Help talk:Bill's hints for Wigton Walker researchers

Progress noted; suggestions
Robin Patterson 06:13, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Small point, I suppose, and has been made before in relation to other pages; but please consider here: Bill's Hints is a machinery matter, not encyclopaedic content, and would therefore be better moved so that it is a subpage of something or a page prefixed by "Help:" or "Genealogy:". Site visitors trying "Random page" will expect to see genealogical information, not hints on how to incorporate it.
 * 2) Bill, you say at the bottom "Check before you Create." - but I wonder whether that's too late after you've pointed newbies at the template containing a tempting empty box for them to type an unrelated but possibly duplicatory name in. The boxes are good in principle but (as I think you yourself have indicated) need care in use. I would be inclined to move those boxes to a place where they are harder for newbies to find, and instead encourage people to find and click on an existing link for their person - which is probably getting more and more likely to be an available solution as you add more of the descendants of the original Wigton folk. Surely people who know about any Wigton Walker descendant (and are sure the person is one) can find an existing page for the nearest ancestor of the person they want to write about, and then create at least a stub page for intervening generations rather than create an isolated-person page needing later checking and linking?