Portal talk:Source

Topics


Items to include [8 February 2009]

  • Source page naming conventions
  • The idea that source titles that are geographic in nature follow the format Location.Title. It can be confusing that this location is County, State, County, Town, which is opposite from Place page titles.--Jennifer (JBS66) 21:26, 5 February 2009 (EST)
  • links to properly citing sources
  • encourage members to enter source data
  • Do/should we have a convention for how we capitalize words in a book title?
    • Wikipedia and standard convention capitalize the words in a title see Wiki Books. However, FHLC only capitalizes the first word, names, and locations in their titles.
    • Note, I noticed a user from the Netherlands renaming a source to follow "Dutch typography". This was in line with what FHLC does, not all caps. Is this a more universal standard that we should adopt?--Jennifer (JBS66) 14:58, 8 February 2009 (EST)
When you add a new source using the "Add source" screen, the system automatically capitalizes all words in the source title except short articles like the, an, of, etc. I'd like to follow that standard going forward because capitalizing titles this way is the system can do for automatically. Eventually I'll (automatically) rename the existing system-generated FHLC sources to follow that standard as well.--Dallan 13:50, 23 February 2009 (EST)

Oh my goodness. This is BEAUTIFUL. Scratch the piece of kaka that I drafted. This is lovely. How can I help? jillaine 22:25, 5 February 2009 (EST)

lol... hey there Jillaine! The Community Portal is about ready (we're waiting on a few things from Dallan) but the other portals need some major content added and that's where we are at the moment. We're basically just brainstorming by listing items that should be mentioned on each portal. Please feel free to write up some text that you would like to see included. For some reason, all the portals at Jennifer's space aren't being listed for me. I've cleared my cache, etc and still can't get them to show up. I'm using the Community Portal to jump to the other ones in case they aren't showing up for you as well. --Ronni 22:55, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Help Column [13 February 2009]

  1. About Sources (added)
  2. General Help about Sources (added)
  3. Tutorial on Searching Sources (added)
  4. Source Title Naming Conventions <-- IMPORTANT!
  5. How to deal with multiple instances of the same source (needs writing?) (added, could use editing?)
Comment: I wonder if source title naming isn't so important that it deserves its own little section on the portal page itself. I.e., something like:
  • Books: Author-Last, Author-First, Book title in italics, publisher, location, date.
  • Articles: Author-Last, Author-First, "Article title in quotation marks," periodical title in italics, volume, pages, date (or whatever it is).
  • Web sites: ...
  • etc...

jillaine 09:21, 6 February 2009 (EST)


How you can help [13 February 2009]

  • Current Source Review projects
    • I know the source review project can be overwhelming for some. One idea I have is to feature one source that could use cleaning up. Here's an example: Source Search. This book has 4 different pages that need to be merged into one and tidied. A person could adopt just this mini project.--Jennifer (JBS66) 11:33, 6 February 2009 (EST)

You know: while I've been merging like mad elsewhere, I've never merged Sources, and now I see that there is no "show duplicates" inside of Source space. Mm... So it's still manual? (Ooops... this is off topic isn't it?)
It's still manual (so many things to be done.. :-)--Dallan 13:50, 23 February 2009 (EST)
I like the idea of posting mini-research projects to be adopted. great idea! jillaine 21:46, 6 February 2009 (EST)

(added)--Jennifer (JBS66) 07:35, 13 February 2009 (EST)


nice layout! [9 February 2009]

lovin' this new layout. much cleaner. like the variation but at the same time it's not TOO busy. Nice work. Like it like it. (The opening box, though, is too "wide".) jillaine 16:06, 9 February 2009 (EST)


Thank you, I appreciate your applause! Regarding the width, when this moves over to a wider space, without the ads or the left side bar, I'll be reworking the widths.--Jennifer (JBS66) 16:11, 9 February 2009 (EST)


FAQ vs Help [13 February 2009]

How are you distinguishing FAQs from HELP in this context? It SEEMS like FAQ could go under HELP (as the first item, perhaps) instead of having its own section. Or did you have something else in mind for the FAQ section that hasn't crossed my mental radar yet? ;-)

-- jillaine 16:09, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Nice idea! I combined the Help and FAQ's on each of the portal pages.--Jennifer (JBS66) 07:37, 13 February 2009 (EST)


Current Projects vs. Helping Out [13 February 2009]

Now these two I *could* see as distinct, although the example you've provided under "Current Projects" is actually one way that people could "Help out". Can these be combined as well? (Look at me, trying to get you to one screen! ;-)

-- jillaine 16:11, 9 February 2009 (EST)

I turned the Helping Out section into Mini Projects. I see the Current Projects as being bigger in scope and involving multiple WR members. I think it works being 2 separate boxes.


I'm a fan of active verbs and language that invites people to um, get involved. So I'm wondering if "Get Involved" might be a better header for for "Current Projects". Similarly, I wonder if there might be something a bit more fun for "mini projects. Something like "Only got a minute?" That might be too cute. But I hope you get my drift. -- jillaine 19:54, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Email link or Talk Page? [9 February 2009]

Instead of sending email, people could post their question to the Talk page for the portal. Mm... OR we link them to the talk page for the pertinent help page (depending on what the Portal is)? jillaine 16:13, 9 February 2009 (EST)


Sample Source Page [14 February 2009]

Note: the sample source page's links are mostly broken--Jennifer (JBS66) 09:16, 12 February 2009 (EST)


That's because NEHGS redid its web site last year, breaking ALL links. This is the problem with doing "deep-linking" into a site. When the site gets redone or reorganized, all the links break. I've got a NEHGS account and go track down the new links and replace them, but not until either tonight of this weekend. (I'm at work and shouldn't even be writing this.) -- jillaine 09:20, 12 February 2009 (EST)

I don't think it's the NEHGS links, it's the Rootsweb links. It looks like the http://dunhamwilcox.net links are working now, but they weren't working when I checked a few weeks ago.--Jennifer (JBS66) 09:24, 12 February 2009 (EST)


Jennifer, I started cleaning up the links on this page. When I got to the table at the second half of the page, I stopped, though, because it looks like all the Barbour pages are now transcribed here (yet another place). Do we still need that table? I would have posted this over there (and i can certainly move it), but you're not watching that page. What do you think? -- Jillaine--jillaine 20:14, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Ooops. Never mind. Not true. Mm... I'm going back in... -- jillaine 20:15, 13 February 2009 (EST)

All edited. Ready for "sampling". jillaine 17:09, 14 February 2009 (EST)

Wow! Thanks so much for taking this on! This is a great Source page, and nice to have the links working again.--Jennifer (JBS66) 17:39, 14 February 2009 (EST)


I had a minute. ;-)--jillaine 18:58, 14 February 2009 (EST)

Confusion [3 July 2009]

Kudos for trying to get this mess straightened out. You've made great progress.

I am finding that there is still some confusion among the people who are trying to use the guidelines, mostly surrounding the term "geographically oriented records". It seems over-broad. I feel that authored or titled works should be listed by author and/or title and not by place. We have a place field in the record to facilitate searches, it doesn't have to be in the title. The wording used in the conventions makes it seem that everything must be listed in 'reverse-place' format. Then on the Help page for source titles items one and two conflict. (To most people "History of X County" is geographically oriented.)

I wouldn't be against changing that definition. Saying that an authored work is always titled using the author would simplify the rules. Perhaps you could bring this up at Help talk:Source page titles?--Dallan 19:47, 3 July 2009 (EDT)

Perhaps we could also include some examples of each type to guide the user in selecting one. We sometimes forget that people come to the help pages because they aren't already familiar with all this stuff. We have to be careful in the use of lingo and wiki concepts that a newbie may not understand. The person trying to create a page for a geographically oriented, authored, web site is going to freeze, throw up his hands and quit. Under geographic sources, I would especially like to see some examples for state census and for county records. I've been having to wing it with my interpretation of the guidelines, but to get consistency we should have examples for people to copy. I can add some of mine if you like.

While the Barbour page is a really nifty page, it doesn't actually follow the conventions as stated (neither starting with the place nor the author) and I don't think it's a good choice for an example source. Examples should clarify, not muddle.

After mulling this for a while, I think a path forward would be to create a list of examples of what we consider good source titles and then try to generalize from there to get the guidelines worded consistently.

A big concern I have is that the page title does double duty as the citation on the Person page. We should be using something close to a proper citation while we are trying to teach people to use sources, thus we wouldn't want the page title to stray too far from the accepted citation format. Otherwise we would have to have a "citation" field on the source page to store the correct cite for use on the person page (a very messy solution!)

FWIW, printing a better citation based upon information in the Source page is on the list of things for the upcoming Person and Family page UI improvement.--Dallan 19:47, 3 July 2009 (EDT)

Again, I'm hoping to help - not intending to toss rocks - but I wasn't around for the original discussions and am not secure in thinking that my interpretations are any more correct than anyone else's - just that there shouldn't be so many different interpretations.--Judy (jlanoux) 14:55, 29 June 2009 (EDT)


excerpts or transcripts? [8 September 2009]

Hello, I'm brand new to WeRelate and have searched all the FAQ's without luck. My question is how do you include excerpts or transcripts of a source to the source page? Should the transcript or excerpt (assuming it is okay copyright-wise) be a separate page and just add a link to the source page? Specifically, I am transcribing "From Gille Chriosd to Gilcrest" a book written by my great, great uncle, Robert Alexander Gilcrest in 1924. This book is very hard to access. There is one copy at the Library of Congress and the FHL has it available on microfilm. That's it. Also, it is a fairly short book, only 79 pages, in a large font. I would like to post my transcript and link it to the family members pages. It seems like that would be helpful to anyone researching these people. There is a brief source page for this book, but... I am unsure how to attach the transcript. Is that something that is done on WeRelate? Should I perhaps think of doing this somewhere else? Like I said, I am new to this and am not sure what is appropriate. Nothing on the Source help pages or MySource help pages really seems to address this. thank you for any help, Amelia (88buckaroo)--88buckaroo 13:19, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

Hi Amelia, welcome! I'm pretty new too, and I had exactly the same question as you do about the WaterCooler vs where else to ask questions... And I think we all agree that we need a more usable "forum" location for new people and usability questions, tho we haven't quite figured out how to do it yet. If you can hang in there with us, I suspect we'll (together) find a way to do this soon.
Regarding transcripts, there was actually a recent lengthy discussion regarding (lengthy) transcripts on the WaterCooler page, under the topic "Large Public Domain Transcriptions." I'm not sure how to cite to this portion of the page, so you may need to use the table of contents at the top; it is topic 33. (I can see from your post that you know how to do this, so you're already ahead of me in the wiki learning curve!) At the end, the discussion veers off into the sourcing of periodicals, but I think the examples from User:Jrm03063 are really great, and I like the concept of a WeRelate Transcript page (see [[SourceTranscript; Tuttle, Charles W. The Tuttle Family of New Hampshire). For now, tho, the best way to do a lengthy transcript linked to people pages is probably through this type of page...
So the answer to your basic question, I think, is that We Relate is not yet fully organized to provide a transcription-based family history, but that it both could be done (and perhaps should be done) here. I've also seen the prototype of a "library" of documents on this site, where original images and/or transcriptions could be uploaded. I haven't seen any discussion of this lately, so I don't know when/if this feature will be integrated. Hopefully Dallan or another administrator will comment on this... --Brenda (kennebec1) 20:23, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

I don't know if I want to characterize the digital library project as stillborn, but last I recall hearing, Dallan seemed to be thinking that it was just about as easy to extend werelate to accept all the different types of media, rather than to have a separate entry point (and supporting software w/administrative burdens, etc., etc.). To my knowledge the digital library still exists and can be used, but I don't think it's being actively worked. I used it for a couple of PDF files, for example Source:Epsom New Hampshire Cemetery Book has digital library links on the source page. I'll try to change the links to point at the digital library as a repository here in a bit. --Jrm03063 09:39, 5 September 2009 (EDT)

Go to the WeRelate:About digital library page for information about signing on to the Digital Library -- must get permission. It can be a little tedious citing and adding detailed information about the document being uploaded, but it's an excellent WeRelate resource.--BobC 01:21, 6 September 2009 (EDT)

The digital library has some usability issues -- it has turned out to be difficult for people to learn two separate software systems. I'm going to keep the digital library around, but for new material, rather than going to the digital library I've just enabled uploading text files directly into WeRelate. You can add .txt files, PDF documents, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets by selecting "Image" from the "Add" menu. This creates an "Image" page that is not an image -- it simply contains a link to the text file. If you want to link directly to the text file itself, use the word Media instead of Image in your link, as in [[Media:name of text file]].

So you could create a PDF file or Word document containing the text of your source, upload it (it becomes an "Image" page with a link to the text file), and reference it from the Source wiki page using a Media link.

Alternatively, you could do as suggested at the Watercooler topic. Creating the transcription as an article wiki page would allow you to add links from the transcription to the people mentioned as Jrm has done with SourceTranscript; Tuttle, Charles W. The Tuttle Family of New Hampshire. But since your transcription is 79 pages long I thought I would also provide the option to upload the transcription as a single file, which may be simpler.

I've added a bit more information about this at WeRelate:About digital library.--Dallan 17:33, 8 September 2009 (EDT)


thank you Dallan, and everyone. I've gotten quite a few good suggestions. The typing and family tree are about 70% done. I'm hoping to upload (whichever version I decide on) next weekend or so. I'll let you know how it works out : ) Amelia J.--88buckaroo 17:50, 8 September 2009 (EDT)


Separate help section for searching sources and creating sources? [24 March 2011]

There have been a lot of great discussions on sources over the last few weeks, with some new pages created. Do those pages have a place on this portal page? Also, I was wondering if maybe the Help Files and FAQs section should be separated out into helps for those searching for sources and helps for those creating and working on sources? Thoughts? Vasquezjl 17:55, 18 February 2011 (EST)

I like both of your ideas. Would you like to add the pages to this portal page, and work on creating separate help pages?--Dallan 11:23, 19 February 2011 (EST)
Right now, the pages I have been working on regarding source review (updating, creating, editing sources) are all in the Article namespace. Should they be moved to help pages, before linking to them? or should they remain articles? I just wasn't sure I was formatting them correctly for help pages, and I wanted the content to be discussed more. At this point, they contain a certain amount of my opinion and advice vs. general wiki information, tho I have tried to be careful to distinquish those items. That alone may make them best as articles (user-generated content) vs help pages (wiki-content). I know this is a subtle distinction, in real life, and I don't think I've done anything tremendously controversial, but... Anyway, this is the opening link for the work I'v done on reviewing sources which might be helpful to the Source Portal and/or help pages... Source Page Review Guide --Brenda (kennebec1) 10:17, 20 February 2011 (EST)
I don't think it matters much -- leaving them as articles sounds fine to me.--Dallan 13:49, 21 February 2011 (EST)
Done! Someone please check my work and see if what I did makes sense.... Regarding the namespace, is there a concern with user generated help articles? I am not clear on what the official distinction is, but in my mind, a Help article relates help making changes or updating the wiki, whereas an article would be more about how to do research. But that may be different for this wiki? Then, regarding making additional Source Help pages, I'll have to think on what else is needed at the moment.... I think that Source Page Review Guide has been a great help. Thoughts? --Vasquezjl 18:31, 21 February 2011 (EST)

The article Source Page Review Guide has been a wonderful help to me and I cannot see how it willnot be a great help guide both now and in the future and would love to see it added to help pages with all the subject help pages added as links for mine and future workers and contributors and searchers. Thanks so much Brenda!!Sandralpond 10:23, 24 March 2011 (EDT)

I agree -- it's now linked-to from Help:Contents.--Dallan 14:48, 24 March 2011 (EDT)

Website Source Discussion (formerly at the watercooler) [18 January 2013]

Content below moved from the watercooler. Source pages relevant to this discussion include:

--jrm03063 10:28, 18 January 2013 (EST)

Original Discussion [23 January 2013]

Two websites caught my eye and have proved very useful.

http://www.curiousfox.com/uk/

CuriousFox, the village by village contact site for anyone researching family history, genealogy and local history in the UK and Ireland.

CuriousFox for the US Place by place genealogy, family history, and local history for the US.

http://www.curiousfox.com/us/--Colin Madge 14:36, 14 January 2013 (EST)

Please add your observations at Source:Curious Fox - UK and Source:Curious Fox - US respectively. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Jrm03063
It appears these sites are a type of message board. While these are useful, we wouldn't create Source pages on WR for them. On the Add A Source page, it says "Website: original content (not transcriptions of offline records, family trees, or message boards) on more than a handful of people." --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:40, 16 January 2013 (EST)
I think this is misguided. Better to create the source page, add information, but indicate it is inappropriate as an actual source. You'll just have to repeat the same guidance. (Indeed, in the process of adding this guidance to the pages, I found that there was a MySource from 2009 for one of these - which I could redirect). --jrm03063 09:24, 16 January 2013 (EST)
Besides, that gives people who may disagree a place to discuss the matter. I don't have an opinion on this site in particular, but others may. We could always add a source "type" indicating message board, and (eventually) preclude it from being used as a source on a person/family page. --jrm03063 09:35, 16 January 2013 (EST)
When I added guidance to the two pages, indicating them as inappropriate for use, I wanted to cite an appropriate piece of help/documentation, but didn't see one. Have I just missed it? Or is there nothing specific there? --jrm03063 09:48, 16 January 2013 (EST)
The Add A Source page, Source page titles, and WeRelate:Source patrol describes this. It's not that message boards can never be cited on a page, it's that Source pages should not be created for them. A User can create a MySource page if they plan to use the reference more than once, or add it as a Citation Only. --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:59, 16 January 2013 (EST)
The idea of creating a MySource is totally missing the point - and that documentation is pretty weak stuff. I looked at both of those passages, with the knowledge of what I was looking for, and didn't find anything a newbie might notice or understand. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue that the "Curious Fox" sites are sources. What we know, is that at least two users figured that they provided something worth referencing. Rather, I'm wondering what the best way is to communicate to ordinary users, that some references just aren't acceptable on their own as sources. I mean - seriously - is the plan of record to encourage users to create any page they want - and then have the source patrol go around busting people and deleting such pages? Wouldn't it be better to let people create source pages for almost anything that someone might consider a reference. Leave them around as long as they uniquely and properly identify the item - but decide on an objective way to mark some as not making the grade as appropriate to cite (and why). If we ever figure out how to auto-match sources from a GEDCOM, with actual source pages, don't you want to be able to explicitly recognize when a GEDCOM is supported by bad material - and not just material we can't match? Well, I've made my case, do as you will. --jrm03063 14:46, 16 January 2013 (EST)
I think that Source/MySource pages are completely appropriate for these types of websites, and any websites really. Any sources in fact!  :-) I view Source and MySource pages as entries in a list of references, to be referred to from multiple other pages. It really doesn't matter what the quality of the source is -- it's still a source, and by citing it correctly, we give subsequent researchers a way to judge our data. Putting sources on their own pages means we don't have to retype the same citation over and over. I disagree that "some references just aren't acceptable on their own as sources" (respectfully, Jrm03063!) because if there's nothing else to go on, we do still want to be able to record the data (and if we record it, we have to cite its source). I must admit, I do rather approach this subject from a background of working with BibTeX!  :-) — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 20:13, 16 January 2013 (EST)
Let's define terms. Assume that there are reference items, which a person of casual interest, might consider to be source (little 's'). Presumably, there is a subset of that group (big 'S'), that genealogists (observing orthodox practice) would accept as legitimate. I think your argument, is to allow all 's' to be used as SOURCE pages AND as citations, and let the facts as they appear on the various pages speak for themselves. The policy that's being described seems to be the other extreme - only items in group 'S' are allowed to have a SOURCE page AT ALL - and therefore all such pages can appear on Person or Family pages in support of facts. I'm taking a middle position - that all pages in the group 's' should be allowed to have a SOURCE page, but the page should describe why the content is not considered persuasive (at least from the perspective of an orthodox genealogist). The SOURCE page would indicate what the item is good for and why it's use in a citation is discouraged (why is it 's' and not 'S') - and might even be marked in a detectable way such that we could automatically detect or warn about attempts to create citations based on those (perhaps a formal category - "NotCompelling" - or a template indicating as much). --jrm03063 21:28, 16 January 2013 (EST)
That all seems logical and correct! There was some discussion last year at some point about moving the 'quality' rating from the on-page citation to the (My)Source pages; this would be a solution to your desire to mark some Sources as not compelling etc. don't you think? — Sam Wilson ( TalkContribs ) … 23:04, 16 January 2013 (EST)
There are a few points being discussed here. First, I was not speaking about the quality of individual My(Sources). We have Source pages that may be of questionable quality where that is indicated on the page (for example Source:Anjou, Gustave. Parson Family Records). Also, I didn't say that a User could not cite where they obtained their information.
WeRelate has a policy about what constitutes a community-managed Source page (not MySource, just Source). It has been decided not every page that someone could cite will warrant the creation of a Source page. Some of the reasons that have been mentioned elsewhere are: websites are not always the most reliable source of information, they can disappear, it's not reasonable to maintain Source pages for all genealogy websites out there. Just as we do not allow Place pages for every possible location (ie, addresses, hospitals, etc) - we do not allow Source pages for every possible citation.
So, yes, there are guidelines about what can be a Source page. Sure, I agree the documention is weak - many of our help pages are weak (we are sorely in need of volunteers to help overhaul them!) For those items that do not warrant a Source page - a MySource page can be created for them. If a User plans to cite an item only a few times, they can choose to enter it as Citation Only and not create any My(Source) page.
I am not disputing the usefulness of the CuriousFox sites, and I appreciate Colin bringing this resource to User's attention. I was just stating that based on our policies, I did not believe that message board type sites would receive a community Source page. --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:43, 17 January 2013 (EST)
Sure, and what I'm saying is that we can see - from this situation - that the policy may be unhelpful. It carries an expectation that either A) people will have the knowledge of what makes a good source (demonstrably untrue), or B) they won't be offended when they're busted by the source patrol (probably untrue). Besides easing creation of good citations, the point of Source pages is to share what you've learned about a reference with others. This is the very essence of shared wiki scholarship - so the policy of jettisoning/sidelining weak/non-Source references is fundamentally counter-wiki. My claim is that it's better wiki practice, and more polite, to embrace whatever reference pages people choose to create - and if they're weak - use those as a gentle teaching/sharing opportunity. Show on the source page itself WHY that reference is not to be preferred as a citation (We can certainly create an objective way to indicate this). Keeping such pages has the key wiki benefit of leaving information about that reference, including discussion of the flaws, in a place where subsequent users can encounter it and learn from it (I just don't see users searching other people's "MySource" for this sort of stuff).
One final note - I'm not trying to sustain this debate - I gladly defer to the source committee now and going forward. I just want to be sure that my point is completely understood so it can be properly considered. Thanks for your attention! --jrm03063 08:50, 17 January 2013 (EST)
All this is an interesting discussion, but there's some history behind this issue of which not everyone is probably aware. Old-timers (relatively speaking) will remember that early on at WeRelate, the consensus was reached that a Source page was meant to imply an "acceptable" source. Possibly questionable sources, or sources not generally available (such as unpublished family correspondence), especially if one meant to cite them only once or twice, were relegated, by consensus, to MySource pages or simply unlinked "citations." Personally, I don't see the point in creating a Source page for something and then, in effect, posting a notice on it saying "DON'T CITE THIS." Besides, nothing here is carved in stone. I've created a couple of MySources myself, such as unpublished military rosters, and later reconsidered (because I realized they were much more broadly useful) and converted them to regular Source pages. But I'd rather see that done on a case-by-case basis. --MikeTalk 12:29, 17 January 2013 (EST)
I dimly remember some of that - and remember too that there were a lot of things drawn in when the source database was initially seeded. I completely get the idea that some of that was pure junk, and that the most efficient path forward - then - was to delete such entries. What's now being discussed is a little different.
These are items that are being brought up in the context of someone on the site alleging that something is useful, or someone uploaded a GEDCOM containing a bunch of cites to a particular reference. To my mind, the simplest and safest thing to do, is to just boldly go forth and create a corresponding "Source" page. Until the page is created - there's really no where for discussion about the source to live. While it may be counter-intuitive to create a source page that - eventually - is tagged as not being a good basis for citations - it's counter-wiki to presume that understanding exists WHEN the page is created, or, after that conclusion is drawn, to junk the page, findings, and discussion that led there. While some folks might consider a MySource sufficient for this task, most of us are not going to pay attention to "MySource" items that we don't own.
There's perhaps a third way (though I don't care much for it). I have created "MySource" pages that have a name prefix of "WeRelate", instead of "jrm03063". I don't like "MySource/user" named pages, when there's nothing about the item that makes it special or proprietary to "user". It's been my way of accepting the community's guidance that certain things (e-mail extracts, wills, etc.) are required to be "MySource" - but still disavowing a proprietary interest in the page. Maybe the source patrol would agree to include such pages in their "rounds" - and if a Source page is "demoted" - we can try to be careful to include both the content and the talk in a resulting "MySource/WeRelate" - and to create a redirect from Source to the MySource.
Stepping back a bit, what I think we're trying to do is to encourage use of the best reference items and to (gently) discourage use of those that are weaker. Is that best done by eliminating anything that doesn't measure up - or by leaving the weak pages in place - with supporting discussion - to indicate why such conclusions are drawn? --jrm03063 14:39, 17 January 2013 (EST)
Agree with Mike, plus additional background: Having a Source page is useful because it 1) allows discussion of the source; 2) facilitates repeated citation; and 3) standardizes the cite (new feature). While it is true that this works for both good and bad sources, it was decided that it was not a good use of our collective time to maintain a database that includes sources that are generally low to indeterminate quality and rarely cited, only to explain on each one that they are not things that should be cited. (There are exceptions for web resources that will be frequently cited by users regardless of what we say (i.e., One World Tree, WorldConnect).) Users that create these sources do get an explanation (if they are recently created and/or still active). The alternative of leaving the Source page requires users to actually click through and read it, which is unlikely, and when a user doesn't, they get the wrong impression that such citations are welcome. Plus the user that created it gets an even more public "you are wrong" than they do through an edit note that no one else will likely see. In short, I think the person creating the page will learn either way, other users are just as likely to get the wrong impression as the right one if the pages are allowed, and the plan doesn't scale in either source patrol effort or database usage, given the number of pages we're potentially talking about.--Amelia 19:00, 23 January 2013 (EST)
Then I will hope that you are right, and I am wrong. --jrm03063 19:17, 23 January 2013 (EST)