FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Populated Places

Purpose
Finish putting populated places on the all the counties in the United States.

Task List

 * Task List

Step 1: Adding Populated places
1. Go to the Populated Places heading on the page and see if it has already been completed. If the county has a large city or has anything strange about its populated places, then send a Yammer message to Carly. You may need special and unique instructions for this particular county before you work on this county.

2. Whether it has been completed or not, go to Wikipedia to either double check the list and add the localities.

3. Copy the following template and paste it on the page before the information that may already be there.

4. Referring back to the Wikipedia page for the county, add the populated places to the above template. You will have to count up and separate the places to make even columns. For example, if there are 12 townships, put 4 townships in alphabetical order in | townships-col1= but put them between the div tags (example:

5. If there is a Wikipedia article to any of the populate places, add the URL to Wikipedia. Example: Cedar

6. If no wikipedia page exists, just put in the place name.

7. For localities already listed on the county page but not in Wikipedia, do a Google search to make sure the place is in the county you are working on. If it appears to exist, place the locality in the correct position in the table to the best of your ability.

8. After you fill in all localities and there is no place listed under a specific type of locality (such as Ghost Town), remove the heading from the page.

9. Review the following wikitext code for Aurora County, South Dakota to make sure you fill out the template correctly:

Example of this template on the Aurora County, South Dakota page

Step 2: Add Hometown Locator Link and Wikipedia Reference
1. Because Wikipedia may not include every single populated place for a county, you will need to add a link to Hometown Locator. Select "edit source" next to the Populated Places heading and add the following directly underneath the Populated Places heading:


 * For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit [HOMETOWN URL HomeTown Locator].

2. After copying the above information onto the page, go to HomeTownLocator.com

3. Scroll down the page until you see a blue box with a list of states. Select the state you are working in.

4. After you are redirected to your state page, scroll down the page until you see a list of the state’s counties. Select the county you are working on.

5. After you are redirected to your county page, select the tan “Cities” tab (NOT the red Cities one).

6. You will then be redirected to a page with a list of populated places. Copy the page's URL and replace HOMETOWN URL in your template with that URL. It should look something like the following:
 * For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit HomeTown Locator.

You will need to change your Hometown Locator link for every county you work on. 5. It's important to always give a reference to where we obtained the information we add to the wiki. Add the following directly after Hometown Locator:
 * The following are the most historically and genealogically relevant populated places in this county:

6. Then copy the following wikitext for the reference and place it directly after the colon in the above phrase:

7. The citation should now look like this: The following are the most historically and genealogically relevant populated places in this county: 8. Replace the NAME OF ARTICLE, with the actual name of the Wikipedia article. If you got the information from Adams County article, you would put in, Adams County, Nebraska. 9. Replace the URL with the actual URL of the Wikipedia article. 10. Replace DATE with the day you looked at the Wikipedia article, such as 31 July 2016.

COMPLETED EXAMPLE OF LINK AND CITATION: For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit HomeTown Locator. The following are the most historically and genealogically relevant populated places in this county:

Step 3: Saving the page
1. Once you have added all the places, preview the page by clicking on, Show Preview at the bottom of the page. Check your work to make sure it looks like it should. Make any necessary adjustments. 2. Go to the bottom of the page and enter "added populated places list" in the edit summary box and save the page. 3. Once you have saved the page, check your work to be sure it looks right. 4. You are now done with the task. Go to the next County on your list.

Example
For an example of what this heading should look like when it is complete, click here.