Talk:User group meeting & agenda 6 January 2009

PaperofRecord.com and similar newspaper archiving websites.
Given discussions regarding how to set up pages discussing various record types, and the Maryland Newspapers page, I mentioned on 30 December 2008 a new site called 'Paper of Record' at http://www.paperofrecord.com/.

This site was recently acquired by Google but remains independent of Google at the present time. Claims to have in its early stages over 21 million pages from a number of newspapers, and hopes to have substantially more than that.

What should be done when citing pages from this and other newspaper archiving sites, for example? We will need to be able to direct people to particular collections on these larger sites that are out there, and there will need to be a way to backlink to individual collections or papers on those sites. This is routinely done for finding particular places using Google Maps, but newspaper archiving sites are relatively newer and somewhat more obscure than mapping sites and similar things. JamesAnderson 22:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

If I were creating a page on Montgomery County Maryland Newspapers I'd probably do the search on the abovementioned site or go to the directory where it shows the Montgomery Co. newspapers and link to that page or that search results page. Ritcheymt 19:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Major new portal template glitch already sighted
Just sighted a major glitch in the new format that is being developed for portal pages.

Was tipped off to it during today's user group meeting (30 December 2008), and found that it consists of two problems.:

1. While the 'Counties' subheading and list is OK, the related countries table is not. The table is OK in Firefox 2.0.0.20, but not in MSIE 7. I'm on Win2k, the same problem appeared on the XP machine Jimmy was demonstrating the portal screen on.

2. The 'Topics' sidebar to the left only will show up in Firefox. It shows BELOW the 'related countries' column in MSIE.

Appears to be a related problem to how the right-side navigation bar behaved back in September when we switched over to the new front page layout and that was when we moved the navbar from the left to the right. JamesAnderson 02:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for picking up on that, James. I'll make sure Michael and Mollie are aware of it. Jbparker 05:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

What page are you viewing, James? Ritcheymt 19:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

This one: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/England/Test1  JamesAnderson 20:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Try Pennsylvania and see if the same problem crops up. Ritcheymt 20:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

A 'record type' article, one user's take on the subject.
User Gary Turner has been putting together some pages the last few days, that offer up a take on how one could do a 'record type' article.

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Summary_of_Marriage_Records_in_the_United_States_by_State

Offers a concise but brief synopsis of what the record is, a few very basic tips, and a list of links by state. This is an intersting option for those, and it could be used in conjunction with more detailed articles about marriage records as well, and the page linked here could be the place where people could go to find what's online and where. Thanks Gary for your input and idea. JamesAnderson 06:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC) \

I kind of like the approach suggested by Gary as one way to present lead users to information on a subject.

The more I get into the Wiki, the more I realize we don't have to rely on a single best way to lead users through the maze of records on a given subject. The more ways we can present or cross-link to a variety of approaches to a given subject (record), the better. Thus, taking the approach suggested here is good, and so would haveing an approach from the state page, from the county page, etc. Thus, it wouldn't matter what direction the user approached a subject, the Wiki would lead that researcher to the record being sought. And our pages could also suggest how the user could and should use that record.

Jbparker 07:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)