User talk:Cottrells

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CID tags
Hello, Steve. I'm glad that you're willing to help with the wiki. Please don't add CID notes to the wiki however. We'll add them as each collection is ready. We do want wiki users to add contents to our pages, just not to that tag. We're still trying to get them to work.


 * I am curious about the CID references. I found a reference by Topher (now removed) that they are used in connection with the alpha version of the New Family Search.org site. Must they be embedded in a level 6 header? As they are now these references are listed in the Table of contents for each page they are added to. Is it important that the CID number included in the TOC? Is it important that the reference is displayed on the face of the page? If not could the CID number be included in comment tags for example  ? Must they be at the bottom of the article? Could a template be developed to include them in a way to suit both the technical needs and user experience of the wiki?


 * I think it would be useful for someone to document the purpose of these references, so that all users of the site will understand why they are included and how they help other processes. --Steve 23:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Steve, there is now a link, (What's this?) that explains the purpose of the CID notes. For now they will appear as they are. It looks like you marked one as "patrolled", What does that accomplish? Dorothy


 * Hi Dorothy. Yes I did notice some What's this? links (for example at the bottom of France, Protestant Church Records) that was linked to Collection ID. I also noted that they were not internal links but external links. As for marking something as patrolled that can only be done by a sysop. It wasn't me. --Steve 16:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If Wpd template works, why not same type of templates for two others?
http://www.genealogienetz.de/

http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Hauptseite the home page of German based genealogy (has some English entries)

These ones are Wiki for German genealogy research and they are very sizeable sites, in German and Dsammy 20:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is possible to create templates like Wpd that will make it easy to create links to these or any other website. As was mentioned in the community meeting there is a German version of this wiki being developed see http://wiki.familysearch.org/de/ so it may be better to develop templates for linking to these sites there. The English language version is http://wiki-en.genealogy.net/ would you like me to help create GenWiki that could be used to link to this site? --Steve 11:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I knew there was an English version but couldn't find it in a pinch of time yesterday. Yes, please do create it for English version. German version is not ready for the public yet. Baerbel will love this. She's in Germany right now. Dsammy 15:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I've created GenWiki, let me have your feedback. --Steve 18:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I will wait for Baerbel to get back from Germany before making any feedback. She's supposed to be back in SLC by next week.

Work around possible for the templates
Is it possible to tweak the wpd, oclc, etc templates so that the template links will open into another window in accordance with the ruling made last Tuesday? At least this could eliminate the pesky problem - see: External links dsammy 16:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * got a problem - see Baker County, Oregon - check Edward Dickinson Baker info in the InfoBox - it's broken as a result of the modificiation.


 * Template WorldCat (OCLC) was already opened as an external link. The template wpd is not working right now due to the spaces in the name. I have requested an extension that would allow search and replace in parameters for this very reason. Maybe this will help bring up the priority? Thomas Lerman 00:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads up on this. I have reverted the change so that the template uses the interwiki link once more. Once the StringFunctions are installed then I will rework the template to produce external links. --Steve 05:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Breslau Address Book Church and Civil Registration Jurisdictions.
Hello, CottrellS,

Hi, I had been looking in the Schlesien topics for an item that I had put under the Address book topic and couldn't find it there or under the other topic headings. After doing a title specific search, I found that it had been disconnected when you moved it. However the move did not put it in the topic that you had redirected it to. Had I not wondered where my article was, it may have been lost all together. Please check the destinations when you move things to make sure that they arrived there. Thanks so much for your help with the WIKI.

Thanks, Sonja


 * Hi Sonja, I was careful when moving the article Breslau address directories on July 10. I used the What links here tool and found that no articles where linking to it. Had I found any I would have updated the links. Even now there is only one article that links to Breslau address directories and that is the article Prussia-Schlesien Directories that you created today. I'm not sure what broken links/disconnects you are referring to. Are you reffering to a link from Portal:Prussia - Schlesien/Topics? If so then checking the page history I can see the link was broken as of 16:17, June 12, 2009 which was almost a whole month before the move was made. --Steve 16:06, 14 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 14:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines navigation template
We will be moving the Policy and Guideline pages from the Policy namespace back to the FamilySearch Wiki namespace. I noticed that you added the navigation template box at the bottom of the Policy page (Policy:FamilySearch Wiki Policies), so I was wondering how this project would impact the navigation links. Thanks, Fran 16:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Go ahead and make the moves. The template can be easily amended to use the correct links. --Steve 17:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you know of a way to automate the moving of pages in the Policy namespace to the FamilySearch Wiki namespace? Franjensen 18:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a MediaWiki maintenance script Manual:MoveBatch.php . However there are less than 50 pages to move and so it wouldn't take long to this manually. The only potential problems would be where an article title already exists in the FamilySearch Wiki namespace. Unless a redirect has been edited they are no problem, but it take an administrators to . I can help by moving whatever I am able. --Steve 19:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I was more concerned about all the links to the pages in the Policy namespace that would require editing (like the Navigation template for Policy and Guideline). That's why I thought that an automated move process might help reduce the amount of links that need to be edited. Fran 19:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * When a page is moved a redirect is automatically produced. Then by using What links here from the toolbox you can find pages that are linked to the old page name and edit them so they link to the new location. --Steve 19:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I was aware of that functionality. I was under the impression that it was not possible to move pages from one namespace to another. I will test this out and then move forward as needed. Thanks for your help. Fran 19:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I see that you've been helping with the moving of our policy pages from the policy namespace to the FamilySearch Wiki namespace. Your help is greatly appreciated! Fran 20:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Steve, it looks like we have double-redirect on the Privacy Policy page. The Privacy Policy link at the bottom of every page used to link to a Privacy Policy page in the Main namespace. It appears that there was a redirect on that page to the Policy:Privacy Policy page. Now when I click on the link at the bottom of the page I'm taken to the Policy:Privacy Policy page which only shows the redirect to FamilySearch Wiki: Privacy Policy. I was unaware that the original page was still on the Main namespace. I will try to fix it this afternoon if you are unavailable to do so. Thanks again for all your help. Fran 20:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC) Everything has been fixed.


 * The links for Conditions of Use; Privacy Policy (footers) and (navigation box links )Guiding Principles and Polices were updated to the FamilySearch Wiki namespace. Fran 21:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That's great. The remaining pages in the policy namespace are mainly redirects. Each needs to be checked so that the What links here pages can be edited to link to the new pages. Some will need merging. --Steve 21:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Call for Feedback Re: Making Wiki Easier for New Users/Contributors
Steve, we need your feedback! Our goal is for wiki.familysearch.org to be a friendly, welcoming place that is easy to use and make contributions. Thank you for all you are doing to help it be such a place. Please share your comments. What is your experience? What challenges do new users face in using and contributing to the wiki? Where should they find help? When you notice problems, please go to Challenges Facing New Users. This is the page for making comments on challenges encountered.

Please post your comments and ideas for the solutions at What New Users and Contributors Want to Make Wiki Easier. Then, come add your "Vote" by listing and prioritizing those solutions that are most urgent and important for the entire community at Newbies Priorities. This is not only for newbies, we also need experienced user/contributor feedback on early, new user experiences. Thank you!

Kara aka CK Whipple 12:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Steve!
Steve, thanks for the information you dug up regarding displaying Featured Articles and the like -- the Skunks Needed item listed on Community Meeting Agenda 10 November 2009. I'll read about the stuff you linked so I can catch up with you, and then probably ask some more questions to get us closer to being able to do this. Ritcheymt 21:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Images on the wiki
Steve, do you know if there is a way to add an image to an article in the FamilySearch Wiki that is currently found at MediaWiki Commons without having to upload the file to the FSWiki? Fran 22:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Fran and Steve, I hope you do not mind me jumping in here. That would seem like a potentially bad idea due to opening up the system to unapproved, inappropriate images. I have done some testing and it appears it is not enabled. The information concerning this may be found on the MediaWiki website. Thomas Lerman 22:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I think Thomas has pointed you in the right direction. If the decision was made to allow contributors to add inline pictures from external sites then it would require some code to be added to file LocalSetting.php. The MediaWiki article on $wgAllowExternalImages explains what needs to be done and the pros and cons of allowing it. --Steve 13:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Duplicating technical/development requests

 * Thanks for your reply Thomas. In fact, your reply made me think of something else. Although I added several questions to Steve's talk page, the questions should be asked to all the community members. Instead of duplicating the same question on several talk pages, perhaps we need a way to post technical and development-type questions on one page for all to see and participate in. Sometimes the questions may actually turn into projects, large or small, and each with their own project page. Thoughts, anyone? --Fran 05:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that would be fantastic. If you did not notice, I jumped in on the next question you asked as well concerning the archives. Thomas Lerman 06:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It would be helpful to establish a place that can be used to co-ordinate requests and responses to a range of technical/development issues relating to the administration of this wiki. This was something that I suggested last month in response to Kara's What New Users and Contributors Want to Make Wiki Easier. --Steve 13:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Archive
I like the talkarchive template you added and implemented on your own talk page. I need to fix mine because I just created the archive as a subpage to my user page and did so by hand without the use of a template. I went ahead and added the archive template to my talk page by copying the code on your page. What I don't understand is how you got the link to "Archive 1" to appear on your current talk page. I don't see the link when I'm looking on the edit page. Your knowledge of wiki code is way beyond mine! Thanks for all you you to help make the Wiki the best it can be. -- Fran 22:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, I hope neither of you mind me jumping in here. If you click on the "Archives" link, you will go to an archives help page on Wikipedia. It has instructions there concerning how to do this. To get "Archive 1" to appear, you just need to create that page. Thomas Lerman 23:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That's right the archives template will automatically create links if the subpage isa called Archive 1, Archive 2, etc. I really should add the documentation to the template. Anyways if you move your User:JensenFA/Archived discussions to User:JensenFA/Archive 1 the link will magically appear. You can also use the also talkarchive template to mark the archive page as such --Steve 13:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Noticeboard pages
Is there an easy way to create a noticeboard page for some of the dispute resolution processes, or the maintenance flags such as Delete or DeleteASAP? I'm looking for a way to accomplish this task with wiki code, without having the need for engineers to program something. --Fran 22:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have started one some pages to help bring the Dispute resolution process together. The navbox still has some redlinks. Some of these are to pages which would list the Active disagreements. Without the use of bots these would need to be updated and patrolled manually.


 * For the maintainance tasks, I think you would like a page something like . Notice the side menu Resources for maintenance and collaboration. This is produced by the . I think if something similar was produced for this wiki, with links to each of the maintenance categories it would help raise the awareness of these tasks. --Steve 13:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Portal - un-portal page conversions
I don't know if you are aware that we no longer have someone who is actively working on the conversion of portals to un-portals. I created a project status page that will eventually make it possible for anyone to see what the current status is for the project. My question to you is related to the current design of the un-portal page. I've noticed that the topic template you created has been added to the bottom of many of the new un-portal pages and that the topics in the template are duplicates of the list of topics that appear in a long-narrow box on the page at the top-left. How do you feel about the design of the un-portal page that duplicates the list of topics? Do you have any ideas about how to avoid the duplication and also impove the design of the un-portal pages? Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this subject. --Fran 22:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * When I first developed the place template, (I think this is the one you are referring too), I only added it to the topic pages of the place. For example I did not add it to England but added it to England Census, England Civil Registration etc. I think that adding it to the main page of each location duplicates the links unnecessarily.


 * Around the same time I developed sidebar which I then added to each of the English county home/main pages. The idea being that it would be easy to maintain the links listed by editing one template. I thought at the time that this template could be used for all places, but I think local needs would require some regional variations and so can see the possibility of UK-sidebar, US-sidebar, Germany-sidebar etc. with each listing the standard topics for that country. --Steve 13:43, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * FYI - With the conversion of portals to un-portals now in a state of limbo, I was looking for a way to speed up the conversion by simplifying the design. That's why I was asking about the place template being added to the home/main page. Maybe the sidebar would be more appropriate. Just removing the box or column where the Topics are currently listed and add the template(s) for sidebar and/or place, would possibly simplify the design and make it possible for more wiki user to get involved in the conversion. The original design of the un-portal page never considered the use of templates in the design. When the un-portal design was being worked on, we also considered using the Info box. We've wanted to implement the info box similar to what Wikipedia has, but the FCK editor conflicts with it. I don't remember the details of the conflict, so I'll have to ask around. -- Fran 16:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * How would you like to convert the Utah portal page to an un-portal page and use a different layout than the one currently being used? I am the moderator of the Utah pages and would like to use that page as a test case for an alternate design that included the place template and/or the sidebar, plus any others that might help make the page more visually appealing and improve navigation. Just an idea. --Fran 16:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have created an un-portal page for Utah. I've not moved too far from the already established layout for these type of pages. I have created a template, US-sidebar to be a version of the sidebar which may help with the conversion process. Like I said before I think the place template is best used on the specific topic pages and not the main page for the place itself. My view is the main page should be fairly brief/short and so the sidebar layout works well. However the topic pages could be a lot longer and having the place navigation at the bottom, it helps a reader find related pages once they have read/skimmed the article. --Steve 23:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I like the Utah page that replaces the Portal:Utah page. I really like the fact that the overall design of the Utah un-portal page is not very different from the un-portal design currently established. I agree that the use of the sidebar will likely help make the conversions easier to accomplish. When I view the Utah page in edit mode, the text is hard for me to understand how the page was actually created. Consequently, I'm not sure if the instructions for creating an un-portal page can be easily edited to incorporate this change. Further discussions need to take place on the project status discussion page instead of on the user page. A summary of what we tested when you created the Utah un-portal page and the results should be added to the discussion page. Rather than take a lot of time to discuss the proposed changes in the Community Meeting, I want to use the Discussion page to propose and make changes. One question I have about the sidebar: If the default list of topics in the sidebar doesn't have every topic needed for one or two states, can the list be edited only when needed? Also if a topic is not needed for a given state, could an item be removed from the list? I guess this is a discussion item for the sidebar template page. --Fran 22:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

NOTE The discussion about these issues continued on FamilySearch Wiki talk:Wikiproject portals to un-portals for talk about the format of the unportal pages and Template talk:US-sidebar for talk about the US-sidebar. --Steve 14:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

England headers and links
Steve, you have changed several of the manual search links in the wiki articles that User Guidance created for England, for example, the England and Wales 1861 Census Population They are now in cute little boxes, but I don't like the way the links appear. The one that draws the user's attention doesn't take users to the page that we intended, the collection details screen page that the teeny blue link goes to. We don't know how to edit that type of link, so we can't edit them. I have an employee assigned to edit these as collections are added to Record Search, so we need to be able to edit this paragraph. Dorothy Horan 17:02, December 29, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Dorothy, I have amended the way the links are formatted. If you still do not like them please explain some more. I would be happy to discuss how this template works with the assigned employee. Please let me know how else I can help. --Steve 19:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the portal template!
I really appreciate you taking care of that. Many thanks Laralee 23:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. --Steve 23:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To all FamilySearch Wiki Contributors: An apology is in order...
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

CID tags in templates
Steve, you are correct in that Record Search is searching for the formulation CIDxxxxxx with one space after the last digit. I had been led to believe (incorrectly) that the parameters in templates were not indexed and thus we could not hide the CID in them. As we can see this is not the case. I also have no control over how Record Search searches the wiki, I am constrained by their decisions though I have forwarded your ideas to them.

On a side note my team quite likes the template you created for the England and Wales 1841 Census and were wondering if we could use something like it on all of the Record Search Collection articles? The question that I have, would it possible to easily change the link to Record Search to link to the search page for each individual collocation? As the template now stands you have a link to the wiki page describing record Search and the second link goes to the general search page on Record Search. I was wondering if it could be possible that this second link be changed with each article to link to the search page for each specific collection in Record Search, i.e. in the England 1841 Census clicking on the link will take you to the England 1841 search homepage. Spain Civil Registration wiki page the link would go that specific search page etc... If such a thing is feasible let me know. Anyway I am interested in getting your thoughts Thank-you Chris Lake


 * Thanks for replying to the queries I raised. Yes the template could provide a link back to the appropriate Record Search collection. In fact the way the template is written allows for this. When I first added the template to the article a link as you outlined was included (see diff). However the part of the wikicode that does this is in the format CID=xxxxxxx. The easiest way to fix this would be by using StringFunctions to strip out the the numerical part of the reference as that is the key element needed to create the URL. This extension is currently not installed in wiki, but has been requested and added to the dev backlog. If you can help make a case for installing the StringFunctions it would be helpful. --Steve 17:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I amended the Record Search article template so that it will display a named link back to Record Search when a parameter is included in the correct format. I have updated the template documentation to explain the format required and why. --Steve 17:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So I want to say thanks for all your help with this template. We have encountered another conundrum and are wondering if there was a way to adjust the template to solve it. Basically the FamilySearch people are changing the way they publish some of the collections. They are creating "supercollections." These are collections that have multiple CIDs but are linked to the same wiki article. They also have to have a seperate link back from the wiki article to various sub-collections in FamilySearch. An example is Illinois Cook County Vital Records. So I was wondering if it might be possible to add a parameter much like the |sceduled= that would add a phrase saying something to the effect "To access these records clink on the links below" or some such. We are not sure of the upper limit of the CIDs that can be part of a supercollection, and new sub-collections can be added to a supercollection anytime. If you could help us that would be great. We have really liked the look of this template and want to keep using it. Thanks. (also is there a limit to the number of paramters that we can put in the template? Just wondering if I have to hide multiple CIDs in the template. Chris 15:52, March 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Chris, good question. It's one I've been pondering for awhile. Today, prompted by your question, I have put my idea into production and it seems to be working OK. See User talk:Cottrells/Template where I tested it out. I have amended the documentation for the template explaining that additional references should be defined as CID2, CID3 etc along with title2, title3 etc up to a maximum of nine pairs. --Steve 17:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Way to Go!
Thank you so much for all of your hard work on cleaning up the Policy namespace! What would we do without you!!!

You da MAN
Thanks, Steve, for all the behind-the-scenes "mop &amp; bucket" work you do, including decrementing and finally removing the Policy namespace. Your efforts help keep this project humming. RitcheyMT 22:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Question about magic words and/or template
Hi Steve. I was wondering if you could direct me to information about or help me with a categorization question. I have one area that I add categories to Category:Old microfilm number conversion which are pages showing old and new FHL numbers. Right now all these 100s of pages show up on their category page under Old. I know I can add the number or number range to the category so it would file by number but was wondering if there was a way to use either a template or a magic word that would allow me to automate this - where it would look for the 5th 'word' or the first number string as the filing word. I don't know what the volunteers at the FHL use when they create these pages but perhaps it could even be added to that. Thanks - I stand in awe of folks like yourself who can understand this sort of stuff Laralee 20:00, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Laralee, I have created a template Old microfilm number conversion index that will extract the 5th word from an article title. If you use it as follows


 * It will index the article under the number reference given, providing the article name is in the format Old microfilm number conversion xxxx. See Old microfilm number conversion 2988-3011 as an example. If you like I could build the category into the template so that you just need to add the template rather than adding it only as the sort key. Let me know what you think. --Steve 20:53, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you Steve. I've added this to the style page (template) that's on the wiki for the conversion pages. I don't know if it's used consistently since there was a category on it but I still get pages w/out the category, but now if they do use it it'll get the category and be sorted nicely as well. Many thanks. Laralee 19:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is cool !!! Thanks Steve for helping Laralee with this project. We appreciate both of you for your efforts! -Fran

Need Record Search article example
I've been looking for a Record Search article that has a few images on the page in a gallery. You showed us how to create the gallery a few weeks ago, but I can't find that page. Do you remember the name of the article? I want to use that page as an example in the Wiki class I'm teaching at the BYU conference next month. Thanks in advance! --Fran 00:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The example that I pointed out to you before was England Cornwall Church of England Parish Registers and Bishops’ Transcripts. --Steve 16:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Stats on wiki growth over time
Hey Steve, is it possible for us to get data on growth in pages or in edits over time without installing an add-on? I need to create a line graph for NGS conference at the end of April but our statistician just had his hard drive crash and he's behind by at least two weeks. I was hoping we could use magic words to get a snapshot, but the only magic words I see on Mediawiki.org give a current snapshot. Is there any way to make them give a snapshot with a date parameter? Or is there some other way to do this? I was assuming I could just use a magic word with a date parameter and re-run it for every month since Jan 2007 and enter the data into Excel, but I don't see a way to get the data. RitcheyMT 21:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I do not think that it is possible to obtain the statistics that you want without using an extension or add-on of some sort. I've seen the reply that Thomas gave you to the same question and I agree with what he has said. --Steve 13:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Tree
I love the personal family history research tree on your user page! Nice addition. -Fran 15:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I wanted to share with others my areas of research interest and thought what better way than addding a brief pedigree. Once I have tweaked how the template works, I will move it to the main template namespace and document how it can be used. For example one thing I have coded into the template is; that it will only work in the User namespace. I did this as adding pedigrees is not in harmony with the main purpose of the wiki, but I could see other users wanting to use it as I have. --Steve 15:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)