WeRelate talk:Watercooler

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Opportunity to help with will transcription [31 January 2025]

A project to transcribe wills of England 1540-1790 is looking for volunteers. It looks like a lot of the work is to check computer-generated transcriptions. If you are interested, check it out. The sponsors (University of Exeter, The National Archives, and the Leverhulme Trust) intend to make the transcriptions available to the public (and "all contributors will be acknowledged"). They currently have almost 17,000 volunteers, and consider the project to be 81% complete, although most of the work done to date is on later (and thus, easier to read) wills.--DataAnalyst 15:30, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me. Unfortunately, my eyes are getting pretty old and I don't feel I could tackle early handwriting or typescript. --Goldenoldie 16:45, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Indexer is temporarily shut off [23 February 2025]

Dallan is researching a recurring performance issue over the last several days. To help in the investigation, he has temporarily shut down the indexer. For now, please don't report problems with pages not being indexed and searches for recently created pages not showing results - this is expected.--DataAnalyst 12:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

The search issues have finally been resolved and indexing is back on. Someone created a bot that issued searches from dozens of different IP addresses as fast as possible. They would turn it on periodically and when they did it would take down search for everyone else. I've blocked their IP addresses and things are much better. If this happens again I know what to look for now and should be able to resolve it much more quickly. Thank you for everyone's patience the past few days.--Dallan 19:54, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

February access issues [4 March 2025]

Very much wondering about whether there is some indication as to root cause for access issues (504 errors) encountered in mid- to late-February 2025. Thoughts?? --ceyockey 04:35, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

See the above post from Dallan. Dallan shared instructions with me for how to block future bots, so if I'm home, I should be able to deal with the problem in a reasonably timely manner when it happens in the future.--DataAnalyst 12:43, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying by referral. --ceyockey 05:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Manually archiving -- >500 so far [4 March 2025]

Hello. After the access issues that struck the site recently, I've committed to archiving many people and families with surnames of interest to me, starting with "Yockey" surnamed-person pages. I've so far manually archived or confirmed 500 individuals, dropping copies off to both archive.org and archive.is. In Firefox, my browser of choice, there are plugins/extensions for both of these sites, which helps streamline the work, though it is still a slog :-). I do encourage others to take similar steps with their core families ... not as a panic, but as a backstop against any future issues, be they transient or long term. Regards --ceyockey 05:04, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Site not working again [18 March 2025]

504 Gateway Time-Out--Susan Irish 08:55, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

The search server was down. I have restarted it and will keep an eye on it.--DataAnalyst 11:47, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Getting "Search is temporarily unavilable" for the last twelve hours. Server issue?--jaques1724 11:57, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

The site is still experiencing problems and Dallan's investigations have not yet nailed down the problem. He turned search off so that the site can still operate in a limited way (if you already have a link to a page, such as in your recent contributions, you can still make some edits). Search may be up and down for several days as he tries to find the root cause.--DataAnalyst 17:11, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

In the meantime, I am trying to fix all pages that have imbalanced parentheses, brackets, or braces in the person name or place name (such as "(" without matching ")"), as we know that the bots create invalid queries from these pages, and there is a possibility that these invalid queries are part of the problem. There are about 550 pages left to fix. If anyone wants to help, let me know and I will post links.--DataAnalyst 17:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I really appreciate your efforts Dallan and Jane. Thx R woepwoep 19:27, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Search has been turned back on, without the ability to sort search results. Dallan is monitoring the site to see what problems might arise. System availability might be sporadic for a while.--DataAnalyst 16:45, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

The ability to sort search results has been turned back on. We're still having problems with bots hammering the system too hard, and thus, Dallan has restricted searching so that you have to be logged in to search.--DataAnalyst 15:38, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Do you have information on how frequently and consistently Google (for instance) indexes the site so that Google-related search indices can be used as an external workaround for internal search? Thanks for considering this. --ceyockey 03:58, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Based on their traffic, I'd guess daily.

I'm working on Help pages and just discovered this feature I wasn't aware of: If you select the Admin menu at the top of the page and then Browse Pages under it and select a namespace, it allows you to browse through pages by page name. So if you are pretty sure that the page you are looking for is called Joseph Josselyn, you should be able to find it fairly quickly - if it ends up it was called Joe Josselyn, you would have to specifically look for that version. Capitalization matters.--DataAnalyst 12:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

A different take on pedigrees ... I think [26 March 2025]

Let me know if you've heard this before ... I've created a modified pedigree nomenclature that aims to support cross-family relationships and investigative extensions to existing families. I've collated this information at User:Ceyockey/Pedigrees. Would be useful if you let me know if this is something that has already been covered in detail via other means. This inquiry is one of exploration ... I've posed a solution to a problem and seek the best solution to that problem by comparison in relation to your more extensive experience. Thanks. --ceyockey 03:34, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Changes to cross-reference templates [27 March 2025]

If you use any of the templates FSID, WTID, Wikidata, or AFN, please note that they were recently changed so that, when used with a single parameter, they automatically identify the site they reference. The intent is that this is how the templates will be used in a "Reference Number" fact. For an example, see Neva Ackerman.

When using these templates in a source citation (where the referenced site is identified in the title field), you are advised to use two parameters, the second being the text to display for the link. When used with two parameters, the template doesn't display the label. Please see the template documentation (click on any of the above links) for further information.

Existing usage of these templates has been updated to conform to the new design, with the exception of several thousand usages of FSID in source citations, which will be updated gradually over the next few months.

Note also a minor software change to no longer display the small red question mark on a Reference Number without a source citation, since the reference number is essentially a link to its own source.

If you have any questions about this, just ask.--DataAnalyst 02:21, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Removal of Soc Sec No and Ancestral File Number fact types [29 March 2025]

In keeping with WeRelate's revised conventions for facts and events, WeRelate will be removing Soc Sec No from the list of fact types (it represents a source, not a significant fact or event in a person's life). Existing Soc Sec No facts with a Place will be changed to Residence facts, and existing facts without a Place will be removed. A limited amount of manual cleanup is occurring before this change is made.

The Ancestral File Number fact type will also be dropped, and existing records changed to Reference Number facts, using the AFN template. (Note that the Ancestral File has been deprecated by FamilySearch.)

The GEDCOM upload will be changed accordingly.

If you have any questions or concern, please post them here.--DataAnalyst 14:48, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Moved to Cloudflare to combat bot attacks [11 May 2025]

I've moved the site behind Cloudflare in order to combat the bot attacks. Things appear to be much better; cloudflare is blocking most of the bot traffic. It means you may get challenged every once in a while to prove you are a human. Hopefully this finally resolves the bot issues.--Dallan 15:31, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. I had an unintended "nothing" day yesterday.

I have just finished updating the place pages for Boston Rural District and expect to see the "Wikipedia" quotes added soon. I hope I have picked up all of WP's mistakes!

Regards, --Goldenoldie 16:26, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for finding us a solution, Dallan. So glad to have performance back to what it should be! This will save us both a lot of headaches constantly fighting the bots.--DataAnalyst 16:34, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Use of Color in Footnotes? [26 July 2025]

In my work I use a lot of footnotes. I'm in the process of transferring some of my product to WeRelate, mostly intended to support discussion with others. The foot notes won't transfer intact but I know how to recreate them on WeRelate. Since my work only exists in electronic format I'm not limited in the use of color. In the case of footnotes I use a recd color to make it easier to identify them. My question is can I change the color of footnotes on We WeRelate?
An example page (still under construction) in this project is at Combine Record Table for there presence of "Pattens" in Washington County Ohio, 1800 to 1830. I use to work quite a bit on WeRelate. One of my reasons for returning is the easy of making links between pages. That works well for me as what I'm looking to create is a main article then links to a variety supporting articles. There's also the fact that other wikis don't really look very nice (sorry not trying to offend, but there aesthetics are not to my taste. WeRelate on the other hand looks nice and a lot easier to work on. Even the Ads display nicely.

Bill Willis 17:21, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Bill

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking when you say "can I change the color of footnotes"? Do you mean source citations and notes on Person and Family pages? Technically, the same techniques you use on your example page work in both source citations and notes.

Or are you asking whether it is acceptable to do so? Since you have already pointed out the aesthetics of WeRelate, I would ask that you respect the generally toned-down appearance of WeRelate (softer rather than bright colors, minimally visible shading in boxes, avoidance of all caps, large fonts only for headings). I suspect that WeRelate's "clean" look attracts more than its share of neuro-diverse users, who find bright colors, all caps, overuse of bold, and inconsistent font size to be overwhelming. For example, we've had complaints about (and removed) use of bright yellow fill on templates.

Personally, I found the tables in your example with duller colors more palatable than the one with bright yellow, which just "yelled" at me, particularly since it also used a larger font.

Also, I can understand using color and other techniques to improve clarity (e.g., in tables), whether or not in footnotes, but such techniques should be used with caution if the intent is to draw attention to one footnote over another, as different people may have different opinions about the importance of various footnotes.

Does that answer your question? I might take this to the WeRelate Advisory Council, as what I have responded is my personal opinion, and they might offer other guidance.--DataAnalyst 18:25, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, all good advice. Getting the aesthetics right is a main goal. You and Judith would probably not like the earlier iteration of that section. No, not at all. Believe it or not it's toned down from what it was. I will tone it down further.

As to the footnote question. Yes that's what you refer to as source citations. I'll plan on using those those as well specifically for citations. The same coding will also do quite nicely for footnotes though theyare really another beast altogether. As far as I can tell I cannot easily change the color of the footnote number in the main text. The objective is to make the number easy to find. Footnotes numbers in black are small and easily overlooked. There's a reason for using them and that's to add additional insight into something. Sometimes they can be used to explain something that the interested reader might need some additional insight. Sometimes they might be used to send the reader to a different article altogether. I make heavy use of them in my main work. They are actually even more useful on WeRelate.

What I was asking was "Is there a way to change the color of the number calling out the footnote itself. I don't think a simple <font bgcolor>will do it. Checking around I found a suggestion to use Styles but I'm not sure that is enabled here. And styles are, I think, an overkill solution. So any advice here is most welcome. Bill Willis 22:18, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I like having color, but I am having trouble with the sample page. The yellow highlight makes it extremely difficult to read the text. Brain is overwhelmed by the brightness to the point of pain. I agree with the above comments about the grayed colors being much easier on the eyes than the brights. Good to see you back. --Judith 19:15, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, That was one of the questions I was eventually going to ask.

I'm glad to be back, though I have come here occasionally prior to this, doing stuff here and there, but mostly working in articles and thinking about how to approach the larger project. I literally have so much information on this family line that I won't be able to get all of it into WeRelate. Bill Willis 22:18, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I understand now. I'm going to have to defer to someone else with a better understanding of HTML. However, the standard color for footnote numbers in a narrative is blue (not black) indicating a link. I see that you now have the footnote numbers in blue, but the links are not working. If you haven't already looked at the Help page for formatting, you might find this topic useful:

How Do I create References and Footnotes? - see method 2.--DataAnalyst 22:43, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Color Scheme

I've done a bit of toning down on the color scheme in Combine Record Table for there presence of "Pattens" in Washington County Ohio, 1800 to 1830. I was going to get input on this from outside the group, but I'd rather get a good workable scheme now. That will minimize any need for redo's going forward. I've adjusted the yellow background highlight in the main text, and did the same in the large html data table. So comments are are appreciated. The table with the blue header is more difficult. That particular color is one I use for tables that I expect to be located eventually in another area of the document. This helps me spot them in the original. The normal shade is much more subdued (light green shade) I'll create a mockup of this table for use on WeRelate, and do the same for any future tables. I use tables extensively to store data. They include links to the original documents when I can, or whatever intermediate document that I may have used. I want to minis the need to replace them on this site but want to be sure the color scheme works here. I'll replace that table now. When done any advice would be much appreciated.--Bill Willis 22:15, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

How to Create a footnote [1 August 2025]

I've been looking at the help section for creating references/footnotes. This section of Help:Formatting was clearly written by someone who knew really knew how to make them sing.
However, I did find it difficult to understand from the perspective of someone who DOESN't know how to make it sing. The big stumbling block was that it didn't mention how one made the list appear. The answer to that is fairly simple, but needs to be added to the text.

I've taken a shot a drafting an alternative explanation for part of the section. Since this is dealing with the 'Help:Formatting" page, I'd rather get input first on whether this is a good idea.

Suggested insert:

At the point in the text where you want to insert a footnote insert

<ref name="Footnote Category">Footnote text</ref>

Where:

Footnote Category identifies this particular footnote. It can be anything you want it to be as long it is text and not a number byitself. This allows the same footnote to be used multiple times in the document. When used multiple times this will result in a single footnote entry in your list of footnotes.

Footnote Text is whatever you want the footnote to say. It can be a bit of added commentary or a reference citation.

To make the footnotes visible on the page you need to create a section entitled ==Footnotes=== The title of the section does not need to be "Footnotes". "References" will do, or literally anything you want to call it. Calling it "Gumbo" for example, will do just fine

What triggers the placement of the footnotes in this section is adding the tag <references/>
.--Bill Willis 14:59, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I have also found this section somewhat difficult to comprehend - usually takes a couple of read-throughs. However, I would note that it already includes how to make the list appear (<references/>) right at the end of the "You Type" section in Method 2.

I would like to rewrite both Methods, to clarify when to use Method 1 and when to use Method 2 because I don't think the existing guidance hits the mark. Give me some time to sit with it. My "good writing" brain is mostly being used up with volunteer work for another organization right now. I don't object to your suggestion, which points out some things more obviously, other than I don't think that Footnote Category is a good term for a specific footnote. It is really a Footnote Name.--DataAnalyst 22:00, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Good! I'll look forward to your revisions. Yes, I agree Footnote Name is the better choice. I've been gone from WeRelate for quite awhile, and am having to relearn some of the tagging, etc.

I read that description over and over, and did not see the <references/>. I think I'm a reasonably intelligent person, but I found that description to be challenging. ~~----

I have always found that section confusing. Really there are three methods there: <ref name="S1"/>, <ref name="something">footnote text</ref>, and {{cite|S1}}. The first two are really variants of the same method and the latter seems to be deprecated (is that right?). Probably it should be reorganized into that order.

I would say if you think you can improve that section, feel free to be bold.

Also, to get technical, I am pretty sure that the "name" of "ref" is an HTML "id" attribute. Grimy details are on this page. So sticking to alphanumerics is best, and keep in mind that if someone clicks on the link it gets added to the URL in the browser, so it is a good idea to be concise.

--Trentf 14:32, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you are right that it is technically an "id" but that encourages the use of numbers. I'll either just call it a name (encouraging brevity) or explain it more for those who might know it as an "id". I think I have today and the weekend mostly free of my other volunteer work, so I might get to it soon.--DataAnalyst 15:16, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

True, I just meant that info could be put in as a footnote for those wanting more precise technical info. We should just say that the "name" should be a meaningful but short alphanumeric tag with no funny characters, and that it will be visible in the URL.

I will take a stab at editing that section, unless you really want to. --Trentf 16:18, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

You can go ahead. I mainly wanted to divide it into what to do on a Person or Family page (where source and note functionality can handle all footnote text) and what to do on a page without source and note functionality (where you have to use what is now the second method). I think we should encourage the simpler method on Person and Family pages so that pages are easier to edit by the next contributor. And then to mention the cite tag as deprecated.--DataAnalyst 16:42, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

OK, I made a stab at reworking that section. I mainly rearranged the existing text and fixed up formatting, but I think it is better now. --Trentf 20:05, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Watercooler [2 August 2025]

It seems to me that it used to be easier to get to the WaterCooler. There may be a link somewhere that will get you there quickly but so far I've had to use the search function on the Help page to find it. I suspect that most folks coming to this site would not find it easily.

Perhaps the Watercolor is now intended more for administrative communication?

Also, looks like its time to archive?

--Bill Willis 15:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Watercooler is on the Help menu. It isn't necessary to do a search to stumble across it. As a newbie I looked at everything on the Help menu. I thought this was a good place for it because it gave insight into the culture of the site in addition to the nuts and bolts type help.

--Judith 18:21, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I just found that a few minutes ago. I think I was expecting it to be more prominent. A Keystone in a dynamic working environment, but perhaps as good a choice as any. However, I note that it is now being used mostly by a handful of administers. Apparently the average user isn't going here for information, or to participate in the conversation. That probably tells me something.~~----

Yes, this page does need to be archived... I would do it but I'm not sure of the process. Is it just a matter of creating an archive page, copy/paste the current watercooler in, and then delete all that from the watercooler page? I can do that if someone can confirm.

Yes, I am pretty sure that is the process. See the archive page links at the top for the naming convention. And thanks for offering.--DataAnalyst 15:38, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Done. Let me know if I screwed it up :) --Trentf 16:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Looks Great. Thank you!--Bill Willis 21:53, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

The purpose of the watercooler has never changed, it is just a reflection of who happens to pop in to talk (and the fact that we had a flurry of administrative activity and communication due to new AI bots this spring--DataAnalyst 15:38, 1 August 2025 (UTC)). Anybody should be able to come here to chat (though for some things the Support page would be a better place). I suspect the size of this page can hinder discussion.

The watercooler is linked on the home page, and the help dropdown on every page has a link as well. Is there somewhere else it should be linked? Or should it be linked to more prominently in some way?

--Trentf 15:32, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

To me this is an important enough page that it should be somewhere obvious. Make it more obvious, more traffic will flow to it. Helps build a sense of community. Shared experiences, etc. I think it important enough to put it in the top right-hand menu of the Home page. Easy to get to. Helpful for people new to the site, and new to Wiki Genealogy. I think that some things could use streamlining. --Bill Willis 15:05, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Changes to Help:Formating [6 August 2025]

DataAnalyst made changes to the section dealing with footnotes. That helped greatly. Much clearer. Did not realize that method 1 only applied to person and places pages. Perhaps that was in the original and i just didn't catch it. Possibly an addition to Method 2 indicating that it would work on other types of pages would be helpful.

He also noted: " I suspect the size of this page can hinder discussion." I think that is true. There are something like 40 links on this page, which might hinder a new user from finding the information they needed. Could be a bit overwhelming. Perhaps more space separation between main subject areas and the siblings to specific problems would help. Alternatively it might be useful to convert this to a portal, with the main portal page just showing like to the main categories? That might help make it more user friendly.--Bill Willis 13:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I added another sentence to Help:Formatting which hopefully clarifies things further. Basically, using formal source and notes are always preferred, but those only exist on Person and Family pages.

As for the length of this page, I think archiving the pre-2025 content should have helped. My usual method of dealing with this page is to start from the bottom and read upwards (newest to oldest). But, IMHO, Wikis are not the ideal mechanism for carrying on discussions, though it has been done since the first wiki, it just takes some getting used to. Maybe some advice like that at the top of the page may help.

I can't quite picture what your alternative would be, are you suggesting a separate page for each topic? I fear that could also be unwieldy but in the other direction. --Trentf 14:27, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

The archiving of the "recent" water cooler comments was gratefully appreciated. Seems like having them listed with latest messages on the top, and oldest messages on the bottom wold be helpful--and make archiving less needed?

As to the Help:Formatting page---as it stands I think it's a bit intimidating. Too much information all at once and everywhere.

What I thought might help was creating a portal that included the main topics as links to specific pages dealing with only a single set of ::"FAQ". That would allow the user to focus on their specific problem, without getting lost among the many sets of unrelated FAQs. The downside might be that an end user might not recognize in which set of FAQs his problem lay.

An alternative might be to keep everything on one page, but give individual FAQ sets better separation from the others sets. Here I'm really focusing on what's needed to help a new use. For them this may be information overload. Personally I think a KISS approach would work well.--Bill Willis 17:07, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

It's been long recognized that Help pages need more work. A couple of us came up with a new structure/plan but there are a number of reasons why it is slow going - and it is a lot more work to do it well than most people would recognize. Rewriting Help:Formatting isn't near the top of the list at this time, but I can see that work is needed to make sure topics are organized more logically. I'd love to have the time to devote to this, but unfortunately, doing a good job requires days at a time when no other concerns intrude and neither of us have a life like that right now.--DataAnalyst 18:11, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Minor changes [10 August 2025]

I've made some minor changes to the format of the Help:Formatting page. That incudes adding a few spaces between major categories and in one case a Horizontal line to separate one section from another as an experiment. the objective is to make the layout of the page more user friendly. I'll revert these changes if others find them unsatisfactory. But I think further changes are needed.--Bill Willis 20:11, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

The extra space does make it easier to notice different sections, but I don't think it is the long-term solution. You may have noticed that I finally got around to devoting the hours required to rewriting the help for creating a footnote and to extract it to its own page, while leaving a brief overview on the Help:Formatting page. This follows the structure and look-and-feel designed for Help:Conventions and eventually for Help:HowTo as well. I suspect this might be close to what you meant when you talked about a portal with links. Most of the topics in Help:Formatting don't warrant this treatment, but some do.--DataAnalyst 20:17, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's close to what I had in mind. I was playing with the portal concept at the time, and found it useful for my purposes---which are probably quite different from most users. But breaking out the reference methodology to its own page is a great help improving the clarity of the rest of the help page. It probably needs a link on the Help:Formating page,

And it may be the relocating this one portion of the Help:formating is all that was needed. It is far less intimidating in its new form. --Bill Willis 19:44, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

That's good.

BTW - there is already a link on the formatting page: "For more information and advanced techniques, see How to create a footnote in narrative text." has the link in it. Once more of the Help is modified like this, users will get accustomed to it.--DataAnalyst 22:09, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Easier way to edit tables? [29 August 2025]

I am going to start working on the Long Hunter page - it is a table just like tables at Wikipedia. I have edited tables at Wikipedia and maybe once here. It is difficult! Is there any way we could make it easier? I have half a mind to do it somewhere else and just link to it. What do you think? --cthrnvl 00:29, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

There is an alternate way to define a table in WeRelate (and Wikipedia) described here. But you would have to change the entire table to this way of doing things. (Copying the text offline and doing global search-and-replace might be effective, but there could be glitches.) The alternate technique appears to be easier to use, but I have found (in the few times I tried it) that it can be hard to keep track of where you are when the cells have a lot of text.

Alternately, bulleted lists (using *, **, *** for levels) can be just as useful and are much easier to type. Many users will find tables easier to scan than bulleted lists, though.

Creating the table externally and adding a link is possible, but eliminates searching capability, which I think is a disservice to WeRelate users.

By the way, it would be very useful to include a link to any page you reference so that readers can understand what you are talking about. I assume you were refering to this page: List of Long Hunters. To include this link, I typed [[List of Long Hunters]].

Good luck!--DataAnalyst 02:35, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Oh - and we can thank Trentf for improving the readability of the Help I just pointed you to. I notice he just did that tonight.--DataAnalyst 02:39, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

I haven't done much with tables on here yet, but I know how I would handle it (I use a similar method at work with Confluence): I would do my work in a spreadsheet, then save that as a CSV file, and then convert that to the mediawiki table format, and then cut and paste that into WeRelate. It appears there are a lot of ways to do it. I followed the link at the end of that help section and there are lots of conversion tools, I tried a few: LibreOffice writer can export mediawiki format, but it is polluted with lots of style info (probably not a problem, it just offends my minimalist tendencies). There is an online converter at https://excel2wiki.toolforge.org/ and it seems to produce reasonable results... there are lots more things on there. Try a few and share your experiences here, we should add some good options to the help page. --Trentf 12:58, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

I take it that what you want to do is fill in the blanks in the table, perhaps add links to Person pages. Dealing with a small table its probably easier to just deal with it directly on WeRelate. Large HTML tables are another matter. The main problem is that when editing differences in the size of the cell content, makes it difficult to tell exactly where new information is supposed to go.

One way to solve the problem is to export the original table to excell. The content of the table is tab delimited so it will appear in separate cells in the spread sheet. You'll loose the HTML formating, so that has to be restored in the spreadsheet. You do that by inserting blank columns between the content bearing column, and add back in the appropriate HTML code (e.g <tr><td> etc)

Things like color elements will require the restoration of the appropriate HTML. You can do that in the excell version, or after you restore the table to WeRelate.

Links will require special attention. They will export to the Excell version, but that's a one way street. One way to get around restoring the links is to reorder the table so that all of the Linked cells are toward the top. Then only export the lines that do not have links. When you restore the table, you should be able to place the revised materials immediately below the existing rows with Links.

This is still a tedious process. but it is doable, and easier than making the edits directly on WeRelate.

Finally, there is a bit of history for this problem. A good many years ago it was suggested that a WYSIWYG approach was needed. That suggestion proved unworkable, probably because the amount of specialized coding and modifications to the underlying wiki program would be challenging. As it happens, I don't think most users make much use of tables, possibly for the same reasons that prompted your question. But on the other hand, not everybody is comfortable working with tables even if they were easy to create. So the need to make the creation of tables easier would meet the needs of only a few of us.

--Bill Willis 21:20, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Enhancements to place name display [24 August 2025]

Code was implemented today to automate* standardization of place display names**. Standardization might entail, for example, adding the country name or a missing county name, or removing commas prior to the first word. If the place name as entered is ambiguous (e.g., a municipality that exists in 2 or more different counties in the same state and the county name is not specified), standardization does not remove the ambiguity, even when there is a link to a Place page (in case the link was incorrectly assigned during a GEDCOM upload).

* Note that the standardization code handles many but not all situations, and might be enhanced in the future.

** A place display name is alternate text to display instead of the Place page title, and is indicated by appending '|' and the text after the Place page title, such as:

Calhoun, West Virginia, United States|Calhoun, Virginia, United States.

Conventions for place names (as recently approved by the WeRelate Advisory Council) can be found at the link indicated in this Quick Reference:

For those who routinely remove unnecessary place display names from pages they are editing, you can now select Show preview and let the system do the initial cut. I tested the code pretty thoroughly, but if you encounter undesirable results, please leave a note on my Talk page.--DataAnalyst 01:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Help Formatting Page [1 September 2025]

I'm in the process of making revisions to the Help:Formatting page.
My main objective is make the page look cleaner and easier use, with the new user particularly in mind.

Somethings I'd like to point out. Many of the entries on this page are "jargon centric". A new user, for example, is not going to immediately understand something like "namespace" or "tag". In general, the writing is not pitched to the new user.

If what I'm doing is objectionable, please let me know by reverting the page to its previous form.

I'd like to add an general observation: a few days ago I took a look the number of edits being made on the site, and the people making those edits. I looked only at person page edits over the previous 7 days. So this is admittedly a small sample. The results were, nonetheless, enlightening.

Number of edits: 500

Number of users: 11

New Users: 1 (joined August 2025)

Long time users: 10 (all joined between 2008 and 2015.

Oldest User: (joined 2008)--Bill Willis 14:49, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm being hyper critical, but I think the above signals a real problem.

--Bill Willis 14:56, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think your metrics are correct. The recent changes page limits the results to 500 edits (so . If I do that, the oldest edit is at 2:10 am yesterday. It looks like there have been about 2900 edits to Person pages, made by 28 people in the last week (I can't quite be sure as getting exact answers from the recent changes page is tricky). Also it looks like 111 new users were added in the last week, though most of them did little on the site. I want to do some more comprehensive metrics, I am working on that in my "spare time" (whatever that is :)

While those numbers still are not great, they are not as dire as what you showed. We definitely need to work on getting more people over here, but that is up to all of us. I have been looking at what we need to do to revive our social media strategy, and could use some help. If you have any other ideas, please share.

--Trentf 17:33, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

In truth, the metrics are correct for what was sampled. I took a small sample but that was enough to make the point. Increasing the sample size over the same period obviously yields more hits. I kept the sample size small because I was collecting other data as well. Ie, when each person joined WeRelate, what they were doing with it, etc.

But yes, the point is that traffic on the site is not where it needs to be.

And also yes, I think there are other things that need to be done. Social media is definitely part of the equation. But I think the site needs to be more friendly to the new user. And I don't mean "Hey, glad to see you here!". One of the things I think is needed is more work on the pages a new user is most likely to want to look at. The changes I'm making on the Help:Formatting page are a case in point. People who are looking for answers as to "How do I do something" would like to get their information as quickly and easily as possible. There are several ways to do that.

1) Simplifying the titles of headers to a minimum. Don't make people read "How do I do....over and over. That just interferes with them finding what they want.

2) Jettisoning jargon. If they are new to wiki's it's' not much good telling them about "namespace" and "place space" and the 50 other kinds of space that exist. All those are important, but does a new user need to know that immediately? Probably not, especially since most new users are only interested in person articles.

3)Reduce the number of headers. More headerss means more things they have to work through to find something. There's only a small suite of things that they really need to know to use the site effectively. Don't make it hard on them by telling all about the half dozen tricky different ways you can do the same thing. Especially since they will probably never have a need to dove one of those tricky things.

4) make it easy to find the place their deals with whatever it is they want to know about. for instance: Don't call a Help page a FAQ page. They aren't the same thing.

Bottom line here is that we need to make it easier for new users to get to the information they actually need. There is a place for all of those things, including the trickle lit demons. But they don't all need to be on the same page as the essential things.

And to ask a final question/point: Why do people gravitate toward Wiki Tree? Perhaps it's because its more social-media like, but there are probably other reasons as well.

--Bill Willis 20:32, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Two days ago, u/Quolla6 (Bill Willis) asked why people gravitate towards WikiTree. I could write a long essay about that, and have before, and I suppose here is another one. As background: I was a WT user from 2018 to 2022, when they threw me off the site. Also in 2022, I joined WeRelate and began adding my family members here. I did not keep up the effort, mainly due to getting busy with other things, so now I am pretty rusty regarding WR. I hope I'm posting my comments somewhere that others will see them. These days I would call myself a WeRelate well-wisher, but not an active user.

In comparing WT and WR, I think the first thing that should be acknowledged is that WR is a serious genealogy site, and WT is not. The audience for the latter is always going to dwarf the audience for the former, as anyone can see just by comparing the number of crappy trees on Ancestry (which people actually pay for!) with the number of good ones. WT attracts people with its gamification and by trying to lure in totally inexperienced people.

There are some former WR users who later migrated to WT. Maybe they'd be a good source of comments. See user:Jillaine (sorry, I can't find the others right now).

Comparing user numbers--I don't have the statistics for WR--WT reports on its home page that it has 1.2 million users, but that is a nonsense number. They just released some new statistics that show their active users, as measured by the number of people who've ever posted for 100 days, is less than 1% of that. (Some discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/Room_2562/comments/1n18xcb/tree_days_count/ ). It is also worth noting that they bring in thousands of poorly-documented profiles with each "thon," and that around 10% of WT's profiles are hidden because WT allows users to add living people and to keep profiles private or unlisted. Not something to emulate!

WR is unquestionably the better-designed site, but it is not easier. I had been a WT user for several years before I joined WR and still found it hard. (It might have been useful to have had more experience with FamilySearch, due to the family structure, or Wikipedia.)

Another issue is user-friendliness. One need only compare WT's G2G with WR's Watercooler or Support pages to see that G2G is easier to use (not really friendlier, but that is another matter). On the entire WR site, I find the type hard to read. Of course I realize I can adjust my browser, but that is not site-specific and I like the way it works for most things.

Yet another issue is how WR has languished in recent years. I realized that it's been fixed, but for at least two years (as I recall) there was a very outdated notice on the home page about a prior challenge. That doesn't give users a happy feeling that the site is being maintained. Also, it didn't take much scrolling around the site, last time I looked, to find many things that weren't working any more.

If there is now a real, serious effort to fix all those problems, then there are things WR could do to publicize that. Someone could post to r/Genealogy. I'm sure Dallan has a list of blogger contacts.

One thing people tell me over and over is that they enjoy the camaraderie of the WT "projects." I don't think that is true for the average project member, but it is for the most dedicated. Does WR have anything similar?--Julie Kelts 20:03, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi Julie. I appreciate these comments. I've worked on just about every Genealogical Wiki that has come down the pike. Including the Ukrainian based Wiki which, interestingly enough, was also called WikiTree. At one time I spent a lot of time on WeRelate, trying out different things and approaches, but not much personal genealogy.

One of the things I liked about WeRelate was the simple attractiveness of the the pages. Nice clean neat canvas to work on. Plus lots of creative opportunities to explore. Somethings I liked, some not. At some point I found I needed to focus on my personal genealogy, and that was best done not on a Wiki, but the old-fashioned way, writing things on paper (or at least the electronic form of paper---I use Apple Pages for virtually everything.) I would still come back to WeRelate from time to time, as I found the "canvas" easy to work on, and allowed me to take another approach to my writing. I also worked on Wikitree, but mostly for information gathering. I agree, for longtime users of WikiTree has I think a definite sense of community. For me, though, the canvas is ugly, and I don't really enjoy working there. The absolutely worst active genealogical Wiki is I think, the one on Family Search. I use Family Search for its data base especially since their AI program now allows access to things not previously transcribed. A bit difficult to use, but you can get things there that you can't otherwise get to online.

I recently became stuck on something in my own work on Pages, and came back to WeRelate to work out the problems in the writing. Worked like a charm. Wrote the hard bits here. It was sort of like being in a new environment allowed me to see where the problems were in the text. Then transferred the new stuff back to Pages, Easy Peasy. You can see some of what I did on WeRelate at Portal:Huntington Hundred Pattens. The title is now wrong, as my focus changed during the process. It IS a Portal, though it doesn't look like one at first glance. It's not finished yet, but it is the center piece around which I'm building an online version of what's in Pages. It might give you a better idea of what I mean by a clean canvas and what can be done here, but not on WikiTree. (at least I don't think it can be done there, and even if it could the canvas would still be ugly.)

Your comment that WR is the better designed site is well taken. As is your comment that it is not easy to work on. It appears to me that the user base of WeRelate is down, with not many new users sticking around. Most the current users have been working on WeRelate for years. That is concerning because a small user base means fewer clicks, fewer clicks means less revenue with the consequences of that being fairly obvious. When I saw that I started looking at the help pages, and found them a paradise of information, most of which was not useful for a new user, and the parts that were useful, were lost in the weeds. I think you are right. Getting new users probably requires outreach. But the other side of that coin is keeping new users. If the site is hard for a new user to work on they won't stick around. So the real first step is making it easier on them to learn how to. The KISS principal, is I think very applicable here. --Bill Willis 14:53, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Preformatted HTML Tag [1 September 2025]

The Help:Formatting originally contained a section called "unusable tags". One of the tags so identified was the Preformatted tag (<pre> </pre>) pair. Supposedly these tags either 1)Should not be used, or 2) they do not behave the way the HTML tags are supposed to. I've never used these tags, but looking them up, they do have a useful function, and its not just for inserting a space in from of some text). That said, Why are these tags being used throughout this page? Saying they should not be used, and then using them doesn't seem like a good educational technique.

To be honest, they do not seem to serve any purpose, and removing them seems to have no effect on the display.

That probably means the reason they were described as "Unusable", is not because they were problematic, but because they do not work on Relate. If there is something here that I'm missing please let me know. Otherwise, I think this is a "find and kill" item.
I suspect few users would ever want to use these tags, even if they did something useful. Perhaps it would be better to make no mention of them, or if talking about them there needs to be an explanation why they shouldn't be used. Most likely we just need to flag the point that these tags do not work on WeRelate. --Bill Willis 14:00, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

You said "Why are these tags being used throughout this page?"

I looked at the wikitext of this page, and only found one <pre>, the one appearing in your second sentence of this section. Did you mean "throughout this site"? (If so, an example?) --robert.shaw 20:54, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

No, I simply deleted most of them and found that they had no practical (or impractical) effect on the page. The preformatted tag in normal HTML does a number of things, some of which are probably quite useful. They just don't work in the Wiki environment. Personally, I have no great hobby horse thing going on here, other than the fact that on the same page they were described as unusable. Not a good approach to say something isn't usable (or should not be used) and then fill up the same page with that same thing. If you want to see them in the original, just bring back up an earlier version in edit mode. --Bill Willis 13:32, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

The <pre> tag works just fine and is being successfully used elsewhere in WeRelate. It looks like way back in 2008 it didn't work but that isn't true anymore. The correct change to the Help would have been to remove the restriction.

While it is true that in many cases the <nowiki> tag can be used instead, the <pre> tag has more functionality, such as displaying multiple spaces without collapsing them down to a single space.--DataAnalyst 14:35, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Special Characters [1 September 2025]

The Help:Formatting page includes an entry for "Special Characters". That entry contains a link to a Wikipedia article. That link is broken. I don't know what was in mind when this link was created, so I can't fix the problem. Guidance requested. --Bill Willis 14:08, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Response on Help talk:Formatting --cos1776 16:54, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Broken Talk Pages [1 September 2025]

I've noticed a number of pages where the talk page does not work. An example of this is the talk page for Help:Formatting but I've see it elsewhere. Haven't looked hard enough to recognize any pattern. --Bill Willis 14:12, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean? Help talk:Formatting seems to work just fine and is an appropriate page for posting topics specific to that page. --cos1776 16:16, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

From what I see in the database, the Help talk:Formatting page didn't exist until you created it, Bill. Maybe you were expecting that such a page would already exist, but it didn't.--DataAnalyst 17:51, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I assume that every page that can be edited has a talk page. Perhaps not. But if others are seeing it why can't I? At any rate, the way I got to it was the usually click on the Talk page link. That page appeared in editing mode, but then I couldn't see my comment.--Bill Willis 20:22, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you are experiencing. Talk pages aren't created by default. If you click a red Talk page link (meaning the Talk page doesn't exist, you get the message:

(There is currently no text in this page. To create the page, click on the Edit link at the left. Get help editing pages.)

If you then click Edit, a Talk page will be created and opened in edit mode.

If you click on a blue Talk page link (meaning the Talk page exists), you should see the Talk page in display-only mode. You have to click Edit to get into edit mode. Once you save, you should see your edits. I haven't heard of anyone not being able to see changes once saved (except for an edit conflict, but you are notified of that).--DataAnalyst 20:29, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Nothing appears on Help talk:Formatting for me. Just a blank uneditable page. --Bill Willis 20:15, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

The link to Help talk:Formatting works fine for me. Comments by two users shown. --robert.shaw 20:58, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Just to be really clear - the URL you are looking at is this one:

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Help_talk:Formatting

and you just see a blank page. Do you see the page title?

Help talk:Formatting

What browser and version are you using? Dallan will need that info to troubleshoot.--DataAnalyst 01:38, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

I use Safari. The issue turns out to be related to the fact that I use an expanded page view. Typically up to 21 inch width. When I collapse the window to something smaller, the edit and comments reappear. Ads on the right edge sometimes appear, and sometimes not.

AHA! I may have stumbled on a minor bug in the software. I usually work on an expanded window. Just a personal preference. I went to the page in question to take a snapshot of what I was seeing which was nothing as far as comments was concerned. Didn't really want to take an image of a lot of nothing so reduced the size of the window and the comment I made, plus responses now magically appeared. Expanded the window back out and they disappeared. I presume this is a software bug, and out of my league to fix. Thank you for your patience!--Bill Willis 12:53, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

This might be an issue specific to Safari. In Edge, I can size my screen from the entire width of my monitor (27") to as small as it allows me to go (about 5 1/2") and can still see the text. I don't see anywhere in the Help where there are recommended browsers, but maybe we should add something. I'll have to consult with Dallan.--DataAnalyst 14:15, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Media [1 September 2025]

One last question (for today, at least). The Help:formatting page includes references to "Media", including a illustration image of a trumpet that was supposed to be in the menu bar. As I recall, from a good many years ago, you could upload an audio file, Sound effect, or perhaps an oral history audio file), and that trumpet icon could be used for that purpose. I also recall recently seeing video files on the site that featured "How to" discussions by Dallan.

Now there's only an image icon on the menu bar. My guess is that we cannot now upload audio files, and that "Media" now refers only to images. If this is correct the references to media in the help:formatting page should be deleted. No need to mention something that we can't do on the site. Suggestions?--Bill Willis 14:47, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

We only support images as far as I know. The Help videos don't work anymore. The reference to "media" in the help is how to get a link to the image instead of the image - please don't remove it.--DataAnalyst 15:28, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Sorry - I read that too fast. The trumpet icon should be removed along with the reference to media. The trumpet icon is no longer one of the edit buttons. What needs to be kept is the reference to [[media:WeRelate.gif]].--DataAnalyst 17:40, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

ON the Help Videos, I was able to pull them up and watch them--at least long enough to know that they worked.--Bill Willis 20:18, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Then media will need an explanation of what's included and what is not. If the only thing that works is a graphic, why do we need a reference to "Media"?--Bill Willis 20:18, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

The videos I have seen (that are still working) are links to YouTube videos. Help will have to address this but it isn't my highest priority. If you want to write it up, you'll probably have to find out how to create a link to a YouTube video. The text included in one of the WeRelate pages is <youtube>640|505|3yB4Oln2pPI</youtube>, but obviously, you need the video id.--DataAnalyst 14:21, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree. Other things have a much higher priority. Unless someone wants to address this, perhaps deleting their reference to "media" is the way to go for the moment.

And on that note, what is your principle objective with redoing the help pages?--Bill Willis 15:00, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Objectives are to have a coherent set of Help pages that are organized around things people might want to do (rather than around the menu structure), and that are clearly written, with (or referring to) the explanations needed for people to understand the basic structure of the site. All difficult tasks, but necessary. A plan has been made to attack the first two objectives, but in reviewing it, I can already see where tweaks will be required.

The plan has been moved to this project page.--DataAnalyst 15:54, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for that last note. I appreciate seeing the game plan. It is very ambitious. How long do you think it will take to accomplish? Bill Willis 19:03, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Since I just got back into looking at and working on Help, I can't even ballpark it yet.--DataAnalyst 19:27, 1 September 2025 (UTC)