User talk:Dsammy

Static presentation on the Wiki
Hi Dsammy,

Back in March you asked about a static presentation on the Wiki. Since then you are probably aware of the one we have, but you can find them by searching for the word "Teach" in the Wiki search box. It should be the first result, but if you can't find it, here is the link to the teaching aids page. nixiao 21:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

My stuff
Just my stuff I need to use for quick access:

Community Portal 1-866--274-9016 Access 336769 # (FS Wiki Meeings only)

We need your opinion
In order to help the community arrive at consensus on some issues impacting most of the pages on FamilySearch Wiki, I'd like to invite you to add your opinions to the following discussions:

FamilySearch Wiki talk:Format for Citing and Linking to Works in FHLC, Worldcat (OCLC) at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki_talk:Format_for_Citing_and_Linking_to_Works_in_FHLC%2C_Worldcat_%28OCLC%29

FamilySearch Wiki talk:Consensus at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki_talk:Consensus

FamilySearch Wiki talk:Source Citation Formats at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki_talk:Source_Citation_Formats

FamilySearch Wiki talk:Disambiguation at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki_talk:Disambiguation

Thanks! Ritcheymt 11:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Groups change proposal
There is already a long-standing category for Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups. That topic is broader than the more narrowly focused Ethnic Groups category. In order to avoid duplication, I suggest that all ethnic groups should be moved to the broader category from the category "Ethnic Groups," and then then the more narrow category be deleted. Diltsgd 01:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * That is a problem. There are many ethnic groups who are adverse to being labeled political or religious alongside with ethnic. This came up in a meeting I had last Wednesday. It belongs separately. Here's this description of ethnic group - "An ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed." That's from the Wikipedia. I would be adverse if I were to be part of German group with religion label. Dsammy 02:36, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The category could have been called just Groups but no one would have understood, so it got the longer title. The category is for all three kinds of groups. It is not just for people that are all three kinds at once. The category is for groups that are either one of the three. So Germans can be an ethnic group, Loyalists can be a political group, and Huguenots can be a religious group. The category allows genealogists to find any kind of human group about which there may be special records. No one is asking an ethnic group to be labelled religious or political if that is not appropriate to their group. We are just trying to fit as many kinds of human groups as possible into one overall category.


 * It isn't saying you have to be all three at once to fit in the category, it is just saying we think these three fit well together. We also see Acadians, Cajuns, and Creoles, and also the category for Migration Routes that includes (1)Canals, (2)Ports, (3)Railroads, (4)Rivers and Lakes, and (5)Trails and Roads. No one says the only way to get in the Migration Route category is to be all 5 things at once--a clear impossibility. So it is okay to have ethnic, political, and religious groups in one category together because genealogists use their records in all about the same way. In fact genealogically, they fit together so well, it seems strange to me not to have them together. Diltsgd 21:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see Category talk:Ethnic Groups for extended explanation of how to improve this category and the pages in it. Diltsgd 03:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

We would like your input
I am sorry you had to leave from the meeting yesterday as we wanted your input on a subject. Please take a look at the item at this link and please let us know if it satisfies your need. Thomas Lerman 05:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleted Links
You deleted links on the York County, Virginia page to individual cemeteries and churches deeming them unnecessary. For each cemetery or church, I develop an individual page that has information, history, interments, etc. from that cemetery. I am wondering why you deleted the links? I think it is important that each cemetery and church have an individual page to avoid cluttered county pages. I had asked around and others thought this was a good idea. Let me know what you think and, if you agree, I will restore the links.Gregorybean 00:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You were trying to internalize the links for individual cemeteries, amounting to try to create page for each cemetery. This is a no-no. It's ok to use external links. Likewise lists of names of interments are not allowed at all. That is a database. See this warning: William_Hutchinson:_Firth_Idaho_Entrepreneur posted by the Sysops.

To get better idea of how the cemeteries are linked at least 3 different ways... 1. Salem, Oregon (the cemeteries within the city) 2. Washington County, Maryland (separate page, but very intensive and unexpandable) 3. Bourne, Massachusetts

The objective of the FSWiki is to be a research resource, not a dumping place for datasets/databases, nor queries.

Eventually you will want to research more on the cemeteries in York County because I believe there are more cemeteries not listed in Findagrave.com. I kept finding more and more cemeteries not listed in Findagrave.com for New York state alone, already identified over 7,000 and estimate of at least 3,000 un-named marks shown on the GNIS.

I listed 4 more cemeteries for the independent city of Poquoson because they were within the boundaries of the city. The Poquoson Cemetery is outside of the city. Dsammy 03:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The church lists, can not be linked internally individually, either for same reasons. Dsammy 03:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess I am not understanding how individual pages for cemeteries is a "data set" that should not be included and how the page marked for deletion you referenced applies. I feel that individual pages for cemeteries adds to the purpose of the Wiki, to help users “find, use, and analyze” the records in individual cemeteries.

Outside links may not be helpful to researchers for a few reasons.

1. There may be no outside link to a cemetery 2. The information on the outside link may be inaccurate or inadequate 3. Outside links may become broken or the outside page may be deleted altogether

It seems natural that Wiki contributors could create a page, using outside links in addition to non-internet sources, that would have important information like a map, pictures, a history of the cemetery, dates of earliest and latest interments, activity of the cemetery, etc. It seems like it would make for a more consistent and thorough family history research experience to be able to collect information from multiple sources to create a thorough and expandable page for each cemetery.

Forcing the use of outside links means making Wiki contributors donate the information to these outside sites instead of internalizing it and creating a new page. It seems cumbersome to do this when the Wiki is the perfect place to post the information. Can you explain the underlying principle for not allowing individual pages?


 * That is the price of FSWiki. Small pages serve no purposes for individual cemeteries. And datasets meaning the lists of names, dates of burials, etc, which is not allowed. Exclusion of the outside links will discourage anyone from putting up their own sites with data they have direct control over. What you are requesting is that we force/strong-arm the cemetery owners as well as the database owners to post on the FSWiki. That's is plain and simple and we don't want to do that. The Sysops has reiterated again and again we need to reach out and get more cooperation instead of forcing everythin internally. dsammy 08:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As you move out of eastern Virginia, you will find a great deal of cemeteries aren't even linked to any specific church. When there are ones, they're usually small except for the Roman Catholic cemeteries generally and the ones that are linked are usually small and defunct churches with no records. dsammy 08:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I have had this discussion with others. See Talk:United States Cemeteries. I have also posted this discussion at Policy Talk:Purpose and Appropriate Topics. I recognize that there people have differing views on what and what is not appropriate. I have invested a lot of time on creating individual cemetery pages, so I hope you understand why I am impassioned about their existence. Thank you for your help in this matter.Gregorybean 07:28, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Where should wikiproject contributors communicate?
People who work on writing projects on the wiki are asking for an online venue they can use to talk about...


 * how to organize projects,
 * how and where to recruit contributors
 * how to motivate project members
 * how to track progress on projects
 * Manual of Style issues that we need to settle to avoid rework
 * ...and other stuff.

Could you go to the wiki feedback forum and give your opinion as to what tool(s) we should choose to communicate? The thread where we will discuss this is Which tools for wikiproject contributors to communicate? Ritcheymt 16:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What should the Manual of Style include and how should it look?
I have moved the discussion items from the Manual of Style page to the discussion page, and begun an outline for items to be covered in the MOS. It is kind of a dramatic (read: VERY "bold") change, and I would appreciate feedback, contributions, suggestions, discussion. Lise 14:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please vote on new name for Reviewer role
The wiki community is voting on a proposed renaming of the Reviewer role so that we can give the role to anyone we trust to upload their own images without review. If you care about the name of this role, please discuss the issue and cast your vote at FamilySearch Wiki talk:Reviewer. Ritcheymt 16:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Linking to college genealogy courses
Hey Dsammy, I'm wondering whether you might be willing to help with something? Darin Hakes is heading a project that will link to various sources of genealogical training, whether online or off. He needs help from folks who are good at Googling. He wants to identify all colleges in the U.S. that have genealogical courses. If you'd be interested in helping, could you leave a note on Darin's user talk page? Thanks! Ritcheymt 16:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome!
Welcome...

Hello, Dsammy, and welcome to FamilySearch Wiki! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Introduction The Guiding Principles of FamilySearch Wiki Get started with this site Search for Articles Help:Edit and Contribute Manual of Style

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and ask your question there.

How to link to county histories on BYU Digital Archives?
Hey Sammy, if you were to make a link from a county page to a digitized county history on BYU Digital Archives, how would you make it? Would the use of a template make it so that if the path to the histories were changed by Webmasters, it'd be easy to fix the many broken wiki links by fixing one template? Ritcheymt 22:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * ONLY if there is a specific ID link-locked to specific record, then template can be done. That is the ONLY key to a workable template. Same is with Family History Catalog, still waiting for FHLC catalogers to make up their mind as to what specific ID is going to be! Sooner the better. dsammy 23:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Weigh in on FamilySearch Wiki talk:Naming a Project?
Project pages are getting hard to find because people are putting them in multiple namespaces and using all kinds of naming conventions. Would you mind weighing in on FamilySearch Wiki talk:Naming a Project? Thanks! Ritcheymt 00:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Please vote on search result title link color
Some users have reported that the red color of the article title links in search results are confusing because in a Mediawiki site, a red link means a link to a page that has no content. There is a poll on the forums as to whether to make the links blue instead, which would also conform to what Google and Bing do. Please read the thread/explanation and vote. RitcheyMT 16:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Letter from Wiki Product Manager
By way of introduction, my name is Ben Bennett and I’ve recently joined the FamilySearch team as the product manager for the Wiki and Forums. Put simply, my job is to ensure that your experience, as contributors and users of the Wiki and Forums is excellent. To this end, an apology is in order.

As you know, we recently implemented a new user ID/sign in process for the FamilySearch Wiki. As we implemented this new system, I personally heard from many of you. You shared with me problems that were occurring for you as you tried to sign in, edit or do other things that resulted in lost work, lost time and frustration for you, our key contributors and users. Please accept my sincere apology for the poor performance and poor experience associated with the Wiki during the past few weeks. Please also accept my commitment that the FamilySearch team will learn from this experience and do all that we can to prevent situations like this in the future. To this end, I wanted to share with you ...CONTINUE