User talk:Thurstan/Archive3


 * 2008 Archive

103,663 bytes
Melbourne, Victoria (diff; hist). . (+103,663) . . Thurstan (Talk | contribs | block) (Copy from Wikipedia)

That has got to be broken into some main articles!

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Sysop status?
I'm happy to nominate you if you are willing. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I am willing (now I just have to think TWICE before each action).

Thurstan 05:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Please pop over to http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Genealogy:Requests_for_adminship&action=edit&section=11 and find the "Consent:" line and put four tildes at the end then save. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Commas ending info-page-derived categories
"Born in Gloucestershire,". Won't impress my latest recruit when he comes home from work. There's no hint of a comma in relevant lines of the info page. Is that your work or Phlox's or AMK's? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I've shifted the "county" fields to the "state" fields (this is how I use these fields for UK-based places): Template:Info categories generates "Category:Born in , " and "Category:Born in , " (as suits the US model). I remember reading the discussion about this, but I can't find it just now.

Thurstan 22:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for attending. I wonder whether the commas could be somehow linked to the following place so that they get included only if there is a following place. Another area for Phlox's expertise, I think. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but I don't think we should generate because of the resulting ambiguity: I think that filling in the "State" (with  for the UK) should be required.


 * Thurstan 04:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Children of second spouse
Arthur finds that his ancestor's second wife's child doesn't appear on the main page. http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Thomas_Baglin_%28c1725-%3F%29/info&action=edit. I seem to recall discussion about that. In case I don't find it, can you easily point us in the right direction? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You have to ask for them. The magic incantation is. I've fixed Thomas Baglin (c1725-?).

Thurstan 03:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT for info page categories
See Category:Born in Uley, Gloucestershire. All three of those people would benefit from DEFAULTSORT. I think someone discussed it recently. It will need to "get" "Surname, First names". You and AMK are probably the most proficient really active contributors for that sort of thing (though with Arthur as an IT professional we may add to our expertise soon!)

Best put up as a separate forum item?

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see the problem, they are sorting in "Surname, First names" order, as they have been programmed to do for ages.


 * Thurstan 04:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Mea culpa? They are certainly OK now, and the three new ones. Probably were when I first looked. Maybe having them all the same surname made me confuse it with a surname category. Born 1940, still going strong, with the occasional "senior moment"! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, just ten more articles and I can change the "Biggest Wikis" page again!! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

!*@?! on wheels
Thanks for the blocking. One week may be a generously low sentence, because that phrase has in the past been extensively used by wiki-vandal(s), often in association with "pelican sh.t". We will see. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I assumed (without checking) that all three Vandals were the same person. Could you please check my "revert"s, to make sure I got it right (I am still not sure of the difference between "rollback" and "undo").


 * Thurstan 02:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "Rollback" is the quick foolproof power for admins (except for new pages). Reverts all edits by one contributor back to previous version by someone else with standard automatic edit summary. "Undo" is for everyone and invites written edit summary. I'll look at your reversions. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Great work catching the beast within 5 minutes this time and giving it 12 months. I've reported its contributions page to "Contact Wikia". — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:55, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * He got 12 months because I panicked when I saw 7 moves: I thought that there was a sustained attack going on, rather than just a single act, and that I had to act quickly. Thurstan 03:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Info pages
You may detect more effort today across the Ditch regarding info pages. Check my edits in case I've broken or misinterpreted anything. And have a look at Thomas Morgan, where there are some empty cells - maybe discuss with the new Morgan expert. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if the hndis code is doing what we want (but I don't know how it works): the "birth" and "death" columns are picking up the places but not the dates (but maybe that's okay, because the dates are in the page name). Anyway, the blanks in Thomas Morgan come from the blanks in and  . I'll see if I understand the geography enough to fix it.


 * Thurstan 02:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Done Thurstan 04:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The Uley Baglin's
I note you have some Uley Baglin's on this site, and on checking that they are on my family tree over 500 Balgin's, all related and all originating from Uley.

The current link for the location of your Baglin's on my tree, Amelia Baglin 1760-1815 and her family is: -

http://www.nathanville.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tree/b11.htm#P2077

You may also be interested in the Story of Uley Baglin's at: -

http://www.nathanville.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/html/history/baglin-family.htm

Arthur Nathanville 19:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In fact checking further the Nehemiah Baglin you have on this site is the brother to Thomas Baglin which I also have here. The link to his page is: -

http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Baglin_%28c1725-%3F%29

Arthur Nathanville 19:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Inputbox improvement?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CreateArticle may interest you and Phlox and a couple of others. I've read it rather fast without trying to understand it all but I get the impression some of it may be useful here. A couple of Central Wikia pages are using it now (though that may be experimental). — Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for looking and commenting so promptly.

Your alternative line of improvement leads this template-newbie to suggest that we could have something that produces a redirect to the desired target.
 * 1) REDIRECT -

You would get there by offering a page like an info page template that invites people to fill in name and YOB and YOD.

No - simpler: just like an inputbox that says "/info", we can have the inputbox on Help:Model page for person saying " -". We ask people to type the name right at the start leaving a space before the first bracket. We slightly modify the instructions up above that. Gimme a treat to wake up to!

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Place categories
Please explain the thinking behind this deletion: http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Born_in_Chautauqua%2C_New_York&diff=prev&oldid=228740. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I just thought Category:Chautauqua, New York was redundant in the face of Category:Born in Chautauqua County, New York, especially as it should have been Category:Chautauqua County, New York anyway. Did I get it wrong?


 * Thurstan 06:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know if you got anything wrong. Maybe one of the relatives will be able to point it out if you did.
 * I would be cautious because I've not looked into those births enough to be sure that they were born elsewhere in the county. The town is the biggest but by no means the only town in the county. You probably did the right thing for most of those people, but the town cat can stay in case individuals are listed who were born there. I recently said to Rtol that any place in the Netherlands big enough to have a "Born in" category was big enough to have its own place category.
 * I'm aware that many genealogists and "sources" omit the word "County" when they are in fact creating an ambiguity. I've just added examples to the info page stuff to encourage people to say "County" if they should.
 * I have just noticed that your Chautauqua marathon has helped you get into THIRD place. My edit to the sitenotice was remarkably coincidental because I had no idea it needed changing; I'll restore an amended version if you like!!! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was wrong: I knew that (most of) the articles in Category:Born in Chautauqua, New York should have been in Category:Born in Chautauqua County, New York, but I was trying to avoid the "marathon" to fix it (and I didn't think to check that there was a town called Chautauqua). The problem is not with "new" pages, it is with "old" pages: a previous version of the /info templates automatically added the word "County" to the category names generated from "Birth county" etc. Then when we went "international", the template was changed, but the pages that were created under the "old" regime have not necessarily been updated.

In the same vein, I know that the first few hundred of the pages I created need to be updated to be up to "standard", but it is hard to get enthusiastic about it.

Thurstan 02:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You have high standards. Very good. But most of Brian's articles were not as good as your average, so don't feel too discouraged or compelled to fix large numbers of yours yet. I still "should" be adding usedwp to several dozen pages that I imported.
 * I'm aware of the "County" change. It was necessary even without going international, because Alaska and Louisiana don't have counties. The NEW pages will have a different problem if we don't give users enough guidance: we will have more "Born in Chautauqua", "Born in Antrim", and "Born in Durham" than we should have. I guess I should have another look at Categories to see where we are and help iron out wrinkles.
 * — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Born in Bendigo
Rtol may have discovered relatives in Oz. Please check our policy (on a forum but probably categorised) about adding the state name and point him to it unless he's already found it, and invite discussion. Most of his new cats comply. I'm off to dinner soon. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Imperial to metric
You've been seen improving some of those recently. I remember doing some tedious stuff in that line a few months ago. We still have some imperfections in copies from WP, the latest being in Bronte, New South Wales. Is that one easy to fix? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

info page problem
The problem still persists. Here is a message I just left for Robin_Patterson: Here is an example of the problem: Samuel Doty (1679-aft1746) Comparing the infopage Samuel Doty (1679-aft1746)/info with its edit page, I see the template that assembles Date of birth from month, day, and year has dropped the birth year. The info page as edited looks okay, but the info page as displayed using Template:info shows this problem. The puzzle is that info pages added prior to yesterday don't display this problem. DennisDoty 12:13, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see my new addition to Forum:Help Desk DennisDoty 15:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Variation for amusement
Talk:Eltonhead Conway (1646-1689) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Reinforcing my comment that "/info" pages are actually templates.
 * Thurstan 02:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * They certainly are used as templates, as any page can be. Now would you please check http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help_talk:CategorySelect in case my explanation to staff has any inaccuracies that you can detect. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks okay to me. Thurstan 03:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Netherlands subdivisions
Hi Thurstan,

I noticed you reverted some of my edits on places in Gelderland. I have now brought places in Gelderland in line with the conventions for places in North and South Holland. Places in Gelderland were originally categorized by an American (I guess) while a simpler system can be adopted without problem. See Forum:Netherlands subdivisions.

By the way, this implies that there are a number of empty categories for places in Gelderland. I do not have the authority to remove them, but they should be, really. Rtol 07:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I reverted an edit of Category:Born in Gelderland, Netherlands which had removed all categories. Every category must itself lie in another category except for the unique category Category:Browse at the top of the category tree. As a genral rule, we categorize "Category:Born in XXX, YYY" into "Category:Born in YYY" and "Category:YYY". If you prefer to use a different convention, you can, but don't leave uncategorized categories.

Thurstan 07:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The category Born in Gelderland, Netherlands was replaced by Born in Gelderland. The former is empty. The latter is a subcategory of Born in the Netherlands. This convention works because Dutch is small language, spoken in one-and-a-half country only. Rtol 08:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay then, I see now: in that case we do a "category redirect" (I will do that one for you).

Thurstan 10:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I will recall this trick for future reference. Rtol 10:49, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

And it is of value: if I am tempted to put a page into Category:Born in Gelderland, Netherlands, then if I check, the redirect tells me to change the category (if you see what I mean). So it leaves a record of your design decision about the categories. Thurstan 10:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Obama to Edward
I've been thinking we could invite Marianne to examine our Obama to Edward line in case that one is the line she says has problems. We can simply add notes to the page where there is doubt, so that when it's resolved we can fairly easily cut-n-paste and renumber accordingly without having to leave that page. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Counts of Holland
Luckily, there is only one count at the moment. There are about 10 for Flanders, though. Will fix. Rtol 08:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thackers and Vivions
I'm doing them. I'll call if I need help. Tomorrow I'll move up the Obama tree unless it has been done. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)