User talk:Thurstan/Archive7


 * 2008 Archive
 * 2009 Archive
 * 2010 Archive
 * 2011 Archive
 * 2012 Archive
 * 2013 Archive

Constantin Mincu
You are right. Constantin Mincu (1973) is the wrong title. I have deleted it now.Afil (talk) 21:30, March 3, 2014 (UTC)

Isle of Wight
That template seems to work - http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Isle_of_Wight?oldid=1045671 - but is the problem purely the number of links that produce a page that needs a "the" added? Maybe we can produce a tailor-made equivalent? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:03, May 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * The problem is the bogus links: I think they need "on" rather than "in" as well as the "the". We could use a custom template. Thurstan (talk) 03:47, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

Unsigned note on different subject
I will ask my mother helen, please amail me at adrianvangent@hotmail.com

HTML in tables - help?
I've just copied British monarchs' family tree from WP. Too many "  "!! Is there a quick conversion method? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:31, July 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * I will check: the villian is usually unterminated "&lt;small&gt;" constructs: Wikipedia uses "htmltidy" to supply the missing terminators. Thurstan (talk) 06:18, July 27, 2014 (UTC)
 * I was right (plus passing null parameters to chart). I think it is ok now. Thurstan (talk) 06:56, July 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * It looks very good now. I see that you spent at least 20 minutes on it. Good work! Have we considered checking whether we could use htmltidy on a regular basis? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:08, August 9, 2014 (UTC)


 * "regular basis" would be "all the time", since it doesn't change the source pages (see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgUseTidy). We could ask Central Command for it. Thurstan (talk) 22:02, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

Another WP incompatibility?
Please have a look at Kapiti Coast District and hide the opening infobox if it's not easily fixed. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:50, August 9, 2014 (UTC)


 * The table needs to start on a new line. Thurstan (talk) 07:07, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

Tea Garden(s)
Sorry about http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lydia_Piper_%281840-1879%29?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=1071153 - I thought it was a red link and I might help.

I take it that you prefer not to be listed as a contributor when you've done only a little to a page.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:06, August 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * Apology accepted. I decided years ago that there wasn't much point in having my name on every page I touch: I don't want people to think that I know more about the subjects, or have some family connection to them.Thurstan (talk) 00:04, August 23, 2014 (UTC)

Martintown or whatever, Virginia
Martintown, Virginia seems strange: your reference writes it "MartinTown", while FAG write it "Martin Town". Google maps and OpenStreetMap don't seem to know it. Thurstan (talk) 00:04, August 23, 2014 (UTC)


 * My "reference" was a mere afterthought. The locality name was given by a recent contributor, with another Martin, possibly related to the reference people. I can chase it up. Thank you for the other search results to save me work. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:45, August 23, 2014 (UTC)

Puzzling "update from Wikipedia"
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Cities_in_Moffat_County,_Colorado?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=1072276 has me puzzled.

The "from Wikipedia" content seems totally unchanged (contrary to the edit summary). The only apparent changes are a space after that content, a smaller linking template (which links to the same WP pages), and an apparently unnecessary parameter.

Please explain and tell me how I should improve my copying so that you do not need to do whatever you actually did there.

Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:32, August 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * I updated all the content of Category:Settlements in Colorado by county and of its 1st-level subcategories, because the location pages on Wikipedia have been moved from the "Settlements in XX County" categories to the "Cities/towns/etc in XX County" categories. I have now done this for several states, with many more still to be done. The update is no reflection on your copying. My procedure for copying from Wikipedia now supplies the parameter for usedwp because the template is often not corrected when pages are renamed. Thurstan (talk) 06:34, August 28, 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Fairly clear! I guess the lack of actual change was because I had just copied WP's latest version. And it's good that you can do your thing so fast. Example from very recent changes:


 * 2014-08-28T19:55:12 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm UN/LOCODE:USJBK ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:55:06 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Stockyards, California ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:55:02 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkley, California ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:57 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkley, CA ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:52 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkely, California ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:47 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkely, CA ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:42 (diff | hist) . . (+35)‎ . . Nm Berkeley, Calif. ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:37 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkeley, Ca ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:31 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkeley, CA ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:27 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkeley California ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)
 * 2014-08-28T19:54:22 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . Nm Berkeley (CA) ‎ (Copy from Wikipedia) (top)

Keep up the great work! Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:59, August 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have an AWB script, so it is semi-automated. The down side is that I don't easily see the history, so I don't know if I am a day behind you. Thurstan (talk) 01:26, August 29, 2014 (UTC)

Template:Surname_links
A few minutes ago I adapted Surname links from WP's version, created in 2008, and did some adaptation to FP. It looked like a good idea, which might help overcome some of the deficiences of Wikia's search function.

I tried to add a link to our surname category, but it doesn't seem to be reflected in the example on the doc page. Most of the links do seem to work, though.

Please run your expert eye over the whole template and fix where desirable. Then we can remove the construction template and find good places to use the template to help searchers.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:15, September 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * Progress is being made, though I don't know why the "search" link doesn't seem to work! Thurstan (talk) 01:27, September 3, 2014 (UTC)

Dear adminstrator please help me, my wikia is being attacked and vandalizied by hackers Linda Baxter 17:13, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

This user ip 80.218.130.112 is invading and hackering my page..please help...Linda Baxter 17:17, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

Lots of new users
As you may have seen, particularly if you get the daily digest, we've had an almost unprecedented spike in user registrations.

http://familypedia.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=newusers&user=&page=&year=&month=-1&hide_patrol_log=1

I've looked at the contributions page of all that have contributed. They're all genuine. I've talked to all but the last one (a Sydneysider who's linked to a page of yours). But I wonder whether some of the others might be lurking vandals. So I should be looking harder at newbie contributions over the next few days.

Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:35, October 3, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again and again
-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:51, October 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Substituting descendants for pictures
 * 2) Finding Ave Ferguson's WC pages - I sometimes look on WC but I wish Google could help more because WC pages are much more useful than most of the Ancestry pages G has referred me to lately
 * 3) Following WP yet again with Waikato - but is it getting less consistent or do we just need more bots to keep up? - http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Waikato_Region shows some of our current inconsistencies, some of which were from WP.

Display of "Places - other"
Did you notice my somewhat recent request for the quotation marks to be replaced by parentheses (for improved logicality)? I can't find where to change them. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:51, October 12, 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry, missed that one: done now.
 * I have been looking at our main page lately, and I think I would like properties for "Wedding1 place" etc analogous to "Birth place" and "Death place", so that we don't see only part of the place information in the tables. What think you? Thurstan (talk) 02:04, October 13, 2014 (UTC)


 * (Thanks for the parentheses.) "Wedding1 place" etc seems fine to me; adding such detail makes for the occasional extra line but it can help those of us who are in the know to spot errors or outdated placenames. As you may have noticed, I want us to get Showfacts residences working; that could add even more to such tables. "Residence1 place", etc, or in some of those tables probably a Residences column like the joinedwith column. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:04, November 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * We will have to have a discussion of the data model for the dates: I think too few people will have documentation of when they arrived and left residences, so we will want more of a "address was X when daughter married" sort of model. Thurstan (talk) 19:22, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

Fick in Minnesota - ta
Thanks for a good start with Cathy's Minnesota people. I've had a productive evening. Andrei can fiddle with the German district name. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:51, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

The attraction of Minnesota
Thank you for continued MN work. One of our top contributors who also has Minnesota German ancestry should be pleased. Cathy's paternal ancestry may be capable of expansion, but I'll leave MN for now so as to reduce risk of edit conflict. Plenty of my closer relatives need attention, along with descendants of Earls of Cawdor. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:53, November 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry, your additions made me realize that "Category:Settlements in Minnesota by county" need the same treatment as "Category:Settlements in Colorado by county" (see comments above). Thurstan (talk) 05:33, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

Nugent
Thank you very much for your help/intervention! I'am novice not only here, but in wikipedia in general. Even with help from templates (great!) it's sometime hard for me to understand how to make them work properly. My bed.

Also, I was trying desperately some portion of help with explanations what and in which order to put in someones bio - I have lot of material from documents, books, net ecc. but having no clue what is "enough" of references. I don't want to needlessly encumber or to "over-due" my contributions. Nnlabus (talk) 21:59, November 17, 2014 (UTC)


 * I am glad to help. As for the question of what is "enough", that is entirely a matter of taste. Read what other people have done, and read some Wikipedia articles to develop a feel for it. I don't think you can have too many links, but there are two styles I have seen which I think is "too much", but that is entirely "IMHO":
 * page after page of transcripts of original documents, like deeds, property transfers etc with no commentary
 * long essays about particular military compaigns, or the social conditions that forced people to emigrate, or other events which affected many other people.
 * Both of these styles lead to turgid pages which don't tell us much about the person who is the subject. So basically you just want to tell the story. If there are really interesting (but long and complicated) documents involved, they can be transcribed onto "/documents" subpages. Descriptions of particular events can have the own pages (and maybe if it is a significant events, Wikipedia already has a good page on it that we can copy).
 * Don't worry too much about it. Some of us are a little testy about technical matters, or claims about facts, but we are not going to complain about matters of style at all.
 * Just my two-bob's worth. Thurstan (talk) 00:23, November 18, 2014 (UTC)

Headingless children table
Please look at Joan Trelake (1497-1573) and see if you can work out why her children (copied from her husband's page in the normal way) are appearing without a heading (looking as if they are siblings).

(And I'll leave you to talk to the creator of that Xavier page, because you're familiar with the family!).

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:21, November 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * The lack of a heading is an old bug: no heading is displayed because it is her husband's second family, so his first would prompt a heading.


 * Whenever someone creates a page like that, it is usually because they have clicked on a red-link. You have to use "What links here" to find the connections. In this case, it is a Yewenyi page with no further data forthcoming. Thurstan (talk) 06:31, November 27, 2014 (UTC)

SMW "upgrade"?
Have we had a software "upgrade"? I couldn't use Form:Person. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:25, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

Current Special:Versions:
 * Semantic Drilldown (Version 1.1) A drilldown interface for navigating through semantic data Yaron Koren and David Loomer
 * Semantic Forms (Version 2.4.2) Forms for adding and editing semantic data Yaron Koren, Stephan Gambke and others
 * Semantic MediaWiki (Version 1.7.1) Making your wiki more accessible - for machines and humans (online documentation) Markus Krötzsch, Denny Vrandecic and Jeroen De Dauw. Maintained by AIFB Karlsruhe.

I don't remember whether they are different. SF 3.0 is published but we clearly haven't got that yet. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:30, December 6, 2014 (UTC)


 * We have had a major upgrade: the top of the screen look different (I have a user icon where my name used to be), we have the script extension now (so "invoke" works), we have lost the background colour on the info boxes (even though the CSS is still there!), there is a "mobile" option on the bottom of the screen (at least on tablets) and the "FormEdit" special page seems to be broken. Thurstan (talk) 09:33, December 6, 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you. One of us should "Contact Wikia" - has anyone done it? Meanwhile, I've slightly updated Forum:Data entry without using Form:Person and added a subpage (/model) for possibly easier copying. (Are the "street" property names correct?) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:17, December 7, 2014 (UTC)


 * I would prefer you to contact them, please: I am such a "grumpy old man" these days I find it hard to be polite about these things. I will check out your changes. Thurstan (talk) 00:21, December 7, 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll contact them. I'm fairly polite with them. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:05, December 7, 2014 (UTC)

Temporary manual method
I've noticed that there's no "Places other". The street comment is "|birth_street= ". I'll leave it in your capable hands. And you can leave my distant cousin Custer with me. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:05, December 7, 2014 (UTC)


 * Will do. Is our latest contributor a spammer? Thurstan (talk) 02:17, December 7, 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia people
Great work, my friend, your recent creations such as

N 18:35:13 J.K. Rowling‎ (diff | hist). . (+35)‎ . . Thurstan (Talk | contribs | block) (redirect the Wikipedia name)

You may have been disappointed at my lack of use of your relatively recent creation linking pages to WP and a related category. I've not managed to memorise enough of the procedure to make it seem worthwhile for me because I do little work on WP people. Your persistence with that arrangement is therefore all the more valuable.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:02, December 13, 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Don't worry about your lack of use: there is a huge backlog anyway! Thurstan (talk) 03:10, December 13, 2014 (UTC)

Help for newbie?
Hi Thurston,

You deleted my recent page on Obama. Can you please advise where I should create it?

All I want to do is discuss a possible edit.

I don't quite understand how this site works, sorry.

Thanks.

Gnu.

Gnu Ordure (talk) 02:01, January 7, 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I was about to leave you a note. This site works like Wikipedia (on which we model ourselves): queries and comments go in forums or in talk pages. In this case, if you want a change made to Ancestors of Barack Obama, then you could leave a note at Talk:Ancestors of Barack Obama. Of course, you could make the change yourself. If you don't want it reverted as vandalism, then it should be supported by a link to a reliable source (as on Wikipedia). Thurstan (talk) 02:27, January 7, 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks, Thurstan. It's 3:00am, so I'll check it out tomorrow. As I said, I don't want to make an edit yet, I just want to discuss it. Cheers. Gnu Ordure (talk) 03:01, January 7, 2015 (UTC)

County categories
Disappointing to see http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Bdm2?s=wldiff&diff=0&oldid=913424 - most of the 3,000-odd U.S. counties have categories, I think, and I believe that all counties should have their own categories, even if WP hasn't created them yet.

I presume that you were reacting to someone's dislike of creating "Wanted categories". I wonder whether he can be persuaded that that term means what it says but also that it's an understatement: a "wanted category" actually does nearly everything it will do after creation, listing (under a "Create" invitation) all of the pages that say they want it, and it's therefore much more useful than other sorts of wanted page.

(Congratulations on passing the 300,000 mark, and I hope you continue to enjoy Familypedia's 11th year.)

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:58, January 8, 2015 (UTC)


 * You assume wrong. Somme (department) is in Category:Somme. Thurstan (talk) 06:00, January 8, 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I must be drifting into my dotage here: I had already created a fix for this with the "CatName" parameter, to specify an alternate name for the category. I have reverted my change to the template. This problem is caused by the fact that Wikipedians find it easier to change the page name than to change the category name, so the category name often represents the original page name.
 * And thank you for the congratulations too. I hope I can continue to contribute. Thurstan (talk) 09:36, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

Good work. I've queried WP about the dissonance. See Category talk:Somme. A neighbour lent me a book written by his (mathematically brilliant) uncle "Swotty" Aitken: From Gallipoli to the Somme; many Aussies were in the same conflicts. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:49, January 9, 2015 (UTC)


 * I await the response of the Wikipedians with interest. Did you read the obit for Mary Bodsworth (1835-1932), which mentions her son Stanley, who served at Gallipoli and in Palestine, Egypt, and France (it claims), and was then dragged to death by a horse after his return (see his obit). Thurstan (talk) 06:02, January 9, 2015 (UTC)

Eltonhead sisters
Thanks Thurstan. Instead of putting such doubts on unrelated talk pages, it would be better to put a flag on Ancestries of the U.S. Presidents. Better still to keep that page clean by using inclusions rather than copied text. rtol (talk) 06:59, February 3, 2015 (UTC)

See. rtol (talk) 07:03, February 3, 2015 (UTC)

Notes and sources "upgrade"
In the middle of composing a "Contact Wikia" quoting your statement, I thought I'd better give them an example instead of just saying tens of thousands of pages are affected.

My mother's father's page http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Frederick_Louis_Harrison_%281873-1945%29 looks OK. Have you a clear example?

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:27, March 9, 2015 (UTC)


 * One I noticed this morning is William Duff, 1st Earl of Fife (1697-1763): note the "*" in the middle. If we do an "ask":

we see the "bullet", but if we do a "show":

it is all on one line, so the "*" doesn't code a bullet.


 * Another of mine is Thomas Hawkins (1846-1936):


 * ask:
 * show:

and we see that the " "s have disappeared. Thurstan (talk) 23:47, March 9, 2015 (UTC)


 * And of course, David William Donald Cameron (1966):


 * ask:
 * show:


 * Thurstan (talk) 00:02, March 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, the more complex groups of sources do get jumbled even on the ordinary article. So I've sent the message off using Cameron as the example. I didn't mention #ask and #show - 99% of users wouldn't be likely to have trouble with those. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:25, March 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you, though I thought that if Wikia don't provide SMW support, the query should go straight to the SMW people. Thurstan (talk) 02:46, March 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * I have found a solution, the test version is footer test, as tested with David William Alexander Crombie (1874-1957). It will be interesting to see if the experts have a different solution... Thurstan (talk) 05:43, March 11, 2015 (UTC)

Charles Timothy Starkey (1839-1921)
I have fascinating information about one of your Wikki people, Charles Timothy Starkey. I have newspaper articles showing that he faked his death in England and later turned up in Australia. I will forward these to you if you contact me at april.orgren@gmail.com 66.111.114.43 05:47, March 15, 2015 (UTC) April Orgren


 * I could do that, though it would be even better if you could register here, logon on, and write the story yourself on his page. Thurstan (talk) 06:13, March 15, 2015 (UTC)

What is happening
I don't seem to understand what is going on. When I want to create a new article, I get a window with various buttons: Paragraph, B. I etc.

Until yesterday a would find the dropdown menu next to cancel, and would push Source editor. When I was finished, I would push the Apply changes button. Two consecutive windows with Publish buttons would appear and then the new article was saved.

Today, I follow exactly the same procedures, but afte the Apply changes button, I get againg the Paragraph window.

Is this just a temporary glitch or not. Anyway, I see that you are working on some articles, and I wonder how you do it.

Can you help? Regards Afil (talk) 03:11, March 20, 2015 (UTC)


 * No, I don't know what is happening to you. I notice that you use the "VisualEditor", which I have turned off (in my preferences), so I am seeing the same old edit box I have always used. Thurstan (talk) 03:16, March 20, 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip. I was not aware about the possibility of turning off the VisualEditor in my preferences. Thanks again. Afil (talk) 04:12, March 20, 2015 (UTC)


 * Glad you are happy again. Sounds like the "VisualEditor" may be choking on some of our templates. Thurstan (talk) 05:44, March 20, 2015 (UTC)

experimenting indeed
I hope to revive, first, the automatic detection of consanguineous marriages and, second, the coefficient of inbreeding. Will take while because of the problems you note and because I need to work around the limits on nested queries.rtol (talk) 05:51, April 9, 2015 (UTC)
 * Best of luck with that. I want to find out if Lua templating will solve any of our problems. Thurstan (talk) 06:07, April 9, 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you kindly copy the contents of template:showfacts tree03 to template:showfacts tree02? Or remove the protection from the latter? The new template does everything the old one does, and more. Particularly, it creates a property that collects all parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents.
 * I did manage to automatically recognize couples that are cousins and second cousins. Performance seems fine. Rolling it out to all possible variations will be a bit of a challenge, where Lua may come in handy.rtol (talk) 17:55, April 12, 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it will needs modification, since it does nothing to handle commas in pagenames. I think we should substitute for the comma when we store the pagenames, and restore it on the way out. Does this sound okay to you? I have a lua-version of template:showfacts tree02 just about ready for deployment: the theory is that it will do (almost) exactly the same thing, with many fewer SMW queries. I would like to combine my changes with yours, and release them together. This will take some days more. Thurstan (talk) 21:59, April 12, 2015 (UTC)


 * ok - my changes are really simple, so that should not be a problem12:50, April 13, 2015 (UTC)


 * I will leave the repairs for the commas to another day, so I have released the new version. Thurstan (talk) 21:47, April 13, 2015 (UTC)

Nay/McNay/MacNae/etc
You don't need to extend this. A lot of the Nay family is already documented in the http://www.gordons.ws/ website. If you can find their Irish origins, or link those to the many Nays in London, that would be interesting.

From 1837-1900 in England and Wales there were 425 B/M/D records for Nay, 381 for McNay, 199 for MacNay, 0 for Nae, 129 for McNae, and 2 for MacNae. 165.120.238.127 13:25, May 27, 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't like to see a half-hearted job. I could delete the page for you if you think it is all a mistake. Thurstan (talk) 21:04, May 27, 2015 (UTC)

Properties gone again
Many property values have been wiped again ... any idea what caused this? rtol (talk) 14:37, June 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * Everything seemed okay when I went to bed last night, after creating more of the le Despensers. This morning a quick look shows that Property:Notable ancestors has completely gone (if you look at the later pages I created yesterday, you can see that this property was okay then), while Property:Order of Rurik is down to 7 instances (it must have had a lot more than that yesterday), while Property:Order Shift of Charlemagne has 4,105 and Property:Order of Charlemagne has 4,106 (much too low?). I think it is possible that "Notable ancestors" might be cleared if someone null-edit and saved the page, but this does look like a general rebuild is happening. If so, it is odd that Charlemagne is so far ahead of Rurik. However properties like Property:Ancestors and Property:Descendants report large numbers, so it seems a bit selective. I don't see what is going on. The only thing I can think of is that maybe they shifted the SMW data back to the alternative server again: keep your eyes peeled for out-dated values. Thurstan (talk) 22:21, June 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * I have put one page into Property:Notable ancestors: no more seem to be spontaneously going in. The browse on Category:Smith (surname) is still broken, so we haven't shifted to the "old" data server, so still no clue. Thurstan (talk) 03:13, June 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * See Project Charlemagne/count. Pages are updated regularly, sensor pages only infrequently. Pages have been wiped. Sensor will follow. We have about 11,000 of Charlemagne's descendants. rtol (talk) 05:18, June 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * I notice occasional people who seem to have lost all their SMW properties. It may be time to hit the "Data repair and upgrade" button on the SMW admin page. The last time I used it (after the last great data loss) it took several weeks to complete. This would probably not fix your "accumulative" properties, but it should fix the broken pages. What do you think? Thurstan (talk) 05:04, June 5, 2015 (UTC)


 * I am getting sick of null-editing to restore peoples children: I am hitting the repair button now. Thurstan (talk) 08:06, June 10, 2015 (UTC)

Charlemagne
I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing. I've only just created an account. I'm trying to find the editors of the Charlemagne Descendants wikia, and many of the pages you seem to have edited recently have been people I know are descendents of Charlemagne. Are you, by any chance, one of the editors working on Charlemagne's Descendants? Also, if there is a better way than messaging probable candidates, please let me know? Thank you!


 * Project Charlemagne is the creation of User:Rtol. You might like to leave him a note. Thurstan (talk) 21:33, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Person page quirks?
See Theodorik van Gent (c956-). Do you see duplication? Maybe related to the recent work on Form:Person. Theo's son shows parent name duplications. Warm regards! -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:27, July 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * This appeared with the recent "upgrade", I noticed it before I changed the form. The problem seems to be with page rename: the behind-the-scenes SMW processing for this seems to be broken. I am not sure what else the "upgrade" has done: I was about to tell you that the "drill-down" which was broken seems to work now. You might have noticed this message (above) which I cannot explain. To fix the "move" problem I have been saving the page with all the content "commented-out", and then restoring it. Since the problem also affects the sensor page, I have been moving the pages without moving the subpages . Thurstan (talk) 07:42, July 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. A null edit of Theo's moved page restores his data as usual and with the duplicate parent-names and dates. Perhaps surprisingly, the right-hand panel shows the edit ("Theodorik van Gent (c956-) edited by Robin Patterson 1 minute ago"), which shouldn't happen for a null edit, should it? Maybe it always shows (there, though not in the page history), but I'd never noticed it before.
 * I had looked at the previous few discussions on this page - but as they were a few weeks old I presumed that the problems were unrelated to the duplications.
 * I've been having computer problems since mid-May; sorry not to have been doing anything very useful here.
 * Is it time for another "Contact Wikia" or have you or rtol done that about this problem?
 * -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:00, July 17, 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is that an "edit-with-form" is not a "null edit" to one of these old pages, which have not been edited with our latest form. You have to check carefully because there is another bug where occasionally the kids disappear: maybe related to the parsing limitations. Thurstan (talk) 20:23, July 17, 2015 (UTC)
 * The two that I moved then null-edited last night were done with plain-edit and publish, not form-edit.I see that you re-edited them today but I haven't checked them to see what might have happened. You might like to check the notes I added to Help:Renaming pages. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:18, July 18, 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought you were talking about this "formedit". Thurstan (talk) 04:53, July 18, 2015 (UTC)


 * Correction: my fix has been to move the page with subpages without creating the redirect. Then I create the redirect for the main page explicitly.
 * I was just thinking about contacting Wikia this afternoon, but I decided that I should move some pages first to check that it was still broken. The first I moved didn't show the duplication (I am wondering whether that was because it was a page which had lost all its properties), but then when I moved his wife I did get duplicates. I was just tiding up the double redirects etc when I got your message. So I have not contacted Wikia about this one. You might like to. Thurstan (talk) 12:33, July 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * I wonder if they have tried to move the SMW database again: if we have been reverted to the old version that might explain the loss of properties, and if they missed patching the "page move" code it would explain this latest problem. Thurstan (talk) 22:07, July 17, 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia transfer tag
What tag is used for an article to let people know it was transferred from Wikipedia? --Richard Arthur Norton (talk) 04:08, July 18, 2015 (UTC)


 * I use usedwp, others use usedwps. Thurstan (talk) 04:20, July 18, 2015 (UTC)

Adam Givens Starr
Since this is my direct line I would like to know how you know when Adam Givens Starr died - or the approx date. I've never found anything at all regarding his death. Any idea of how he died and where he is buried or ???

Thanks!

diana

diastarrc2005@me.com


 * Sorry, I only know what I am told. The date "c 1873" comes from this edit by User:Diastarrc (is that you?) in June 2009. When I search on WorldConnect I get 6 hits, with one "BEF. 1869" as date of death, one for "ABT 1867" and two for "BEF 1873 in Texas". I left the search link on Adam Givens Starr's page: you might like to try to contact the authors of these. I couldn't find anything else online. Thurstan (talk) 03:21, July 26, 2015 (UTC)

Infobox Updates
Hi Thurstan,

We’re reaching out to a few of our top communities, hoping to get you on board with the migration to the new infobox markup. And we have tools to help!

‘’’Why we’re doing this’’'

Simply put: Most current infobox structure translates very poorly to mobile experiences, and indeed any device that doesn’t use desktop-style displays. On desktops and laptops, they often look amazing. The problem is that Wikia’s traffic is trending mobile.

There is an important graph from our forum post about infoboxes a couple weeks back, and I want to share it here as well:



Mobile is the future. Not just for Wikia, but for the web as a whole. Take a look at the recent trends and future growth predictions for mobile traffic - it's staggering.

We partnered with the Wikia community to create this new markup to make sure that your hard work can be displayed on mobile devices (as well as any future technologies) easily and without any new coding conventions. It’ll take some effort up front, to be sure, but we’re here to help, and the work you put in now will pay for itself tenfold in the future.

‘’’Tools we’ve designed to ease the process’’’

We’ve enabled two new features on your community. One is a tool for migrating the “old” infobox code to the new markup. It identifies templates on your wikia that look like infobox templates and places a box on the right rail of the template page. When you click the “Generate draft markup” button in this box, it opens a new tab containing a draft of your infobox using the new markup.

The second is a new feature on Special:Insights that will highlight which infoboxes on your wikia have not been migrated to the new infobox markup. It’s fairly intuitive - you can click on the infobox title link itself to see the old markup, or simply click the “Convert!” button on the right, which performs the same action as the “Generate draft markup” button.

This is our help page for the new markup. I’ll help get things rolling by converting a template or two as an example if you’d like me to, as well as watching this forum post for any questions.

Best,

Matt Hadick (talk) 22:14, July 28, 2015 (UTC)
 * Our main "infobox" is used with SMW forms, and so it has to be coded using the SMW rules. How do we take that into account? Thurstan (talk) 02:02, July 29, 2015 (UTC)

New user and long term genealogist
Hi I am Benny1982 and am very interested in genalogy. I did have my own wiki for my family tree but our good friend Robin Patterson suggested this site which I had not heard of before. Glad I found it. Some pages for my ancestors have been created, is it OK to add biographies and how easy is it to create pages for my ancestors which are not yet on here? I have had to edit this paragraph as when I type a heading it still highlights the infobox SMW forums sentence above. Benny1982 (talk) 17:44, August 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add to existing pages. The first two templates should remain at the top of the page, so I suggested adding text between the " " and the " {{showfacts children ". If you chose "Edit with form", you will find that you have a little box to add this text to, so I suggest that you use the "Edit" menu option (from the drop-down on the "Edit with form" button) to get the full page.
 * Again, feel free to create pages for people who don't have pages yet. You can start by clicking a "red link" or going straight to Form:Person. The main difficulty new users seem to have is with page names (see Familypedia:Page names). Whenever you refer to another person on a form (as father, mother, spouse/partner or child) you use the "Name (YOB-YOD)" format. Thurstan (talk) 22:25, August 2, 2015 (UTC)
 * How can I add categories, such as Migrants from the United Kingdom to the United States? Benny1982 (talk) 22:26, August 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * That particular one is added automatically when "Birth nation=United Kingdom" and "death nation=United States". Thurstan (talk) 22:28, August 3, 2015 (UTC)

"Grahame" family
Hi! My family line is the "Grahame" family. They once were dukes in Scotland, but I'm not finding anything about them here. 19:18, August 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * Then this is a good opportunity for you to tell the world about your family. I suggested you pick a dead ancestor (grandfather, great-grandfather) to create a page about, with links to his parents, and so on. Review my remarks immediately above about page names. Thurstan (talk) 22:25, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

Problem: None of my ancestors are recorded. It's as if someone wiped out my family history. All I have are the words of my parents.

I do know that one person in my family (great-uncle I think) invented the machine that made bed springs, but never copyrighted it and therefore someone stole his works and took credit. :( 22:29, August 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * Which country are you in? The United Kingdom and the United States have been running censuses for at least a century and a half, along with much paper-work of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths, tax records, social security records etc etc. Why do you think they have not been recorded? Thurstan (talk) 22:45, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

Whenever I look up the Grahame family, there's nothing. Only "Graham," and that's NOT us. 22:47, August 2, 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'll look at it. Also, i'm pretty sure there are some newspaper articles about my dad back in 1968-69, but I always have to sign up for an e-np to use it and i really don't want to do that. --User:Thunderheart of Thunderclan

I wanted to make a page about Randal Grahame, my grandfather, but I barely know anything about him. He's still alive but I never see him.User:Thunderheart of Thunderclan


 * Where was he born? Where were you born? This would give a clue about where to start looking. Thurstan (talk) 03:45, August 5, 2015 (UTC)

Not sure about my grandfather. My dad was born in Bavaria tho. I was born in Chicago Illinois in the USA 03:47, August 5, 2015 (UTC)


 * (I assume you mean Bavaria, Germany, rather than any of the ones in the U.S.) Why was the family there? Had they been there for generations, or was your grandfather a serviceman or businessman or diplomat from elsewhere? The most productive way to move this forward is for you to grill your grandfather, or at least your father, for a little more specifics of dates and places, professions and migrations. If you can't manage that, it makes things more difficult. I just had a quick look on https://familysearch.org without success. We need some more clues. Maybe professional mentions? Thurstan (talk) 04:13, August 5, 2015 (UTC)

My grandfather was in Germany during the Cold War. 04:16, August 5, 2015 (UTC)

Benny's ancestors
I've told Benny about England and Durham and fixed a few. Thanks for helping. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:41, August 4, 2015 (UTC)

The page-move bug
I seem to have annoyed it again. Forgot about it. Sorry. See Pangbourne/bdm. And tell Mr Grahame (above) to look at that when we've fixed it. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:10, August 4, 2015 (UTC)
 * You fixed it. Of course. Thank you for that and for finding more Grahames. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:27, August 6, 2015 (UTC)
 * The duplication of the "descendants" tab is due to the bug affecting the /sensor page, which then needs to be fixed. Thurstan (talk) 22:51, August 6, 2015 (UTC)

I've slightly edited Help:Renaming pages, incorporating what was on Help:Rename. Please check for accuracy. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:27, August 6, 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me Thurstan (talk) 05:43, August 6, 2015 (UTC)
 * Except it doesn't cover the subpage quirks yet. Do you and I just have to delete and restore the sensor (with non-admins having to comment-out then re-edit it)? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:11, August 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * The subpages which have properties will need to be fixed: they are currently /sensor and /tree. Thurstan (talk) 03:44, August 9, 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I've just added to Help:Renaming pages. Please evaluate. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:53, August 9, 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay by me. Thurstan (talk) 06:00, August 9, 2015 (UTC)

Promoting this wiki
Hi I am a member of a family history forum called FHUK Forums and it has members from the UK, Australia, America, Canada etc. Would it be possible to post a link on there to this site, help attarct more members to add their family tree data etc?Benny1982 (talk) 12:35, August 8, 2015 (UTC)


 * We are always happy to see other sites linking to Familypedia. Best to check whether FHUK Forum has rules about links. If it's hosted by Ancestry.com they won't like it. See also Forum:Some publicity for Familypedia. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:11, August 8, 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually I should have said, I am a moderator on the forum and it is not hosted by Ancestry. I have posted a new thread about this site, it may attract more people who want to add their ancestral info. Benny1982 (talk) 11:45, August 12, 2015 (UTC)

London Wiki - template problem
Somewhat off-topic; I hope you don't mind. I've lately been doing more with w:c:london. Adapting some WP templates from here is usually OK but now I've hit some with script errors. Example Template:Coord, demonstrated at http://london.wikia.com/wiki/Flanders_Fields_Memorial_Garden. The problem is probably {{#invoke. Is there an easy fix? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:47, August 10, 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, LUA is supposedly enabled here, but there are some bits of the Wikipedia version that don't work. In the first instance, you copy across the required modules from Wikipedia. I have avoided looking at the new version of {{t|Coord}} for here, since we have fudged it to do SMW stuff too. Another possibility is to use an old (pre-LUA) version, such as the version from Familypedia. Thurstan (talk) 04:20, August 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * I see that Wikipedia's template doesn't seem to be fully documented: it uses an extension, Extension:GeoData, which defines the #coordinates parser function for storing the values in a backend DB, so that call should probably be removed too. Thurstan (talk) 07:01, August 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for everything. I'll start with an old FP version. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:38, August 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a plan. One wrinkle I found was that it needs a bit of CSS styling to enable the display of coordinates at the top of the page (I can't remember the details but it was obvious). Thurstan (talk) 04:07, August 11, 2015 (UTC)

The Wordmark
I create the logo for the wiki. -- SF12 (t - b - c) 09:30, August 10, 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think that is my department: you had better ask User:Robin Patterson. Meanwhile, in view of the security scare, I have deleted the file as a precaution. Thurstan (talk) 21:29, August 10, 2015 (UTC)

sd house
My mother went to her grave hoping that some day I'd be perfect - but it hasn't happened yet.

I'll try to be more careful in the future.

Bil EoGuy (talk) 00:06, August 18, 2015 (UTC)

which "Daniel Warren"
We seem to have Rebecca Garfield (1683-1720) listed as the wife of both Daniel Warren (1689-1727) and Daniel Warren (1653-1713). Can you sort this out? Thurstan (talk) 05:59, August 23, 2015 (UTC) Thanks for the tip Thurston. I greatly respect all of the attention and effort you contribute to this mighty project.

I happened to be working another family line today and ran into her sister Jerusha Garfield (1677-1758) (see the bio I did today on her husband John Bigelow (1675-1769) who was captured by Indians in Queen Anne's War). So all the more reason to clean up this particular family. FYI - if Daniel Warren (1653-1713) died in 1713, then it would be impossible for him to marry again in 1717? MainTour (talk) 03:30, August 24, 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for fixing it. I found the problem because I got Familypedia:Diagnostics working again. Thurstan (talk) 04:44, August 24, 2015 (UTC)

__NOCATEGORYGALLERY__
I hope you're enjoying an afternoon off!

Are you aware of __NOCATEGORYGALLERY__ - which I have just noticed on w:Category:Help. Looks like the way to stop those silly random selections from articles that share the same category.

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:14, September 16, 2015 (UTC)


 * Not especially. I asked Wiki central to turn those [random selections] off for us some time ago, on the grounds that they didn't render our templates, they said yes, and I haven't noticed them since. Are you still seeing them? Thurstan (talk) 06:29, September 16, 2015 (UTC)


 * Now you come to point it out - no, I'm not seeing them here. I spend a large proportion of my wikitime on other wikias and hadn't noticed the results of your (brave) successful request for this one. Thanks again, pal. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:49, September 16, 2015 (UTC)

Place page not showing
Please cast expert eye over Chester-le-Street to see whether it's only I who can't see content (except categories). Rogue WP template?? Or do I have too many windows open? -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:42, October 5, 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks okay to me, with both Firefox and IE. Thurstan (talk) 04:44, October 5, 2015 (UTC)

Now it has come right for me too. Curious. Thanks for making the extra effort. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:14, October 5, 2015 (UTC)