Thoughts on entering multiple reference ids [25 August 2017]
I have been thinking about this and wondering if we should revisit some of the ways in which we have been entering some things. This page provides me with a good stopping place to pick your brain on a couple of things related to data entry ...
- Wikidata - We have an internal Source page for Wikidata (Source:Wikidata), Perhaps you weren't aware of it. Shouldn't the Wikidata number cite that source?
- Wikidata - I can't say it absolutely doesn't contain information - but the primary purpose is as a name/registry authority. The information comes from elsewhere and only exists there to allow interesting query operations to occur. So, while you could make an argument for either - I think the reference number fact/claim is much stronger.
- Wikipedia - We also have an internal Source page for Wikipedia. Just wondering why you didn't create a citation for it either? As a side note, the placement of the WP transclusion in the Personal History field has always bothered me, but I know that many others do it that way as well. By definition, WP is at least a secondary source (as are we), and it is often not the best source for our purposes here. When you add in the fact that the text here and the text there are often out of sync, there are plenty of reasons why the WP transclusions should not dominate our pages. But that is probably a topic for another day...
- Well, it's kind of been the standard way to do that, but there are some much better things we can do moving forward. Besides your gripes about layout - the approach of using English WP puts us at the mercy of name changes and it offers nothing for folks from other language backgrounds. I've been thinking that we could figure out several language specific extracts for any given page (either an extract or links to other languages) - so that users could see pages in their preferred language. Were it up to me - I would put an embed/display of the extract into the "Person:" page display code - activating for any Person: page that has a Wikidata ID and an empty page body. I would junk the existing transclusion except in cases where people have used it together with their own work. Since I started doing the work with Wikidata - I haven't bothered setting up inclusion of English WP extracts.
- Find a Grave - Here you chose to cite the source, so I am in agreement with that. But what about their unique reference numbers? I think it might be time for a change to our templates, so that the numbers are no longer hidden behind the text (2nd parameter) that is essentially meaningless as it could be entered as anything. Find a Grave is a little like us and Wikidata in that they are aiming for one unique id # per grave. Seems like we should emphasize that.
- As long as the content is presented as a link on our pages - the actual number is, well, noise. You can see it by simply lingering over the link if that's what you want (which seems better to my mind). When the content is used somewhere that doesn't support the template - then the id would be plainly visible. So kind of seems like the best of both worlds as it sits.
- DAR Patriot index - same as above regarding the text. Also, the ref number should include the "A", both because it is actually part of the number and because removing it adds an extra step when you utilize the normal double-click to copy & paste (i.e. the "A" comes with the number).
- I don't have a strong opinion on this one. The number of pages I find linking the template isn't a lot (150+/-) - so it wouldn't be too painful to change things - particularly if we're not currently specifying the parameter correctly.
- probably some others ...
What are your thoughts on all of this? You are currently the only watcher of this particular page, so I could edit it to demonstrate the changes I would propose if that would be helpful. Thanks, --cos1776 22:03, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- While I certainly have my own preferences about how things display - I really have two priorities. I want to make sure that presentation is centrally controlled so that the community can decide what it will across the entire database. I also want to make sure that the text put in as a template is at least crudely meaningful and correctly located for purposes of a GEDCOM download. Changeable display parameters/template implementations aren't that important to me. --jrm03063 23:13, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
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