 27, 2010 (UTC)

So, I made an article of myself - Philippe L'Espérance (1994 -). Is that how it works, in general? Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, just looking for guidance... SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 01:08, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I will be working on articles for my parents shortly, using the same kind of structure. SSDGFCTCT9  天皇陛下萬歳！ 03:41, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

Re: Coincidence
Yeah, I am starting to add my family to the wiki and noticed on the Spanish language home page a   at the end that stuck out like a sore thumb - so I looked at the page and it appeared to me it could be removed so I did (or did I miss the opening    to it), and messed up the page? But it is good to see / hear from you, if you get back into Ikariam you are still a Bureaucrat there, and always will be. -- 23:26, August 13, 2010 (UTC)

be-taras
Hi there,

I'll escalate the be-taras issue to the support team, apologies that it's not working well.

- JeskaD 16:58, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Update - it should be working now. Thanks again! -- JeskaD 18:14, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Ancestry
I'm working towards a more elegant and robust solution for tracing where one's from. See roots and Nicolaas Simon Korver (1856-1922)/roots. rtol 05:55, August 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ancestors from blank now seems to be fixed. rtol 06:00, August 25, 2010 (UTC)

Place properties
Both locality and infobox UK place set up properties for places. Of course, the properties have different names. Can you kindly make a decision which names are better? Thurstan slightly prefers those by Phlox in infobox UK place. rtol 10:11, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * (discussion moved to forum)

New Features Wanted?
Hello!

I'm pulling together a list of 3-5 new features that would be helpful for the continued success of Familypedia. These could be something small like a new template form or something more integrated into the site, such as a new background theme or logo. It could also just be a list of "pain points" that you've had that we could design a tool/feature to help alleviate. Please let me know as soon as possible on my Talk page!

Cheers, JeskaD 20:42, August 26, 2010 (UTC)

Forms Fixed?
I'm hoping this means the form issue you were having is no longer (please let myself or Tim know if this is not the case). I'm still curious if there is anything else new feature-wise that could help with your day-to-day editing of the wiki or maybe help to engage new users or even something to make it easier for admins. This could be in the form of either a Wish List (things you'd love to do but aren't currently possilbe) or Pain Points (things that currently don't quite work the right way or are work arounds) Please do let me know if you or any of the other admins have anything, would love to work with you to get them done.

- JeskaD 18:41, September 2, 2010 (UTC)

Ermengarde, Jaume, Bretislaus
The query is fine. Jaume M Schulte's properties are assigned to Ermengarde. I guess that is because the servers are largely down. See also the problems with Bretislaus III of Bohemia. rtol 18:04, September 7, 2010 (UTC)

Default language
Do you, by any chance, have your default language set to French? When I look at the children of Mary Howell (1782-1854) (a page you created), I see "Birth: February 17, 1816 à New Jersey, United States", but when I create pages, I see "in" rather than "à". I think this is a bug in our language support. Thurstan 22:18, September 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I do. It must be a bug as you say. We probably need to find all of the places where String is used and the places where it should be used but isn't. Is your "Preference" en or en-gb? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:35, September 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I am set to "en": I am not offered "en-gb" on the dropdown list. Thurstan 04:45, September 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. Indeed, it is not on offer. (50 million people speak it but it's not offered, while languages that under a million people speak are offered. I suppose that's good in principle.) I'd better note that change in Phlox's essay. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:07, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

Arbuthnot marriage
Sir William Arbuthnot 2nd Bt married 26 August 2010 Louise (Alexandra Mary) Barry in London -- Arbuthnot

New Look Coming to Lifestyle
Robin,

Hiya! I just wanted to check in and remind you that starting tomorrow (October 6,2010) all anonymous viewers of your wiki will see it with the new look. It looks like you've already found the Theme Designer to prepare your wiki for the change over. If you haven't seen it already, we've created a Transition Guide with tips and best practices in the Community blog or my announcement for Lifestyle admins has even more tips.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Cheers,

JeskaD 18:37, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

New Look Feedback
Thanks for passing the feedback and potential bugs over to me, I've escalted them to our internal team.

Aolso, if you find any other bugs, don't hestitae to file them by going to Special:Contact so our support team can coordinate them into the larger list!

Cheers, JeskaD 18:06, October 7, 2010 (UTC)

John of Gaunt
Is it just me, or is John of Gaunt's page now inaccessible? Thurstan 21:22, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

Hello Robin. Thanks for your valued help. I'll get the hang now I'm using Firefox, it was Chrome that threw me ;-(

Kind regards hartleyfamilyorguk

Lilian May Yardley (1889-1960)
please delete this person, reason duplicate, middle name wrongly spelt

thank you

Hartleyfamilyorguk 19:59, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

Display issues
The reason that pages are not displayed properly is because the servers are clogged up by Thurstan. He's current actions are time consuming and computationally intensive. There is a simple alternative that would free up his time and the shared servers. I've pointed that out to him on a number of occasions, but he sticks to his plan. rtol 06:01, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry for being unclear. I saw your question on Thurstan's talk page about display issue, and thought I'd answer. The issue is not categorization. The issue is that ThurstanBot tries to save many tree pages per hour -- and for no reason. rtol 05:19, October 23, 2010 (UTC)

Birth Info... Link to mother...
Robin,

I cannot figure out why my page has my mother as a link in red when there is a page for Kathleen Murphy (1940-). In the source view it does seem to be right. How would one get rid of the incorrect link to a non-existent page for my mother and replace it with a link to the correct page?

Regarding location information, such as for a birth, I'm not sure if I should enter city by itself, or in that field enter City, State. Then there is a field for Province/State/Country. I wasn't sure whether to put my state in there and then put the country in the Nation field or how people are doing this. I guess it just seems important to be consistent.

Thanks,

Brucewhealton 08:31, October 22, 2010 (UTC)Brucewhealton

Claus Meyer (1874-1955)
Can you roll back the edits in this page to my last edit. Larry C. contacted me to let me know he deleted most of my information while he was trying to add some of his own. THis is an admin function, right? Not something I can do myself? Thanks, Lanica 16:35, October 24, 2010 (UTC).

Edit facts
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Claus_Meyer_(1874-1955)

It seem like I'm having problems doing the simplest things. I'm thinking that I may be using "save page" incorrectly. What is the difference between the "save page" at the top and at the bottom? I can only hope that I am getting better at using "undo." Please check the above link.

Is there an advantage to using Firefox over IE?

Larry C. 22:25, October 24, 2010 (UTC)

Katie
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Katie

Robin, I moved up to Firefox and things working, far from perfect, but better. Feel free to delete "Katie. I know I did a lot of extra editing but I was tired of losing it all while using IE.

The Claus Meyer_(1874-1955) has a sibling form but no form for children. Can you help me with that? Hopefully I will get to the point where I don't need assistance.

Thanks for all your help, assistance and advice.

Larry

Larry C. 19:58, October 25, 2010 (UTC)

Slideshow instead of Widget
(copying over from my talk page in case you missed it!)

Hiya! The "Widget" functionality that was being used to display the slideshow was part of our soon to be deprecated Monoco skin and will not work as part of the skin. All you need to do is use the "gallery" button to add a slideshow and it should be fine.

Let me know if this isn't working!

JeskaD 01:40, October 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * If I notice a "gallery" button I may use it. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:48, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

How to Insert Gallery or Slideshow
Howdy! The gallery/slideshow button is available whenever you are editing a page. To insert a gallery or slideshow, just click the button in the editor and following the prompts. More information on how this works in our gallery and slideshow help guide.

If you prefer, you can instead use wikitext to add galleries, more information on how to do that here: http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Galleries_and_slideshows/wikitext

Good luck! - --JeskaD 19:23, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

Re: Your first article
Thanks for the compliment! It was really just experimental, but I'll try to have that data on my parents for you soon. I have several Wikias I'm trying to start up at the same time, so if it takes a while, please understand. Thanks. TheLastWordSword 19:03, November 2, 2010 (UTC)

View
Yeah, it looks mixed up to me, too. It looks like all the headings and titles are source... Lanica 15:03, November 14, 2010 (UTC)

SMW Help
While i'm twittering my thumbs for SMW to come back to life on my wiki, I was looking at other smw sites and noticed some issues. You could use: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Replace_Text to replace "formedit" Also, | }} is the same as, which could GREATLY reduce the size of some templates that reuse code. S im A nt 20:52, November 16, 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions
I'm getting worried about the lack of progress.

Can you plead with Phlox to come help us?

I would also plead with Wikia that they roll-back the recent "patches". Whatever problem they were supposed to solve, they created too many new ones.

The alternative is rather painful. As no-one understands Phlox' templates, we would basically have to start all over again. rtol 06:30, November 21, 2010 (UTC)

Translations
This is no time for soft measures. Something is seriously broken. We need to get the basics working again before worrying about fancy stuff. rtol 23:04, November 26, 2010 (UTC)

Images
I cant figure out how to upload images. Where is the button hidden now? --Richard Arthur Norton I 20:31, December 5, 2010 (UTC)

Hi there i was just saying can you improve my new wiki website its called http://itvwikis.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WikiActivity that will be a great help.

Thanks for the welcome and responses
So, when setting up the fields for Persons, one cannot know how many children a person may have. How is that handled on the forms?

66.57.62.106 12:47, December 24, 2010 (UTC)Brucewhealton

image formats
On 27 December 2010 03:05, Robin Patterson <[mailto:Robin-P@slingshot.co.nz Robin-P@slingshot.co.nz]> wrote: If you know how to turn screenshots into files suitable for uploading to a wiki, please see http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Some_publicity_for_Familypedia#Screenshots_urgently_needed

Robin, try installing Gimp (http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html). Then open Gimp and use it to open your bitmaps. Use Gimp to save the files in any of the many formats it supports. Gimp is a free software alternative to Photoshop.

Hope that helps.

DuncanNZ 21:46, December 27, 2010 (UTC)

John Miller's Will
Hi Robin,

Thank you for your response to John Miller’s will. I am having a hard time navigating Familypedia. I didn’t know how to edit the will or move it to a better location. Do with it as you will. I thought it would be beneficial for Miller researchers. Also, thank you so much for citing me as a source. Nothing irks me more than someone copying my information and not citing properly. I have other wills and other sources of information, but I am hesitant to post them or update my tree.

Cheers,

Stephanie

Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło Family -- Deletion
Hi Robin,

Thanks for your reply.

I asked for that deletion for several reasons:

01) The intent of that article was to be encyclopedic, not genealogical, and therefore on Wikipedia.

02) There were two deletion nominations of that article on Wikipedia.

03) The article survived the first deletion nomination.

04) The nominating administrator assumed foul play, since he lost round one to someone he considered a neophyte, so he bid his time while seething.

05) He, considering himself a GodKing, canvassed a Wikipedia lynch mod he corresponds with regularly, and they reached a consensus the article should be deleted. That's my opinion, perhaps I'm wrong given I'm biased in this regard.

06) After deletion, the result was a nasty and lengthy deletion review, and in the course of that review, someone (I have no idea who) took it upon themselves to upload the article, along with the accompany pictures, to this site, misinterpreting the purpose of the article to be genealogical.

07) That's not the purpose of the article, and the two photographs uploaded here, which I requested be deleted, upon consideration of points brought up in the deletion review, should not be on the Internet.

08) "Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło" is an incorrect and very irregular form of the name, never used, except here incorrectly, hence my request for deletion of that redirection link. In the interests of historical accuracy, I do not think "Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło" should appear in Google or other search engine results.  It's widely promulgating a confusing mistake.  There's already enough confusion regarding things Polish.

09) "Żądło-Dąbrowski z Dąbrówki h. Radwan" is how the name appears in armorials, and how Polish scholars currently refer to the name.

10) I'm not adverse to having a link from Wikipedia to Familypedia, where this article is concerned, hence the current link to Wikipedia, but having to maintain two separate versions of the article would lead to inaccuracies and omissions.

11) You can view the deletion debates here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C5%BB%C4%85d%C5%82o-D%C4%85browski_z_D%C4%85br%C3%B3wki_h._Radwan

12) I hope you don't read it. It's all rather boring and sordid, full of accusations of bad faith and disreputable motives (the usual fare), although I tried to put up a valiant fight and vanquish what I saw as the dishonoring of Wikipedia's core principles.

13) I'm at your mercy, so I kindly request again the deletion of the redirect link containing the improper form of the name "Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło."

14) This is all might be very tedious, and perhaps that redirection link was already deleted, if so, disregard all. I never know with websites, caches, and technical glitches.

I Thank You for Your Time and Consideration -- Fpjohnsmith 12:40, January 8, 2011 (UTC)

Questions

 * with Robin's replies interspersed for convenience

Dear Mr. Patterson,

I am new to familypedia, being directed to this site by Mr. Norton. and am still struggling with the mysteries of the site. I have understood how to write articles and how to load up pictures.

I have some questions regarding the site and in order to avoid errors I take advantage of your offer to help newcommers.

1. I am surprised that I missed the site until now, especially as it has been active for at least 4 years. Do the names of this site show up in on-line searches using Google or other search engines? If not, outsiders who might be interested in some persons or genealogies might never find them.
 * All text, and particularly page names, has a good chance of appearing in a Google or Yahoo search, and can be in the top few hits if the word or phrase is not very common. I'm sorry you hadn't found us sooner. (And some of us old-timers are "still struggling with the mysteries of the site"!!) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

2. What kind of articles are acceptable to Familypedia. Is it only groups of persons who are related, or can it be individual persons who are more or less notable? Examples. In the article Maria Filotti who was an actress, there are various authors of plays in which she took part. Would it be correct to load their biographies into Familypedia? Familypedia seems to accept articles on places - for instance New Hampshire. Would it be correct to load articles on places mentioned in the Maria Filotti article?
 * We hope to have an article about every person who has ever lived and about every place where they were recorded as doing anything. We already have thousands of "place" articles, so check before writing one. For much of what you may want to write, see Help:Copying from Wikipedia. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

3. When loading pages from Wikipedia, the colors of the links (red or blue) seem to remain as they were in Wikipedia, even if the linked articles are not in Familypedia. Should the articles on related subjects (such as the schools attended, the professions etc.) should also be loaded into Familypedia so that they can be accessed the way they are in Wikipedia. Mr. Norton advised me to include a w: in front of the name, which apparently makes a link to Wikipedia. I tried this in the Maria Filotti article, but it does not work.
 * Richard is one of our most prolific contributors but isn't infallible. "w:" works on a WikiMedia site, but here it means "Wikia". For a link to Wikipedia, you need the full "wikipedia:". For professions and schools, a link to Wikipedia is probably best rather than creating a page here, but we do use most of the same categories as Wikipedia, some of which cover professions and well-known educational institutions. (I don't know the answer to the "link color" question. Maybe you could start a forum article about it.)— Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

4. Familypedia is a multilanguage site. How can articles in different languages be loaded and linked. Assuming I would like to have a version of the Maria Filotti article in french, german, romanian or esperanto, can this be done, having these articles somehow linked. Or is the system set up so that I could have an article of Maria Filotti's son, Ion Filotti Cantacuzino written in romanian, and of her grandson written in french, which are interlinked?
 * Our system of multilinguality (intended to work as it does on Wikimedia Commons:) isn't well developed yet, but it's on the agenda. See Familypedia:Multilingual articles. The answer to your second and third questions in this section is "yes". — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

5. Are articles containing full family trees also acceptable in Familypedia, so that the genealogy can be easier to read than by going up and down the parents-child relationships or are such family trees reserved for genealogy sites such as Ancestry, My Heritage or others. An example of such a tree in Wikipedia would be The Filotti Family.
 * Such articles are acceptable and welcome. See Filotti (surname), which you are welcome to expand to include the Wikipedia material. But our setup goes beyond that, allowing the creation of "/tree" subpages that are created automatically joining individuals who have their own pages here. It's suffering some glitches at present, as you may deduce from recent Forum items, but worth persevering with. See Charlemagne/tree, which used to be magnificent but now needs some links fixed, and John Bellamy (1803-1873)/tree, a recently-created page that works. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

I hope to be able to contribute efficiently to Familypedia and would also like to know how I can be of any use.


 * Welcome again!!! There are probably areas of the multilingualism where your skills might make a huge contribution. (I enjoyed reading Maria's list of plays, many of which I had seen performed at the Globe Theatre in Dunedin, back in the 1960s, and a couple of which I had performed in.) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:00, January 17, 2011 (UTC)

Thank you in advance for your help

Andrei Filotti Afil 21:08, January 16, 2011 (UTC)

How can I delete?
1. I know I did something stupid.

I followed your advice to register as in the engineering section - which appears to be quite new. I loaded my user page and found out that the babel templates are not activated in the Engineering section. I started to upload them, but I misprinted the title, which I entered as =Template;User en= I loaded the correct template with the colon instead of the semicolon, but haven't got the slightest idea how to delete the wrong one. I assume that the babel templates should be active in the Engineering section too. But I don't know if I should load them - which I can and have done experimentally with the User en template - or if it should be done in another way.

Afil 02:40, January 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll have a look at your "Template;User en" (and delete if no use - something only administrators can do) and at what language templates are there on Engineering. It's actually a fairly old Wikia site, like Familypedia, and probably doesn't have the newer standard Babel templates (which were developed after these wikis started). But if you feel like copying from Familypedia to Engineering, where there is no equivalent, that should be just fine. I can add any related categories, etc, that may still be required. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:15, January 21, 2011 (UTC)

Starting articles with the form
2. I might just ask a second question. I seem to have difficulties in starting new articles with a form. When the article is completely new I cannot load the form. If I access the article - after it was created - with a form, I get the form but I cannot save or preview it I am probably doing something wrong but I don't know what. Afil 02:40, January 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you using Firefox? If not, or even if you are, another look at the "Guidelines" may help - that's the page you reach from "Help: Creating articles" near the top of most pages. If still having problems, you're not alone: try our help desk. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:15, January 21, 2011 (UTC)

Learning Familypedia; my articles
Robin,

I wonder why on my article about myself, it says that I am 0 years old.


 * That may be part of a new problem (as you will have noticed if keeping up with the forums). Put a link to that article on your user page so that people can find it more easily! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:02, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Can you offer me any tips on learning how mediawiki samantic forms are setup here? I think this would be a good way to learn about semantic forms but seeing how things were setup on this site. The names of fields, the thinking behind the overall design and how this was setup, so I could do something like this on my own wiki.


 * I don't know much of that. User:Phlox did most of it. Find his blog and subpages. And (as think I've suggested before) study Form:Person and the templates it uses. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:02, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

I do have some family on facebook, is there a way to share my pages here on facebook? Has anyone thought of adding those share buttons?


 * I have a "Share on Facebook" link on one of my toolbars. I forget where I got it; maybe from Facebook. There's also a "Facebook Connect" section at the end of your preferences. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:02, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and how do I get emails when there is a message on my talk page?


 * Check your "Preferences". (Link in the menu headed by your name next to the logout button near top right.) In the first batch there are email options. Mine look like this:
 * E-mail confirmation:	Your e-mail address was authenticated on 2008-06-08 at 00:35:16.

Enable e-mail from other users Send me copies of e-mails I send to other users E-mail me when a page I'm following is changed E-mail me when my user talk page is changed E-mail me for minor edits Reveal my e-mail address in notification e-mails Enable receipt of HTML emails Send me information about Wikia news and events


 * I've checked the boxes for most of those options. You can choose yours and change them if ever any seem to be a nuisance. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:02, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Thanks,

Bruce

Questions
Dear Mr. Patterson,

I hope I am not doing too much mischief and that I am not giving you too much trouble. I slowly get more familiarized with the procedures of Familypedia.


 * Andrei, you do much less mischief than most newcomers! And little trouble to help you in the right directions. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:54, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

However, for the time being I have the following questions, and would appreciate your guidance.

1. The showfacts biography template seems to ignore the places of birth, death and marriage. It also shows the death by unknown causes, though I seem not to be able to idenfity where I could indicate the cause of death in the form. Other users seem to be encountering the same difficulty in the way the form understands the names of the places.


 * I noticed that, as soon as I added it to one of your pages. So I reported it on Forum:Template:Showfacts biography. Someone will find the answer soon, I'm confident. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:54, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

2. The instructions concerning the showfacts children indicate that the names of the various children issued from the same marriage should be separated by a colon. Actually this should be corrected as a + sign is required. This is misleading. I now know how to do it, but other users might also get confused.


 * I had either not noticed or forgotten that; semicolon was the early joiner, which was found to be not ideal and was therefore changed after a few months; the instruction you found has clearly not kept up; I'd better fix it. The "plus" is the only joiner mentioned on the main guidance page, to which we try to direct all readers. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:54, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

3. I am not able to find out how names can be added into a tree. The tree only has the blank rectangles. This seems to happen to trees of other users.


 * Yes, that's another very recent mystery, reported on Help talk:Tree page. I hope we can fix it very soon. In case you've never seen how good our tree pages can look, see the bottom image on Forum:Some publicity for Familypedia. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:54, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you in advance for your help.

Andrei Filotti Afil 22:32, January 29, 2011 (UTC)