Talk:Source Page Review Guide

Surnames [11 February 2011]

Sometimes, the list of surnames in WeRelate sources are missing prefixes (such as Van, De, Van Der, etc). A quick check of the FHLC entry will confirm the correct surname spelling, and these can be added to the WR source. --Jennifer (JBS66) 08:21, 11 February 2011 (EST)

p.s. It is the notes section that usually contains the correct surname, the Subjects section often contains the abbreviated version. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:15, 11 February 2011 (EST)

Text from FHLC [19 February 2011]

Do you know if text from the Notes section of the FHLC can be copied to WR (such as the paragraph from here that begins "Descendants of Johannes Verhaaren")? Often this contains useful information and names that would be a nice addition to WR. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:33, 11 February 2011 (EST)

I don't know, and would love to know, because I agree. I often rewrite that info in a shorthand list to add content info to the WeRelate Source page. An example is [1]. I would translate this content to:

"Includes:

• intentions of marriage 1814-1887
• marriage records 1815-1891
• delayed births
• family records listing births
• deaths 1812-1891."

This seems like a pretty minimal rewrite for copyright purposes, but I don't know how else to capture the details of the content, which I think are really useful for the page. I assume you could do something similar with the genealogy notes in the FHLC, but it would be good to know we are doing something that is acceptable use... --Brenda (kennebec1) 12:53, 11 February 2011 (EST)

Sandra, what do you think?--Dallan 19:25, 12 February 2011 (EST)

Sorry this took a few days. I went up the chain to make sure about the copying from FHCL notes. They said it was fine to copy direct from FHCL to WeRelate.--Sandralpond 09:37, 17 February 2011 (EST) Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding the permission to copy Family History Center notes is only to copy to the WeRelate site.Sandralpond

How can we do that, considering the fact that WR is licensed CC-BY-SA? --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:16, 18 February 2011 (EST)

Great! Thanks for looking into this Sandra. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:33, 18 February 2011 (EST)

We can copy from WFCL because Dallan has a agreement with them to use FHCL and did download from there 5 years ago with their permission plus we give them credit with notes and Hyperlinks on each page. The notes we're talking about are on a seperate page on the link page in the FHCL. I have also found one source that had been indexed to the Family Search site.--Sandralpond 12:48, 18 February 2011 (EST)

My question is really about the phrase "only to copy to the WeRelate site". Since all information that is on WR is freely available to reuse with attribution, the notes from FHLC would be open to others using it (if I understand WR's licensing correctly). --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:56, 18 February 2011 (EST)

Sorry I may have over stated the policy. AS I look over the review of sources, everyone I look at already has the notes added and aother worker from Family Search has found the same. So the majority are already here. What may have happened to a few larger notes is that they were not taken in in the original download and no one see this as a problem for them to be copied now.Sandralpond 09:59, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Thank-you for checking into this Sandra! I'll continue to discuss this with people at FamilySearch. (I didn't extract any notes originally, so they must have been added later.)--Dallan 12:59, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Categories [14 February 2011]

Regarding categories, I agree completely that categories need geographic groupings to be useful. My thought is that it would be helpful if Dallan could tweak the way categories are now automatically generated to take the type and subject fields into consideration.

Examples of more descriptive source categories:

• Maps/Gazetteers in Maine, United States
• Newspapers in Maine, United States
• Church records in Maine, United States

It would also be helpful if source categories were not put directly into a Place category (this again is automatically-generated). For example, instead of putting sources into Category:Maine, United States, put them into Category:Sources in Maine, United States instead. --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:49, 12 February 2011 (EST)

This is do-able. The only issue is that if I put sources in say "Church records in Maine, United States", then either a human or a computer needs to create that category and add [[Category:Sources in Maine, United States]] to its text. Next they need to create the "Sources in Maine, United States" category and add [[Category:Maine, United States]] to its text. If we go this route, can we teach users to create these categories with the proper text, or do we need a to have a computer periodically create these category pages?--Dallan 19:29, 12 February 2011 (EST)

I vote to teach the users. I started a basic layout with notes and questions at User:JBS66/Sandbox. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:18, 13 February 2011 (EST)

Just to clarify... using Source:Sibley, John Langdon. Biographical Sketches of Those who Attended Harvard College (1690-1774) as an example. We probably don't want sources to be placed directly into a Place category any more. So, the category box at the bottom would contain: Biography in Virginia, United States; Biography in New Hampshire, United States, etc... then those categories would go underneath both a Source category heading and a Place category. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:29, 13 February 2011 (EST)

I definitely need some basic instruction on creating categories; I don't understand how one adds a "subsidiary" category. Am I translating correctly, Dallan and Jennifer, that what you are saying is that once the desired category is created (say, Church records in Maine, United States), the Category page itself needs to be edited to place that Category page into appropriate upper level categories (meaning... Category:Sources in Maine, United States.). Then the Category page for Sources in Maine, United States needs to be edited with the Place category?

Does something similar need to happen with the "Church records" side of the hierarchy? Does the "Church records in Maine" category page need a link to the "Church records" category? or are we proposing to eliminate the general grouping?

Ok, now that I write that out, I see exactly what is going on... to be in a category, a source page has to have the category link on it. But each page only wants the lowest applicable category in the hierarchy on the page itself. That Category page in turn needs to have a category link to the next highest level in the hierarchy, and so on.

This is exactly right. Let me use one of your person pages as an example: Person:Frances Cluff (1). The category at the bottom of the page, Cluff surname, was placed there automatically. However, it is red-linked, which means that even though you click on the page, and items appear in it, the page really doesn't exist. The page where surnames like this reside Category:Surnames, doesn't have a Cluff listed. So, we need to tell this Category:Cluff surname where to go. So, we can edit the page, and put its parent category on the page - essentially telling it under which category to place this Cluff surname (in this case we'd put Category:Surnames).

I don't believe we've come to a firm enough conclusion as to what the category structure should be yet though. We do know we want to tweak the way categories are added Source pages - then we'll need to decide how best to organize them. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:58, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Sorry to be dense about it.

I'd note that not all sources have places attached. In particular, family histories/genealogies are often not linked to place pages, and those that are linked tend to reflect only the most dominant places (i.e. the place name in the title, often the point where the genealogy begins). Does that make a difference to this discussion, or would these be handled differently?

In connection to this, one thing I'd note is that with the "surname in place" as autogenerated, it is assumed that every name in the Surnames box is found in every location in Locations box, resulting in an lengthy list of categories, many of which would turn out to be false leads once followed.

I'm not saying that there is any good solution to that - it is part of the autogeneration fuction, and having too many links to surnames-in-places is better than having no links at all, if they had to be done manually. But we are potentially recreating this by autogenerating categories for subjects and places. Not sure this matters, but something to think about anyway.

Finally, should this be a part of the WeRelate:Current Source Projects page instead of here? Should we move the discussion? --Brenda (kennebec1) 12:44, 14 February 2011 (EST)

I think this conversation illustrates why I think the system needs to be responsible for creating the category pages and putting them into the correct super-categories. I don't think we can expect most users to learn this.

Yes, I think this conversation should be moved; let's continue it on WeRelate:Current Source Projects.--Dallan 20:57, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Tie together Places and Sources [14 February 2011]

I know this topic doesn't really belong here... but I wasn't sure where to put it... I've been thinking that it would be nice to better tie together our Place and our Source pages. I came up with an idea (see Place:Friesland, Netherlands). There is a box at the bottom of the page that says "Search for Friesland, Netherlands Sources". The links match our Subject drop-down box, and currently lead a user to a Search for that subject/place. This may not be necessary for every place page (as there may be limited resources at the town level) - but the country, state, and country level may be helpful. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:35, 13 February 2011 (EST)

Wow, I really like this. Perhaps it should look more like a WeRelate box (coloration wise) and less like a "special info" box (i.e. like the Project boxes for Mayflower passengers), but it is a really nice shortcut. I suppose it might be considered unnecessary if space is at a premium, since the search function is always just a click away, but it is a really nice effect, and navigation/search tools are always useful.

--Brenda (kennebec1) 11:28, 14 February 2011 (EST)

When you say a "WeRelate box" - what do you mean? I see the color as being close to the color where the Contained places are on the right, do you mean a different box? Also, when Dallan upgrades to the new MediaWiki version, these boxes can be made to be hidden initially (with only the top header visible). --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:58, 14 February 2011 (EST)

I guess I do mean the Contained places box. I thought perhaps the "orange" outline or orange header needed to be there for it to look like an "official" box. But I like the way it looks now, and it fits into the other items at the bottom of the page, so perhaps the "bottom box" look is/can be different than the sidebar look (meaning if you wrapped in orange now, it would look funny compared to the other boxes at the bottom, unless it was always at the bottom, or....)

I don't have a strong graphic design opinion here; just wondering if it needed to stand out as part of the WeRelate navigation portion of the page (versus page content). I know the whole issue of banners and boxes has been hotly debated... don't want to begin to go down that road. So maybe this helps explain what I meant? --Brenda (kennebec1) 12:53, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Let's move this to WeRelate:Current Source Projects as well.--Dallan 20:57, 14 February 2011 (EST)

List of surnames on source pages [14 February 2011]

Example: Source:Ferwerderadeel, Friesland, Netherlands. Schutterij, 1858-1867. Can we display the Surnames covered more compactly, such as side-by-side? Can they also be sorted alphabetically automatically? --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:41, 13 February 2011 (EST)

I could list the surnames in a single comma-separated list and sort them alphabetically. That would be pretty easy.--Dallan 20:57, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Review of subsidiary articles [19 February 2011]

Would those of you who are following this page consider taking a look at some of the more specific pages I've added? only a few have any real content to date, but it is in these subject and type discussions that I've noted some areas where I haven't known what the "correct" solution was to a variety of source dilemmas. I'd appreciate any feedback... (I've tried to be careful to distinquish between my suggestions and what I know of the official wiki guidelines). Thanks. --Brenda (kennebec1) 13:30, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Template for Merging source pages [20 February 2011]

Have found a duplicate source page in my Review of Source Pages-West Virginia: Source:Egan, Michael. Flying, Gray-Haired Yank, or, the Adventures of a Volunteer- I did review one and went to the next to find there are two exactly alike. I tried to use the Merge Template and found out it is not useful. How do I solve this problem? Can we delete a page? If we can merge source pages I find no page to tell me how. Thanks if you can help me.Sandralpond 19:53, 19 February 2011 (EST)

The Merge template that you used does not merge two pages together. I think it was one user's experiment and is not a template that is in use. So... if you find duplicate sources, they can be merged by:

1. Opening each source page in separate browser tabs
2. Combine the accurate information from each page onto the page with the properly formatted Source Page name and Save the page.
3. Go to the duplicate source page (the one you don't want to keep). Put the following onto the first line of the big box that is under the word Text: #REDIRECT[[title of page here]] where title of page here is the title of the page that you do want to keep. Press Save page
4. Now, the old page will be redirected to the page you want to keep - just bear in mind that all of the information on the old page will be deleted, so be sure to move over any important data first.

There is some help text about this here. --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:10, 20 February 2011 (EST)

Hi, Sandra - this is a section to the "Guide" that I haven't written up yet, but it is basically straightforward, particularly if neither source has been used in a citation (i.e. it isn't linked to a person or family page).

Thus, I'd add to Jennifer's comments only that you might take a look at each of the original source pages "What links here". If one source has been used for citations, it can be helpful to retain that source (and redirect the other one). This prevents possible double redirects (a redirect to a redirect). If it is better to retain the source that has not been used, and there are not a great number of citations, you could open up the person and family pages that are affected and replace the now-obsolete source page name with the one you are retaining.

This is above and beyond the basics, tho, so its just fine to follow Jennifer's basic guidelines, which I'll also move over to the Source Page Review Guide and/or to a related page on duplicate sources. --Brenda (kennebec1) 10:31, 20 February 2011 (EST)

Template for multiple editions language [20 February 2011]

There is now a template for the multiple editions language Template:MultipleEditions. --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:56, 20 February 2011 (EST)

Thanks, Jennifer, I added this to the Source Page Review Guide. --Brenda (kennebec1) 11:06, 20 February 2011 (EST)

FHL film numbers [14 March 2011]

I have seen over the years a few different conversations that suggest removing the FHL film numbers section from source pages. I have been removing this section on the sources I edit. Today I came across this page that shows in 2006 Dallan purposefully added the film numbers to the source pages. I would rather not have a long list of film numbers since this information can be obtained by clicking on the repository link. What is the consensus on keeping or discarding them? --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:59, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

It ended up not being as helpful as I thought it would be. As you say, you can get them from the FHLC, and they have film notes that go along with them there. Feel free to remove them.--Dallan 23:20, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

Author's surname in source titles [16 March 2011]

This was discussed on the Support page, but I wanted to also leave a note here. When a source's author has a surname such as van der Veen - some sources are being titled as Source:Veen, Jan Van der... This may not affect many of the U.S. source pages - but these should be renamed to Source:Van der Veen, Jan... as part of the review. --Jennifer (JBS66) 06:53, 15 March 2011 (EDT)

I'll fix the source titling algorithm later this week so that pages created in the future are titled correctly.--Dallan 21:52, 16 March 2011 (EDT)