User talk:Thurstan/Archive2

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)

Here's another one. Info page has: |Marriage town       = Amsterdam and the category is "Married in Amsterdam,"
 * Marriage county = NH, NL
 * Marriage state      =

Now I see how that works. It's producing "Married in , " with a blank state. If I put Netherlands or North Holland in "State" it would show whichever, which might or might not be the sort of category name we want. Needs more on-screen instruction for noobs like me and Fred and Arthur.

We need to do more work on Info categories. I've suggested before that we may end up with a merger of those separate place lines and simply ask users to print the appropriate place page name (without links, of course) so that the coding picks up the whole thing. Algebra using first-level subdivisions etc (where you would have to give people even more obscure instructions about what to put in various lines) is not going to work everywhere. Small countries will have their town and other divisions with country name at the end, whereas several important big countries stop at state or -shire level (unless AMK has his way and can change 4,000 articles and lots of categories). We may have Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, or Dunedin, Otago (on the Oz model but with more problems)), or Dunedin, New Zealand (=WP?), but I can't see us going for Auckland, Auckland, with the region changing its boundaries every 21 years and being in a historical province of the same name. New York is an exception.

Onwards and upwards! Midnight has struck, ending our longest day for this year. Still more discussion with Fred, I expect, but I've done nothing for Marianne "today". — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Found earlier discussion, which led to my creating Genealogy:Info pages/list of parameters and now Genealogy talk:Info pages/list of parameters. AMK had said he agreed with much of what I had said (as above) but then proposed the algebraic solution. As I then said, we need a big page to cover groups of parameters. We now have it. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 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)


 * Thank you. I later added it to some instructions.— Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 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)


 * The seven moves, as staff explained, were actually just one with its talk and subpages. Staff in response tightened the rules for moving subpages, which two of us think was an over-reaction. See forum. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Info pages and hndis
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)

Now the 2nd-level hndis pages, thanks to more ANZAC teamwork. Thanks, cobber, for fixing Mary Brown (1850-?) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:36, 28 April 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.

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

Done; and improved instructions after Marianne left the characters at the start of several new pages. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 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)

Add a few days to those predictions! Still a few of Marianne's to tidy. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

b-uk etc getting documented "properly" at last
Template:Born in UK/doc. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed you using "aus" versions for regions and counties and towns. (I see from Category:County navigation templates that there are some "aus-reg", which may have been an attempt to distinguish something, and I forget whether I had any involvement.) Probably no intrinsic reasons against applying the series to regions and towns, anywhere, except for aspects of the format. My recollection is that I tried a few of that sort when someone did an article about Erie (the town, not one of the several counties) and saw that there might be some tricky aspects. In NSW, thanks to your diligence, all the place and region names end in ", New South Wales", but other countries are not so neatly organised and would be impossible to organise so smoothly without major departures from Wikipedia naming conventions in places. Also, you need different wording wherever the word "county" is mentioned, even if everything else can stay the same. And the "mainpage=" will take time for each user of such a template because the town or other place will not usually tell you which county name to put in the parameter. (Never mind Chautauqua - or Erie!)

I suggest we work on producing templates such as "b-uk-town". Debatable whether we should try to ensure that they include the county category (so as not to leapfrog) even if the town name is on its own or has the country appended. Maybe that is an argument for including the county in such category names even if we don't for the article names. See http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Died_in_Erie%2C_Erie_County%2C_Pennsylvania&action=history. But some cities (e.g. Chicago) overlap county boundaries, which is a good argument against. I suggest that we consider an optional parameter and encourage users to include it whenever they know the county and there is only one county. What are you like on optional parameters? usedwp probably demonstrates the method.

How about you start a new forum page with most of the above and your response to it?

(Ooh, flooding up to eaves in Coffs Harbour!)

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Oz departing from standard?
Now that I've looked at one of the aus-reg categories, I think you have moved away from the UK&US model, where the simple template name covers the primary division of the state or UK country and where something like b-uk-town would be for a lower level. And I think your documentation for at least one of the "reg" templates is not for it but for the plain one. Maybe you were thinking of the state cats as "primary" and therefore using "reg" for the next level down. But maybe still using the primary one for little counties and LGAs etc?? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No, there was no design principle, but a discussion with you about how things sorted in categories, and you wanted regions to be separated from the the other entities, and since the regions were the the smaller subset, I created a new template for the regions. Thurstan 21:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

So Oz setting a new standard?
I can see the logic in that: less typing in the long run. Maybe; depending on what you can actually get a particular template to produce without any extra typing.

So - to be consistent across the wiki, the UK and US county cat-related templates should have "-cty" added, leaving the plain b-uk series for any entity smaller than a county. Netherlands and India and Norway and Canada etc can switch to a variant of "-cty" where required, but every country has the plain name for any subnational entity below about level 2; the actual level could depend on the country's naming system for towns, parishes, etc. Worth a mention on the forum. Even a new forum named so that the change is made obvious but linking to earlier pages on the subject.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 00:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Charlemagne
Rtol has devised a short template to categorise descendants. I don't know what else it does. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I assume you are thinking about Template:SovCM, for Category:Sovereign Descendants of Charlemagne. It doesn't have an abbreviation defined for Scotland, and most of these people are not sovereigns anyway. Thurstan 04:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it is amusing that I have just put Camilla Parker-Bowles into Category:Descendants of Charlemagne (Generation 39), the same category as Diana Spencer. Thurstan 04:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. I'm probably 38 or 37 by the shortest known route, but see the 630,000 noted on the Charlemagne page! I thought Rtol's template was a clever way of doing the numbers, not just noting the rulers; but I see him using the old one tonight, so I guess I saw SovCM in haste. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Template SovCM groups all the ruling descendants, by country and year of accession. OrderCharlemagne groups all descendants, by generation. Rtol 10:19, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Robin_Patterson#Mediawiki_extensions
Good points. Not a great load if people stick to "/3" but it certainly snowballs. After creating "/6" I realised why none of our experts had done it: over 200 parser wotsits. Not enough to break the system (with the "100" being only a warning) but not good in principle. Somewhere recently I read something Phlox had said about ways of minimising that sort of load; maybe it was with the extension you've just mentioned.

I think each of your proposals/requests could be put into a "Contact Wikia" form.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

British royals
I see we're complete. Thanks for that. I'm working my way up through the families that united the Netherlands and should then be able to build an overview page similar to Descent of Elizabeth II from William I. Belgium and Luxemburg should follow soon after. Rtol 10:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Counting Charlemagne
There are indeed already inconsistencies in the generation count, and more will come about. User:Bergsmit claims he can knock 5 generations off Catharina-Amalia van Oranje-Nassau (2003) by taking the German rather than the French-English-Dutch route. We'll have to do a bot, because the numbers are just too large to do it by hand. Rtol 10:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

thanks
thanks for your help! Fred Bergman 09:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

From me too. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Rearranging "name-related" params in templates
I see you did as I requested on a recent edit. I then went and did it on a major template. If you see anything odd, that may be the cause. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The one thing I do differently is to drop the "description" below the "alternative name", since it is not so much a purely "name" field. Thurstan 12:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"Article" parameter
Please see http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Template_talk:Ahnentafel#Problem_related_to_.22Article.22_parameter — Robin Patterson (Talk) 07:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Semantic wiki
Your shortcut is causing problems with the tests for inbreeding and descent. rtol 13:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the standard actually says that the kids should (only) be on the father's page. I agree with that: it is a pain to update if they are repeated on both father's and mother's page. Thurstan 05:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes on Kable pages
Thurstan, I see you're changing the format on a lot of pages. The Kable pages you've changed so far aren't my main work, they are just linking pages I've put in between myself and Yewenyi so I don't really care about them, but I have to tell you I hate that template. Frankly I think it's really ugly with way too much blank space, and not at all easy to read and way not user friendly. I looked at the edit pages and I don't think I could follow it at all. I'd really appreciate it if you don't go in to my main pages and do that. Changing or updating information I don't have a problem with but I'd have a problem with you making my pages ugly and uneditable for me.... 60.242.209.206 11:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC) jayoval. Sorry I'm not signed in.

Settlements in U.S. counties
See the new Template:S-us. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 09:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

GEDCOM
http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Help_talk:Loading_Gedcoms#GEDCOM_upload_under_SMW — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

the dreaded recurse code
You show a lot of character. That is not fun code. - ~  Ph l o x  06:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, there were moments there when I had my doubts. I hope it is okay now. Thurstan 06:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

tilde's for links in sources, notes.
I haven't figured out how to gracefully allow wikitext inside of properties, so in the meantime for links I put in the ~ syntax. eg string~http:blahblah is the same as [http:blahblah string]

See Alice May Starkey Crouch (1879-c1961) for example. - ~  Ph l o <font color="#9EE8FA">x  21:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

But what you have done to it is wrong: you've converted different links into just one (hover over it: the ancestry.com links have disappeared). What I would like (in this case) is 3 seperate footnotes. Thurstan 21:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Ann avery
You put some edits on top of something I intended to rollback. There is one heckof a lot of junk values I introduced as I think you will see. I'll leave it as is- I am going to muck with another of these with dates in non conformant format, and be rolling it back/ mucking with it a bit. To fix Ann- either rollback to prior to my edit and add your changes whatever they were (probably easiest), or search replace all the junk parameters. Sorry for the cross edit situation. -06:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No, sorry, it was my fault for leaping in because I saw the page on "recent changes". Thurstan 06:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW- I haven't forgotten about Alice's sources. It seems straightforward but isn't.  Hopefully I can find a solution that is not too ugly.  tilde's are ugly enough. - <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Ph <font color="#3DD0F5">l <font color="#6EDCF7">o <font color="#9EE8FA">x   06:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

John Laughton not a convict?
http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=John_Laughton_(1815-1901)&action=history is for you. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I know (sigh): I think they are defending a family myth, based on a eulogy written about 1901 (when "convict" was a word not uttered in New South Wales). I think he was, but I would have to go the National Library to check the documents to prove it. Alternatively, I could refer them to Elva Boyle, who is at least one of those who posted the details on ancestry.com. I suspect that if we believed every "he jumped ship" family story we would find there were no convicts at all! Thurstan 06:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?ct=display&doc=slq_voyager1034414&indx=1&vl(freeText0)=John%20Laughton&fn=search&fromLogin=true&ct=search&vid=FamHis&indx=1&submit2=%20Go%20&scp.scps=scope%3A(IC)
 * he was a convict but I can't understand the coding so I can't fix the edit. One of you clever dickies can fix it. Jayoval 23:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

spg
I have all sorts of things from Scotland, but an ancetry category is not necessarily part of it. About an hour ago I corrected a Category:Comunity page. I hope you're not deliberately pointing out mistakes so as to defer having to deal with some concerned Methodist-linked contributors! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC) Dinnertime.


 * Moi? I can procrastinate till the cows come home. I thought you name was on the history of that category. I'll be off to the evening's dance soon. Thurstan 06:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Another anon helper
http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=William_Richard_Steele_Case_(1880-1951)/info&curid=106942&diff=284581&oldid=273083 - in case you hadn't noticed. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I had (thanks to my watch list). He/she was affected by that category picker gadget: can we get it globally turned off again? Thurstan 07:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Yewenyi pages

 * Charles Baker (1814-1897)‎ (diff; hist) . . (-358) . . Thurstan (Talk | contribs | block) (Redo with SMW)
 * N 17:13:50 Forum:Broken boxes and links‎‎ (2 changes; hist) . . (+2,567) . . [Robin Patterson‎ (2×)]
 * m 17:13:50 (cur; prev) . . (+66) . . Robin Patterson (Talk | contribs | block) (Rich Text feature does not leave you the option of turning off CategorySelect)
 * N 14:28:56 (cur; prev) . . (+2,501) . . Robin Patterson (Talk | contribs | block) (Update) 17:09:19
 * Project Charlemagne‎‎ (2 changes; hist) . . (+91) . . [Robin Patterson‎; Rtol‎]
 * 17:09:19 (cur; prev) . . (+6) . . Rtol (Talk | contribs | block) (→Status: )
 * 17:05:53 (cur; prev) . . (+85) . . Robin Patterson (Talk | contribs | block) (Moving the chart up and varying some numbers where they are smaller than Ton's)
 * 17:05:20 	Catherine Courtenay (Abt 1335-1399)‎ (diff; hist) . . (+944) . . Phlox (Talk | contribs | block) (Upgrade Yewenyi gedcoms)

Phlox is testing things on a dozen a day. You may be doing more valuable practical work on them. I told him you're the Oz placenames expert and asked him if was liaising with you but he didn't answer that part of my message. You could look at his and my talk pages for today's discussions. A pity if you both work on the same page at once.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I am trying not to conflict with Phlox: my priority is supplying the pages in Yewenyi's database that he didn't put up, which form the "missing links" for the ones he did put up. This inevitably leads to corrections and/or moving of some of the existing pages. However, Phlox's AWB process will automatically skip pages that are already under SMW. We have not had any explicit liaison. Thurstan 06:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, that looks clever (on both your parts). I did notice a "N" somewhere there. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 12:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Other events
I see you are encoding migration. Do you have source data that can make use of other events? For instance: 08:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Occupation
 * residence
 * military event
 * religious event (Bat/bar mitzfah, LDS ordinances, etc)
 * or other?


 * "Occupation" is the other one I often have (often just one, or a list. Occassioanlly dates and places too).
 * Did you notice that you can't leave a space after the "=" in a #declare ? Thurstan 08:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks- I was unaware of the declare limitation. Seems silly that their parser doesn't handle that properly.
 * Ok, I will put occupation in. There were a few Yew articles that had residence info- probably derived from census data.  Listed oddly.  Example: Caroline Louisa Cramp (Aft 1848-Aft 1881) "Event: Living - Rose Gardens 46 Birchwood Cott".
 * Have you seen occupation in any of the Yew articles? - 04:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

thanks
thanks for your help! --Bergsmit 10:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

prop=
I should probably find out what prop= does, but it seems to have done nothing to Jeanne. Her sibling table was quite separate from her child, under its own heading. Please enlighten me. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * See the discussion at Forum:SMW: I changed Showinfo children so that it also loads the children into the Property:Children-g1 etc. However, since Showinfo children is used to show siblings as well, I had to make sure that this could be turned off, and that is what the  does. If you had looked at Property:Children-g1 for Jeanne de Hainaut (c1199-1244), you would have seen that it included herself. Thurstan 11:47, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Corben
Hi Thurstan, I am a new used and appreciated your rapid reply. I would appreciate any information on the lives of the Corben's in NSW especially Jonathon's children's descendants. If you know anything more about Andrew's lot religion, employment, etc I would appreciate that too. Thanks again. User name spot4321 --Joancarr 05:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Hunsickers
Done. See Genealogy:Statistics/SMW tidbits rtol 06:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Siblings v children
I see your still working away. A brute force flush would replace info categories with a PLACEHOLDER in an entire family, and then later put info categories back in. If you save without info categories the descendants list is wiped. It's crucial to do this for an entire line of descent; you must have noticed that faulty descendant lists are contagious. rtol 07:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I did think of doing that, but I have to be sure that I have found all the faulty showinfo children calls first. You might like to check Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded too: I think that is why some of the pages end up there. Thurstan 07:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Charlemagne
While set Order of Charlemagne can be done manually, it should not. Humans introduce error, and as information percolates so do the errors. Restoring the damage would be a lot of work. rtol 06:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't understand: are you telling me not to use the template? Thurstan 06:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * My talk page got the same message; I responded briefly there then scrabbled around and found the template and gave it a rudimentary doc page, on which all may be revealed. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Showfacts person-ex
I can see you like staying ahead of the curve. As for the ex, it stands for experimental, as in highly experimental, like "maybe we might ignite the atmosphere" kind of experimental. I have not announced it and in fact many fundamental things will change shortly for it- including very basic stuff like the way dates are done. It's your choice, but it's only fair to to warn you that articles using this template will break almost on a daily basis, and I have no intention of upgrading anyone's articles that are using it. My plan was to convert over everything using showfacts person over to the new format when it is stable. 09:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I don't mind having to convert articles myself, but with your warning I might go back to showfacts person. Thurstan 09:22, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Its about to get very choppy, but after that it will likely be more or less stable so that it won't require an inordinate number of reconverts. I really am not happy with the dates, and may go through a couple different ways of doing them, but hopefully I am nearing the end of the major refactorings.  There may be some temporary glitches in the non -ex version when I upgrade some of the helper functions like the ones that do showfacts and get time and place for an event, but I will try and keep it smooth.   20:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Cat suggestion
You're probably already aware, but you may want to list Category:Familypedia administrators on your page so you're included in the cat. —DeGraffJE talk 15:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I was blissfully unaware. Thurstan 04:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Vandal 68.105.41.151 (Inserting nonsense/gibberish into pages)
This is a vandal, deleting all text and placing miserable texts-- Fred Bergman 19:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC) also 80.99.129.62 and 173.169.111.211 at "Forum:Status of Misaligned Page problems"-- Fred Bergman 07:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

regarding the showfact person/main edit
At first I wondered why I did the assemblage approach, because as you know I have written elsewhere that I think it is error prone. Using short name might not be the solution in this case though. You might have a better one to the problem I discussed on the talk page. 21:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Anna von Nassau
I saw that you created the page for Anna von Nassau, and called her Anna von Nassau-Dillenburg. At these times in Germany, the following conventions held. Younger sons adopt the surname of their father (von Nassau-Dillenburg) until they come of age and get part of their father's property. At that time, they change their name to family-property (von Nassau-Breda) and rescind all claims to the property of their oldest brother (Dillenburg). Daughters have no claim no the inheritance, and therefore only use the family name (von Nassau). rtol 07:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

First glimpses of search
With the properties now fairly stable, I am reusing the form templates for queries. These will be personalized now (so that users will be able to customize the display columns eg images, marriage dates etc. Later I may write some javascript to do them from a floating form, rather than a semantic form.

User:Thurstan/query

09:52, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

SovCM
Note that SovCM is now redundant. A query "Category:Monarchs of Denmark AND Category:Descendants of Charlemagne" returns the same information. rtol 05:32, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

Switchover
I was planning on retiring the double flush showfacts templates (set general, set wedding, etc), but I notice you are still using them. The plan was to convert them all over to use showfacts person-ex, then when there is no articles using the old showfacts person \ form person, copy the new showfacts-ex code over to them and then pass through the articles to call showfacts person.

There are some slight differences in names of parameters for showfacts person-ex, but presumably it won't be a huge adjustment for you. Are you ok with that plan? If so I will proceed immediately converting everything using showfacts person and the old set templates. 05:22, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

I thought you were planning an automatic conversion run to change all the articles which use the old templates. Is that what you are planning? Thurstan 05:30, September 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * yeah. automatic.  but there are a few steps.


 * Step 1- I just got through making all the showfacts person-ex ones use the same syntax.
 * Step 2- Now I will make all the showfacts person ones use showfacts person-ex. Once that is all done, all the showfacts person-ex's get flipped back to Showfacts person.
 * Step 3- After all that is done we switch on the new templates for general use. I begin xfering info pages to showfacts person.


 * Are you ok for me going to step 2?  06:18, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I don't want to stand in the way of progress. What do you want me to do? Should I stop creating pages for a while, or use showfacts person-ex or what? I think I've finished for the day (I think my main computer has just died!), and possibly the week. Thurstan 06:29, September 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Ignore me and go right ahead with articles using the showfacts person-ex and any of of other templates and parameters you can create from Form:Person-ex (showfacts residences, jouneys, children). There is probably over a hundred parameter values to set.  I'll have your old articles over into person-ex shortly.  Hopefully I won't butcher them up too unrecognizably.   08:17, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Can't use semicolon
Wikimedia engine very unhelpfully places html entities inside page names, most notoriously for apostrophes, which we have a lot of with french names. This affects all lists delimited by semicolons split on the semicolon following &#htmlcode;'s

The unpretty alternatives are
 * require prefix of space. EG: " ," or " ;" must be used.
 * use a funny character EG: + or ~

This mostly is a question about what is best for novice users. I prefer +, but I must confess none of them thrill me and I would just as soon go along with any of the others if anyone had a strong opinion or alternate proposal. I don't like the space preceding because it is error prone. Plus is easy to spot while tilde is not.

Your opinion/ additional proposal?

05:33, October 1, 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't let the O'Briens and O'Connors hear you say that it is just French names which are a problem! I agree that "+" is probably the best choice of a bad lot. For data entry, I would like the forms accepting children (in particular) on seperate lines. Thurstan 04:56, October 2, 2009 (UTC)

Should work now.
Thanks for the report. Refresh the trouble page(s) and let me know if it is still a problem. 02:05, October 15, 2009 (UTC)

Tab name tree, or something else?
Ludwig II. von Nassau-Weilburg (1565-1627)/tree


 * this kind of page would be generated by bot. I notice that "ancestors" pages mean multiple things- to some contributors it is a tree like this, and others fill it with an ahnentafel type list.

Your opinion? What should the tab name be? 03:47, October 15, 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I favour simple, so the tab with the tree would be "pedigree" (since "tree" might be a tree of descendants), while an Ahnentafel would be on a tab with that name. Thurstan 03:54, October 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * True. But Pedigree?  I would think that the term "pedigree" would turn off most genealogy newcomers- what with unsavory comparisons with dog breeding (what- I don't have a good "pedigree"?) or vestiges of distinctions of class.  I realize it has a different more innocuous sense in the genealogy community but that doesn't change anything with newcomers.  Isn't there some synonym of pedigree that has less baggage?   05:37, October 15, 2009 (UTC)

The longer I am without the facts box
...the more I think it was premature to hide them. I keep finding myself wondering if a property was really saved, and when we get into verifying info page material was properly transferred I am thinking people will need to be looking at them.

Of course, I am technically oriented so I have a bias about wanting to make sure everything is running fine under the hood. But I can see how the mountain of stuff can be offputting for newbies.

What do you think? Turn it back on or no big deal to you either way? 07:34, October 27, 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have been turning it on again on the pages I create, to check for errors in dates, and to make sure that the ancestors and descendants properties have been computed (it sometimes completely fails on the refresh). Alternatively, I have created a template for showing some of the properties of a given page: this might be better to check, since sometimes a refresh (without a save) shows you properties which don't seem to have been saved. What we need is the ability to show the FACTBOX for a given page on another page. Thurstan 07:47, October 27, 2009 (UTC)

multivalued afn
Yes yes. Okay. Actually I think I have this in my voluminous list of little things to do.

They have odd punctuation but I never recall seeing pluses in them, do you?

To your knowlege, are there any multiple afns encoded in the Info pages? How are they punctuated? Example pages? 22:29, November 1, 2009 (UTC)
 * Grumble. I didn't see that one documented.  Do you know of any more of these new fields that have been used and we need to convert over?   22:52, November 1, 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you know how the LDS "wiki like" ability for everyone to be an editor works? I have read writeups in the past on their plans but it has always been pie in the sky.  Apparently they will be delivering it.  From the description it promises to be a high quality free site.  It will be great if they stick all their microfilms online.   23:51, November 1, 2009 (UTC)

This is in now, accepting comma, semicolon or + as a delimiter. Plus is preferred. When they provide a mapping of old to new identifiers, we will add the unified ID probably as the first cell, with the multi afns in a following cell. Have you seen their new interface? 17:21, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

changes to main page model
showfacts person now requires

|globals=

Please also strike the use of SMW templates. This and other time consuming analysis templates should be executed only on the sensor page, with the main page component (if any) copying the results for display on the main page.

16:23, November 6, 2009 (UTC)

info page conversions for you?
AnimeBill and Rtol have had a couple hundred pages converted. Are there any that I could do a trial conversion for you? If you are satisfied with the conversion, I'd be happy to let it run automatically, but I am not certain the conversion will do all info pages well.

Let me know surname cats, or if you told me all that you have edited who have lived since XXXX year, I can select out files that way. If you want something specific, basically I can do any selection you can do in awb or by using the database scanner.

Also, if you'd like to manually eyeball them in awb, I can post the script and you can run it.

23:04, November 9, 2009 (UTC)

It is a while since I have looked at my New South Wales ancestors. Perhaps you could do all pages linked from Prince William of Wales (1982)/ancestors: this covers various contributors (how do we break down the "these are my pages" attitude?). Thurstan 02:13, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't say yours, but I am referring to these as the ones you most likely watch more closely than others. I could have referred to the pages as the ones you would more likely scream about if my bot got them horribly wrong, but that would be indelicate.   03:42, November 10, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the report
It should work now. Let me know if this is not the case, or that dates appear to behave oddly after this fix.

Do you do display your dates in normal (non North american) order? (use lang=en-gb)? 06:50, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Looks good now, thanks. I have my preferences set to "16:12, 15 January 2001", if that is what you mean.

Charles II
Thanks for the bug report. Should work ok now. 06:24, November 18, 2009 (UTC)

German Kings
A lot of Germans were kings and there were a lot of kings in what we now call Germany, but no one was ever "German king", "King of Germany" or "King of the Germans". The official title was "King of the Romans". We have that as a category already. rtol 07:03, November 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd say, put people in the correct category "Kings of the Romans" and make Kings of the Romans a subcategory of "German Kings", which also contains the kings of Hanover, Prussia and what not. rtol 07:14, November 21, 2009 (UTC)