Talk:Community Meeting Agenda 29 September 2009

Discussions carried forward
from Community Meeting Agenda 22 September 2009

Disambiguation
Since we had the start of a discussion on how to handle problems such as Georgia vs. Georgia (see Community Meeting Agenda, 15 September 2009), please place any comments you have on this subject here.


 * After adding comments to last week's agenda and then hearing the information as the end of the recording about this discussion page, I am adding the following information that I included in last week's agenda. Slight correction to what someone wrote . . . we live in the country named "United States of America". I do not believe there is a country named "United States". It probably was a typographical error. I would agree that if the country is officially called, in English, "Republic of Georgia", that is what the name of the article should be. However, I do see that the CIA World Factbook calls it Georgia . . . of course, they also call the USA as United States even though their own seal says "United States of America". Thomas Lerman 19:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Why should we follow CIA's way instead of the Wiki World relative to the genealogy (I had a big chunkle when I came across eRepublic Wiki and althistory Wiki this morning while looking for additional Banat information.) Dsammy 20:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not suggesting that we follow the CIA . . . I am just suggesting that we use the actual and official English (in the English version of the Wiki) name of the country. Thomas Lerman 20:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Categorization
Any suggestions regarding "best practices" for categorizing small localities go here.

Whatever the outcome, the consensus should be documented in the two pages which already aim to set out some categorization guidelines, Categorization and Advanced Categorization.

Section 5 of the advanced guidelines directs the reader to which discusses issue of breaking down categories with a large number of members into sub-categories. It also points to a number of category maintenance templates such as and  that could be created and used in FSWiki to flag where categories need review. We should aim to agree on principles and not try to create hard and fast rules, as a flexible system will be required to be adapted as needed for each locality/region. --Steve 22:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, my notes that I put in last week's agenda. I may not follow the issue extensively. I agree that all articles should have at least one category. Obviously, Georgia needs to be taken care of (separate issue). Also, a policy (best practice / guidelines) needs to be defined. For example, towns are in the county category and then counties in the state category -OR- into "Towns of " category. Probably not generally each community in the state level. As Steve brought up, categories do need to be living & breathing and may be different for each locality. Thomas Lerman 19:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I see categories as serving at least two purposes. 1. They bring like materials together as in probate records, or vital records. 2. They bring related locations together such as states, counties, provinces, and towns. Since pages can have multiple categories they can be 'sorted' in any of a number of ways. Towns in a state could be categorized into their counties, but also into a town category for instance.  Probate records for a county could have the county category but also one for probate records in that state (for example).  If we have some best practices guidelines then only the exceptions would be problematic. Laralee 15:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)