User talk:Thurstan/Archive6


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Splendid recent responses
Thank you for today's serious work on various fixes. I hadn't wanted to bother you any more but I'm delighted that you bothered. Now I'd better go and try things. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:10, December 30, 2012 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. I do neglect the gadgets that I don't use so much. Thurstan (talk) 03:12, December 30, 2012 (UTC)

"Final" bit of major user-unfriendliness on Form:Person needing your help: the children input section has the statue of the family group but the rest of it above the top input box says something like this:

'  -1: 	' 	''   :

Then the source and notes boxes appear, with no hint of what they are for. I recall pointing out that the coding differed from the other input sections by having source BEFORE notes, and I think I suggested that all should follow that order.

Now that the forms are working so well again, maybe you'll resume using them!

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:21, January 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * More labels lost: I will look for them.
 * I do use the forms at least once with every page I create! Thurstan (talk) 05:28, January 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, I have removed all the calls to string. What do you think? Thurstan (talk) 06:11, January 1, 2013 (UTC)

Children
"Edit child facts" is fine now, with all the labels anyone could want. I'm pleased that it didn't suffer the ostracism that you gave to some partial forms. But unless there's been an improvement in the last few hours the integrated "children" part of Form:Person is still as I reported it. Maybe that's a partial form??


 * It is a different template (only used at page creation?). I have removed its string calls. Thurstan (talk) 21:14, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

Do we have room to add spouse names to the display of the children box? Many contributors add that below the table or elsewhere, particularly so as to show likely name-at-death of daughters. User:Selkcerf mentioned that desire recently. Since we agreed to push the child box down to clear the infobox, we don't have the space problem we once had. I'm not suggesting full marriage details. One of our displays lists spouses concatenated, and that should be enough here too.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:42, January 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not sure if that is what User:Selkcerf was asking for: I thought he was asking for more information to be shown when you still have "red-links".


 * Perhaps you should start a "Forum" on this: I don't think we should change this without agreement from User:rtol and  User:cvs. Thurstan (talk) 21:14, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

Stop
Thurston I was in the process of fixing & renaming Hannah Hewitt by removing the "nee" when you jumped in. Please leave me tio correct the problems I have created as I also have to make sure that the links all work. I will be fixing any others that I also created, just be patient.


 * Sorry, I will leave you to it. Thurstan (talk) 02:36, January 1, 2013 (UTC)

Vilius
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Vilius2001x

Thank you: I had been following the saga, but I was not sure what to do about it. Thurstan (talk) 10:19, January 5, 2013 (UTC)

Children's notes not displaying
Good evening. You've knocked off early. I hope you haven't had to dive into Lake Burley Griffin.

Please have a look at http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Decker_%281876-%29?action=edit

A couple of lines of "children-g1 notes"; but they don't appear on the display of the page. You're the most recent tinkerer there. Any ideas?

Best wishes -- -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:06, January 8, 2013 (UTC)

You have an error in your model: you must code "children-g1_notes" with a "_", not "children-g1 notes". I don't know if your version used to work, but it hasn't worked for quite a while. Thurstan (talk) 10:16, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I mis-spoke: the error was in the template used in Form:Person (as I realized after I went to bed last night). I have fixed it (and tested it). Thurstan (talk) 02:47, January 9, 2013 (UTC)


 * Good work. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:52, January 9, 2013 (UTC)

BDM
OK, as you are the current bdm policeman and chief operative, please:
 * 1) Give the template some documentation
 * 2) Update http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Templates_update?action=edit&section=28

Something I was about to try, until I looked at the template and decided that I couldn't be sure how it worked or what created the tab, was to add a visible message on the main article telling readers that details of births etc are at the "bdm" tab. An alternative could be a more obvious label (e.g. "Births, deaths, etc") for the tab.

Then there's the county level - show county people. Ultimately such pages would be far too big to display, but in the next few years it can remain useful until we can organise the query system so that it's foolproof and suitable for beginners.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:52, January 9, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll pass, I don't want to tread on User:Afil's toes more than I have lately, you will have to ask him. The only discussion I have found about this (which you were part of) was at User_talk:Afil and User_talk:Rtol. Thurstan (talk) 04:26, January 9, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I'll talk to the other guys and start updating Forum:Templates_update. Then you can somewhere add a bit about how to show the tab! Maybe you can have a good look at the last dozen items on the Watercooler, several of which need input from more than one or two people. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:09, January 9, 2013 (UTC)

local govt redirect
You have been a busy bee!

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Local_Government_Areas_in_Australia?limit=500 - they should link to "...government areas in...". I expect many (maybe most) of them are templated and will sort themselves out soon, but I can't be sure. The still earlier page was "...Government Areas of...".

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:02, January 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, the link is in Infobox Australian place: the templates like that usually link there labels "X" to the "List of X" page. Thurstan (talk) 10:11, January 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * On second thought, I am not so sure. Maybe it is an artifact of the way the template logic works.... Thurstan (talk) 10:22, January 10, 2013 (UTC)

Last week I checked and redirected a few key pages. I think we now have merely a lot of harmless redirects with all of the double redirects eliminated. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:11, January 16, 2013 (UTC)

standard?
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Raipur,_Chhattisgarh/bdm?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=865691

Where can I read a hint that what I wrote is not the standard?

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:06, January 11, 2013 (UTC)

In User:Afil's discussion. Thurstan (talk) 03:51, January 11, 2013 (UTC)

Ohio and bdm generally
I've done East Cleveland, Ohio/bdm. You can do more on its person-subject-page if you like.

Andrei's not answering. Please tell me what you use as the standard link from a place page to its bdm.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:00, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Template bdm displays the tabs, so you add it to the top of the place page. The template bdm1, which the conents of the "/bdm" subpage, consists of bdm (to show the tabs) followed by showfacts locality to show the people. Thurstan (talk) 00:11, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Super. I can follow that and document it. I might also redirect all of the related templates that used capitals; do you see any risk there? I might then go on to do a bdm2 so as to abbreviate the work for county pages. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:11, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * You can't redirect BDM until you have moved all the "/BDM" pages to "/bdm" pages. Thurstan (talk) 04:15, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Redirected before I saw that reply. Right! Reverted. Now where did I see a friendly bot that could help here? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:17, January 17, 2013 (UTC)

Categories from WP
Notice that if you copy from Wikipedia, you must change the category names according to all the decisions about category names. Thurstan (talk) 00:11, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Better some wrong ones initially than none at all, but corrections are then desirable. Corrections will be easier:
 * when all such decisions are easily found from Help:Copying from Wikipedia
 * with a bot in many cases
 * (|8-) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:11, January 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Good work listing some of them so promptly. I knew the first couple but might have otherwise been unaware or forgetful of the next few. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:01, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

200,995 edits and some unsourced material
-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:59, January 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Where did you find Felicie's other three children?
 * 2) Did someone neglect to acknowledge the source of the Crooked Corner material or did you write the original?


 * You can find anything on AWT
 * No, I wrote it, based on the GNB entry. I have transferred it to Wikipedia
 * Thurstan (talk) 07:03, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Page refusing to display tabs
Benjamin_C._Bradlee_(1921) is refusing to show its tabs despite being republished at least three times, alternating with the republishing of its sensor page. Any ideas? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:06, February 1, 2013 (UTC)

This is a problem with various pages created after the midyear "upgrade": the value for "globals=" was not being set up. I have fixed it (hopefully!), but there will be quite a number of pages which were created but have not been fixed yet. They require " |globals= " added. Thurstan (talk) 09:38, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

Mauricie
Totally baffling stripping of some of the start of Infobox settlement for Mauricie. I suppose I could check whether anyone has been fiddling with it. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:06, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

This problem is caused by mismatched HTML tags (usually tags without closing tags, in this case a closing tag without opening tag). The problem tags are generally "&lt;small&gt;" or "&lt;center&gt;". Wikipedia doesn't mind, because this is what htmltidy fixes, but we don't have htmltidy. Thurstan (talk) 09:31, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

French communes infoboxes
Please see my talk page, where Andrei has explained why some instances of the template have problems. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:25, February 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * He will have to come up with more than that to dissuade me from my theory that it is a (fixable) error in the convert templates, specifically that one of them has been updated on Wikipedia but not here. I might have to do a "bulk update" from Wikipedia. Thurstan (talk) 09:52, February 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * I seem to have fixed it: see Ardes. Thurstan (talk) 23:45, February 2, 2013 (UTC)

I was fairly confident that you could fix it without replacing it with a hand-made "infobox settlement" every time. But I didn't realise you'd have to update a screenful of pages. Good work! All the better for the future, no doubt. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:04, February 3, 2013 (UTC)

Heading(s?) for siblings
What I'd like you to consider next is {{T}|Showfacts siblings via}}. Its display looks odd with no heading. We have at times given it a manual heading, but that probably restricts the location because of the "only one free text area" limit when editing with a form. The children box has one. The siblings would look good if they had a matching one. Then if it's easy to slip a "Half-siblings" heading into the right place, that would be even better. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:04, February 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I'm not at all surprised there's no "half-siblings" heading because I guess the coding doesn't try to put the full siblings first every time. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:07, February 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * The logic of the template is: show the children of the nominated person, with a default value of the father of this person, so potentially it is not always "siblings" that are being shown.
 * I must record my generally opposition to "showing siblings": to me, it is copying some information from somewhere else (which you could read by following parent links, if you want it), which isn't really about this person, to cover up the fact that we are not saying anything about this person's life.
 * — Thurstan (talk) 21:22, February 5, 2013 (UTC)

Duplication in given names
See, for example, Matthew (given name). I've not checked exhaustively nor looked hard at the coding, but we are duplicating several if not all. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:25, February 4, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, we have a table of "all", then separate tables by sex. The trouble is that there are some pages which are neither male nor female, and there is no way to select them. Thurstan (talk) 07:28, February 4, 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow that. But I presume you mean we have the "all" because it's the only way to pick up the sexless ones; in which case why then have the M and F groups? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:34, February 4, 2013 (UTC)


 * Suppose you chose a name like "William": you might have 10000 M and 5 F. Since the query has a limit, it won't get all of these. If you are unlucky, it won't get all the "F" entries, which are the ones which may need fixing. We wouldn't need them if we knew the "all" group was complete. Thurstan (talk) 00:01, February 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * So the only reason for the male and female lists is to catch wrong-sex? Then you need far fewer in each list. And for bisexual/unisex names those lists would tell you nothing useful. So a low limit such as "6" could be an improvement, along with a heading to tell ordinary folks the reason for the duplication. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:07, February 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that, it is very sensible. I am now in two minds about what to do next:
 * a more complicated version, which only activates if you nominate a single gender for the name and reports people which are not of that gender
 * scrap the whole test, on the grounds that it is rapidly turning into useless clutter. This would just leave the single report
 * You might guess that I favour the latter course. What do you think?
 * — Thurstan (talk) 21:14, February 5, 2013 (UTC)

Precocious father?
Check birthdate of father of John Eastment (1838-1926). And remove some question-marks along the way? You can't always believe AWT. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:56, February 5, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for highlighting that one: one of the reasons I am here is the number of errors and contradictions on AWT. This one I posted (with the obvious error) hoping someone would come by and fix it. Now there is a better version on AWT, which shows that it was a classic "right date in the wrong slot" problem. I am glad to see you attacking the question marks, well done. Thurstan (talk) 21:02, February 5, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!
I want to thank you for your corrections. I appreciate them very much. I'm new here, but am anxious to learn. I already know some, but obviously not enough to avoid mistakes. Whroll (talk) 21:01, March 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * You are welcome. The first thing to know is that is our standard for place names. For US counties, "Name County, State" always works, eg "Northampton County, Pennsylvania". For places, "Name, State" usually works (eg "Easton, Pennsylvania"), but there a various anomolies. Thurstan (talk) 21:15, March 10, 2013 (UTC)

By the way, why is "Joined with" for Fannie Lewis Kinnan (1821-1906) in the "Siblings" box blank? I can't imagine why. I must have damaged the code somewhere.


 * I am not sure that it works anywhere. Can you see an example of where it does work (the "Joined with" column is a recent addition)? Thurstan (talk) 00:35, March 11, 2013 (UTC)

Yes... I see lots of places it works. It works on John Henry Kidd (1813-1875). I was surprised to see it not working.


 * It should work now. Thurstan (talk) 00:52, March 11, 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not working now.. but that doesn't matter: it's a known bug and nothing I did. I thought it was something I did. I can live with it. Someone will fix it in due course. Thanks. I see there is a real preview for pages like this. I really miss the preview for person pages since my habit is to use it a lot. Publishing person pages many times must be a pain for those who keep track. There must be some other way. I might be able to set up something locally for testing, then do copy and paste. :)


 * You have to "purge" to see it: see Fannie Lewis Kinnan (1821-1906). I have been wondering if I can fudge a "preview" to at least check spelling etc. Thurstan (talk) 02:28, March 11, 2013 (UTC)

Italian language
Drastic-looking "upgrade" http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Umberto_Bossi_%281941%29?curid=355856&diff=898033&oldid=898031 - reducing by about as many bytes as my first computer had in total. But the original article was clearly not "original" yet apparently un-acknowledged and therefore technically plagiarism!

We should be able to handle Italian language articles but, as I think Phlox said, categories and templates may be another matter. Maybe we should invite the original author to study our internationalization pages with a view to progressing things.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:11, March 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * It was all copied from the Italian Wikipedia, I believe, but their templates and categories are incompatible with ours. I think the aim of the original author was the fake one planted in the middle. There is little genealogy here. Thurstan (talk) 19:47, March 16, 2013 (UTC)

Help
I am having problems with signing up. I had an acct. previously but lost my username.71.203.58.159 22:56, March 17, 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't know how to help: I suggest you go to Special:Contact and send a message to the central administrators. Thurstan (talk) 00:13, March 18, 2013 (UTC)

Coord
Looking at geographic coordinates at the moment. Unfortunately, your use of the template coord is incorrect. It should have "latitude|S|longitude|E" (for Australia and New Zealand) rather than "latitude|longitude". It's easier to fix the template than go through the many places that use the template. rtol (talk) 10:41, March 19, 2013 (UTC)


 * This is standard Wikipedia usage that you are complaining about, and there is nothing wrong with it. The SMW additions to the template are broken. I deny any hand in this. Thurstan (talk) 19:52, March 19, 2013 (UTC)


 * I have repaired coord: it should be okay now. Thurstan (talk) 21:19, March 19, 2013 (UTC)

Template:Belgian provinces Labelled Map‎ - problems
Trouble with Template:Belgian provinces Labelled Map‎. It seems OK on Belgium but bad on Provinces of Belgium. Any ideas? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:31, March 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * It looks better to me, now that I have tidied up the "/font" and "/div" tags to the right level. Are you happy too? Thurstan (talk) 04:19, March 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * Now looks fine on its two pages instead of one. Bonza, Thurza. (Seeing what you did to it, I wonder how it managed to work on Belgium.) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:13, March 23, 2013 (UTC)

Towns
Hi Thurstan, earlier on I had made a 'town' page about the town of Bury, and had noticed that you have changed it (understandable, I should have asked before really). But I am quite interested in the geographical side of genealogy (i.e. the spread of my ancestors and the places that they lived), and as a result, I had an idea that we could change the location pages from their current Wikipedia format into a 'GENUKI' type format (if you've used the site). By this, I mean we could list buildings of genealogical importance and create articles about them listing people who were born, married and died there (e.g. pages for churches, hospitals and register offices). If you do want to think about this, I can do this for locations in Britain especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Though I do understand it would be a big project.

Hope you're well,

BillRM (talk) 20:43, March 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I think I want Wikipedia's much larger review audience for its pages: we have found here that genealogists have trouble getting place names correct. We use Wikipedia as our standard for place names. Thurstan (talk) 21:06, March 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * It's ages since I've looked at anything from GENUKI. I'm going to have another look now. We might well start subpages based on what some of the world's most enthusiastic volunteer genealogists have created. But we might also incorporate some of their ideas in our pages. The page name is the only essential link with Wikipedia. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:22, March 26, 2013 (UTC)


 * Do they claim copyright? My second thought on Bill's suggestion is that perhaps he could do the places in California, so that we could judge his model. Thurstan (talk) 02:19, March 26, 2013 (UTC)
 * They do (with very small exceptions). See updated article. We could very easily include a GENUKI link on any page that matches; a template (like AWT) could make it easy. Same as we could for Cyndi's List. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:21, March 27, 2013 (UTC)


 * Bill says "we could list buildings of genealogical importance and create articles about them listing people who were born, married and died there (e.g. pages for churches, hospitals and register offices)" - we can do that easily, without changing names of existing pages. We could fairly easily create pages from our newly redefined "address" field (though there would be lots of disambig pages arising!) and extend the "bdm" function to them. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:21, March 27, 2013 (UTC)


 * And I re-iterate: if Bill wants to do them for some part of the world (like California) for which he had no special info, to demonstrate how it could be done, I think he should. It is silly for him to do it for the 6 places he is interested in, leaving them different from all the others in the world. I am certainly not going to do Australia. Thurstan (talk) 00:38, March 27, 2013 (UTC)

Surname filters
Still no results in http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:BrowseData/Freudenberg_%28surname%29?_single. Try some more of your magic or should we both re-read Help:Semantic Drilldown and the mw version? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:49, April 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * No, that makes sense: there are no SMW people pages in that category. Thurstan (talk) 19:39, April 1, 2013 (UTC)

I didn't realise it was as bad as that. Maybe I should upgrade a couple so that Mr N can see that it's not just a programming error and he may get inspired. Anyway, I really popped in to report that Smiths seem to be fine but Capets still have no place filter. Is that as you expected? Can I tweak some of the Smith wording then do a couple more surnames? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:32, April 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Feel free to try more variations. I will wait a little longer on Capet, and maybe check the documentation. Thurstan (talk) 03:34, April 2, 2013 (UTC)

Upgraded two Freudenbergs. The category drilldown is now clearly aware of them but I can't get it to list them. Worse, when I click the "nation" option I get:


 * BrowseData/Freudenberg (surname)


 * You have requested a special page that is not recognized by Familypedia. A list of valid special pages can be found at Special pages.


 * Return to Family History and Genealogy Wiki.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:06, April 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * The setup looks okay to me, so maybe there is still some housekeeping for it to do before it is ready. Thurstan (talk) 05:19, April 2, 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the look of the filters: I put a filter on Category:Kermode_(surname), and when I look at the drilldown, it shows me a redirect. I think it is using old data somehow. I will try another one. Thurstan (talk) 00:31, April 3, 2013 (UTC)

Special:BrowseData gives a very odd set of categories. I think we should get the "Semantic Drilldown" extension re-installed. Thurstan (talk) 01:06, April 3, 2013 (UTC)
 * It probably should give an odd-looking set of categories, because its documentation talks about "top categories", which I think is the same as Special:UncategorizedCategories, e.g. Category:Afro-Asiatic multilingual support templates, Category:American monthly magazines, Category:American people of Jewish descent, Category:Anna Augusta Kershaw (1841-1931) (and which I think is a silly list for it to show because a well-organized wiki would have only one of those). However, that's not what we get: I've just checked one: Category:Human mitochondrial genetics. You added it a few weeks ago, in the one operation copying everything including the WP cats, one of which we have had since 2010. So it's not uncategorized. We shouldn't encourage any users to try the unvarnished BrowseData at present. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:14, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

Sources and notes - editable
Someone, no doubt inadvertently with the best of intentions, seems to have cut a "noeditsection" out of Sources and Notes. Editing it is not recommended. (-) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:45, April 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you: I think I've fixed it. Thurstan (talk) 19:59, April 3, 2013 (UTC)
 * Good work. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:55, April 6, 2013 (UTC)

Edit conflict; pasting the diffs here in case they are useful
You've probably produced better headings than I had.

I've used my headings in the initial description of what the template does, so I'll have to revise those. (8-)

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:47, April 5, 2013 (UTC)

Done; but the recent edit to the template may call for further small amendment. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:55, April 6, 2013 (UTC)

Deleting a redirect
Generally not recommended

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Jan_Wilkins_%281964%29

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:33, April 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I do recommended it when the target page has already been deleted on privacy grounds. Thurstan (talk) 03:37, April 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll believe you. Target page history has no hint of privacy. If privacy was an issue, presumably discussed on someone's talk page, I expect that more should have been done with linked pages: http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Janette_Catherine_Wilkins_%281964%29. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:55, April 6, 2013 (UTC)

Help:Sensor page
Help:Sensor page needs your attention. (8-) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:11, April 9, 2013 (UTC)

William Rice
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_Rice?diff=prev&oldid=911752 seems to have deleted a lot of thoughtful work of an anonymous user who has contributed to several pages about Rice and ap Rhys. I'd like to find a suitable place for it unless you want it deleted. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:29, April 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought it was exactly the same material that he has already posted, which you found a home for. Perhaps you can merge it with that. Thurstan (talk) 00:32, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I'll have a closer look at Mr Rice's contributions. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:51, April 10, 2013 (UTC)


 * This sounds like a very contentious topic (it sounds like a genealogical myth to me): see http://genforum.genealogy.com/rice/messages/2757.html and replies. Thurstan (talk) 02:15, April 10, 2013 (UTC)

Castell
That was close to vandalism. rtol (talk) 05:44, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

I don't know: Wikipedia is a standard for place names, you seem to be deliberately going against the standard. Thurstan (talk) 05:46, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, you are probably right: I apologize. I think I should have renamed your page before copying the Wikipedia "disambig" page. Thurstan (talk) 07:45, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

ANZAC spirit
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Oscar_Adelbert_Rixford_%281890-%29?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=920021 is just another example of Canberra-Wellington cooperation. I find something on an obscure webpage and you add to it from Familysearch or AWT. Keep it up. (In case you're wondering and haven't looked up my source, it's the Greenes of Rhode Island and Dorset, a subject which our friend Quinn skirts around.) Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:29, April 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I was hoping you wouldn't mind. Thurstan (talk) 01:31, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

Remarkable, impossible-looking page history
Have you noticed http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/John_Howland_%281592-1672%29?action=history ?

Maybe Wikia was experimenting. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:23, May 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think so. I often have problems around that time of the evening when the servers seem to be busy: I get the message about the database being locked waiting for the slave servers to catch up. That may have been an evening when I kept hitting the button and the browser kept timing out, leaving all those "reverts" in the queue. I suspect that there is a bug there too, which causes those phantom video files to appear. Thurstan (talk) 03:58, May 2, 2013 (UTC)

Myra Christmas Eggins (1896-1972)
Hi Thurstan   I am trying to respond to your comment about Myra Eggins my Grandmother but seem to get lost on here. Amandi66   Yes I am Malbert

Well, the way to start is to click on the "Click here to start a new topic." link near the top. Once the conversation has started, you use the "Edit" link after the heading to add to it. Keep trying, it is a lot to learn. Thurstan (talk) 01:23, May 6, 2013 (UTC)

Hello Thanks for replying  Who is your Page ancestor? I will consult the family tree I have for the Eggins so I know who I am talking to. I am not sure whether you are getting this message as I am having trouble with this.07:42, May 7, 2013 (UTC)07:42, May 7, 2013 (UTC)

Amandi66


 * If you have a look at my "profile" you will see a pedigree: my maternal grandfather was Cyril, son of Charles, brother of Sophia. Thurstan (talk) 07:48, May 7, 2013 (UTC)

Blue Lake
You may care to look at Talk:Eldon Sebastian Kozaks (1984-) and the last few changes to the head page. I'm not proposing to create a bdm page for Blue Lake or other places mentioned, but I'll be happy to help Eldon with earlier generations. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:30, May 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * It makes me worry about the veracity of his retrospective genealogy. However, I think we have lots of fantasy genealogy here already, and we have no defence against it: every genealogical myth will have a web page somewhere to support it. Thurstan (talk) 22:15, May 23, 2013 (UTC)

New Zealand cities and districts
Please explain "strange combination of concepts". (You folks call them all "councils". We like the term "city" for our most urbanised local authority territories, but there's no appreciable difference in administration.) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:13, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I couldn't find "cities and districts" on Wikipedia. It sounded like "apples and oranges" to me. If you would like to create the appropriate categories, so that they don't keep turning up on "wanted categories", go for it. Thurstan (talk) 03:15, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your commetns on Ellen Wright, Thurstan. I realised that the daughter was married to the Fay gentleman, but my earlier comment was referring to the fact that I hadn't found a record of their marriage. Perhaps I should exaplin myself a bit better next time! Cheers, and enjoy your day.

"fix broken redirect"??
Mate, some of your edits puzzle me. How does one "fix broken redirect" by deleting a redirect? Not good when other pages link to it. See Catherine Ann Cookson (1939), for example - you've killed her link to Peter Harry Wilkins. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:53, August 21, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, the redirect points to a page that doesn't exist (that is what "broken" means). How do you want me to fix that? Thurstan (talk) 06:02, August 21, 2013 (UTC)

As there is another page that still links to the dateless page, readers might want to use the redirect to reach the dated page, which has been deleted. At least they could then see that there is a history, that there was something there, and they could enquire further. In this case - http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Undelete?target=Peter+Harry+Wilkins+%281940-2005%29&timestamp=20120520162848&diff=prev - you and I might look at the original article and advise against republication but the option for a relative would be there. I wonder, incidentally, whether we should have deleted it just on an "anonymous" request from a person who might have been a grandson, but it does mention people who are still living and I can understand why a relative might want it deleted - but not all relatives might. When such a page has a link from another article, maybe a better "fix" would be to recreate the article but without its historical revisions and add a note that earlier material was deleted, specifying who asked for the deletion. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:25, August 21, 2013 (UTC)


 * My position is that there are too many problems with pages for living people who are not "public figures". We have even had one renamed to use all her married names, with the edit summary of "at her request". You might like to see what you can recreate in this case. I want nothing more to do with it. I suggest that you change the "dateless" red link to a dated one. Thurstan (talk) 20:53, August 21, 2013 (UTC)


 * Recreated as suggested, without the slanderous-looking bits. Thank you. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:51, October 11, 2013 (UTC)

Template:Politics_of_Scotland
Please see whether you think Template:Politics of Scotland can be fixed or we should abandon it. I don't know where to start but I think you've had success with similar conversions. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:04, October 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it is Politics sidebar title that is broken, so it breaks Politics of Italy too. The problem was mixing "th" and "td" tags (in particular, closing a "td" tag with "/th"). Presumably Wikipedia relies on HTMLTidy to fix this. Anyway, it looks okay to me now... Thurstan (talk) 07:09, October 1, 2013 (UTC)
 * Great work. Subdivisions of Scotland looks fine now. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:49, October 11, 2013 (UTC)

Seefeld
Actually, none of the above. The Seefeld in question is actually the German name (which was used at that time) of present day's Jezernice. This can be assessed only if you look at German language Wikipedia. English language Wikipedia does not have the relevant information. Afil (talk) 06:31, October 4, 2013 (UTC)

So you had better fix the link. Thurstan (talk) 06:32, October 4, 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I see you have: thank you. Thurstan (talk) 06:34, October 4, 2013 (UTC)

Wanted categories
Thank you for informing me. I don't think I deserve any credit. I did work on these categories but gave up some time ago when a bunch of new categories were included by Norton. I didn't know what to do about them and did not want to get into a conflict with other users, so I just interrupted my work on these categories. Now that this has been cleared, I will continue to do my share. Afil (talk) 15:35, October 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * Now we are there. At present all wanted categories have been classified one way or the other. The classification is probably far from perfect and can be improved, but at least nothing is wanted any more. However, each day, 20-30 new wanted categories appear. Let's try to keep the list from growing disproportionately. Afil (talk) 22:19, October 19, 2013 (UTC)


 * Excellent, good work. Thurstan (talk) 00:39, October 20, 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of categories
Are you content with recent deletions of pages you created? Example:
 * 2013-10-09T15:48:36 Afil (Talk | contribs | block) deleted page Category:Died in Round Swamp, New South Wales (content was: "" (and the only contributor was "Thurstan")) (view/restore)

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 08:44, October 11, 2013 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to the view that SMW has made the "born in place/date" etc categories redundant (now all we have to do is agree to convert all non-SMW people to SMW), so I don't fret about their deletion (not that I could do anyhing if I did). Thurstan (talk) 20:55, October 11, 2013 (UTC)

Template:usedSMW
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Introduction_to_Semantic_MediaWiki?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=859853 - does the template now need more parameters than before? Would the fact that the site shortcut is "smw:" help (allowing a similar structure to that used in usedwps)? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:50, October 12, 2013 (UTC)


 * As I read it, the template has always needed a parameter with the SMW Wiki URL in it. If the "smw:" version works, we should use that (I didn't know about it). Thurstan (talk) 19:46, October 12, 2013 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, the "smw:" won't work: you need the actual URL. Thurstan (talk) 20:42, October 12, 2013 (UTC)

Template:UK-earl-stub has insignificant error
If you know a quick fix for Template:UK-earl-stub, please apply. If not, no worries: looks fine on the Earls Cawdor. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:08, October 21, 2013 (UTC)