Repository talk:Archives of Ontario

Note to Jrm03063:

Your adjustment to the "place" details for Ontario Archives led me to look at this page more carefully--and make a lot of alterations. Even the phone number had changed!

Because Ontario Archives deals with the whole province I changed the "place" details to "Ontario, Canada". Otherwise, it infers that it only deals with Toronto. There may be many a repository in our database that has the same problem.

Other additions should be self-explanatory. --Goldenoldie 07:26, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm a believer in using Wikipedia whenever we can. It's got the best shot at being maintained/updated over time, and there will never be enough of us (on WeRelate) to do proper justice to the scope we're trying to cover. I havn't removed any content anywhere - but I've been working through a lot of repository pages and adding WP where I can - and I'm inclined to wonder how often we'ld be better served by cutting it back to just WP and leaving it at that. -jrm

I'm not sold on Wikipedia. I use it first (because it's there), but there is many a time it does not give me the answer I am looking for. The place pages that describe places only in terms of where they are presently with no reference to municipal reorganizations that have taken place since 1970 are very unhelpful to a family historian (and these reorganizations occurred in both the UK and in Ontario). The same is true of UK place pages that cover history only up to the time of the Domesday Book. Some contibutors care about the past; others only see the need to tell if a place has a pub and/or a fish and chip shop. --Goldenoldie 20:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you believe in the wiki way or you don't. If you don't - (not intending to be curt) - how do you justify working here? I don't believe in use of WP to the exclusion of WR - years ago I did - but I see them now as complementary. I would claim that we should try to use both and play each to their strengths. When we have local contributions that are not genealogically specific/useful (and there's a corresponding WP page) - there's a case to be made for dumping them in favor of letting the larger WP community maintain that information in an updated state. Genealogically specific information that won't be expected on a WP page - makes perfect sense on WR. So it's not a case of either/or - rather both/and - choosing the best forum based on the sort of information presented. For example this page opens with a perfectly lovely introduction to the Chicago Library system (it's a very nice piece of prose, really!) - but it's utterly devoid of genealogical specifics. So why? The subsequent sections are absolutely appropriate and specific to our mission.
That's the case I'm making. I'm not going to run around a gut content based on this perspective of mine - we're very far from needing to be so picky about things - but I never want to miss out on the contributions of a huge community over in WP land - just because they're not all gung-ho genealogy folks.
Do you see my point? You don't have to agree of course - I just like people to understand where I'm coming from. :) --jrm03063 21:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)