FamilySearch Wiki talk:Manual of Style

Link to FHL works on FHLC
FamilySearch Wiki references thousands of books and microform at the Family History Library. It is proposed that each reference be linked to the FHL entry which lists all editions of the work in question. So a reference like this:

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (Family History Library book 941.5 D27gj.)

...would look like this:

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (Family History Library book 941.5 D27gj.)

Replace "Family History Library" with "FHL" in references
FamilySearch Wiki references thousands of books, microfilms, and fiche at the Family History Library. Each of these references contains the words "Family History Library," such as the following:

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (Family History Library book 941.5 D27gj.)

For readability's sake, some users are calling for the words "Family History Library" in these links be shortened to "FHL" and made into a link which introduces the FHL to those who don't already know the acronym.

So the new style would look like this:

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (FHL book 941.5 D27gj.)

This idea was proposed by Dsammy. I am serving as his scribe here. Ritcheymt 19:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned below, I suggest FHL not be linked. When they click on the call number link, they will learn quickly enough that FHL stands for the Family History Library. I prefer the acronym for the same reason, and it's shorter. Bakerbh 21:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Referencing OCLC/Worldcat works
It is proposed that references to works found on OCLC/Worldcat should be linked to the "All editions and formats" entry for that work in OCLC/WorldCat. One question is how the entry should look. Which of the following (or some variant) would work best if we adopt this proposal?

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (OCLC 68627254.)

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (WorldCat 68627254.)

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (OCLC/WorldCat 68627254.)

Ritcheymt 19:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The second style seems the best--WorldCat is more recognized, is part of the domain name, and putting both OCLC and WorldCat looks unattractive. Alan 20:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

As long as the record identifies what resource you are in (when you click on the item number), I don't think the resource name or acronym needs to be a link. I would use WorldCat because that is what appears in the record when you click on the link. Bakerbh 21:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Format for OCLC and FHLC works
If a work is available in both WorldCat and FHLC, should both references be given in the Wiki? I propose that they both be listed, with OCLC reference first and FHLC reference second, in this format:

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1992. (WorldCat 68627254; FHL book 941.5 D27gj.)

Alan 20:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, Alan. Ritcheymt 19:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Creating Numerous, Repetitive Links
Creating links of an oft-repeated phrase, title, word or acronym can be easily accomplished using OpenOffice, which can be downloaded for free. From FSWiki, copy a page (containing the repeated word or phrase) in WikiText mode and paste it into OpenOffice. Do a Find and Replace (binoculars icon) for the word or phrase with link brackets added, click 'Replace All' and close. Copy and paste the page with links back into the Wiki, still in WikiText mode, and save. It's slick and saves a lot of time, effort, and sanity. Bakerbh 22:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)