WeRelate talk:Watercooler

Sources & Repositories and Source Review

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Old topics have been archived: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.

WeRelate growth [30 May 2013]

I started a discussion previously (see User:AndrewRT/Metrics) about how we could measure the success of WeRelate. Although a very crude measure, I have compliled a graph showing how the total number of pages in the "Person" namespace has expanded which others may find interesting:

AndrewRT 17:45, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

It is interesting. Thanks. --GayelKnott 18:40, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

I too have been keeping track although in a different manner - years to add one million names. For instance, 1 Aug 2012 4.84 years and most recently, 3 Apr 2013 4.90 years.--HLJ411 20:00, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

Both sets of figures indicate a sharp slow down after the "drive by GEDCOMs" were stopped in 2008. Are we happy with the current rate of growth or should we be trying to increase it? If yes, how? AndrewRT 06:54, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

WR did experience a high rate of growth during 2007 - but the quality was horrendous. We've had so many threads here asking Dallan to delete the "junk" imports of various users from that period. It's a common benchmark for users who have been around here for a while - did the user upload their GEDCOM in 2007??? ahhh... that explains the mess... The quality of imports has improved significantly with WR's GEDCOM error detection and Family Match improvements.

One small item that impacts your chart - in March 2010, Dallan adjusted how he tracked the number of pages on the Home Page. He changed from #People and Families to just #People (in this one edit, he reduced the number by 200,000). Another factor is the number of pages people are merging into when they upload their files. The quantity of the pages may not be increasing as sharply as in 2007, but the quality has improved for users to build on. --Jennifer (JBS66) 08:54, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

I don't suggest we go back to the pre-2008 situation (I joined just after those changes were made) given the issues there were. However, I do wonder if there's a way to get the "best of both worlds" - i.e. getting back to those rates of addition but maintaining the quality. I'd also like to develop a metric that incorporated quality (e.g. person pages with at least one date & one source) but that would be hard to back-date. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Regarding the change from person/family to person - yes I've adjusted for that in my figures. I'll go through the image page and put the full source I've used for each number.

My own experience is that whilst I've found many distant cousins on ancestry.com, which has hundreds of millions of people in their database, I have yet to match a single one on WeRelate. It's different when you're dealing with prominent families (as I've found with my british nobility mini-project, where I regularly match existing pages). I don't believe 2.5m is a big enough number for matching to make a significant different. If you see the rate of increase has actually gone up slightly between 2008 and 2013, despite the site growing by 70%. If matching were a significant factor, it would surely have gone down. AndrewRT 11:00, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

I have to ask - do we really want hundreds of millions of pages? Maintenance is already a problem on WR. To return to the old 'growth' levels, you would have to lower the bar to be similar to Ancestry.com's, who arguably contribute to the problem WR is supposed to solve. But I actually think the turn off for attracting new users is more related to two things (setting aside the learning curve, which should never be lowered) 1) No living people 2) No 'ownership' of pages, with more an emphasis on the first. There was supposed to be a system added to the tree function where living people could be added privately within the program, but not as people on WR itself. I don't think this ever happened. Of course, I never want to see living non-notable pages on WR, but I would like to see the solution that was proposed to happen. The second is a complain I occasionally hear from people who do not want to use WR, but unlike the first I do not sympathize with it - ownership of pages would eventually destroy the site and discourage collaboration. Daniel Maxwell 11:20, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

I have 2 comments to make. First, compiling data of reasonable quality is time-consuming. I only have about 7000 people to contribute to WeRelate, but it is taking me years to validate the info I picked up from a variety of sources. OK - I am also adding citation text as I go, which adds quite a bit of time, but just trying to find reasonable sources (VRs, published books and articles, gravestone inscriptions) to substantiate (and correct) the data that I picked up from other people's personal trees (RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, Pedigree) can take quite some time. It is definitely worth it - I discovered that I picked up quite a bit of garbage along the way, even after I realized that I had to be careful. So, growth based on amateurs like me validating their data before adding it to WeRelate will take time.

Second, I have come across some sizable amateur trees that appear to be quite well-researched. If we could personally invite those authors to submit their trees, or volunteer to submit them on their behalf, it would add a significant number of people. Andrew and I have volunteered to help someone load her tree (about 20,000 individuals). The quality is mixed, and I expect some of the data is incorrect, but it is not a bad starting point for these families. However, the author wanted "clean" place names that match WeRelate place page names, and it is taking me weeks to clean up the approx 7000 place names. So even this can take time (although months, rather than years). After this brief interlude to help load this tree, I want to go back to my own tree, but when I am done with that, I am interested in helping load other higher-quality trees. This type of collaboration in initial loading of data might reduce barriers for those who are overwhelmed with where to start.--DataAnalyst 11:35, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

And by the way, I found that I am distantly related by marriage to the woman whose tree I volunteered to help load (her third cousin 4 times removed married my third cousin 5 times removed)--DataAnalyst 11:40, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

The "best of both worlds" I see nothing good in the old way, just a lot of work.

The quality can not return a millimeter, but up. You can now upload a gedcom with: double persons. Many missing town and missing dates, and above all without sources. It is perhaps time to consider a few things to look seriously. --Lidewij 11:48, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

"do we really want hundreds of millions of pages? Maintenance is already a problem on WR". I certainly don't want unmanageable growth - we need to have growth in a way that is sustainable and maintains quality. But clearly if we had more people contributing information, we would also have more people helping with the maintenance. I do think there are sustantial benefits in having a significantly bigger site. The "pando" model really comes into its own when you have lots of connections between people interested in the same tree. This is simple network theory - the more people who are connected, the more potential connections there can be. I started researching my family tree 20 years ago and after a few years of research had some up with a tree of 250 people. I picked it up again 5 years ago and within a month I was up to 5,000 people, simply by linking into distant cousins who had managed to trace back our common ancestors and had uploaded their data. That happens because ancestry.com has hundreds of millions of people. It doesn't happen to the same extend when you're talking about a site with 2.5m people. AndrewRT 11:53, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

Networking should not be a goal in itself; accurate genealogy should be. Networking will be a natural consequence of growth, even if it may appear slow going. I have already found several just in the course of maintaining New England based pages. Data's point about inviting people with some of the better sourced trees and then helping then import it is a better strategy, as well as my point about fixing the issue with living people, which is BY FAR the biggest complaint people have about WR. Much of what you see on Ancestry.com are duplicates on a massive scale - it is not the best stick to measure WR against. Daniel Maxwell 12:07, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

The topic of helping is a key point in the last few comments. Whether it's helping other users import their GEDCOM, helping with site maintenance, or helping with software development - the community of WeRelate needs help to succeed. Essential to WR's growth is a strong base of organized volunteers, help pages that are streamlined and coherent, and mentors that can help new users. What can we do to increase the number of active volunteers? How can we create a firm foundation upon which increased growth will be solid rather than unstable? --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:40, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

'Evangelization' of WR to other researchers who care about good information is key to this, I think. Data has the right idea. Daniel Maxwell 12:50, 7 April 2013 (EDT)

I've been pondering the idea of going along to one of the genealogy society meetings near me (WAGS), to see if there's anyone else there using WeRelate and whether we mightn't help each other (sometimes more fun in person). How best might I connect with users here who are nearby though? Some additional subcategories to Category:Users? Userboxen, as they have on Wikipedia? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:25, 8 April 2013 (EDT)

Judy and I have been teaching genealogy classes & seminars and giving talks to local societies and at conferences for years. We discovered WeRelate shortly before its first birthday and joined up, and within a year we were proselytizing to local groups with "demo" programs. Local researchers are always interested in new ways to do what they do -- and the program chairmen of local groups are always looking for speakers. Make a list of all the societies within a couple hours' drive and get in touch with them. Also, our local public library sponsors genealogy workshops every year and we've done our stand-up routine there, too. Check with the nearest library that has a sizable genealogy collection, especially if they already have an arrangement with a society for volunteers and such. --Mike^Talk 08:05, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

I have a draft article about WeRelate I'm writing for the Orkney FHS - would be great if there was somewhere on here we could share stuff like this and get inspiration from what others have done. AndrewRT 17:37, 8 April 2013 (EDT)

The curve certainly shows what you would expect when you go from a period of zero controls on upload to a more strict regime. It's also positive that the curve doesn't go completely flat in the aftermath. We don't have measurements to tell us that the per-page quality is moving up, but I certainly believe it is.

What I would have expected to see, is evidence of acceleration in the aftermath of the flattening episode. As our data set grows larger, gets better, and turns up on more and more searches (the Alexa data suggest that much at least) - I would expect increasing visibility to turn into increasing participation, new users, more Person pages, etc. Disturbingly, that does not seem to be happening.

The near-linear curve post controls suggests a static size core group - or at least - a static rate of new Person creation. Against a context of more and more people seeing us, that unfortunately means that the percentage of those who eventually choose to join is probably dropping.

Maybe the drop-off in acceptance isn't cause for concern. At some level, it's not the system, it's the data. The database is still free and can never be sold. If thought of as a 2.5M person GEDCOM, it's probably good enough that another effort - with appropriate open licensing - would be able to request (and obtain) the complete set of content as their starting point. If that other system has better usability factors, it will naturally become WeRelate's successor. WeRelate will drift into the sunset - having served its purpose. The data doesn't die, but software does have a life cycle.

I'm a little more optimistic than this might suggest - but we need some fresh ideas.

In the near term - could we start by losing our front-page exciting "News" from August of 2012? Something that tired, sends the wrong message. While the enclosed statement about "time to grow" might now qualify as dark humor, it's probably not a subject you want to lead with. If genuine expectations were behind that remark - well - oh dear.... --jrm03063 21:44, 17 April 2013 (EDT)

ancestry has about 2,500mill persons records at the moment. Theres obviously duplicates and just plain trash. Thre is also a large amount of seriously good genaalogy in there simply because itas so easy to link people to records and have sourcing done for you. When i look for serious connections for people i go to the records where you can see exactly which ancestry users have linked to sources. Their work is by definition more reliable, and less likely to be a copy of someone elses work. I'd love to know the figures of what proportion of census records have been linked for example but i would guess its certainly above half, but probably not more than 80%

Werelate is similar in that its north america europe centric, and most americans have european roots. Werelate excludes living people which means up to 1000 million of all possible records cannot be put in as it stands now. Perhaps the theoretical number of north americans and europeans who have lived, died and had records is somewhere approaching another 1000 million. Certainly not more.

If i had a guess at the number of duplicates in ancestry as 40%, they have 1500 million distinct people records, and 500 million are of good quality.

Therefore ancestry, if it was aiming for pando as good as it could be, they are a quarter of the way there.

But you would be correct to point out that you cant tell which are the good records and which are not--Dsrodgers34 02:03, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

There is good genealogy in lots of places if you are willing to do the work to document it yourself. The difference will hopefully be that someday most of WeRelate will be documented, making it obvious what is good genealogy and what is not. The above estimates of ancestry quality are way too high based on pages I have worked with (colonial era in New England). Reliability, meaning documented, verifiable sources, is what will differentiate WeRelate, since it can never hope to compete on sheer numbers.

There are competing forces that mean any assumption that page add is proportional to users is probably incorrect. Notably, the easy people are already added, and to add a truly new person, fewer generations need to be added to connect him to some other page. In 2008, it was not uncommon to find none of a family entered, and one might need to enter 5 or 6 generations in order to connect a newly added person to an existing page. Now, adding similar pages, it seems rare to have to add more than one or two generations to connect somebody to an existing page.

Of course, that is not to say all people have been added. And even for pages that have been, they are not complete, all correct, nor fully sourced. The importance of this work must not be ignored by only counting page adds.

It would certainly be encouraging to many people to see some progress towards leaving "Beta". --Jrich 11:53, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

Solution : Other languages ! French, german, ... Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 12:29, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

I'm not aware that we preclude use of other languages for any purpose, but there's an obvious bias given where the initial world of contributors came from. I wonder if we could do something cute with respect to the 97,000 or so pages we currently source from WP. I wonder if there's a way for a user to specify a preferred language - such that a page inclusion for a person or place - would display in the user's preferred language (assuming that there was a version of that page, written in the user's preferred language)? Likewise a simple internationalization effort on the code, such that any stock label text is chosen from an appropriate language dictionary. I don't think we would want to create different language versions of the entire database - even though the approach is consistent w/WP. --jrm03063 14:44, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

I mean not a specific database for each language ! Only one database for genealogical informations. We need to translate the messages/titles ... Displaying in the user's preferred language is possible with Mediawiki. See this page. Between june 2008 and april 2011, I "worked" on Rodovid ... same tool ! Excuse my very bad english ! Amicalement - Marc ROUSSEL - --Markus3 15:10, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

Duplicating the database would be a bad idea - but that's the way that WP does it - so one does need to take notice. I'm all for internationalization, and certainly for using any support that's built in to accomplish it. Presumably, Special:Allmessages this page will look familiar. --jrm03063 16:35, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

Wikipedias in different languages are not duplicates of one another. Each is composed of either original articles composed in the language or articles which have been manually translated from one language into another. This is why most of the language-pedias have small numbers of articles. It's also worth to note that the content can differ dramatically for an article in one language versus another; there are few controls on the specific content for articles on the same topic across languages. --ceyockey 20:26, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

I get that - "duplicate" was an overbroad term. I understand that the different language-pedias have articles with their own history - sometimes even their own separate conclusions. By duplicate, I mean duplicate software, presumably the same save for internationalization. --jrm03063 22:18, 18 April 2013 (EDT)

Jrich i can accept my guesses are too high. I was more interested in the size of 'pando' for werelate purposes, and used ancestry figures to make a guess. I,d love to see some internal ancestry figures, particualrly the percentage of the various database records which have been linked. Has anyone found these anywhere ?--Dsrodgers34 00:00, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

Just as a matter of interest, has anyone contemplated the task were a group to systematically resolve all major source databases into the mythical 'pando' ?

A bit like we all seem to be doing with our chosen local areas - well some of us anyway--Dsrodgers34 00:03, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

As an example i have been attempting it with three parishes in england which translates to about 20,000 persons with about 45,000 sources so far. Ancestry tels me i still have 17,000 hints unseen ( half of them will be wrong) and im still working my way through the PRs. I have been at it for four years and still seem to be only half way through. I doubt i will add more than a couple of thousand more persons though. Youd have to have some kind of bots to resolve obvious ones and have humans decipher the complicated ones, to speed up the process--Dsrodgers34 00:11, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

Picking out databases to trust could be a problem. It's also an approach more apt to run afoul of copyright restrictions. "Bots" could be useful for identifying possible duplicates - but I don't think you would want automatic resolution. My interest is in trying to bring in various sources - which can then be systematically resolved against our existing database. It makes genealogy more like double-entry book-keeping. --jrm03063 13:42, 19 April 2013 (EDT)

Picking up on what jrm03063 said above about other projects using WeRelate data, I think this is an important step. I don't mean another project taking over, but rather the idea of making it easier to reuse data from here; of WeRelate becoming a central database (the "wikipedia of genealogy websites"; i.e. the go-to place). I absolutely love the idea of WeRelate.org being the central repository, off which can be built any number of things. This could mean that we include more "raw data", e.g. cemetery inscriptions, BMD indicies (intellectual property issues aside), so that the working-out can all be recorded here and sourced properly etc. I quite agree about it not being an automatic process — that's how the other big sites do it, and they get to be full of lots of wrong data.

I've been doing a bit of work on backing up my data from here, and it's not straightforward (the most tricky bit is probably retrieving the list of contributors for any given bit of content). It'll get better as the software here improves.

— Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 20:42, 21 April 2013 (EDT)

GEDCOM upload questions [30 May 2013]

I have a file that is the result of a study done on all the Jacksons in two cemeteries in what is now Nassau County, New York. This file is a bit different from the typical descendants file as many of these Jacksons are not necessarily related. I've capitalized the surnames of those actually buried in the cemetery (as opposed to their descendants found in census records). So will these unrelated-ness issues cause a problem if or when I try to upload a GEDCOM to WeRelate? Will the capitalization stay or be converted to mixed case?

This was started as a hope of connecting some of these folks who were all living in the same general area and all buried in the same cemetery. It was a fun project that overflowed to a second cemetery! By posting this to WR perhaps I'll find more connections. --janiejac 21:40, 16 April 2013 (EDT)

The capitalisation will be preserved, I believe, but long-term should be converted to proper casing. The goal is to be able to determine which of these people are buried in a particular cemetery, isn't it? I'm not sure that there are well-developed guidelines about how to do this (I've not seen anything), but perhaps simply using the category system for this would work? E.g. [[Category:Buried in <Cemetery Name>]] Hmm... although, that is rather double-entering the data isn't it? But without changing the software I don't think it's possible to do this sort of categorisation automatically. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 22:51, 16 April 2013 (EDT)

I agree that capitalization is not the right way to maintain this relationship. It's too opaque of a signal - no one else will know that's the reason you've left the names in all caps. If you add a Burial event to each of these people, and link it to the cemetery, then you could go to the "What links here" page for that cemetery, and see everyone buried there (e.g., this page). I agree that a category would also work, but what would be the reason for having a list of people with the same surname buried in the same cemetery? -- Jdfoote1 09:05, 17 April 2013 (EDT)

In my ongoing "Red River Project," I've created MySources for dozens of cemeteries in the county, and I cite those on the Person pages. Which means, as you say, that clicking "What links here" on the MySource page gives a list of all those buried there for whom you have created pages. I often use it as a sort of checklist to see if I've omitted someone. --Mike^Talk 08:17, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

I realize now that my purpose for capitalizing some names was only for my own reasons and won't be needed at WR because the folks who have burial information will be matched to the cemetery. So I can create a new file with the names mixed case for uploading and that leaves only the question that there are a lot of folks not connected in a line of descent. I think the system can handle that.

--janiejac 14:50, 17 April 2013 (EDT)

Do you have uploads pending ? How much ? When ? [23 April 2013]

In the light of the recent growth discussion I thought it might be useful to take a quick survey to see if people have projects pending which are intended to be uploaded to WeRelate. So if you have do add a few notes

For myself my initial upload was for the parish of Holme in West Yorkshire, england. The original upload was just under 4000 people with about 7500 sources, mainly 1841 to 1901 census. I then realised the parish church served three parishes so when I started resolving parish records ( which are now all on ancestry) i added these parishes, cartworth and austonley, census and all.

Im still a couple of years away from loading into WeRelate, i find it more straight forward to resolve in my ancestry tree, but when i am ready there might be about 22,000 people with 55,000 or so links to sources. Of course 4000 will overlap with the tree i uploaded before, and perhaps other peoples contributions. If its another two years before i do this it will hace taken six years--Dsrodgers34 04:55, 22 April 2013 (EDT)

I have uploaded my own ancestry (largely complete), a surname project around my mother's maiden name (information largely 'built' on ancestry but then uploaded here) and a British nobility mini-project (entered directly here). I'm comfortable adding research directly to werelate as it is built, although do find it easier sometimes to do this on ancestry first, link in their census source information and information from other trees and then transfer it to werelate. Ideally I would like to be able to build a tree directly here - perhaps using information on FreeBMD/FreeREG/FamilySearch. AndrewRT 14:59, 23 April 2013 (EDT)

Idea for a source / transcript [30 May 2013]

Not sure about the rest of the world, but I know that many US States take the time and trouble to create markers for events of historical significance. I've seen a few used here on WeRelate (for example, Ninth Texas Cavalry). Being the work of the state, the narratives can't be subject to private copyright. I presume that they can safely be reproduced verbatim, with only the usual academic requirement of indicating where the quote was found. Perhaps, if you are lucky, your state will even have a site with discrete pages/headers for each marker, providing additional supporting research.

These markers often contain useful information about individuals. For example, the marker above relates to Micajah Bankston, which presumably is the reason that it was added.

If you live in a state, and love it's history, maybe you'ld like to create a complete transcript of the historic markers present in your state? While this is apt to be only supporting secondary-source information for well known people, it seems like it would add some nice color to Person pages that otherwise lack images or context. Grabbing a casual reader and getting them more intrigued or involved can only help us.

Anyway - it's an idea...

--jrm03063 10:53, 22 April 2013 (EDT)

In the case of Texas, the Texas Historical Commission's website has a list of all historical markers in the state -- including the text that appears on them. I haven't searched, but I suspect some other states have similar databases. --Mike^Talk 08:26, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

Great idea, I reckon! Have you heard about the Open Plaques project? Perhaps we could integrate with that somehow. Or not, of course; it's not a complicated idea.

Would we create a separate source for each marker? With a separate transcript page and image? Seems the easiest way to then be able to cite individual ones appropriately...

— Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 22:11, 22 April 2013 (EDT)

Actually, I'm afraid I hadn't heard of that one, but the principles would probably be the same. My first thought was markers such as these. Doing the markers for a single state of interest, might be a lot more tractable, than something more extensive. For the case of the NH markers - I would expect to do a single source for the entire state - but I would also expect to create a transcript that had a single page per marker. The source page would get an extract from the WP page above, as well as indicate any State of NH web pages that provide further information. There would also be an entry that pointed to a top-level page for the WeRelate-based page transcripts. Individual transcript pages could be tagged with GIS numbers and/or a map, and indicate the highway markers of NH as their source. By breaking out the markers on a per-page basis, you can look go to referenced Person pages, then hit the "what links here" to get particulars for a cite. Pictures could be added of course, provided that someone felt they could take them or if they're available on fair use terms.

Not sure how brilliant an idea it is - but it's the sort of thing that someone with an interest could add - and that would benefit a group wider than normal. --jrm03063 00:23, 23 April 2013 (EDT)

One more thing - if someone really was interested - perhaps there's a really outstanding project to be done based on [[1]]. They seem to have searchable databases as well as GIS numbers and such. The US National Register also indicates whether a place was added based on a criterion, and criterion "C" is a person. It's a thought... --jrm03063 00:33, 23 April 2013 (EDT)

L O N G Wait [30 May 2013]

Do we really think folks are going to stick around when it takes this long to get a reviewed GEDCOM approved? I really wanted this to work but I feel like the system is broken. I guess I need to find something else to do.--janiejac 23:39, 1 May 2013 (EDT)

Is there something I can do to help? Please let me know... --jrm03063 09:24, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Late Monday afternoon I finished reviewing the GEDCOM I had uploaded. I hit the import button and received the msg: "An administrator will review your GEDCOM shortly and finalize the import or contact you with any questions." Now it is three days later and the GEDCOM has still not be finalized or accepted. I feel like this is much too long to wait. By then folks, including me, have moved on to something else. If we want folks to stick around and review the new pages their GEDCOM generates, they/we need to be able to do it while the review is fresh in the mind. If there are not enough volunteers available to do this; then the site has a major problem :( --janiejac 11:49, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

I've never participated with that group or in that process. I just went to the appropriate tab, and I find some 18 GEDCOMs (apparently) pending review, but I'm not seeing one owned by you....does it have a name? --jrm03063 15:15, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Someone apparently heard my plea. The GEDCOM has been finalized by WeRelate agent 13:19, 2 May 2013. I have no idea why it took so long. Thanks for your concern. I wasn't even aware there was a tab to go look at what's waiting. But knowing that wouldn't have helped since I'm not an admin and so couldn't have completed the process. I'm still of the opinion that this type of delay is a major put-off. . . Perhaps others don't mind. --janiejac 16:09, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

I'm not entirely sure you could see it, since it's on the "Admin" options... --jrm03063 17:03, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

Yes, non-sysop/admins can see the list of pending GEDCOms; the "Admin" menu is present for us and the "GEDCOM review" menu item on it does work. --Robert.shaw 14:24, 4 May 2013 (EDT)

Maybe, administrators in charge of GEDCOM approval should let the WeRelate community know that they are on holiday? Or a template message sent to GEDCOM uploaders to say there will be an unforeseen delay? --goldenoldie 16:56, 3 May 2013 (EDT)

An additional follow-up, I tend to agree that GEDCOM upload shouldn't be gated like this. This would be fine if there were lots of people ready to step up and perform the needed reviews, but I only see three admins that have signed up to do this. I've always been a supporter of a scheme where the size of GEDCOM you could upload would be a function of the number of hand edits you've performed. That admin involvement would only be needed if you wanted to upload more than your allowed GEDCOM size - or perhaps - if you wanted to perform an upload in spite if it having more than some threshold level of errors. Small GEDCOMs without many errors should be allowed without assistance. --jrm03063 17:09, 2 May 2013 (EDT)

For information the backlog page can be seen here. Is it worth putting a link to it on one of the GEDCOM notification templates? AndrewRT 17:50, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

Speaking of Volunteers [5 May 2013]

Does WeRelate have a policy about or materials that can be used in displays at local genealogy confereneces? I'll be giving a talk at our local conference this fall (with examples of "good genealogy" from WeRelate), but there is also a display hall, and I could ask for a table if there is something I could use to promote WeRelate. --GayelKnott 14:52, 3 May 2013 (EDT)

Hi Gayel, would you mind leaving a message on the Publicity talk page regarding this? Dallan has more information about available materials and we want to keep publicity related discussions in a central place. Thanks! --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:20, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

In Search of Madame Ihrig [7 May 2013]

I wrote a blog post about how I searched for one person - Hattie Chapin AKA Madame Ihrig - it's sort of an anatomy of a genealogy search. I list WeRelate at the bottom as the place I use to organize my information.

In Search of Madame Ihrig

I see that WeRelate has a new publicity project so I think I will try to compile people who are blogging about WeRelate. So let me know if you know about anyone.

Catherine dee Auvil : ) --cthrnvl 16:24, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

Interesting post! :-) I was wondering about Werelate bloggers the other day too. I'd love there to be a 'planet werelate' where they're all aggregated. Is there a page anywhere here for listing these things? (Not to confuse people searching for Blogs of course!) I sometimes blog about WeRelate:Printable-WeRelate and genealogy at http://samwilson.id.au/tag/genealogy/ — usually from a coding perspective. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 20:20, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

I will make a special page for bloggers at WeRelate and link to it at the publicity project. Thanks for the positive feedback : ) Catherine --cthrnvl 23:23, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Maintenance pages' navigation bar? [7 May 2013]

Just wondering about adding a navigation right-side bar to all pages in the Maintenance portal. Something like {{Maintenance navigation}}. (But of course, not adding it to the portal page itself.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 21:58, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

I really like this, nice job! I hadn't realized how much the pages needed navigation until seeing your example. You are more than welcome to add the template to the other Maintenance pages. Thank you for creating this! --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:21, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Okay, done. :) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 00:43, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Categories [6 mei 2013]

I understand the category name and surname location not match, the bottom of the page, but they are also as hidden category no longer made​​? So a new person Person: Magdalena van Beeck Calkoen (1) is not automatically added to

• Category: Van Beeck Calkoen surname
• Category: Van Beeck Calkoen in Netherlands

When this feature is no longer there, also there will be no more Surname: .... because Surname: Van Beeck Calkoen has no function.
Also Category: Surnames in the Netherlands and Category: Surname in place loses its function A red link was perhaps not beautiful, but it did have all his function and was using.
Search is a tragedy for me and probably not just for me. I often used it, it gave me too many useless / confusing information. (I used the advance continuously in the categories to come) The categories of information brought sorted / arranged together.
In the old search function FamilySearch did not much excess ballast.
Like reaction. --Lidewij 04:11, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

PS.If you want to have surnames in a category you must create them yourself. Now these are not automatically in a category, but over time, the categories created automatically disappeared. --Lidewij 09:04, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Why have surname categories disappeared? [13 May 2013]

Why have surname categories disappeared from person pages and family pages? I have found them very useful and I have not found any discussion about removing them. What is going on? --Susan Irish 12:10, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Over the last couple of years, Dallan has suggested removing the automatically-generated Surname and Surname-in-place categories. In February there was also a discussion here on the Watercooler about some of the problems WeRelate has been experiencing with these automatic categories. Some of these issues include: they caused confusion for many users, they were only generated at the Country level outside the United States, they required administrative time for their organization/development/management, they could not be edited, and users have complained about how they were sorted. Overall, Dallan believed their function could be better served by the current (or improved) search features.

The Overview Committee discussed this more in depth and decided the automatic categories should be removed. I did not have the details about exactly when or how that change would take place until yesterday. The first step is that Dallan has removed the automatically-created links on the bottom of pages. The next step will be to remove the links under Category:Surname and Category:Surnames by country. If anyone has specific examples of how the search function can be improved in light of these changes, please do let me know. --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:13, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Manually create the categories at people costs, I think, much more time than just making the categories. The advantage is that people can now come in the category by first name.

First we thought it was a problem that links were red. Now there are no links, sorry the surname statements are immediately gone. I found that everyone with the same surname, could be found in the categories one of the strong points of this site. Now I want to first rethink whether I want here further.

With search, you should know what you want. The advantage of categories is that surprises you encounter that you were not looking.

Susan, really consultation has not been there, some have expressed their views. A poll I have not seen.

Susan, if you want to capture something you should do that now. The saved pages can then be used to quickly between people clicking. The categories are now only filled with sources and images. --Lidewij 17:37, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

While I am no fan of Categories, I think that Lidewij raises a valid point - there is no convenient way to browse through WeRelate unless you have a fairly good idea what you are looking for. So Jennifer, I will suggest some enhancements to Search criteria and results:

1) Provide a single Search query to return Persons, Families, Sources and Pictures. Provide check-boxes for each of these categories of results.

2) Provide the ability to filter Search results by kinds of fact, dates of facts, surnames, locations, etc.

3) Provide a convenient way to sort and then browse through the results of a Search.

4) There was talk sometime ago about adding a Faceted Search facility. I strongly endorsed that idea then and I think you need to seriously consider it now.

I still maintain that a better interface for searching and browsing would take most of the steam out of the Categories debate. --Jhamstra 20:23, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

In the discussion last February there were people who said they found the surname categories useful, while many objections seemed to be more theoretical than practical. The argument hat they caused confusion for many users as a reason for their removal would suggest that we also remove the place field for events, since this also clearly causes confusion for users who enter such things as birth dates, cause of death, names of family members, etc. in the place field. The problem of demand on Administrators time would seem to be more valid. I know it's hard to get people to volunteer for routine maintenance, but if more did volunteer, would this help?

I agree with both Lidewij and Jhamstra, the Surname in Place Categories did provide a convenient way to browse. I also agree that there does need to be some way to browse, and the current Search function does not serve this purpose. I tried using person search with just a surname and a birth location, which gives pages and pages which have to be read (with eyes slowly blearing) rather than quickly scanned. And, you can search only for birth and death, not marriage or residence. So the Search function does not serve the same purpose. The problems trying to browse or search for Sources using name and place are even worse.--GayelKnott 02:10, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

"The Overview Committee discussed this more in depth and decided the automatic categories should be removed. I did not have the details about exactly when or how that change would take place until yesterday." --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:13, 6 May 2013

And the rest of us ordinary users knew nothing about the change until Lidewij brought it to our attention yesterday. Is there a place where the decisions of the Overview Committee are announced? Do we get email advices about them? ----goldenoldie 02:53, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

I would like to make a suggestion based on the information provided in this post. I embarked on a personal project to attempt to bring pages upon which I landed, whether accidentally or on purpose, closer to the standards which have already been established on this site. The categories at the bottom of the Family and Person pages helped greatly in this endeavor as they glaringly indicated something was not following the standards and would lead to other pages with the same difficulty which could be remedied. I understand the categories are gone, not to return, but I'm afraid using the search engine provided on this site to do as I've been doing is not as intuitive, nor can I determine if there is a way to improve the search function to allow for this project to continue in the same manner.

Therefore, my suggestion is that the Categories page remain entirely intact to help facilitate finding the problem children. Perhaps it could be renamed or reused for this type of endeavor. If this is not possible, are there suggestions from other users which might accomplish this same project in another way to which I am ignorant?--Khaentlahn 07:46, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

I spent a lot of energy to create categories, because I think it is important. The category has a different effect than search. I'm generally ample time warned that there was no assurance that these categories remained.

When I stay active, I took the family, that my interest, add the full categories. Manually entering a category provides better quality. (The categories can I start entering the gedcom) I also use these categories to see what people are newly added. (compare an old store category pages) I also hope, by categories, to connect with people, who at the same surname search

The category indicates the connection of everything associated with that name. Visitors search for people (surname), not on the page of users. When I want to know, what is a family here present, I always look at the category. Only when I encounter in finding people with the same or similar first and surname, I use the search for a wider picture. In the category I see at a glance more than 40 couples a few cm2, always in the same order. Here I find what I'm looking for quickly. Nothing typing, but a single click. Without that I was looking for I see that there are no sources or pictures with a surname. (sometimes a catch of own ‘familie' foto's). In a single click I see the global spread of a surname

Category:Mol surname the family’s in an orderly row

Familie mol Werelate Search What find a visitor, relevance, page titel ??, date last modified ?? The first three are my work. What comes after it is no Mol

Only when entering a surname, the only concrete

Categories will come, even if they are not created automatically. It will take some time before the backlog is cleared.

Categories provide an opportunity for rapid control and bringing together interested parties in the same surname.

In genealogy everyone works in his own way, with its own goals and find that way of working minded alike. The families are now categorized manually will probably be checked for accuracy.

The gedcom that are bad are no longer up. That did happen during the making of the categories.

--Lidewij 08:53, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Like others, I don't really use the Categories much, and I don't disagree with the decision to get rid of them. However, I think that this is a good time to rethink the way that the Overview Committee works. The fact that none of us knew that this decision was coming is a problem. I have no problem with having a committee of people generous enough to take their time to think about how to improve WeRelate, but I think that their meetings and decisions need to be more transparent, so that we know what they are talking about, and have time and opportunity to comment on decisions before they are implemented. -- Jdfoote1 08:57, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Regarding the discusssion in February, I made no comment because I did not object to removing the automated category, the red links. However, I do object to the removal of the manually entered surname categories that I and others have worked countless hours on. So if one manually enters the surname category again will that also be removed? My time is too valuable to be wasted.--Beth 09:06, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Beth, by manually entered surname categories do you mean pages like Category:Coleman in North Carolina? That category will be empty because none of the 17 pages contain the "Coleman in North Carolina" category any longer. If I do a search for Surname=Coleman Place=North Carolina "Exact match only", I get 17 pages, the same exact pages that appear in the category. If I search for Surname=Coleman Keywords=North Carolina instead, I get 54 pages - more because Coleman appears somewhere on the page where an automatic category would not have been generated for it. These searches show all of the namespaces but can be further filtered to show just Person or Family pages. --Jennifer (JBS66) 09:59, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Coleman in North Carolina is not empty, there are, among other sources.

I get pages - more Coleman, that should not fall into the category of Coleman in North Carolina, what I saw was a pity about the time of the click and watch. --Lidewij 10:47, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

To me you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, while I only understood that you were throwing out the bathwater. See Person:Absalom Anderson (2). This page now has no category. However this person is still on the category page Category:Anderson in Mississippi but now there is no link. --Beth 10:32, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

What you see is the cache (temporary memory) when you edit the person or touch it disappeared--Lidewij 10:47, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

That is correct, the pages currently do appear in the category. As I mentioned above "The first step is that Dallan has removed the automatically-created links on the bottom of pages. The next step will be to remove the links under Category:Surname and Category:Surnames by country." The links that appear in the categories now are essentially phantom links. Dallan needs to run another process to refresh the categories. Refreshing the categories will clear out pages that no longer "point" to them (meaning since the pages no longer have categories on them, they would not appear in the category).

Beth, your first comment was that you don't object to removing the automated categories (of which many were red-links) but you do object to removing the categories. Then, I mentioned that you can find the same information from a search. I want to understand better how the data from a category was better for you than the same information in a search? --Jennifer (JBS66) 10:54, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

This shows just how hot this topic is. While I was trying to put exactly what I wanted to say on the editing screen, another posting was made, and what I had carefully thought about disappeared.

Would the Overview Committee now look to editing Help:Categories, removing all reference to Categories: Surnames in Places, and making sense of what remains. Over the past year I have read over the topic a number of times and have always come away feeling that I did not understand.

The word "browse" has been used by a number of contributors to this discussion. We want to look around WeRelate and see what others have contributed. Searching is browsing with blinkers on. Can't we look around for morsels of information that might be an arm's length away (or, in genealogical terms, find a part of a family that was hiding on the other side of the nearest hill)? A month ago I suggested that we consider looking at places first, and surnames afterwards. There are all sorts of ways to spell a surname and one part of a family (or the person who wrote down their name) might adopt a different way than the part we have been looking at. Search engines are dependent on alphabetical characters, not on the sounds of names. To look at a variety of surname spellings within one small geographical area of the world may bring out all sorts of interesting considerations. Believe it or not, literacy for the general populace came earlier for the United States than for other parts of the English-speaking world. Families that did not all migrate together could lose touch and never find each other again. ----goldenoldie 10:40, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

@Goldenoldie, When an edit conflict, is at the bottom of your written text. So it was not gone.

Finding variant names via a Search is much better than through the use of categories. Categories did not take into consideration variant name spellings - search does. You said "Search engines are dependent on alphabetical characters, not on the sounds of names." Dallan has already incorporated the WeRelate:Variant names project into search results, so that when I search for Swart, I also get Zwart, Stewart, Schwart, Zwarts, etc. and I can limit that by a location. If I don't want to look through these variant names, I can choose "exact match only". Perhaps having an option to make the display more compact (ie, a checkbox to hide the husband, wife, marriage/birth date, children information) would be helpful? --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:07, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

I cannot explain why I prefer the category to using the search engine but I do. I do not know why we cannot have both options. I have no objection to removing the automation but as I previously stated I had no idea that the Overview Committee intended to delete countless hours of work by many volunteers. The Anderson link was not red. Anyway you have answered my question. There is no use in me manually reentering the category because it will be deleted. Does the Overview Committee plan on deleting all categories?--Beth 11:17, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

There is too much focus on the search. Search is a conscious action. On wikipedia you search. Yet one uses categories. Categories belong to the wiki. To connect topics together there are the categories on these pages you go leaves. These are useful when you are unable to search.

I assume that the categories that were made and to be made, even when some time will be empty, will stay ??? --Lidewij 11:25, 7 May 2013 (EDT)--Lidewij 14:41, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

No, these categories will not stay. It would not be beneficial to keep some of the categories because they too will be empty once the cache is cleared. All of the categories of the type Surname and Surname in Place, that appear underneath Category:Surnames and Category:Surnames by country will be removed. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

---

"Perhaps having an option to make the display more compact (ie, a checkbox to hide the husband, wife, marriage/birth date, children information) would be helpful?" --Jennifer (JBS66) 11:07, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Compacting the display would help--a default limit of 20 people on a page when there is a possibility of thousands doesn't get one very far very fast. Reducing the number of supplementary facts and placing them to the right would save space as would removing all but the original User. Frankly I did not know that the search engine covered such a wide field. Having started this afternoon putting "Help:Category" in the search box and come up with nothing made me skeptical. ----goldenoldie 11:59, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

"@Goldenoldie, When an edit conflict, is at the bottom of your written text. So it was not gone."

I looked, and didn't find it. ----goldenoldie 11:59, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

I am uncertain what needs to be done with the search function to alleviate the following example, but I bring it to your attention for just that purpose:

Original category that needed some work: Seaver in VT

First individual on the page: Elizabeth Seaver (23)

Initial search for Seaver (using Exact and Close) in Vermont produced 357 people, but I did not find her listed. While there are others in this search that clearly show VT for Vermont, I did not find her. (If that was an oversight on my part, I apologize, but I made a good effort to find her.)

More specific search for Elizabeth Seaver in Vermont produced 21 Elizabeths (or variations thereon) and Elizabeth Seaver (23) was still not listed. I needed to remove Vermont for her name to appear in a list of 385, which included quite a few individuals who were not Elizabeth in any way. Narrowing it by Exact (as opposed to Exact and Close) brought the list down to 70, but then obviously name variants are no longer present. If there is a fairly painless way to repair the original search oversight, that would be fabulous.

Interesting side note, if I attempted to create another page for Elizabeth Seaver with the same basic information, and I used only Vermont as the place of birth, Elizabeth Seaver (23) did not appear, but if I expanded it to Manchester, Bennington, Vermont, United States, she does. I am uncertain why the City/County designation will bring her forward, but not the state. (And, no, I didn't create another page for her. :D) I hope this helps!--Khaentlahn 12:12, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Addendum: I wish to note that this example is not a singular instance and I'm afraid editing Elizabeth Seaver (23) did not correct a similar issue with other pages which I'm afraid also fail the search engine test. Can we expect the search engine to be modified or will we need to figure out which pages are broken and fix them manually? I'm not vested in either instance, I would simply like to know how to proceed.--Khaentlahn 16:40, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

The reason Elizabeth Seaver (23) could not be found in a search is because the place was not properly formed and was red-linked (the page said Manchester, Bennington County, VT). Since the word Vermont did not appear on the page, you could not find her page by searching for Vermont. You did find her by searching for Manchester, Bennington because those terms did appear on the page. Elizabeth's page has since been edited to correct the place, so you can now find her by searching for Vermont. If the place on her page had been "piped" with an alternate name like Manchester, Bennington, Vermont, United States|Manchester, Bennington County, VT - the place would not be red-linked. In this case, even though VT is shown on the display, Vermont does appear on the page and will be found in search.

The question about how to find red-linked places on pages that need fixing is a good one. I will ask Dallan about ways to accomplish this other than using categories. In the short-term, when cleaning up places like this, I use the What links here page. First, I will see a place that needs fixing (like on this page) and open the red-linked place in another tab. Then, on that incorrect empty place page, I'll click on "What links here". That will display the other pages that refer to that place. I usually fix the Person pages first, refresh the browser view, then fix the remaining Family pages. The reason is that, many times, the error on the Family page will be resolved by fixing the connecting Person page. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

I was aware of this situation prior to posting this example and my addendum question, though I am grateful for your description for those who were not. I realized that I did not phrase my question properly to communicate what I was asking. Can the place names that are not piped by the automated system, the ones that maintain broken places, be included in the basic search or will we need to repair these before they will be seen by specific searches? Though that had been what I was attempting to communicate, my brain shoved it a step further. Can the search be modified so that, as an example, when someone is searching for Vermont, the search also displays VT hits? Since the search brings up surname variants, can it not bring up typical place variants? Also, I am aware of how to find the red linked place names without the Categories, I simply wanted to know whether they will need to be fixed before the search engine will show people where they belong or if the search would be modified.

A minor comment on the order of repairing the broken places on Person pages, I would suggest repairing the Family page first only if the broken place name in question is where the marriage took place. For some reason, if the marriage place on the Family page is repaired after the Person page has been changed, though it will appear changed on the Person page's marriage line, the system still seems to connect the Person page to the broken place until the Person page has been opened and saved a second time.--Khaentlahn 09:28, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Regarding your Vermont/VT question, I think this already happens for the non-red linked places. If I search for Massachusets in the Place field (listed on the Massachusetts page as a common misspelling), it returns MA and Massachusetts pages. The red-links are a different problem. Since they are not linked to a place page, they don't take advantage of the alt-names for that place. I wonder if a report, generated weekly, for pages that contained red-linked places might be useful. --Jennifer (JBS66) 16:26, 12 May 2013 (EDT)

Simply for clarification, are you referring to Special:Wantedpages, which is generated each week? It does not contain strictly Place red links, but that appears to be the main page type listed on it. Or at least something similar to it?--Khaentlahn 07:46, 13 May 2013 (EDT)

Khaentlahn is making an important point -- things can (or could) be found using the Surname in Place categories that likely aren't going to found any other way. Among other things, I found Henk's Groninger Emigranten/1892 article through the Knot in Netherlands category. I would never have found it, otherwise. Similarly, my Scott DNA Family in Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina article also appears in Surname in Place categories, which gives it at least a minimally better chance of being found, I would hope. Neither Article will appear in a Person search, nor do images. (Nor do Families.)

And yes, if I search All, with Knot for surname and Netherlands for Place, Henk's Article might show up -- in the 21 pages I would have to read through in order to find it. This, I think is part of the point that Lidewij is making. Not likely that I will read through 21 pages just to see what's there. (And Knot is not a common name in the Netherlands -- I shudder to think of how many pages might show up for a common name using All to search.)

It's clear that several people have put time into working with the Category pages, because they find them useful. Being able to condense the results of a Person search would certainly help, but would still not help with other uses people make of the Surname in Place pages.--GayelKnott 23:46, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

Category:Knot in Netherlands is a relatively small category. As it stands, items are sorted by Namespace first, so you would need to overlook all of the F's and P's to find an article of interest to you. Categories become much more unwieldy as they grow, and the likelihood of being able to stumble upon an interesting article is much less likely. For example, you'd need to click (next 200) 26 times to stumble on the Genghis Khan 1853 Voyage to Australia article in the Brown surname category. A search of Surname=Brown Namespace=Article yields 24 specific results. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

I agree with Beth - they've thrown out the baby with the bath water. Just because some people don't use categories is no reason to eliminate them from the folks that do use them. I have not seen an announcement that would clearly state the reasons for this change, why it would happen and what would be affected by the change. Are ALL categories eliminated or only those generated automatically? What about the categories that we have manually added to each page? Will they go away too? I'm grieving for the future of this site. --janiejac 10:36, 9 May 2013 (EDT)

No, ALL categories will not be eliminated. The automatically-created Surname and Surname in Place links that appeared at the bottom of pages were removed. Often times, these were red-links and category pages had not been created for them yet. Those that had been created (ie the categories that appear under Category:Surname and Category:Surnames by country) will be removed because they will be empty once the pages are "refreshed". Categories such as Category:U.S. Presidents and Category:Founders of Newport, RI will remain. --Jennifer (JBS66) 08:39, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

I have not read through everything in this thread, but I do perceive that most of the people writing are objecting to the change. I have invested heavily in the creation, revision and application of categories over time (if you look at my contributions, you'll see long stretches of edits with the comment "categorized", for instance). However, I am quite willing to accommodate the present change and give it a chance. Any change of this kind is disruptive, but the value of the end product might be greater than the original state. Consider the deficits in the search vs. categorization -- what changes to search or indexing would improve the search (or presentation of results) so that the result would be _more_ useful than categorization. The first thing that comes to mind is faceting based on country; presently search results are not faceted and introducing even the most minimal faceting would be a great improvement. In other words, let's live with the change and seek to suggest (or implement) changes in remaining aspects of the interface which yield a superior product. --ceyockey 20:43, 9 May 2013 (EDT)

I am befuddged by the reasoning or lack thereof behind this! I am not a programmer and so do not understand why categories have to be removed before we can improve the search function!! Why not improve the search FIRST if you think that will eliminate the need for categories?? Now we have neither! Sounds like this was planned by a committee . . . And by the looks of the suggestion page, Dallan doesn't have time to work on suggestions for search anyway. . .:( --janiejac 10:48, 11 May 2013 (EDT)

I've created a suggestions page for assembling ideas to make search more robust and to enhance the display of search results. For those unfamiliar with faceted search, I want to provide an example of this idea in action. Let's say that I'm searching for an area rug for my home and I look at the Kohl's website. On the left, there are filters with numbers in parentheses. I can filter the results in these ways. I want a 4'x6' rug so I click that box and the results are filtered. Then, I can say I want an orange rug, and the results are further refined. Maybe those are not enough options for me, so I can unclick the 4'x6' and just see the orange rugs. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

First we throw overboard the automatically created categories and then we think if we can make a good search system.

Understand an English text through the google translation is a crime, search the genealogy through the furnishing of a house is even worse. --Lidewij 10:44, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Faceting which is relevant to genealogists (to assuage complaints raised by the home furnishings example): go to http://search.ancestry.com/search/ and do a search. Look at the left hand panel. All those links like "Military" are facets; and under "Military" there is, for instance, "Casualities" - another facet. For the place-oriented categories, replace this with a continent/country/subdivision facet set. We already have some faceting; do a search via the open box on the front page of this site - voila, on the left are facets covering the different page types used here. --ceyockey 17:41, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Dallan will be implementing a new option for condensed search view tomorrow. There will be a new Search checkbox, next to the results per page drop-down. Selecting this box when running a search will display only page links (with full names as they appear in current search results). Other information such as who is watching the page, when it was modified, birth/death information, etc will not be displayed. Also, the default number of results will be 200 for this condensed view.

Lidewij left a suggestion regarding the use of wildcards. As a side-note to that, I wanted to say that wildcards currently work in the Given name and Surname fields. So, if I search for Jon*, I get pages for Jonathan, Jonas, Jon, etc. The * takes the place of multiple letters and ? takes the place of one letter. There must be at least 3 letters before a wildcard. --Jennifer (JBS66) 18:52, 12 May 2013 (EDT)

Category:Surname and Category:Surnames by country [11 mei 2013]

I assume that the categories that were made and to be made, even when some time will be empty, will stay ??? --Lidewij 11:25, 7 May 2013 (EDT)--Lidewij 14:41, 7 May 2013 (EDT)

No, these categories will not stay. It would not be beneficial to keep some of the categories because they too will be empty once the cache is cleared. All of the categories of the type Surname and Surname in Place, that appear underneath Category:Surnames and Category:Surnames by country will be removed. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

I have the situation since May 7 as viewed.

• Category: Surname XXX will never be empty. This is filled with Surname: XXX, sources Surname: XXX and User: xxx'.
• Most Category: Surnames country are not empty, they are filled with sources, image/photos and user names. Furthermore all kinds of other things that came up users.
  Some category will be empty for a moment but will still be needed within a few years. It would be a big mistake to temporarily remove these handmade categories. --Lidewij 10:30, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

These categories will be empty and thus removed. The Surname and Surname in Place links no longer appear on Source, Image, or User pages so what you are seeing are cached versions. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:48, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

I had not seen that the sources were also without category. How unhandy can you make? I understand that the images are no longer linked. What a breakdown? Remains user and surname? There is not much left of what I found here good quality for a genealogy site.

Category:Andersson surname Surname:Andersson --Lidewij 13:25, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Lidewij, I do realize that you are frustrated. There are multiple stages to this process, and I can only assume Dallan has not yet had time to remove the categories from Surname pages. In the event it was an oversight on his part, I will remind him that these too will need to be removed. --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:37, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Is not productive! Productive I was many, many hours. (>10.000 cats. Now all turns to nothing) I understood that only the categories under the people might not materialize. (That might be better manually, in an additional category) But because these are very useful also for the sources, I see the point. Especially with the sources it is useful to see this at a glance.--Lidewij 14:01, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

Better turned in half, then completely lost.

The categories were removed under the pages because there was not enough interest to make the red link. Yet there are > 20,000 categories created by some people in a year. There are not many red categories with more than 100 items. When there is not enough interest is to make the simple categories, what do you expect for making the places. At the next step, also places no more linked? --Lidewij 16:24, 10 May 2013 (EDT)

When the sources are not categorized by the surname, these rarely or not found / seen /used. --Lidewij 09:54, 11 May 2013 (EDT)

News on the main page of the site - needs an update [30 May 2013]

Hello -- I think that the current news item on the main page should be replaced with a news item related to the elimination of auto-created categories and the availability of a suggestions page for enhancing other features of the site to overcome perceived and actual functionality that this elimination has and will lead to. Thanks for considering this. --ceyockey 20:44, 15 May 2013 (EDT)

Yes please! Is there a sandbox where non-admins can mock up Main Page changes? AndrewRT 17:41, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

Search Update [30 May 2013]

How often does the search update? Basically, when a change is made, roughly how soon before it will show up changed in the search?--Khaentlahn 09:28, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

It shows up immediately in the "unindexed" section. in my personal experience it's in the main index within days (although someone else may be able to provide a more precise answer) AndrewRT 17:40, 30 May 2013 (EDT)

New Browse Feature [30 May 2013]

Just saw a new "Browse" function under the "Watchers" on one of my pages -- very nice, and many thanks. I'm assuming it will eventually show up on other person and family pages as well. This should serve the needs of those people who like to browse, and looks much nicer than the old Name in Place Categories on the bottom of the page. Again, thanks. --GayelKnott 09:57, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

Did some exploring and found a useful source. Very nice.--GayelKnott 10:31, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

So this new Browse feature is a good idea (if I say so myself 8-). But it is rather flaky in its current form. For example if I go to [2] then I see Browse but if I go to the same Person without the diff [3] after I did a minor edit then the Browse feature evaporates? Also I would place it above Watchers rather than beneath. Still - this is real progress!--Jhamstra 15:55, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

This seems to be a very interesting bug? When first I click on a different page from any URL the Browse feature seems to appear. BUT - whenever I go back to the same page in the same session (via URL, browser Back Arrow, etc) the Browse magically disappears? I have tried this now with several different Person and Family pages with pretty consistent results. Dallan - you might want to look into this? Maybe some inconsistency between the cache and the underlying database? or ? --Jhamstra 16:09, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

I agree, very nice feature. Decidedly faster than invoking the Search page (which is slow on my computer) and using the "compact results" option. A bit frustrating when the Browse tool is not present or disappears from the sidebar. --Robert.shaw 16:30, 16 May 2013 (EDT)

Could someone perhaps do a write up explaining how the new feature work and possibly put a link to it from the "News" section on the Main Page (which is now rather old!). AndrewRT

Time for a new logo? [18 June 2013]

I mean no disrespect to whoever came up with the current WeRelate logo (heaven knows that I couldn't do any better), but I'm wondering if it's time for a new logo? I think it looks a little dated, not to metion that it's difficult to see what it has to do with "WeRelate" or genealogy or wikis, etc. I don't really have any brilliant ideas for a replacement, but I just wanted to get the conversations started. -- Jdfoote1 15:39, 14 June 2013 (EDT)

I agree the logo could use changing. The "falling pawns" image never made sense to me, and seemed unrelated to WeRelate. --Robert.shaw 16:25, 14 June 2013 (EDT)

Before anyone goes too far down the line on this it would be useful to know what the opinions of Dallan and the other oversight committee members are? AndrewRT 18:01, 15 June 2013 (EDT)

I and the other members of the oversight committee would welcome a new logo. Would someone be willing to design one? Perhaps a few logo proposals could be posted and we could vote on them here?--Dallan 21:51, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

Wonderful - I'd be happy to put together a page where people could upload their designs, if there are no objections? -- Jdfoote1 14:24, 18 June 2013 (EDT)

GEDCOM production [17 June 2013]

In general experience, are there family tree programs which produce GEDCOMs with surnames which are all capped automatically or does this tend to be a user preference?--Khaentlahn 09:00, 16 June 2013 (EDT)

I think capped surnames used to be a default option in Legacy. But this has changed and now a warning pops up when a user first types one in.

Some family history societies prefer queries and trees for archiving to be set up that way. --Goldenoldie 02:09, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

Overview meeting agendas posted [17 June 2013]

Overview committee meeting agendas will be posted as sub-pages of WeRelate:Overview committee. I just posted the May meeting agenda; in the future they'll be posted in advance of the meeting.--Dallan 23:33, 17 June 2013 (EDT)