Suggestion to avoid so many 802 errors being created.

Question

When you add a brother or sister to an existing profile, if no father already exists, then Wikitree automatically creates him, so the two children can be linked together properly.

It is not always obvious to new users on Wikitree that this profile has been created for them, so it is often ignored, and as the bio is totally empty, an error 802 (empty profile) is created when the next error report is run.

I'd like to ask, when the father's profile is created, would it be possible to populate the bio with the same details as any other newly created profile that has no sources, by inserting the {{Unsourced}}/ == Biography == / == Sources == / <references/>* headings. This would then avoid the 802 error ever being created.

Comments

I don't understand the suggestion to use the heading Citations in addition to Sources, even as a native English speaker. They are the same thing, just a grammatical difference.

In addition, the Sources heading is made for us because that is defined in the style guides. At the very minimum a profile should have biography and a sources section.

I think this is more likely a style preference, ie. you like the word Citation better than the word Sources. :)

I love the fact that we have the freedom to express information on WikiTree profiles per our stylistic choices. However, I would argue that this is a wiki, just like Wikipedia (same software underneath and same concept), and some style and formatting should be defined by the leaders to create uniformity and provide ease of reading/editing profiles as we all collaborate and work together.

See:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Person_Profile

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sources_Style_Guide

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Magnus,

That is how citations work. You don't repeat a full citation every time, whether it's a book report, a wiki page, a historical novel, etc.

So if you had this:

Bob was born in 1750<ref name"birthCertificate>Text here.</ref><ref name="marriageRecord>Text here.</ref>

Bob married Marth in 1780.<ref name="marriageRecord"/>

Then in sources you would see:

1.1 - Text of the birth certificate citation

2.1, 2.2 - Text of the marriage citation

It would be meaningless to repeat the same full citation text repeatedly.

There are some great resources online, including Evidence Explained. Having the book is a great tool, but there are a number of quick start guides available and a forum with all kinds of questions/answers.

In addition, a Google search on bibliographies and repeated sources might help you understand the format.

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@Allison I think I have the concept and I have also the book Evidence Explained

>> some style and formatting should be defined by the leaders to create uniformity and provide ease of reading/editing profiles as we all collaborate and work together. 

Yes I miss that part in WikiTree and think if we start use Templates for external links to sources we will get better quality e.g. Template:FindAGrave

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Templates could be a great way to help folks with citations, especially for folks where understanding wiki markup doesn't come naturally. Using EE, we could certainly come up with templates for books, Ancestry (trees, photos, collections), court records, census records and all sorts of common record types. We could start with the quick start guide examples.

On the other hand, if someone is going to call themselves a genealogist and create/edit profiles on WikiTree, they have to be willing to meet the burden of proof (just like on Wikipedia) for every entry by providing correctly written sources. This is a skill we all have to learn whether we research our genealogy for a hobby or for a profession. Just like you have to learn biology to get into genetic genealogy, you have to learn to source your claims for the profiles on WikiTree to have any real value.

I think that a sourcing mentorship would go a long way in helping new members and there could be some sort of badge that has to be achieved before a member can create/edit profiles other than their own (be more like Wikipedia that is permission based). We need to ensure that burden of proof is being met to make WikiTree more like a true Wiki, and not like Ancestry or Family search trees (full of made up trees).

Besides, even if it's only for our own benefit, when we revisit a page more than a year after first creating it and we don't cite our sources, we end up have to reprove the data to ourselves! And that is wasted time in a field that is already very time consuming.

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Think of a profile like a book that has footnotes (citations) and a bibliography (called Sources in Wikitree).

The citations tell you where each little piece of information comes from (in the order in which that information appears) and may repeat the same source an indefinite number of times.

The Bibliography/Sources gives a list of all your your sources in alphabetical order and each one appears just once.

Pat

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Patricia, I essentially agree with you.  Someday I will get around to finishing my suggestion for a replacement for the awful Sources Style Guide help page.  My breakdown explaining its problems I wrote a year ago.

I also think of the sources section as having two separate sections.  The first section I call "Footnotes and citations" and is of course the in-line citations created by the <ref>...</ref> tags.  The next section which you called just sources, I think should be called a "Source list" which is a term used by Evidence Explained.  It is essentially the same thing as an MLA Works Cited section, or a Bibliography, but I find the term a more accurate and all-inclusive.  The source list, as you say, should be full and complete references and be alphabetized. 

What I don't like about your suggestion, however, is making new, level two headers.  It stretches and separates everything out too much.  If you just label the sections :Footnotes and citations and :Source list, it makes a very nice looking, structured look to the sources section.  If you look at the sources section of Edward III, you will see what I am getting at.

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The genealogy software program I use calls the two sections Citations and Bibliography and those are the terms I prefer -- or Footnotes and Bibliography.

I gather that what you are essentially asking for is as follows:

PROFILE:

    1. Biography

    2. Source info

           a) Citations/footnotes/whatever contains <references/>

           b) Source list/bibliography/whatever contains alphabetical listing                     of all sources used.

I have no objection to that.

However, I think most books, scholarly articles, etc., have three sections. (1-info, 2-footnotes/end notes, 3-bibliography).

                    Pat

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Wikitree is an online way of publishing things so we should not do a copy paste of books. As Chris today released some new user interface changes maybe he also is willing to make the citation/reading part better

If you check WIkipedia Boston 

1. Mouse over on a footnote displays the footnote
   
   
   
    
2. A mouse over on a Hyperlink creates a preview 
   (this is a gadget you need to activate on your preferences page) see description Beta_Features/Hovercards
   
   
3. If you do mouse over on the popup in 1 over United States Census Bureau you get a preview of that link explaining United States Census Bureau
   

I can see a scenario where you have a source that is from Census 1890 and then in the popup (nr 3 above) you get a small explanation of that Census 1890 and click to read more about it....

I guess reading online with hyperlinks gives new opportunities.... that maybe can be implemented inside WikiTree. Over at Wikipedia they are now planning having Queries instead of Categories something I think Aleš like.... e.g. instead of a Category for people died in Ljubljana you have a query 

 

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I agree with Magnus that as we are not writing books, we do not necessarily need to format sourcing on wikitree like a book.

Magnus, emulating wikipedia would probably be a very good idea.  I am not sure wikitree is ready for that.

What changes were released by Chris?  I apparently missed them.

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Changes announced new buttons and result displayed "inline"

Answer 1

Good idea. I discovered this quirk in the system by accident early on, when I added a sibling. All of the sudden, there was Unknown Vachon as their father, with an empty profile. I thought it was really odd, since the Unsourced template is applied when an unsourced profile is added on its own. I fixed it, of course, but if I had not been paying attention, the father would have been sitting there for awhile before I saw the problem!

Answer 2

Or maybe not create a visible father at all.... Feels it can be created when we have something to add to a father.... and this is more a bug in the software...

Comments

Father must be created, since there is only Father and Mother relation defined in wikitree database.

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Seems no rocket science to add a flag and make it non visible  =  [father unknown] ==> its not shown in the UI or gedcom export.........

A profile like this Michie-241 has no genealogy value and is more sending the wrong signals.... 

 

A profile like Michie-242 should then display a nonclickable [father unknown] in the user interface....

Rachel Whitelaw Michie

Born 27 Apr 1861 [location unknown]

Daughter of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]

Sister of James Michie, Andrew Michie, William Porter Michie and Elizabeth Michie

[spouse(s) unknown]

 

Answer 3

From DB_Errors point of view, this wouldn't solve anything. It would just make error 803 instead of 802. But the default captions could be added.

Comments

Aleš, I don't know what the letter count is for an 803 error to be generated, maybe we could adjust my suggestion so it doesn't qualify for that error either.