User talk:Dsammy

New York project
Hi Dsammy (New York moderator),

Four Family History Library US/Canada reference consultants will be working to upgrade Wiki's New York pages over the next several months:


 * User:HendricksonP (Patsy Hendrickson)
 * User:HarrisonJB (Jason Harrison)
 * User:BingamanTD (Tim Bingaman)
 * User:Diltsgd (David Dilts)

We ask you to be patient with the changes we make through the end of this year. If we do something you dislike, please contact us before rolling it back to see if we can come to an agreement.

Thanks, DiltsGD 18:46, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You didn't bother to check this out FamilySearch_Wiki:WikiProject_New_York, did you? It listed what needed to be done before there can be any major expansion. Dsammy 21:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Discussion Conventions


 * Please post new messages at the top of the page to prevent confusion.
 * Please sign your comments. Type  after your text.
 * Please use section headings to separate conversation topics.

See: Wikiquette, Be nice, and Talk page guidelines.

Illinois for FGS
David, As you can tell we are working with Lise Embley on the county pages. They are holding a contest until the end of June for links and content. The US Research Consultants are entering them. Danielle is the team lead working with Lise Embley.

With this structure, we are also trying to upgrade some of the subjects. Right now, some of us have certain assignments. We would appreciate your patience with us. If you have questions, you can ask me anything and I will try to answer your queries. Please don't move the items from the discussion pages to the page until we have we have complete the information gathering.

There are 7 IRADS leaders. The leaders are going to be updating Vital Records, Probate Records, and Land Records. Jeff Blaylock is updating Census Records for the Counties, Beth Taylor is updating Historical Facts. Diane Rogers is updating the County Template box. Please don't change the information. We can discuss what may need to be looked at, but we don't need to be redoing things.


 * County template, - you meant infobox. lot of empty lines we don't use and coord is my area at same time installing locality template. The only concern is listing email address in there. We aren't babysitters and constantly changing to keep up to date. Email addresses aren't as stable as physical addresses. Best to leave off email address completely. I looked elsewhere outside of Wiki, more specifically Wikipedia where the infobox concept come from - they don't list email addresses. It is responsibility of county courthouses or whatever the official organization is to keep theirs up to date on their own websites. We just link to them. And can you explain to Diane Rogers that &lt; BR &gt; and &lt; br &gt; have exact same function regardless whether they are capitalized or not. I noticed she changes them from caps to lower case. As for Beth Taylor, I will be beating her to changing the heading from Quick Facts, History or whatever it is to "Historical Facts" when installing locality template.

We were wondering if there was a topic in the county you would like to work on? We could have you report and mark of the x's on our chart. I look forward to improving the counties with you.pnh 21:46, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Locality Template is what I am doing and after installment, I check to clean out non-functioning codes and fix headings to bring them up to date. Some are still using "Local Histories", resizing Historical Facts and clean up infobox clutter (many empty lines not used for Illinois.)
 * After discussion with David Dilts and working through, realized not many are familiar with Mailing Lists and Message Boards, I will tackle this AFTER I finish with Locality Templates. Dsammy 07:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

County Topic Discussion
Hi David,

Did you know there are a couple of discussions going on about the topics on the county pages. You may want to comment on them. One discussion is at https://www.familysearch.org/learn/forums/en/showthread.php?t=7793. I wanted you to be aware of the comments. pnh 20:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Already aware of it, only now it is a burst of activity since I mentioned the lack of communication to staff at FHL last Tuesday.

User Pages
Hi David,

I'd love to hear your thoughts about the importance of user pages. Can you take a minute and add your thoughts on the Forum thread I've started? Lise 02:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProjects
FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject New York

wiki.fsbeta.familysearch.org

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 get or need to list for quick actions.

Unassigned Links

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

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Help:Tables

Character Table: Hold down Alt and number

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 FamilySearch Wiki 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)

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)

Record Search Articles
As you've noticed there are several pages in the Wiki that are specifically related to the databases in Record Search. I've noticed your recent activity in the Wiki includes a clean-up of those pages. We appreciate your efforts to help and hope you can help support our current effort to add this content to the Wiki. We currently have a team working on those pages are they are trying to complete the project before NGS later this month. I am hopeful that further edits to those pages can be postponed until after NGS. That will help us a lot if you can support this request. In the mean time, if you see issues or problems with any content on any of the Record Search pages, please use the Discussion pages to bring the issues to the attention of the team. As you already know, the use of the discussion pages is the preferred method of communication in regards to content pages. Thanks, --Fran 15:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * How do I explain this? I am referring to the fact too many of them are dead-end pages or orphan pages we do not know to exist. The Pilot group - they are showing up in Family History Library Catalog ALREADY. The visitors wouldn't even know there are Wiki articles existing to connect to. Couple this with bad named-urls. *New York, King County - Estate Records - orphan (I found this by luck due to double-redirects) until I changed the url to standardized url name space - Kings County, New York Estate Records and linked it to the main page for Brooklyn, New York.


 * 1850 US Census (literally!), orphan page - need to be changed to the uniform url name space which is "United States Census 1850". Except, that the information is almost identical in both articles. First one has no breadcrumb to link back to any main article, much less the fact it was created and "threw out with the baby" in early 2009 while the 2nd article has ongoing work being done and even has Pilot links. Same is repeated for 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920.


 * Luxembourg Civil Registration is all over in Family History Library Catalog, yet not linked to anything even in UNPortal for Luxembourg. I found this Pilot link in the Catalog.

Need to collar those orphan Pilot articles into the main body.


 * We are in the process of creating a style guide for the Record Search articles. Perhaps we need a template or some other type of process to identify issues with URLs, naming conventions, etc. that is specific for these articles? Our goal is to collectively reach an understanding regarding the style guidelines already identified and those that are still in the process of being discovered. Your help to this end is greatly appreciated. -Fran 16:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * PS - how do you identify a triple re-direct in the wiki. I can easily see a double re-direct, but how do we the triple ones? -Fran 16:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Smiling, it was a rare one. Even found 4-redirects which I was able to expunge. These were in Sweden. The rare 3 was Kings County, even they didn't display as such in "double-redirected" special page. You had to go to each to break one at a time to see there's another one. If it wasn't the double-redirects we wouldn't even know the Pilot articles existing as dead-end pages or orphan pages. Luxembourg Civil Registration is one lucky because I don't have to change the url to get it into Luxembourg main page.

Cemetery pages
Heya, partner, I'm wondering how you feel about having cemetery pages on the wiki? I know you've had some discussions around this space. RitcheyMT 15:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Quick Note of Appreciation
We wanted to send out a quick letter of appreciation for all your hard work and dedication in getting the FamilySearch Records project off the ground. The information you provide is invaluable to those users who are searching out further information about collections in FamilySearch; it helps them make a deeper connection with their research, especially when it has to do with their own ancestry. It’s your contributions that are keeping the project rolling forward. Thank you.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. We’d love to hear from you and help you out in any way we can.

Sincerely,

The FamilySearch Records Team User:HoranDM User:LakeCL >User:ginabegin

Ginabegin 20:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Moderator/Adopter issues coming to a vote
As you probably already know, FamilySearch launched an Adopt-a-Page program at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference over the summer. Many groups are signing up to adopt a page. We need your help in order to resolve some important questions about the relative roles that Moderators and Adopters ought to play and how they can work together. These questions and discussions are on the new FamilySearch Wiki Contributors' Corner forum. We are going to hold a vote on these issues by year's end, and the resolutions will change the roles Moderators and Adopters play, so please visit the forum and add your thoughts. Thanks! RitcheyMT 17:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Need help with Un-hiding categories
Hi Danny

I'm wanting to learn how to edit and fix categories in the maintenance area. I know how to add categories but how do I un-hide a category? Also, Wanted categories - Are these categories users want but don't know how to add them themselves? Or is familySearch saying these need to be added? Not clear to me.

Thanks for your help Utahnancy 05:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Name isn't Danny. It's David but go by Sammy.

"Wanted Categories" are the ones needing another category to link to complete the circle. I don't understand your question about "un-hide a category". Can you point me to such page with this problem? Dsammy 07:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Sammy

Okay, this; https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Alabama_Church_Records article doesn’t have it’s subcategory displayed. It says, if you click edit, at the very bottom of the page it says; This page is a member of 2 hidden categories: I tried to fix it so that the “church records” category shows but I have no success.

Thanks so much, I will probably have more questions as I’m trying to learn how to work in the categories. I have three years of experience working with site categories on wikianswers.com but family search wiki research is different. I like to work in maintenance fixing and things. It seems there is a big need here for working in the categories from those special pages needed editing.

Thanks again Utahnancy 15:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh that type of category... stay away from them. They're tied to databases.