User talk:Robin Patterson/archive 2005-11 to 2006-10

(An archive of Robin's Talk page, not a talk page for Robin's User page archive!)

Clan MacHershell
Thanks for your input, Robin! I've implemented your suggestion regarding the Clans Category...

Regarding the disambiguation regarding duplicate names in the clan... I began by using the "name(birth-death)" format... but, I had reservations, because my short-term, primary goal was to create a site among the family (clan) who are living. Then, "name(birth-death)" was reduced to "name (birth-?)" since all are living -- and there is no death date for these users...

So, that led me to the realization that "Clan MacHershell" would be a good identifier, since (Hershell being my own father) this would be a good identifier for my family. Then, with my uncles and aunts, I supposed that each would use "Clan Mac???" for each of their lines... I had anticipated that, as we work backwards, we would use something like "Clan MacHershell Ancestor xxx"...

I realize that this becomes quite cumbersome... I am interested in your input, though. And I appreciate your feedback.

--ChristopherMcIntosh 01:52, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Thanx for the welcome!
Robin, I appreciate the multilingual welcome message and your kind words. I'm glad I stumbled upon this a few days ago simply by chance, through Wikipedia. If I have questions, I will be sure to ask, and I am sure to have questions! Nhprman 06:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Robin, how does one create a category? I made a link "births in 1606" from my Abraham Toppan (1606-1672) page, but I don't know how to go from there. Any guidance? Nhprman 04:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, adding that category *appeared* to work. However, the link at the bottom of the articles still does NOT link to "births in 1606" even though it apparently was created. What's the secret? Also, now that I've created "1606" how do I get THAT category to come to life? I'm sure once these lessons are learned, I'll be an expert, but now, I feel kind of silly. Nhprman 23:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

G-Wiki Towns ...and Poets?
I think it's a great idea to divert some links closer to home, so to speak, but wondered what the long-term vision was when it comes to G-Wiki-based pages for towns and poets. Is there a template for towns, which will focus on history, genealogy, key families, burying grounds, etc.? That would seem to be the best route, especially for cities over 300 years old (should there be criteria?) I also expect a category of their own should be created for these places, in regions, such as [category:Historic places of New England] [category:Historic places of New South Wales] [category: Historic places of Yorkshire, England] - or, perhaps [Genealogy:Boston, Massachusetts]. What are your thoughts? I feel like coming up with a template and posting it on my site, just for fun. I'm sure others will be reading this, too, and may have some input.

As for Whittier, I'm not certain the philosophical argument for a G-Wiki site for him would be as strong, but maybe it would be. I do know that from an aesthetic point of view, to visitors, it now looks like I messed up on the second Newbury link when it has no place to go! ;-) Nhprman 02:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I like your ideas. I'll throw together a "Historic place" template and see what you think. Is there one place for (or some examples of) towns/cities here on this Wiki I can look at? Good point on Whittier! ;-) Nhprman 16:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

"Place" help
Robin, thanks for the review and tweaking of the 'place' template with your helpful changes! :-) Nhprman 03:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

GWiki Down?
I haven't seen any edits on the GWiki in a couple of days. Is it down?

&mdash;iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 07:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Relations
I am sorry about not participating with content much. Have been distracted with a few other things I am involved with. In fact, you could say that I haven't been able to do any of the stuff I originally proposed this WikiCity for. But it is good to see other folks using the resource--and what bandwidth I am able to devote to this site, it is only fair (to other users and the wider community) to first devote to helping with things like reverting spam, etc. And to keep the site healthy and alive. And not just for altruistic reasons; when I can start doing the things I think need to be done, having this site be healthy and well-established will be a strength.

Thanks for checking in. I will do what I can when I can. I need to take a vacation from my "day job" (as we call it here in the US), I guess :D

And we need more admins :D

&mdash;iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Sysops
I have been trying to get people to engage with the idea of sysops. Nominating one myself. Let's go with the votes we have now and declare one or two more.

--IFaqeer 00:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I know about that. My point was that, probably because we have very few active users anyway, there haven't been too many votes on each nomination. I will go ahead and add both you and Nhrmann as admins as soon as I can.


 * --IFaqeer 20:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Admin
Just made you an Admin. Sorry about the delay.

I guess you know what that entails in terms of privileges and, more importantly, responsbilities. Welcome to the club. I know you will help make the Wiki much bigger and better.

--IFaqeer 09:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

User List Page
Robin, is there anyway to get the obscenity laden "user names" off the Listusers page for Wikia (also same problem on Wikipedia) http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Listusers--Bill 23:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Admin
Robin, I appreciate getting the note, but that wasn't what I really wanted to talk to you about. I'd like to email you, but despite your statement that you have enabled email, I still get "user has not....etc". I do not want to discuss this in an open forum. Please email me at wmwillis @ earthlink.net. Thank you.


 * Done. Nothing I could see that needed to be private, but Bill presumably had his reasons. Anyway, I encouraged him and his friends to do more of what they have been doing here. Robin Patterson 06:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

CREATE PAGE
Bill
 * That's true. Originally this was a section on the main entry page for the Wigton Walkers, so it was obvious that it was "Wigton". As additional people started using hte site, I started to get private questions on the old problem of "How do I create a new page".  To make it easier for them I moved the Wigton "Input Page" information to a new "Create Page", and added a link to that page in the "YOU CAN COPY THIS" section.  That way, as pages are created there's a quick way for them to get back to the information they  need for creating a new page.  Consider this an experiment.  What I suggested on the WaterCooler was to add a button in the side bar that would take people to a page for chooseing atemplate, and creating a page.  I probably have the programming skills to do that...as it looks like a fairly simple HTML coding project...but 1) you'd probably need Admin authority to do that, and 2) there are higher priorities at the moment. I'll move the page as you suggest.

A Little Puzzling
We aren't using the standard People Template. As a generalization I've developed an alternative template to meet our specific need. Among other things I tried for a simple terminology. (eg. Child List instead of Offspring). Don't always suceed with that, but that was the intent. Also some elements of the original template, like "Siblings" are fairly unconventional---that kind of information usually goes on the parental page (as the Child List), which is where most folks are going to go looking for it. Adding a Siblings section seems redundant, and one more thing that has to be kept uptodate when other things change. There are other differences in the template---all designed to meet the specific needs of this group. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Bill 02:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC) Robin, I'll take a look at your revisions to your standard template. I think our purposes on the wiki are quite a bit different from those of other people. We're trying to use this as a collaborative research tool, and are feeling our way through the "lets see what works for us" stage. I suspect we will continue to use the Wigton Walker template, though of course people are welcome to use whatever they want, even within the boundaries of a fairly specific project. I think about the last thing I want to do is tell folks what they can and can't do on something like this. Insisting on a specific template seems fruitless and unrewarding. On the otherhand, I am trying to make it easier for people to use the Wigton template within the Wigton Project. even there, some people have different interests and want to put in specific subsections related to those interests. I have a "let a thousand flowers bloom" philosophy here. Things that work will be broadly accepted and incorporated. Things that don't will not.

I'm working out the in's and outs of the portal system. Looking at some basic concepts in the context of the Wigton Walker Project. I believe there's an advantage to be gained by using the Skeleton-box templates, but I need to spend some quality time with that to see for sure. When we have the kinks worked out of the Wigotn Project Portal, I will expand it to some of the other Walker Projects we are looking to get started.---also collaborative research projects, but with nowhere near the number of people that I believe will be eventually using the Wigotn Portal.---On that score, right now there are only two or three folks playing with the Wigton Walker Project. They are helping me figure out how I need to present this to the large audience, and also, helping me identify where things go wrong for the average guy. (Trying to figure that out cause its easier to fix a problem before it becomes a problem. Onething I've learned is that people have to be very conservative which article names---creativity is not what we want here.  So we're trying to put in some guidance on the Portal page to help out.  Also, the automated page creation using the Wigton Template is a big help here. Eventually I'd like to do something more comprehensive, as I really think the manual approach for this is going to be a turn off for many.

I'm anticipating one to two more weeks of testing and development, and then will point the larger group to the Portal, and see what happens. Could be something very good...or could be chaos. I need about five more folks testing it out to see what breaks. hopefully, with enough testers, I'll be able to design the instructions for the rest of the group to minimize frustration and encourage participation.Bill 02:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Bill 11:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)Robin, I checked out the help item you pointed to concerning editing the Sidebar. There are limitations (of course) to puting something there that would help people create a page, but in general it doesn't seem to be too problematic (once you have admin status-G). I've set up such a page within the Wigton Walker area that could be used as a model for a create page for which a link could be set in the sidebar. I don't think an input box in the sidebar would be the best bet---as the size of the box would become a problem---either the size of the side bar would expand, shrinking the main page, or the box would be too small, and difficult to use. Please check out the Create A Wigton Walker Page.

One of the things that we've concluded from the testing phase is that the way the wikia system is set up its fairly cumbersome to create pages and keep the name of the article the same in subsequent pages---for example in child articles where you have to manually reenter the title of the parents article in order to provide a link back to the parents---and of course that title HAS to be exactly the way it was originally done. People tend to want to change the title to fit the needs of the moment---perhaps inserting a new by-name, or changing the convention about dates---inserting an "about" instead of abt, or a space between the dashes in the date range. That of course, kills the link, and then they (or someone) has to go back and "move" the pages to get all correct and linked together. After which they promptly go back and change the name in the link again.


 * Bill: Changing a page name in the recommended MediaWiki way, ie by "Move", doesn't kill links to it. The original page remains as an automatic redirect. You probably know that, but some of that last paragraph could make some reader think there's a bigger problem than there really is. Problems do start to creep in after the second move, when you get the "double redirect", which the system understandably doesn't follow automatically because of the potential for endless loops. Manual (copy-and-paste) solution to that is to check the "What links here" whenever you move a page, to see whether there's anything linking to its previous name; any such page is listed distinctively and can be edited to bypass the redirect and thus avoid leading a reader to a halt if the target page moves again. Robin Patterson 20:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Robin, yes, I understand how the Move function works. The problem is, its a tech solution to the problem.  You understand it, I understand it, most genealogists will not.  That's why I'm spending so much time testing this site out, using other users of differing abilities, and what I've found is that they inevitably try to change the name and assume the system will take care of it.  That's why I'm spending substantial time looking at ways to simplify the page creation process---trying to minimize the opportunities for failure. The fact that this IS a failure point is not something I'm just pointing out.  Its been recognized and discussed on the watercooler in the past.  The problem is even the obvious solutions have not been implemented to get around the problem.  If this site is going to reach its potential, there are some basic problems that are going to have to be solved. This is just one of them.  Just to put things into perspective

this site has about 4500 articles on it. The Wikipedia has about 1.4 MILLION articles on it. Ancestry.com has 14.3 MILLION 'articles', each more complex than the average article on the genealogy wiki. YOu can definitely be killed by sucess---ifyuo are not careful in how things are set up.

This is going to become a significant limiting factor in more widespread use of this site. I don't particularly like the straitjacket approach used by Rodovid.org, but it at least minimizes this problem. Ultimately, unless one abandons the free-form format, I don't think this problem is completely correctable. (And if you abandon the free form entry you probably lose the reasons people are here at all---or at least why I'm here.) Someway we need to find a way to simplify data entry so that it minimizes the opportunity for renaming/misnameing articles. For example: When you click on a link for a chick, creating the child page, the system needs to transfer in the name of the parents article automatically. Can't stop people from changing it later on, but at least it would be right to start with, and reduce errors caused by people not understanding the criticality of keeping the name in the link matching the original article title

There's also the problem about having to create duplicate child lists on the mother's and father's article pages. They need to match (assuming that no other spouses are involved), but that's duplicating effort, and frankly I don't think they are going to snug up against each other when people are left to their own devices. One solution would be to combine but husband and wife onto a single page, but that creates its own problems.Bill 11:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome!
Thank you for the welcome note on my talk page. I created the Category:American contributors too. I stumbled onto this site from scratchpad. I was doing some cleanup over there and stumbled through to the requested wikis page. I've always been interested in family tree research and this seems like a great collaboration. Not sure which or maybe all of the 3 sites I have found I will be working on, still investigation. Thanks again for the welcome and greetings to you from the Northern Hemisphere. :) &mdash; MrDolomite | Talk 17:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Surname Categories
Hi Robin. Saw your note on the missing surname for the Jane Patterson article.. That's likely to remain a stub for some time. Once we get geared up I'll organize folks to fill in problems like this. Right now I'm focusing on getting basic information in so people will quickly see what's going on and understand the utility of the site for our purposes. As I work this problem, the opportunities just seem to be getting better and better. This is far superior to what you can do with Ancestry and similar sites. Bill 01:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Stub or not, for any surname but MINE you might have got away without a surname category!! My Pattersons were from Angus, Scotland. Robin Patterson 00:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Which Box
Robin, you wrote: "I wonder whether various changes in layout have meant that should now say 'box above' "? Good catch! I'll attend to it.

Page creation "from" sidebar
On other matters, I realize the site bureaucrat (in the wiki sense of the word) is fairly distracted. Nonetheless, the site needs to push on. If you are going to work the sidebar question, let me know how I can help. I think what would help most people (non Wigtons) would be to a button on the sidebar that would take them to a "create page" similar to the one for the Wigton Walkers. It would use different templates, of course, and have a different layout, and wouldn't use the Wigton Walker icon, of course. But same general principles. I can create such a page without being a sysop. It's the button that needs sysop privilege.
 * Done. But it goes to a "create page" that refers readers a bit further on for examples of content such as templates. All open to improvement! Robin Patterson 00:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Good Job. That was badly needed.  I think what I might do is add a link in the area of "new feature" that will take the user to a page using the new feature to create any of several types of articles based on templates.  One will be the standard people template, another the same thing but with out the window dressing, and a third one similar to the Wigton Walker people template, but without the Wigton Walker stuff.

Sys Ops
We seem to have nominations with just one vote for. And I have expressed to you my own personal feelings against appointing newer members as Admins. I feel that one requirement--amongst others, of course--should be some history with the site.

But that's just one factor; if newer members are the best candidates, as determined by the general membership, let's go with it. But let's get some more votes on it, no?

--IFaqeer 03:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

item on special pages
Robin Check out http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Special:MiniUpload I posted on this on the watercooler, but got no response. This item does not have the normal trappings of history, and you can't tell when it was placed on the site, or who put it there. Since it involves access to an end user's computer, I'd like to know more about it. It could easily be a trojan horse.Bill 21:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Bureaucrat
Hi Robin, instead of dealing with the adminship requests you pointed me to, I've made you a bureaucrat so you can handle these yourself at Special:Makesysop. Let me know if you need any help. Angela (talk) 09:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Per your request, and beyond
Yes, I noticed the interplay. I appreciate your vote of confidence, and will work hard to help move the wiki forward. I suspect accesses to the site, if not edits, have gone up in the last week, as some of the Wigton Walkers and others have stated exploring what has been placed here in the last few weeks. Hopefully, as they see what this is about, they will start participating directly, adding informtion, etc. The four people you pointed to are indeed "good 'uns", and have been of immense help in testing things out, seeing what worked and what didn't. They've given me many good ideas as to where to go next. There are others observing in the background who have also made significant contributions, though so far, they have chosen not to get involved in the editing process.  I understand the reticence about making "new folk" admins. However, I believe this will allow us all to go farther faster, and improve the functionality of the wiki. Wiki-on! Bill 01:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Message for me
Yes, I saw that. Still trying to figure out how to reply. Thanks for the message.

--IFaqeer 01:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, Robin.
I learned of this site from Bill and I'm involved in the Wigton Walker genealogy project. I, like Bill, hope that this will be the definitive collection of what we now know, and will learn, about our family line, the perfect place for us all to post all of our research. I’m better at genealogy than I am Wiki, but I’m willing to try to learn. With Bill’s help and patient explanations I’m hopeful that I will be able to learn use the site and help with making Wigton Walker the great collaborative work we all would wish it to be. Linda 237-2 --Linda 237-2 14:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

en.rodovid.org
Hello Robin,

I would like to present to you http://en.rodovid.org/ (Short description you can find at Rodovid). I'll be very glad to your comments and censorious remarks. Maybe we can find ways to merge our efforts in creating global wiki genealogy site? --Baya 17:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, The main problem is a licence type? In this case I ask most active users and sysops of rodovid. And we change licence type to GFDL --Baya 09:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

What Chad Wrought
I'm missing something here, or am being dense. I don't exactly know what I'm being told. Your comment points to a page with. Do not understand the significance.Bill 02:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Community Portal
Robin, if your comfortable with it, I'm comfortable. I'm sure it will continue to evolve as we tweak various things. Good idea on the "page wanted"Bill 01:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Pretty
(Next para and subsequent paras are now moved to a new page project:Charting ancestors or its talk page.)

Deletions and Talk Page
hi Robin. The deletions are mostly just tidying up. The talk page was more in the way of an experiment, following up on something that our friend Mr. Dolomite was using.Bill 20:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Rainbow Table Talk
Hi Robin, I'm glad that you like the table! This is part of a continueing experiment in how someone could set up their user page to guide their contributions to this wiki. Knowing what you've input, and what you haven't is, I think a significant problem. Getting to a particular page may also be a problem. I've used two approaches to reduce the problem.

The first approach was to simply layout the data as a list. That had the advantage that it required minimal HTML fiddling. But I think I like this graphic approach better...if someone can handle the HTML load, then it makes the relationships between ancestors fairly clear. There's no particular significance to the color coding---though there could be if one wanted to---its main purpose is to allow people to see quickly who's related to whom, and whose not.---a visual guide if you will. The point about the cell widths---since this is intended as the basis for a template, I don't think a fixed width would work. The point is you never know where people are going to have gaps in their family tree, and there's no point in wasteing huge amounts of space on "empty filler" for currently unknown ancestors. So I just let the HTML figureout the cell widths for me. If there's nothing in the cell, it gives it less space.Bill 21:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am in fact experimenting with using portions of the tree to insert into the "Ancestry" part of the layout I'm using. Originally that was intended as a discussion of the in's and out's of the particular line, but I'm finding that the table says most of what's needed, and is a less time consuming approach. Still seeing what works.

As you point out, copying pieces of the main table is a bit cumbersome. Don't know if anyone else would ever pick up on this approach, but I am working with an eye toward making it easier for others to use. The problem is that no matter how you do this, its hard to locate the right spot for a particular person. Laying out the individiduals in a single horizontal row (rather than as a vertical column), would make it easier to pick up and move to another person's table, but would increase the burden on finding the right place to insert new data.  One approach that might work better would be to maintain the table in an off-line excell file. I'm doing that for the surrogate census table for Southwest Virginia. But I'm not sure that would work for the ancestral table. You may also have noticed the experiments going on with using tables for Vita information, and also child lists. This is being done with an eye toward having a more standardized layout for key information, so that the data will be suitable for being picked up by automated processes (such as a new create page routine) eliminating the hassle of having to retype information in three different places. (ie, once in the parents page, once on the child page, and once on the spouse page. This would require someone to write a php extension, but that's a do-able thing. By the way, take a look at Jerry Brimberry's article being created on his Brimberry heritage.  This is much more of a wikipedia type article, but very appropriate for this site.Bill 12:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

duplicat for Patrick Henry Morrow
Robin, Thanks for the catch. I'll merge the two articles.Bill 01:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)