User talk:HardestyPN

Comments Requested
FamilySearch_Wiki_talk:WikiProject_New_York Dsammy 02:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Charleston County page
Hi Pat -- As far as I've been able to determine, no one has codified how to break a county page down into smaller chunks. I think David Dilts has come up with a pretty ingenious way of doing it. Good job! I would recommend he also create a Charleston County nav box that is placed on the bottom of each page he broke out. Here is an example of one I created for Loudoun County, Virginia: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Template:Loudoun_County,_Virginia (I know the color scheme's not that great. I copied it from BYU's nav box on Wikipedia LOL)

Another trick I learned from Wikipedia is to use the template Main, which produces:

This should be placed near the top of each page he broke out, to help people realize we have more on the Wiki about the county than just that a list of cemeteries, etc. Many of the search engines (Google, FamilySearch Wiki) rank the smaller pages, such as Charleston County, South Carolina Genealogy above the main article Charleston County, South Carolina because of what content is on the page. This, along with breadcrumbs, nav boxes, etc., will help people stumble into the main article (which is now a table of contents).

Murphynw 08:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added the Main template to each sub page. Marketing (Ericson) has asked me to present the SC Wiki pages at NGS. Can I have free reign to make a few changes to the Charleston pages (mainly changes that make each sub page intuitive)? I've got other prep work to do for NGS and won't have time to go through the negotiation stages with everyone between now and when I present about adjustments (hope that doesn't disturb anyone). There were many cross links in the Charleston page, for example, say from Vital Records to Cemeteries, that are now broken. I've started fixing them. Murphynw 08:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Before we announced Tennessee, I did some standardization to make sure everyone's separate projects came together into an understandable whole. Something like an editor for an article before the article is published. Issues for Tennessee were not that a member of the team was doing a bad job on the task assigned, but that we weren't comparing what we did with what other people did on the same pages, to handle parallel issues in a similar standardized fashion. It would be helpful to have these things completed before the project is marketed. I don't have to be the person to do it, but it would be great if someone did it. Is anyone interested/already started on this? Murphynw 20:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * On the Charleston pages, many of the sub pages could really use introductory paragraphs. If someone Googles into a page like this: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Charleston_County,_South_Carolina_History, they're probably not going to understand what they've found... Murphynw 20:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it was a mistake to remove the Main template. That's the accepted way to handle articles that are broken down in Wikipedia. Learning to think like Google thinks is a critical social networking and marketing skill, but to be perfectly honest, I really don't care enough to fix it. I'd love to have a target in the office called Wiki that we can throw darts at! LOL. If a bullseye earned the thrower a week's vacation from Wiki work, even better. Murphynw 20:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * One last thought. Did you and David know Geoff Morris, Steve Cottrell et al are having a Forums discussion about a tab approach to break long Wiki pages into smaller Wiki pages? Here's the Wikipedia example. Here's the Forum's discussion. I'd love to see David discuss his ideas about the Charleston page with the community on Forums. Murphynw 21:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

One Small Detail, Position of FHL sources
I noticed something and it isn't limited to South Carolina but the team should be aware of...

The emphasis is listing links and sources outside of FHL first and FHL links to be listed last. This was emphasized several times over the years.

I figured out ▲ (hold down Alt and key 30) is posing a problem with different browsers, rendering it as ?. I will look for it and change it to template}}, {{template such as WorldCat then FHL to eliminate that problem as I work through to purge non-functioning codes. Dsammy 02:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for for fixing the ▲. We'll try to review the links and how to list them. Appreciate your history and knowledge. It will always be helpful for me to know where it is listed, if you can find any documentation. You know how picky some of us are. Did you see the message I left? I'm on counter from 10 to 12 tomorrow. pnh 05:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Amazed at capacity for bloating
We're concerned about the size of page file yet I am seeing others adding too much wordy paragrahs that can be kept to a single page covering that subject instead of pasting ad nauseum on every county page. Any way to reach out to them and tell them they need to cut back on that and try to keep the information to the minimum. One staff consultant told me and others flat out - there are many who do NOT have time to do all the ready, they want quick information with ready links to go to instantly. Dsammy 05:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

South Carolina Districts
After your msg, I went back to look at at least Edgefield District to see how it is and nothing quite making sense so made some necessary changes and added back one item (had to go long way back in history to find that limited info) and added basically essential information to it to aid anyone looking for the District rather than the County to guide them through quick history and back to the rest of records at County page. Dsammy 18:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! How's it going?
Hey there, Pat! I like what you're doing to Maryland Census! As the barn raising winds down, I want to get a feel for how each article on the Maryland Barn Raising Tasks is coming along so I can tell where to allocate any help that contributors can give for a last push. Could you either send me a message by editing my User Discussion page or go to the Maryland Barn Raising Tasks page and update the column on the % of "doneness" the article is at now? Ritcheymt 16:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back from Interruption Land
Thanks for your note, Pat -- I hope life is saner this week. In answer to your question, yes, it would be awesome of you to continue the work of the Maryland Census page. Thanks! Ritcheymt 18:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Need your help (done 6/25)
Since we really need to get the backlog prioritized and each story estimated, and since it has been such a struggle pulling the whole team together for meetings, I've thought of a way to prioritize the backlog as individuals rather than meeting to do it. I need your help to make it happen. Will you please go to &amp; FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject U.S. Census and add the team's stories from the whiteboard to the Requirement Backlog table? Once they're all there, we can have each team member do a Delphi vote on which items they feel are highest to lowest priority. Then I can do the math and arrange them in priority order. Ritcheymt 16:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for ranking the items, too, Pat! Ritcheymt 12:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article "Thank You"
Hi Hardesty

FamilySearch Research Wiki is delighted to let you know that the Illinois|FamilySearchWiki:WikiProject Illinois page you helped create has become a Featured Article, highlighted on the Main Page of the Wiki, and will remain there for seven days. Thank you for your excellent work to help others quickly access records. Your contributions are appreciated and will help others find their ancestors. You have made a difference in research!

DarleneHagbergdarlene1 19:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Utah Cemeteries
Pat, you wrote the following to me -

"Apparently we disagree on where the Utah page should go to the Utah burial Database. When we are sending the patron to the search page for a person, I feel they should go directly to the page where they enter the names. Please give me a call so we can discuss the page."

The reason I changed the external links is to make the wording match the intended search. The previous wording as I remember, was more generic and did not say it was a search of a burials database. The page I chose to link to said a search for cemeteries and burials. That is the kind of wording a new user would immedialy understand.

I did worry that this would require one more click to get to the actual cemetery search or the burial search. But the wording was clear for the new user at each step. And from that one page the user could search the cemeteries or the burials, plus search the additional death certificates.

I think the wording on the external link should match the wording on the page linked to. That way a new user will imediatly understand that he has arrived at the correct page. I did not see this on the way the previous external links were set up.

The previous links were not wrong, though one of the links actually went to a search for cemeteries, not burials. The burials search is a good one and needs to be linked at that place. What I objected to was the wording as I tried to explain above. If the external links were returned back to the original pages I would not be offended, but please adjust the wording to be more helpful to the new users

Gene Sabin (sabwoo)