Proposed ULTIMATE Solution to Source Policy that Satisfies Everyone [closed]

Question

This is a spin-off from the recent post Why are people foregoing inline citations and removing the <references /> tags?

1  Introduction.
This is a proposal for a single, universal solution to the entire set of causes of the current situation of (a) unsourced profiles (other than gedcom imports), (b) need for standardized style of citing sources across WikiTree, (c) unique preferences for work habits of all members, (d) requirement for clean looking pages for both view and editing, and (e) distaste of some members to master coding skills.  Credit for conceiving this system belongs to Dale Byers.

1.1 Purpose.
This post identifies a system for adding sources to profile narratives in a way that:

• satisfies universal working styles of members
• meets the established policy of using footnotes to link to source citations
• eliminates the "bloat" effect interspersing citations with narrative content.

1.2  Scope.
This post includes:

• description of the appearance of profile view and editing pages that use the system
• cost/benefit analysis of implementing the system
• instruction (with no technobabble) for how to add the coded source citations to a profile page, including explanation of what the codes mean.

2  Appearance of Profile Pages.
There are two types of profile pages - the veiw page and the editing page.

2.1  Appearance of View Page.
The impact on both types of view pages (public and private) will be identical.  These pages will appear identical to pages that use the current Source Style Guide with only one difference.  A single line, immediately below the "Sources" heading will have a superfluous set of all the footnote numbers.

Note:  this can be mitigated very easily if WikiTree chooses to add a single line to the master css file that will have no impact on anything else on the entire website, but will cause that line of footnote numbers to not be displayed.

2.2  Appearance of Editing Page.
The "==Biography==" section of the editing page will have only a single tag immediately following each statement of fact that is supported by a source.  The citation itself will not be in the middle of the narrative, so that the user sees a smoothly flowing narrative.

The "==Sources==" section of the editing page will start with a list of all the source citations.  Display of each citation will consist of a start (<ref name="something">) tag on its own line, followed by the citation, and finally an end (/ref) tag on the next line, so that the user sees each citation clearly separated from codes and other citations.

The "<references />" tag will be displayed on the line immediately below the last citation that supports a statement in the "Biography" section.

If the optional "See also:", followed by additional source citations that do not support statements in the biography is used, then these items will be displayed  below the "<references />" tag.

3. The Codes and How They Work.
The key to being comfortable using codes is to understand what they do.  Please consider this as no different from learning to communicate with a person who speaks a language you do not understand.  When you try to use that person's language, it helps if you understand how they will view your use of certain words - just a "say this word when you mean that one" translation doesn't always do the job because of nuances and colloquialisms that may result in the person interpreting the word differently from your intent.

We use tags that comprise what is called a "markup language" (the acronym "HTML" stands for HyperText Markup Language).  They give us a way of separating content (what we want displayed) from instructions about how to display the content.  The tags constitute very specific commands to the computer about where to put things and whether they should be bold, italic, etc.

3.1  Tags, Instructions, and Content.
We use a "container" to designate that whatever is inside the container is an instruction.  The computer will not display the instructions, but will follow them when it prepares the page for display,  We use tags to indicate where the container starts and ends so that the computer can distinguish between the instructions and the content.  We also need to make sure that the computer can distinguish between the tags themselves and the content.

 

(hit max size wall - to be continued)

Comments

(continued)

 

3.1.1  Tags.

Note: the only tags relevant to this document are <ref>, </ref>, and <references />, however everything in this section is valid for all tags.

We use the "<" symbol, commonly called "left angle bracket" or "less than sign" to start a tag and the ">" symbol, commonly called "right angle bracket" or "greater than sign" to enclose the tag.  In between the "<" and ">" is a set of characters (chosen in an effort to identify what the tag does).  Some tags have optional attributes.

3.1.1.1 Start Tags.
A start tag consists of the set of characters that represents the instruction and any optional attributes.  <ref> and <ref name="something"> are both examples of start tags, one with the name attribute.

3.1.1.2  End Tags.
An end tag is designated by adding a "/" symbol, commonly called "slash" or "forward slash" before the same set of characters used for the start tag.  An end tag does not include any attributes.  </ref> is an example of an end tag.

3.1.1.3 Empty Tags.
An empty tag is a special case of a tag that has a general instruction, rather than one that applies to some of the content.  It may help to think of it as a shorhand way of indicating that a tag starts and ends at the same place.  An empty tag has a " /"  (that is a space followed by a slash) after the characters that represent the instruciton.  <references /> is an example of an empty tag.

Note: although "references" and "ref" look very similar, this is unfortunate - they are actually two completely different tags.

3.1.2  Use of Tags.
The <ref> tag instructs the computer to place a footnote number (the computer keeps track of the number sequence and selects the next one automatically) at the point where it is placed and also includes the content of what is to be displayed in the footnote itself at a different place on the page.  It is constructed as follows:

<ref> (the citation goes here) </ref>
or
<ref name="soemthing"> (the citation goes here) </ref>

The <references /> tag instructs the computer to list all the citations in all the <ref> tags that are above it (if you put a <ref> tag below it then it will not include that citation in the list).  The list will be displayed at the position where the <refeences /> tag is placed.

Note: a common error that occurs is when a </ref> tag is displayed on a page and the citation is not displayed.  The cause of this is that there was no <ref> tag to indicate the start of the tag, so what the user intended as the end tag is interpreted as content.

3.2.  The Name Attribute.

The name attribute of a <ref> tag is used to distinguish between different <ref> tags that are used on the same page.  When the name attribute is used, it becomes possible to use the <ref> tag, which contains the (sometimes lengthy citation) once and use an empty ref tag for additional uses of the same citation if the same source supports multiple statements.  Here's how to do it:

1. When you know you will use the same citation multiple times, give the ref tag a name.  The name can be anything (as long as the first character of it is a letter) but if you use a name that is maningful to you then it will help to quickly identify which source you are citing without having to read the entire citation.  For example:  <ref name="birth">(citation of source of birth date/place)</ref>
    
2. As long as the <ref> tag (with a name and with the full citation) is used once, anywhere above the <references /> tag, you can use the empty <ref /> tag with the same name for additional instances where the same citation is to be used.  For example:  <ref name="birth" />

4  How to Use The System.
This is as easy as one-two-three!

1. As you write the narrative, when you know that you have a source for a statement, just add <ref name="something" /> immediately after the statement.  Continue the narrative starting on the next line.  If you want to start a new paragraph then leave a blank line after the tag.
    
2. After the "===Sources==" heading, enter all the <ref> tags - the ones that contain the citations as follows:
   1. On the first line, enter <ref name="something">
   2. On the next line enter the citation.
   3. On the next line enter </ref>
   4. Repeat 1 - 3 for each different citation in the order that the corresponding empty tags appear in the narrative
       
3. After all the citations, on the next line enter <references />

5 Editing Page Benefits.

1. When the editing page is displayed, the biography flows smoothly without the confusion of citations interspersed with the narrative.  You do see instantly which statements have citations, making it easier to see where more sources are needed.
    
2. The source citations are also easy to see, since they are all separated by the <ref> tags on separate lines.
    
3. The editing page will not appear confusing to others who want to see it and/or add to it in the future.
    
4. If your work style is to write the narative and add the source citations later, you can do that - just add the single empty <ref name="something" /> tag wherever you know you have a supporting source.  You will be adding all the citations in one place when you list the <ref> citation </ref> tags.
    
5. If your work style is to add sources first, you can do that in one place and won't have to move them elsewhere when you write the narrative and reach the point where you want to use them - you'll just enter the single empty <ref name="something" /> tag at those points.

 

Note:  See view and edit pages for thelinked profile to see it in use.

 

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Part of the problem originally identified that page numbers were being removed from references, and I can see how this system would work if you only wanted to quote one specific page from a book.

I'm just wondering though how it would work, if you were using different pages from the same book?  For instance if you were using a biography as a source, when they were born might be on page 5, and you they married might be on page 100, and when they died on page 250.  It's all the same source, but ideally you would want to cite all those different page numbers for those different facts.

---

<ref name="Smith">Smith, GH. History of Somewhere. Boston: smith publishers, 1903. (b. p. 53, m. p 79, children p 80)</ref>

or

John Smith was born 1942(p3)<ref name="Smith">

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<ref name="Smith1">Smith, GH. History of Somewhere. Boston: smith publishers, 1903; p. 53</ref>

<ref name="Smith2">Smith; p. 79</ref>

<ref name="Smith3">Smith; p. 80</ref>

would result in something that is closer to general practice. Would take a few more keystrokes, though.

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In the proposed section on the name attribute I think the wording "...name that is meaningful to you..." should be changed to just "...name that is meaningful...";

AA1 may be a meaningful name attribute to the person adding the ref tag but we should encourage people to use something that is probably meaningful to all the other editors that might need to touch a profile in the future.

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THANX Rob - point well taken!!!

What I had in mind were things like "birth", "death", "marriage", "naturalization", "immigration", "draftregistration", "census1920", "census1930", "ssdi", "findagrave", "wifefindagrave", "geni", etc. Those are the names that I typically use for ref tags!

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One quick question, Gaile. In our prior method (using full inline references), if there were two things where we used the <ref name="something">, it showed up as two footnotes (1.0, 1.1).  With this method, it appears there is always an extra footnote number. In the example you provided, footnotes 2 and 3 have 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0, 3.1, respectfully, but there is only one thing in the text that has footnote 2 and one thing that has footnote 3.

Why is there a difference? And will it be corrected if the CSS is fixed as well?

Thanks

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S, you just picked up on the only "cost" of this system - the superfluous list of numbers is the cause of the extra link in the footnotes.  The numbers at the bottom have just the single number when there is only 1 lplace the source is used.  It is a link back to the location of the superscript footnote number in the narrative.  Whenever there is more than one time the same cource is used, there is an extra number - that's why they do it with decimals - where the source citation appears.  Each one is a link back to a different place in the narrative where the same source is being used.

I cannot be absolutely certain that hiding the number list will remove the extra links, but I believe it will.  If it does not do that then I am sure that there is a way to suppress linking to the hidden numbers that would definitely hide it.  This, too would be done in the css file, but would be a little more work - only a little, though - than to just hide the list would be.

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Thanks, Gaile.

I tried it on one profile interspersing two references the way you suggested it, with another reference sourced the old-fashioned inline way. In that case a [1] and [3] are listed above the footnotes. Since the second reference was handled a different way, I guess that's why it doesn't show up there.

So, I bring this up, because it seems that unless those numbers can be hidden, intermixing the two ways to do inline source footnotes could confuse people.

Overall, this seems like a great proposal. I would (like you) like to get rid of those pesky useless numbers above the footnote.

Thanks for your hard work on this!

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I keep seeing the suggestion that some change to the CSS file will ['automatically'] fix the extraneous numbering but could I see an explanation of what this proposed change is? The only thing I can think is defining a new class (or tag) that simply applys a style of "display:none".

 

It is not convenient to apply this as a class of the <ref> tag since we would then need to add it to each reference individually (a pain if you have a lot of references). Since custom tags are usually best avoided lets assume we create a class "div.ref" under the CSS definitions for <div> tags. Our bio might then look like:

===Biography===

First Fact. <ref name="smith1985" />

Second Fact. <ref name="smith1987" />

Third Fact. <ref name-"smith1987" />

===Sources===

<div class="ref">

<ref name="smith1985"> Smith, 1985.</ref>

<ref name="smith1987"> Smith, 1987.</ref>

</div>

<references />

The above example hides the line(s) immediately below the Sources heading that would otherwise read:

[1.1] [2.2]

I do not see a way to have the system 'automatically' know which ref tags to make hidden and which to display without the user manually specifying them in some way.

 

Hiding the number list using the method above will definitely not remove the extra links - I tested it (with inline styling) to be certain. I did not think it would because, as I (more-or-less) understand it, the cite.php extension parses the profile looking for <ref> tags and what is contained in them and ignores things outside the ref tags such as formatting. Older versions of cite.php would not even process template calls inside the ref tags because of the sequence in which the page is parsed.

Long story short - hidden citations will still appear in the displayed footnotes. The example I gave above would display as:

Biography

First Fact. ^[1]

Second Fact. ^[2]

Third Fact. ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Smith, 1985.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Smith, 1987.

As best as I can tell changing this behaviour would require recoding the cite.php extension, at which point it would probably just be easier to add the functionality that already exists in newer versions of cite.php for separating references from text as shown here.

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Rob,

That is precisely the change to the css that I would like to see.  Since <div> is off limits to us, I was thinking of creating a new class for the span tag but it is precisely the one you specified above.  It would be very simple to add that and would not impact anything else because this is the only place where it would be used.  The only reason I had deliberately not identified it because I was trying to keep this discussion itotally non-technical.  I wanted to ensure that ALL members were comfortable contributing their opinions here.  A major benefit of this is supposed to be that it will be more user friendly, so I wanted to be sure to encourage members who are not computer friendly to let their voices be heard.

You confirmed what I was afraid of with the extra number links still appearing.  I briefly scanned the Cite Extension documentation link you gave.  Suppressing all the back links suits my personal preference not to see any extra numbers there because they look awful and people don't always know which of the back links they came from, plus our profiles aren't all THAT long and there is always the scroll bar! The problem I see is that I believe some people are very attached to having those back links.  Then, too, there's the question of what impact the newer version would have on other things, which might cause Chris to not want to make the change.

If we can't do anything about the extra back links to the line of numbers, then we're probably better off not hiding them.  Although they don't server any useful purpose, they almost look like a table of contents to the source citations, so I don't think they're all that bad, especially in view of all the benefits we get on the editing page by doing it this way ... but that's just my opinion.

If Chris were willing, I might be able to come up with a way to include something in the same class that would hide the numbers that would also suppress the extra back links to those numbers, but I'm not sure I could manage to do that.

THANX for all the analysis and also for the information about the cite extension.

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Gaile the only thing I see wrong with your explaniation is that the name Attribute does not have to start with a letter, it just has to contain a letter.  See below

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dyer-309

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Dale and Gayle - nice work. The editing clutter with in-line sources probably does not bother me as much as others, but I like this idea. I'd like it a lot more with a simple way to hide the stray links in view mode as other mentioned. I see the extra links as clutter more the a table of content to the References section as mentioned - but hey everything is a balancing act.

Since one driving force for this is simplified editting, what  would be even nicer is a simple WYSIWYG editor that includes only wiki-acceptable HTML, standard the wiki extensions, and wikitree extensions. Perhaps this a pipe dream. Seems this effort should be taken on by Mediwiki or other 3rd parties, not wikitree. Then you run into the challenge that our site is so heavily customize, the retrofit/merge costs are rather high. Seems there  has been little momentum/concensus behind this idea. There is an interesting artcile here on this topic. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WYSIWYG_editor#State_of_WYSIWYG_and_MediaWiki_software. Chris commented on this in 2012 as this being problematic. Seems like not much has changed since then in the world in this area, not just here. Curious if his view is still the same in 2015.

Would a well designed WYSIWYG make easier for the other 90% to provide better profiles, including source as mentioned here?

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Building on experience gained on several Wikipedia articles and, more recently on over 200 profiles of Percheron-born pioneers to immigrate in the 17th century to what is now known as Québec , I have come around to standardize 'sources', citations and footnotes along the following lines:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

==Biography== 

Show first instance of a 'source' as, for example, 

<ref name="Aubin1984">Aubin, Réal 1984, « Les enfants d’Aubin Lambert I, 1e partie. » MSGCF, vol. XXX, n° 2 (1979), pp. 109-121.</ref>

Show subsequent citations as, for example:

<ref name="Aubin1984"/>

Maximize use of links in 1st and subsequent intances of a 'source' and derive intelligent <ref name=" tag-naming-convention">, whereby, for example, Aubin1984 above is derived by reference author's last name and date of publication, as above.

==Bibliography==

Show list of all references or 'sources', where applicable in alphabetical order, as .for example:

.

- FamilySearch, "Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979,", Notre-Dame-de-Québec, Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1621-1679

.

- Roy, Joseph-Edmond (1897). Histoire de la seigneurie de Lauzon. Volume 1

.

Maximize use of links in these references. Bibliography may include references not cited in Biography citation footnotes ==Bibliography== section may optionally be divided in Legend and Bibliography sub-sections if separagte Legend sub-section is warranted.

==Notes==

<references />

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Refer for example to profile at http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Lambert-3324&public=1.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

My approach may result in some editing view bloat but I find the approach to offer maximum flexibility to show footnotes as citations to 1) sources cross-referenced by tagging convention to Bibliography reference or 2) commentary notes.

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The lack of progress re the proposed solution may be a result of lack of agreement in its preferability over the current system.

Claude, the current Source style guide supports an approach that doesn't require a bibliography on every profile.

The problem I have with the ref name = approach is its inability to support different citations within a given work. For example, the PGM project frequently cites Anderson's Great Migration series. And Anderson cites other records.  Following the standard that we cite what we see, then subsequent references to Anderson would need to say something like, "Anderson (1995), p. 178, citing Ipswich MA Town Records, vol. 2, p. 292." The ref name= format does not support such citations.

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All that said, it's apparent from the rest of the posts to this g2g thread that many people are disregarding the current standards and doing whatever they want. There probably hasn't been much objection to such behavior because most of us care more about the presence of good source information than we care about how that information is formatted.

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Does all this mean we HAVE to do it one way only?  I don't like any of the three examples.  I much prefer to list only what I have vs. creating a biography, etc. out of essentially nothing.  My understanding of WikiTree was it's purpose was to create as complete a universal tree as thousands of people could.  I fear this type of "rule" will stop a large number of people from participating.  I also fear that the large majority of people working on their "own" family trees will not bother with all this unless the software prevents them from doing it any other way, that all this will continue to be ignored until the software is written to prohibit any other way than the one chosen by so few of the total number of users.  Or, to simplify my rambling, I'll end by saying, "Wow, what a great way to drive people away!"  - Betsy

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There are many ways to skin a cat and this is the way I skin my France-born-pioneers-to- immigrate-to-Canada (FBPTITC) cat. I works well for me and others may benefit from this approach. Though not a Style Guide requirement, a biblio is simply sources ordered in alphabetical order.

My approach has the following benefits:

• It is consistent with FBPTITC having been researched extensively by Quebec and Canadian genealogists and historians, which is especially importance to Quebecois Project profiles.
• It allows coarse-grained biblio entries covering several more fine-grained citation footnotes
• It allows optimum shortening of citation footnotes
• Great Migration constraint you point to is not in my view a constraint; I handle this type of issue by,
  •  showing as two separate biblio entries as for example:
    • Jetté, René (1983). Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec. Des origines à 1730. Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. xxx-1180 pages
    •  Lesperance, Jerry (December 2002). Le Perche, Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society
  • showing citation in editing view thus: <ref name=”Lesperance2002”>[ http://www.vt-fcgs.org/leperche.html Lesperance 2002 citant Jetté 1983, p. 136]: “BOUCHER, Gaspard ( Woodworker) with children Pierre, Nicolas, Marie & Marguerite and related to Marin, departed Mortagne 1634.”</ref>

It is nevertheless ironic that my experience is that Wikitree members have a nearly universal aversion to producing high-quality biography text seamlessly cross-referenced with citation footnotes and biblio or it’s equivalent. I say nearly universal aversion because improvement to my 200-odd standardized FBPTITC profiles are very rarely made by other Wikitree members. This in my view does not bode well for Wikitree ability to eventually evangelize widespread application to profiles in way that makes optimum use of Wikitree’s wiki resources and techniques.  

This, again in my view, is in stark contrast to Wikipedia article content which can comparatively routinely be much higher in quality than Wikitree profiles.

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Betsy,

My approach is not a rule. It is a solution to the type of high-quality content that I am accustomed to and which happens to consistently produce good result s for me. Mediocrity is not an option for me in my profiles. Evidently Wikitree members are not stampeding to standardize on my approach.

Claude

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Claude,  Your approach is fine but with the large number of profiles on WikiTree that have poor or no sources and no biography's anything is an improvement.  Also the vast majority of new members have a very poor idea about sources and how to add them so I think that the feeling, for now at least, is to create an easy way to add sources so that we can nudge people to creating better sourced profiles.  Your way is an option but I feel that by keeping it simple we will have a better chance of improving the overall quality.  The added edit bloat was the major reason I modified the recommended style referenced above to make it easier for new members to use.  The mostly positive comments for the system Gaile is proposing shows that it does work and is much better than what is on most of the profiles I work on to try and make WikiTree a better place than it was when I joined.

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Claude, I too hope for biographical profiles that cite sources. We need to keep in mind, though, that the vast majority (bulk) of profiles here are created as a result of GEDCOM upload resulting in profiles that are made up of user-contributed data with whatever the user entered into their own genealogy software. AND those gedcom-created profiles also convert all the data fields into a list of facts that get dumped into the narrative.

To achieve the biographical profiles we seek, we need to clean these post gedcoms profiles. Unfortunately, most uploaders don't work on their profiles after uploading which is too bad. Even if they just cleaned out the kaka that comes with a gedcoms that would be a great improvement. But it's time consuming and incredibly boring.  I'm still working through mine several years later. (I stopped uploading gedcoms as a result.)

The other thing is that not all contributors here want to write biogrpaphies nor should we expect everyone to.  We each have our own strengths and interests. A collaborative environment allows people to participate at the level they are comfortable with. That has good and not so good impacts. But such is the nature of collaboration.

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In fairness, I only now belatedly became aware of Gail's ultimate solution details and am glad that she devoted so much effort to developing it. It needs to be understood that the FBPTITC profiles are a very specialized profiles, the accuracy and qualty of which is inherently crucial for many North American families of Quebec origin.  Hence, edit view bloat is in my vew secondary for FBPTITC profiles to content quality and accuracy.

Wikipedia's Wikitree article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiTree) says Wikitree is "managed by a team of volunteer leaders and mentors that serve the community in a variety of capacities, in particular with helping users gain proficiency in using the system."

Which begs the question: 

What could be more important to Wikitree's long-term success than gaining proficiency in wiki resources and techniques?

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My answer to your last question : finding and adding quality sources has as much if not more importance as building people's capacity to understand wiki resources and techniques. imho anyway.

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Need for finding and finding quality sources goes without saying but a bit off topic since this G2G question deals with ultimate solution in terms of "standardized style of citing sources across WikiTree".

Wikitree needs to introduce criteria for a Good Profile similar to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_article_criteria Wikipedia's Good Article criteria].

WIkitree in a wiki and it's long-term success inherently depends of grad;ually becoming proficiency, inter alia, in wiki resources and techniques.

The mark of a profession is that he is intolerant of mediocrity and he uses the tools at hand striving to at soon as possible produce a 'finished product'.

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Claude,  First there are very few professional's working on profiles here.  We are striving to improve and standardize how the profiles look, but we need to go slowly so that everyone has a chance to learn the basics before pushing for perfection
.

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Claude, I have long admired your mastery of the French and English languages and your thoroughness in profile development and documentation. However, your latest comment within this G2G thread leads me to believe your bilingual mind may have led you astray when you write “The mark of a profession is that he is intolerant of mediocrity and he uses the tools at hand striving to at soon as possible to produce a 'finished product'.”

Upon reflection, I believe you may come to realize the “intolerant of mediocrity” philosophy is contrary to the collaborative nature of wikis, wherein individuals of varying levels of interest, knowledge and abilities patiently strive to lift each other to higher levels of performance. Collaborative endeavors are like a rising tide, lifting all boats equally; never to swamp the boats of the naive or less skillful.

If your statement does indeed communicate precisely what you intended, then please tell me if you consider the work of every WikiTree collaborator that cannot match your level of speed, thoroughness, accuracy and/or literary acumen to be unworthy of contributing to the WikiTree? Where am I within the resultant short list of worthy collaborators?

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Bilingual mind??!! Hogwash. I am 72 years old and nobody has every had the timerity to aim this thinly veiled slur in my direction.

I stand by the thrust of my comments above. There is as much, if not more cooperation, with Wikipedia as with Wikitree. The main difference is that the the level of continuous improvement striving in long-term for excellence is much lower in Wikitree than in Wikipedia. The other major difference is a disfunctional unwilllingness to confront the fact than full wiki proficiency is crucial for Wikitree's long-term success.  Much could be learned by Wikitree emulation and benchmarking Wikipedia and other wiiki-based applications

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Claude, I applaud your encouragement-- even insistence-- that wikitree do more to improve its profiles and practice. We have no where near the critical mass in numbers nor expertise that Wikipedia has. But we try.

We do have style guides to encourage consistency in profile development. And this thread is a proposal to change one aspect of that style guide-- recommended formatting of source citation references within a profile. Unfortunately there has not been consensus enough to have wikitree leadership come here and say okay, let's change the style guide.

Nonetheless even without that final word, many people here have chosen to disregard the current source style guide and do their own thing. Leadership has not felt strongly enough about that to discourage this deviation from the style guide. I'm surmising this is because adding quality sources is a higher priority than how those sources are formatted.

Regarding dysfunctional unwillingness, I think you're being a bit too harsh. But leadership should respond to that.

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Do I understand correctly? You unequivocally advocate that I and a multitude of other volunteers ought to be pruned from the roster of collaborators? Because we are, to use your terminology, “dysfunctional”?

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George, I didn't read Claude's interpretation that way. And re-reading it, he doesn't actually indicate WHO exactly is dysfunctionally unwilling. I interpreted it to mean the overall leadership body. But perhaps Claude could clarify just who he is targeting with that comment.

And I must have completely missed the "pruning" comment. I can't find it.

Claude, wikitree has something like wikipedia's criteria for profiles. It's the Biographies part of the style guide:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Biographies

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Jillaine's last comment is the proper interpretation. I say dysfunctional unwillingness because the long-term success of Wikitree inherently depends on high wiki proficiency contrasts with my experience of nearly universal aversion to wiki proficiency on the part of Wikitree members. despite the fact that current source citation requirement are primitive.

Wikitree could, like Wikipedia, add citation templates to help members automatically format complicated sources in term of books, journals, registers and so on.

Standardized style of citing sources across WikiTree should be expanded to show option of including more sophiticated approaches such as Bibliography and <ref  name>

George, It is not collaborators that should be pruned but mediocre-quality (especially raw GEDCOM-import) profiles or portions of profiles that linger in the system indefinitely, profiles or portions of profiles that violate Honour Code in terms of copyright etc,, .

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Well Claude I guess you mean me as well because I uploaded a GEDCOM that had no sources, a problem that I am now attempting to fix, but because I would not use your method for sources and do not write great biographies you are saying that I should not be on here.  This is not Wikipedia, this is WikiTree and we are recording OUR relatives here. Not everyone will live up to your standards, so I guess if what I do to help improve things here is not good enough for you I should think about turning to other areas where I will not be wasting my time!

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[This is about the time that I wish I could place an audio version of my comment instead of just the written word, so that Dale, you'd know that my voice demonstrates I'm coming from a loving-- even if slightly teasing-- place.]

Dale, Dale, Dale... Breathe. ["Step away from the computer!"]

Claude's not saying you shouldn't be here. He just wrote that he's talking about the insufficient profile content, not the people. 

And Claude, I simply must disagree with your comment: "nearly universal aversion to wiki proficiency on the part of Wikitree members". 

Peruse g2g a bit more. All over, we have people encouraging others to understand and use wiki markup. Gaile in this post alone (and just look at her other posts). There are many others. 

THAT said, it probably is true that most people are here because of their love of genealogy and family history, NOT for their love of technology and wiki-code. Or even of writing biographies. So wiki-capacity is not their primary driver.

There is a profile cleanup project; sounds like that's the place for you. It's a group of people committed to improving the quality of profiles. And there's also specific content-area projects-- Puritan Great Migration, Magna Carta descendants, Dutch Roots, and more more more. Consider linking up with one. 

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Projects

 

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My experience, limited as it is, is that there in nearly universal aversion to wiki pproficiency in terms of soure formatting.

There is potential for over 7,000 France-born pioneers who immigrated to what is now Quebec and this is of course a natural priority for 'collaborators' such as me. 300 of these 7,000 pioneers were born in ancient Perche province of France. I have upgraded or created open-privacy profiles for 200 of these 300 Percheron pioneers, the other 100 profiles of which being a first priority for me personally.

These 200-odd Percheron-pioneer profiles have evolved in a standardized format and it would be nice if this profile-standard could be of more general benefit to Quebecois project profiles.

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Claude, Make up your mind. First this discussion is about adoption a standard that would make use of the already recommended and approved Wikicodes that would be simple for all to master, an improvement in my opinion, but you want to introduce another whole system. Then you say that if we do not do it your way we are not improving the tree and those profiles should be removed because they are sub par.  Your method is a good one but rather than continuing on the project you work on where it will do the most good and then proposing a change in a new post so that others can be clear of what you want to do, you keep insisting that 265,605 genealogists from around the world should adopt your method right now when most do not even understand the simpler version proposed here.  We need to educate the newer members about the importance of sources and biographies first and then nudge them in a better source formatting style while understanding that with 10,681,743 profiles on here already any change is not going to happen fast and by restricting GEDCOM imports, which I agree are not the best way to work here, we will not attract newer members that we need to insure the survival of WikiTree.

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Nothing disturbs me more on the WikiTree than discovering a profile reformatted to fit a factitious “new methodology”. I applaud the creative freedom we have on the site. Unfortunately some use that liberty to infringe upon the liberty of others.

Different methodologies are generally accepted. However, I abhor the practice of a few to remove or replace someone else's display formatting to fit their preference.

The different methodologies well serve their adherents, but when one of my created profiles end up merged with one of theirs, then what methodology prevails? In my case, theirs always do. Why? Because I've yet to succeed in persuading a “graffiti artist” their creation is inappropriate. Their work, they believe: is a vast improvement; they have the implied support of the methodology adherents, and; my work was “inferior”.

Perhaps it is time to more clearly define the parameters of formatting. In the absence of parameters, the conflicting methodologies will result in chaos.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

The “ULTIMATE Solution to Source Policy that Satisfies Everyone” has not caused me any grief, and is only associated with my rant because it is a variant methodology.

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Hi, George, in the case of two conflicting styles, the "style guide" prevails. That's what it's there for, so that two or more individuals do not get in a tif over the way things look. So basically

== Biography ==

=== Secondary headings if needed ===

Biography using inline sourcing<ref>Source citation</ref>

== Sources ==

<references />

All of which I believe is what you are doing. I reiterated it here for the benefit of others.

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George the only "Variant" in this proposed method is it proposes that every inline source used the <ref name =????/> line first and down below between the == Sources == header and the <references/> line we place the <ref name = ????> body of source text</ref> to reduce the amount of Wikicode in the biography section that is visible and confusing when editing.  It does not seek to change how the actual source is formatted or make any real changes in the style guide, it just makes it easier for beginners to read what is written and minimizes other from removing things they don't understand.  That is why I am confused about all of the uproar from you and Claude.

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Dale,

Let me try to summarize what my point is.

First, the vast major of open-privacy profiles that I come across with are unformatted in terms of sources. For example, many of the profiles are copied by competitive sources with unverifiable citations. Or, the profiles are from raw GEDCOM import data. Etc. It is a free for all. 

Second, I merely introduced here a very simple source formatting option which works well based on other extensive experience by millions of users including me with major wiki applications including Wikipedia and proprietary wikis. The option is fully compliant with http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Editing_Tips.

Third, the extent of my interest in Wikitree is currently for open-privacy profiles dealing with 300-odd Perche-born pioneers to immigrate in the 17th & 18th century to what is now Quebec.

Fourth, I am not suggesting that my approach necessarily be imposed on Wikitree's 10 million-odd profiles. I am however suggesting that the source style be eventually expanded,  for more sophisticated Wikitree members, to allow elements of my approach such as bibliography, citation templates, and so on.

Five, I am also suggesting that Wikitree's long-term success inherently depends on striving for profiles that all gradually evolve towards a 'finished product' quality.   This in turn implies need to emphasize wiki-proficiency among Wikitree membership.

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The problem is you are using an old feed about a possible improvement to our existing methods and shooting that down to promote you own style.  Start a new discussion and see what results you get there rather just putting down an attempt by others to improve things here.

And finally trying to compare an encyclopedia like Wikipedia to a family tree program is like comparing apples and oranges, they are both fruit but everything else is different and I for one would not like an apple to be exactly like an orange.

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I stand by my comments. Sauce good for one wiki goose is sauce good for any wiki gander. I consider this thread of recent comments closed and appreciate various reactions from all.

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Let's not let Perfect be the enemy of Good here on WikiTree.

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I needed to hear that. Thank you S. Wilson!

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Dale,

Thank you for summarizing the “Ultimate solution” for my benefit.

When I returned to this June 5^th G2G topic yesterday and discovered an apparent counter proposal in progress, the lengthy thread of perceived pros, cons and continuing debate, for me, was overwhelming.

I have already emphatically stated “the ULTIMATE Solution to Source Policy that Satisfies Everyone” has not caused me any grief “. It is the misuse of the alternative methodology, in my opinion the epitome of bloat, that I abhor. I am also of the opinion that declaring profiles so constructed are a “finished product” implies altering the profiles is off limits. The dogmatic use of the methodology, in my opinion, inhibits collaboration.

Please recognize it is the methodology I take issue with, and not it's originator or proponents. They, as you and I, have a right to form, vet, and embrace opinions.

I sincerely hope everyone agrees that our personal opinions are not a substitute for policy.

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I will make an exception to rebut George's misinterpretation in his last comment. By finished-product-quality is meant that for any given profile, (among the 10+ million available Wikitree profiles), a sincere attempt has been made to produce a 'good profile', including in terms of source formatting devoid of copyright infringement etc., this good finished-product-quality profile being  of course subject to on-going cooperative improvement by Wikitree members according to that profile's privacy level access rights.

It is also clear that there is nothing dogmatic about the solution approach floated in my recent comments to this G2G question.

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I will make another exception to rebut George's misinterpretation in his last comment about so-called edit view bloat. It turns out '''that there is as much if not more edit view bloat''' in [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/God%C3%A9-7 Mathurine Godé]'s biography, which was very largely prepared by George, than would obtain in my solution approach as outlined in earlier comments here.

That is,

* All citation footnote coding, including first instance and subsequent instances, are included in Godé-7 biography's text.

* Coding of first instances of citation are no included immediately under  ==Sources==   needed to avoid so-called edit view bloat.

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Claude,

The profile you reference does not use this proposed style of sourcing so your comments on it are not applicable to this discussion.

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I don't know HTML (yet)

Trying to follow this discussion and trying to make it work for me.  Sometimes it works and then it doesn't.

Is there a You tube video showing the steps? That might be more helpful

thanks

mary beth

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Mary Beth, you don't need to know HTML. All you really need to know is

<ref>Put your source information between these two 'things'</ref> and <references /> Make sure this is on the profile below the word

== Sources ==

If you would like me to do a couple on one of your profiles send me a message.

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Thanks Anne B

Could you take at  Beauvais-227?  I insert 2 facts andd 2 sources: "first marriage" and "second marriage"

 Why do the sources not appear just the numbers 1 and 2

thanks ahead for taking a look!

Mary Beth

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You forgot the word <references /> I added it. look at the changes tab and you can see what I did. It needs to go after your list of sources.

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So <references/> always goes at the very end of all SOURCES  and it will read OK?

Thank you Anne..it looks a lot better!  I have been trying to update profiles but I seem to be tripping over my sources...thanks!

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Yes if you're putting all your sources together as in this example, <references /> always goes at the end of them. That tells the computer program "print the <ref></ref> tags here."

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Anne

Could you check another profile? Beauvais-235.  I don't understand why the numbering is so mixed up! I have 2 tags

#1 is called "individual"

#2 is called "fichier"

I don't understand where and how the #3 and #4 got inserted into the Sources!

Thank you! Thank you again!

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Mary Beth,

The problem with this one is that you used the format for inline sources for when you use the source more than once. I changed #1 for you to show you how it should look if you only use the source in one place but left #2 so that you can see the difference ans also allow you to change it yourself for practice.

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You also left out an " in <ref name="fichier"> at the bottom

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Anne

I only fixed one of the sources so that she could see the difference and change the other on her own.

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Good description and guidelines, but long.  Suggest under section 2.2 Appearance of Editing Page to add an example.  (Such as: <ref name="Byers">)  This would make it clearer to those who are not so familiar with the tags and markup language.

Have been using this style since Dale suggested it and really like it.  It is so much easier to edit the bio now.

To those who are concerned with "dictating" policies, this is only a guideline to help those who are editing and trying to clean up profiles.  It also is meant to encourage people to use inline citations.

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Dale

what did you change?

I see the <ref name=individual/> is no longer there and after "Sources"  #1 is gone. There were two different sources. Now I can't see the first one.

I am confused...again. I thought I got it but apparently NOT!

mary beth

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When you are using the source only once you do not need to set the "Name" you only need to use <ref>your source here</ref>  . You can use the "name" format if you wish but don't put the <ref name="whatever"/> at the bottom because if you do you will duplicate the sources.

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Gaile, I made a small change to the profile for Lilly Heilberg. The change hides those meaningless footnote numbers under the word "Sources". I never tried this before, so let me know if you like it. Thanks.

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I'm gonna chime in here Rick. I love what you've done (hiding the numbers). There are two problems: the <span> is not on the recommended tags list for this type of use and this organization (sources put together at the end) of sourcing has specifically been non-recommended, even though it only uses totally recommended tags. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Alternative_Sourcing_Methods

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Anne, I agree with your statements, but I would like to be able to discuss things that don't meet guidelines or expectations. This G2G forum is the only method I know of to discuss these technical details. I've learned a lot from the people on G2G. I don't want this learning/sharing/collaboration process to stop.

I don't think limiting G2G discussions to ideas that conform to certain recommendations or style guides is a good idea.

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Excellent points Rick

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Source Style Guide says:

"What we call sources could be called items in a source list, bibliography, or works cited."

Answer 1

Thanks Gaile. This looks great and I'll give it a try on a couple of the profiles I manage to see how I like it.

Answer 2

I've been using Dale's system (as explained above) for the past several weeks and like it. It keeps all the benefits of in-line citations while minimizing the clutter in the narrative.

Comments

You got it straight, Chase.  This is an attempt to put Dale's system into a formal proposal to become the official style.

I wanted to include a full explanation of how the codes work in order to include WikiTreers who are normally tunred off by anything tekky in the evaluation and discussion of the system.

It certainly does make a cumbersome document, but I figure people can pick and choose what parts of it they want to read.

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Great work Gaile. I'd always been using the name= tags but had them inline. Since Dale brought this up I've been using them that way and absolutely LOVE it!

Answer 3

Thanks very much Gail.  Much clearer now.  I already discovered a couple of these while trying to make this work.  I kept bumping my head on the wall -- forgetting the end slash (/), but finally worked it out.  Also, you probably know this already -- you cannot use "numbers only" .(which is explained in the "help" but I missed it., or read over it.

From an editing standpoint, I think it would be extremely helpful to have a sort of cheatsheet on the eding page that could either be "copied" into bio text (or a  radio button that would auto drop the codes).  Think this would encourage use for those that are not all that "code savvy".

Comments

Sandy,

I'm glad you found it helpful.  I was a little concerned that the length of it would keep some people from even reading it, but I tried very hard to explain it in English, withougt any technobabble.

I mentioned in there that the name can be anything you want, as long as the first character of it is a letter.  It's not just that you can't use numbers only - the first character MUST be a letter!

I agree fully about the cheat sheet.  There is already one there, but I would like to see it explain it more clearly - the explanation doesn't need to be anything like what I wrote here.  I made a free space page with a template for Holocaust project profiles that displays both the editing page and the view page of a "dummy" profile.  You can copy the code in the editing page section there and paste it into a profile to get started, then just copy/paste the real content you want to use.  That page is at:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:HolocaustProfileTemplate

If you want to use that, you could copy, then go to your profile page and paste.  It's still in your "buffer" after you copy it even if you leave the page it's on.  You might also use a separate tab in your browser to display that page, then copy what you want, switch to the tab with the your profile, and paste.

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Thanks, I already copied onto my "to do watchlist" along with some other things I had trouble with.  I already use the multiple tabs, but sometimes have too much open which usually results in a "not responding".  I have pretty old equipment and it does not have enough Umpf.

Answer 4

I tried using it here. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Chamberlain-2417 Is this right?

Comments

Perfect, Kirsty!

I just have 2 comments on what you did there.

1. I made a change, but it is not necessary - what you had worked perfectly.  Your 2nd paragraph has 2 sentences and you have a different ref tag for each sentence.  You continued on the same line after the first ref tag.  I changed it to start the 2nd sentence on a new line.  It will display EXACTLY the same on the view page, but I did this to make the editing page easier to read.  This way, there are never any tags stuck in the middle of content - they all are at the end of a line.
    
2. You have a couple of source citations that have all the data in the source displayed.  Is that what you intended?  If so, it's fine.  If not, let's talk about how to make ithe citation look the way you want it to.

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If you can suggest a better way of displaying it, please do. The info is from the certificates, so i need to record it somewhere. Eg, a birth cert shows mum/dad names, this sometimes isn't the same as the mother/father's name, eg Edward is father, but might say Ted on birth cert, so I do want to show that information somewhere. Happy for ideas!

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I'll make changes on Chamberlain-2417 - give me about 10 minutes, then look at it.  I'll document everything I do in a comment section at the end of the editing page.

A comment section is another kind of tag - you start it with   <!-- (left angle bracket, exclamation point, 2 hyphens)  and you end it with  -->  (2 hyphens, right angle bracket).  That will display only on the editing page - it will not be displayed on the view page.  You can delete the comment section - just delete the start and end tags when you do that - or you can leave it there if you want.

The way I work on profiles is to first collect all the source citations I can find.  For each one, I list all the data that is in the source.  Then I write the profile, putting the links in as I use the information.  When I'm all done, I keep those lists of data, just in case I ever want to see what's in the source without clicking the link to go to the website it came from.  I put all that in a comment section at the end of the profile.  If you look at the editing page of the one I used in the original question here, you can scroll all the way to the end and see it.

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You are wonderful! I've just finished off that profile, and it looks much better!! Can you check it please?

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Looks fabulous to me!!!  The way content is formatted is purely a matter of personal preference.  I only tried to offer an alternative way of formatting the citation so that you would have a choice of ways to do it.  There was nothing wrong with the way you had it - the same information was there.  It's just a question of which way looks better ... and better is in the eye of the beholder!

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Thank you so much for your help :) It really is much appreciated!!

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You're more than welcome - I'm glad there's something I can help with here - I'm on the receiving end of so much help from everyone else to teach me about genealogy.  A few months ago I thought sources were what I produced in my kitchen.  Now that I understand more about them, I still have plenty to learn about the rest of it all.

Answer 5

Dale and Gaile (you rhyme)    Thank you both!  love, love, love it! 

Actually very close to the existing Style Guide citation method, with one huge difference - placement of the tag which includes the citation, or the "long form" (I don't know the official name). 

The existing guide says to type the "long form" wherever you first use a repeating reference.

This method simply moves all the "long form" tags to the bottom of the page, under === Sources === .  Perfect.

Now, we need to make it official, (and get those extra numbers to disappear)

The other issue (raised by John), a method of providing page numbers.  If included when (word used deliberately) the new instructions are posted, it would encourage people to provide page numbers. 

All of the above methods, and I use both

1) in parenthesis at the end of the sentence (p. 28).

2) included in the "long form" citation, such as Author, [html Title], (Pages 82-88) City, Pub, Date, Accessed date

Which method depends on ... situation more than anything.  If debated or new information, I might use both. 

For instance - book focuses on the family for six pages (in the citation as a range), but also newly found parish records (p. 85).

They're both useful ... (bit of a digression)

Bottom line, YES!  Let's do it.  It solves a lot of problems very simply ...

an elegant solution.  Bravo! 

Comments

Cynthia,  The citation format is not changed with this system.  The only change is we are now giving the citation a "name" and only puting the <ref name ="name"/> in line with the bio and down below the actual citation would be <ref name ="name"> whatever the source citation is<ref/> so anyone who uses page numbers, or anything else has no worries.  With any change there will always be some who resist and try to find fault but this is actually no real change from what was already recommended except for "naming" every source and the placement of the "long citation".  I guess I will have to start using it myself now.

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Hi Cynthia,

John asked a very good question - the way to include different page numbers when citing the same source for different statements is something that I did not address.  Although this system lacks a truly elegant way to do this, Anne and Helmut each suggested a different way to accomplish it.  I believe the two ways you outlined are essentially the same as the ones they mentioned in response to John.

I'm glad you like it - I got so excited when Dale came up with it that I could barely contain myself!!!

Answer 6

I did it!  I did it!  Thank you Gaile and Dale!  http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Smith-84288&public=1  I don't feel like such a backslider now.  

Edit:  I used the author's surname for the ref name.  Seems to work well.  I wish the tag syntax was a special character combination on the toolbar, maybe in the special character horseshoe looking thing.  The tags are tough to type out on an iPad because you have to change back and forth between keyboards.  

Comments

Great Job, Kitty!!!!  You've taken the first step toward becoming a geek!!!!

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Kitty, thank you for your perseverance and congratulations on your success.

I am an unabashed geek that has endeavored for months to understand the reasoning for, and nature of, this new methodology. It was not until just a few minutes age, upon yet again plodding through the entire discussion, that your exhibit profile caught my eye. My first impression upon opening up the profile's edit page was “why is the coding inversely structured?” (Actually my thought process was considerably less refined). Then the light in the attic suddenly and brilliantly lit. Eureka! Exactly the kick in the pants experience I needed.

You have succeeded in helping me more on this issue than anything else posted within this G2G topic.

I agree with Gaile Connolly. “You've taken the first step toward becoming a geek!!!!'

Answer 7

  I too have been using it and like it thus far.  A bit akward when you have more than one source for a fact but much, much better than the alternative.

Comments

Michael, I am so glad you like it!

I have been looking at Jonathan's bots - now THAT is a really exciting thing!!!  I'm not sure that it will have use for this, however - the jury's still out on that question.

Thie bot would require that the location in the narrative that is supported by a citation be marked in order for it to do its thing.  The result is that we would still have to do the same work on the profile to begin with to manually enter the citation and manually enter something at the location where the superscript number link is to be placed.  It seems to me that is the same thing that we have to do without the bot.

Where it could be very useful would be to change profiles that already have inline source citations, done the way the current Style Guide directs.  I don't see any need to do that, however - the view pages look fine - in fact, better than with this system because they don't have that extra line of worthless numbers.  Of course, the editing pages have "bloat", which is the main reason for making the change to this system.  The real value would be if a bot could go through all the profiles that have sources listed without footnotes to indicate what fact is supported by what source, but no bot would be able to figure that out - the footnote locations would have to be manually marked in some way for the bot to be able to do its thing.

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I suspected somethink like that, which is why I asked you to look.  Jonathan seems open to suggestions and it sounds like you may have a few for him.  If you have not looked at his forum page, there are already some suggestions.  It is new, so it is short right now.

Answer 8

I prefer the way I'm currently putting sourced on profiled and fail to understand why others believe this area needs to be dictated. Standardization is great when there is apurpose for it, otherwise it is obstructive and dictatorial. I place the source (MLA) in the sources section above the footnote section. Tgen use the in-line citation to indicate the page number. When you use the same source just a different page number, it makes no sense ro constantly re-type the same information. I use the in-line citation as page 200, Brown . This tells people to look at the source written by Brown. I don't use un- line when referring to a record at the courthouse. When my source states, *Line 18, page 256, Birth Record Book, Pleasants County Courthouse, Pleasants County, West Virginia, I believe this is clear enoigh and doesn't require an in-line citation. The purpose of sources is to inform someone else where the information is licated and to give credit to authors.. let's not make this so confusing and bogged down with 'standardization' that people start not using sources. If they tell me where they found the information, I'm not inclined to hit them with a hammer because they didn't give me the page number. This is just my opinion and not meant to upset any person reading. I'm just saying, when we are gighting a battle to even get a source listed, does it teally matter how it's formatted?

Comments

The only advantage to this method is when another person edits the profile later they are less likley to remove the inline sources because they are easier to read during the editing process.  That was the reason I came up with this way, a newer member was having problems with the recommended inline sources, and another was complaining about their inline sources being removed.  I believe that by making it easier to read when editing others will be more likley to leave those sources in and minimize any damage later.

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Don't get me wrong I believe your suggestion and Gail's are great.. if it helps our profile managers to understand sourcing and assists the to make it easier... I'm ALL FOR IT!.. What I'm against is dictating one method over another.

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I think one could argue that there is some merit in standardization in the case of a single worldwide tree, where multiple descendants are reading and editing the same profiles, and there is no claim of ownership of the profiles.

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There is actually a big push to "Standardize" the profiles to make WikiTree rank higher in the internet search and raise our credability.  I do not have a problem with most of the others source systems in use but I do believe that making it simpler to understand will help the overall health of the Tree in the long run, and we all should strive to attain that.

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Dale, I had not thought about this being a reason for removal of in-line sources.

I Inline source almost every page that I add a source to and have I think from day one here and have never noticed any removal of them. Maybe I'm lucky?

There seems to be many different ways to do sources. I have chosen the Eevidence Explained method (they all have their pros and cons). I also tend chose the single Sources section vs. the two part Footnotes and Reference method when adding this t no profile or profile I am de-gedcoming, if that is a word. But when others have used methods different than mine I would avoid changing what approach they use. I just go chase the other 90+% of profiles i need of more basic work.   

Removing inlines sources would seem to be a rather egregious downgrading (corrupting would seem to be a better word) in my opinion. Unclear how you do that accidently.

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Terri and Marty the discussion about the removal of inline sources is located here

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/153827/people-foregoing-inline-citations-removing-references-tags

I agree it should not be happening but it is and I feel that by standardizing and simplifying the chances of this happening because others just think what we are doing is just adding useless junk will be reduced.  If I don't respond for a long time it is only due to a family gathering that I am hosting.

Answer 9

For those of you who would like to see this in practice for comparison.

Three identical biographies (ignore the fact the bio doesn't match the person)

Edward uses standard <ref></ref> tags.

Unknown uses the <span> tag method

William uses this new method.

Comments

Anne, thanks for listing the different examples. The problem I have with all of them is that they're incomplete. None of the examples is a full citation. There are no page numbers and no relevant quotes from the citation.

For all, I continue to have concern that the <ref name> coding allows for no distinction of different pages, sub-citation (the source we looked at citing another source), nor quotes specific to the source being cited.  If it did, I'd embrace it gladly. Without it, I must rely on the standard <ref>...</ref> construction.

"Bloat" on the edit screen, in my admittedly not humble opinion, is a far inferior concern to accuracy in our source citations.

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Jillaine, the fact that there aren't any page numbers cited, would be my fault, rather than the fault of the system. a) MLA source citation format doesn't call for page numbers. b) In this case there were no page numbers to cite. All the <ref name> statements came from the same page (which were unnumbered web pages)

You can put multiple page #'s at the end of a <ref name> statement. If there aren't more than say three, I don't think anyone would be offended at having to flip through a few pages.

I do understand your point about for instance 'Anderson GMB citing Vital Records', should be a different <ref> than 'Anderson GMB citing Hist of Wherever.'

? I don't understand the part about "no relevant quotes from the citation." If the quote was relevant wouldn't I have included it in the body of the text? Can you give me an example?

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Ezra uses standard <ref></ref> tags.

Anne B  Compared to your Ref/ span version...

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S Willson They do not communicate to the whole.

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The examples, I created mentioned above, have been reverted back to their original states except Edward who used standard ref tags to begin with

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Amy Selby, your comment appears to be about a different matter than being discussed here.  You may want to start a new g2g about your concern?

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Understood, Jillaine don't follow my faverite coding topic. 

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It would of been nice to see them

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Amy, As one of the people who originally developed the sourcing style discussed here I have only this to say. The decision was made when this was first discussed to NOT RECOMMEND this style for sourcing and most of us have accepted that decision.

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Amy, you can see and edit the tags you follow here:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/following

Be sure to include "announcements".

Answer 10

I discovered this method when I joined the holocaust project this last week and after a few false starts got it too work, but from the explanations I can see I have some more work to do to get it right. Splitting up the ref tags and the citation itself onto separate lines for example.

The step by step instructions are great and the non-techy  explanations of how the coding works are so helpful. Having the reasons why makes it a lot easier than just blindly doing something because that's what it tells you to do on the help sections. I feel that a lot of those help sections need better explanations as they appear to assume a basic knowledge at least of coding and are offputting.   There have been times when I've been ready to give up because I haven't understood what I'm doing.

I think this method looks cleaner and neater and less confusing in the editing bio section and less likely for someone with no knowlede of coding to mess up the inline sources while editing the bio.  I've actually not invited some of my family to collaborate yet until I've got time to teach them the little I know about coding so they don't mess it up. When it's not quite taken blood, sweat and tears to get some of my profiles done it has involved a few curse words as I learn how to Wiki, the thought of some family member messing them up horrifies me!

While the decimilised numbers on the citations whre they've been used more than once are confusing, I don't mind the the row of numbers at the top of the list and in fact where I have a lot of sources it's handy to be able to jump down to a number near the end.

Comments

Oh, Anna, you have been using the system flawlessly!  There's nothing more needed to "get it right".  Separating the <ref> and </ref> tags on their own lines (as described in the document above) makes no change in the appearance of the view page.  The only thing it does is to provide the most possible visual separation between code and content.  The purpose of that is to make the editing page as easy as possible to read.  I figure that we want to do every little thing we can to make that page look more intuitive for people who read it - either while working on it or looking at it to see how things were done.

The multiple numbers with decimals listed is something that, although I find it hard to believe, many people actually like.  Of course, everyone aggress that the addition of the extra one (because of that extra line of numbers) is not desirable!

THANX for evaluating this!

Answer 11

Hi Gaile,  I have a question.  The new process is relatively painless, certainly more user friendly, and I like it.

I have edited my standard format (again) to copy and paste for simple profiles.  It is:

== Biography ==

  <ref name=“FAG” />

== Sources ==

<ref name=“FAG”>[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=XXXXXX Find-A-Grave Virtual Cemetery memorial #XXXXXX] in Name and location of the cemetery.

</ref>

<references />

 

=== Photographed Primary Sources ===

== Acknowledgments ==

Thank you to [[Cooper-1|Kitty Smith]] for contributions to this profile.

This is working well except when I paste it into WikiTree, it changes from plain text quotation marks to "smart quotes" which produce and error.  Do you know a code to make the plain text quotes permenant?  Would the Ascii code work?  Do you know the Ascii code for plain quotation marks?  Thanks, Kitty  

Comments

I have found that the name does not have to be inside quotation marks.  You can actually just leave them out like this:

 

<ref name=DeathCertificate>Death Certificate of William Monroe Williams, September 15, 1875, File No. 33107, Division of Health of Missouri (Dunklin Co.)</ref>

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Kitty,

Andrea's answer is only part right.  If you do not have any spaces in the name you use then it will work without the quotation marks.  If you use a space then you MUST have the quotation marks.  I think it is just general good practice to always use them.

Your problem with the paste problem is not that it CHANGES them to smart quotes (the ones with different left and right versions, used for start and end) - it is that whatever document you are copying from is using a font that includes smart quotes.  Whatever you copy is going to paste EXACTLY the way it was in the place you copied it from AND the edit box is not capable of dealing with smart quotes - it MUST have only plain quotes used.

There is a very simple solution - store your "cheat sheet" that you copy from in a document that does not have smart quotes.  Here are some of the places that you can use for this:

• Windows notepad will store only plain quotes.
   
• If you use the "scratch pad" on your Nav page, that would be convenient - just make sure that the quotes there are the right ones.
   
• You can use whatever you are currently using - the file that creates the problem.  Just save the file as text instead of whatever the progam's normal file format is (Use SaveAs and select txt as the type) 

Edited to add:

PS  Yes, the Ascii code would work, as would the entity code.  I do not know the Ascii code offhand, but could look it up easily, however I do remember the entity code because it's easier to remember than a number:  Any place you want to use a quote, type:   &quot;   (that's the ampersand, the letters quot, and the semi-colon).

There are several places that list all the Ascii and entity codes.  The one I think is simplest to use is:   HTML Codes

Answer 12

Gaile (or anyone else who has mastered this),

I've been playing around with this idea since I very much like the concept. But mine doesn't seem to work quite so neatly in the ==Sources== section.

If you could look at this profile and tell me where I'm going wrong... now, it's not in standard narrative style, but it should still work, yes?

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Burgess-5076

Seems to have something to do with the </ref> tags.

Thanks!

Comments

Bobbie,

That's a really great profile you wrote!  You got the tags almost perfect.  I fixed one of them so you can see it.  The tags that contain the citation need to be:  <ref name="whatever"> the citation is here </ref>

The tags that are empty and only refer to the name need to be   <ref name="whatever" />

OOPS - I just saw that you changed my correction back - I did it again, only on the Death Record one.

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It may help to think of it this way:

Tags are containers that are instructions about how to display things.  When you use the <ref> tag, a superscript number will be displayed at the location where the <ref> tag is (the software keeps track of the numbers it uses).  In order to communicate to the software what is contained, all tags have start and end tags and must be used in pairs.  The end tag is the same as the start tag, except for the "/" before it.  That's why you use <ref> .... </ref> to surround the citation.

A very few tags are empty - they don't contain anything.  To indicate that a tag is empty, you use a " /" (space + slash) after the tag name, as <ref />.  I think of that as a sort of shorthand for combining the start and end tags into one.

The other piece of the source tagging is the <references /> tag (note that this is also an empty tag).  When this tag is used, the software will place all the content of all the <ref> ...</ref> tags at that location.

When you use the "name" attribute of the <ref> tag, that indicates that it is the same source as the one in the <ref> ... </ref> container.  By putting all the <ref> ...</ref> containers just below the Sources heading, they don't muck up the Biography portion with all the extra source information - instead, they put all the citations in that one place.  It makes the editing page much easier to read when you're working on it..

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Oh, *now* I see! Thanks for the great explanation, Gaile. I was just doing a cut & paste from one section to the next, so the "/" got carried over. Will write myself a note.

Many thanks for a great idea!

Answer 13

Gaile,

Can you or someone else experienced in this source methodology please look at

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-20413

It appears to be using your proposed method but the citation text is not displaying. What went wrong? Thanks.

Comments

Jilliane,

I fixed it, it was simply a misnamed "name" tag and they forgot to close a couple of the sources with </ref>. Oh and the sources should be between the == Sources == line and the <references/> line

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Thanks, Dale!

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THANX for fixing it Dale!  Jillaine, I just made a change ONLY to the spacing on the editing page.  It did not change the spacing on the view page at all, but it makes the editing page much easier to read.

Answer 14

OK, so I'm going to weigh in on this discussion with my own experience.  I've been working with computers for decades, but never got into the programming side of it at all, so the whole technical discussion above is Greek to me.

I just finished entering sources in the desired manner in this profile: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Zapaglia-1

I had to ask Claude's help as things were simply not working right.  He fixed part of it for me as an example, and pointed out that I had used single quotes rather than double quotes.  (Thanks Claude.) Factually what I used was ''something''.  My keyboard is French, and the way it is set up, to get double quotes you have to put two single quotes together: ''.  Wikitree program sometimes recognizes them as a double, sometimes not, there's no telling when it will do one or the other.

Furthermore, the style guide is not written for those who are not used to this type of insert.  Where spaces go or don't go, where to put the slashes to not have them hiding everything after them, etc etc, are really not clearly laid out.  The multiple source quote tells us:

'In all following references you can just use this:

    <ref name="birth certificate" />

Done this way, all subsequent footnotes for this same source will point to the same footnote at the bottom of the page.'

Except that the example has a space before the slash, which kills the thing dead.  You get an error message instead of the cute green number referring to the source.

So, my recommendation to whoever is contents editor of the style guide would be to rewrite it in the manner of ''sourcing for dummies'', making extremely sure there are no spaces or slashes in the wrong spot nor missing examples within the text.  Referencing to a profile to show how it looks can be a last item, not part of the actual instructions.

And for the double quotes technical problem, maybe somebody in the tech side can tell me why this is sporadically accepted, or a way to fix it?

Thanks all,

Danielle

Comments

Danielle, When you use the <ref name="something" /> tag, that is a single tag that is both start and end tag all rolled into one - it is not a "container" for any text.  The name value is used to identify it as the same tag as a container in the document that *DOES* have the citation and looks like:  <ref name="something">this is the citation</ref>.  You do need the space before the slash in the one that is not a container.  If the page does not display properly, my guess is that you don't have the container tag anywhere on it, therefore the <ref name="something" /> doesn't have any <ref name="something">citation</ref> that it is a repetition of. 

THE DOUBLE QUOTE QUESTION:
There is a very distinct difference between a double quote and 2 single quotes, as far as the computer is concerned.  We (unfortunately, in my opinion) do not use html code here - instead we use something called "wiki code" instead of the html tags that are so much more intuitive and easy to recognize.  All html tags are between left and right angle brackets:   <tag name> for the start and </tag name> for the end.  Wiki code uses that system for a few of its tags, but many are made up of symbols and sometimes these symbols are interpreted as wiki codes but other times they are interpreted as text characters.  For example, to put something in italics, html code would be <I>these words will be italic</I> but here, we use wiki code instead, which would be ''these words will be italic''.  That is 2 single quotes at the start and end of the italic section!  If you use double quotes instead of single ones, then it will not be italic, but the phrase will have quotes at start and end.

There is a sample profile format for the Holocaust project that both uses and illustrates this system.  If you look at it HERE, I think it may help clarify everything.  Please let me know if there are any questions that are not answered there.

THANX!

Answer 15

I dont understand why you are creating this "false" ref below sources (red circle in picture). Its just confusing to find that one of the reference 1.0 1.1 1.2 is wrong

 

I always use unique names on the name attribute that I "steal"
from the source I am working with ex.

<ref name="v101931.b51.s93">{{Space:ArkivDigital
|l = en
|f =  Vånga
|b = AI:2
|t = Household record
|d = 1819-1823
|i = 51
|p = 93
|AID = v101931.b51.s93
|NAD = SE/LLA/13462
|desc = Household record No 25 in Vånga 
::?? [[Carlsson-366|Per Carlsson]] (17)83 26/12, v?
::Hustr?(hustru)  [[Persdotter-732|Kersti Persd(otter)]] (17)94 19/6, v?
::Son [[Persdotter-733|Carl]] (1)815 3/8
::[[Persdotter-734|Pehr]] (18)22 22/11
::[[Persdotter-731|Ingar]] (1)818 3/3 
::[[Persdotter-735|Anna]] (1)820}}</ref>[[Category:Vånga (L)]]

See sample profiles
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Persdotter-735
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carlsson-366
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Eliasdotter-20 
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Olsson-374

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Comments

Magnus, What you call a "false ref" is not false and the last link in each footnote is not "wrong" - it simply links to the number that appears in the group of number links that you circled in your illustration.  This is addressed in Paragraph 2.1 of the original question above.  Having that list of numbers appear immediately beneath the Sources heading is an unfortunate need for this citation system to work.  The main purpose is to make the editing page more easily readable for people who work on it, which is a very important consideration for a collaborative environment.  This system eliminates "bloat" in the Biography section by only having the single <ref name="something" /> tag at the end of a line on the editing page for each place that a footnote number is to appear.  In addition, it collects all the source citations in one single place - immediately below the Sources heading on the editing page.  The full citation that looks like <ref name='something">citation goes here</ref> MUST be someplace on the page and it must be above the <references /> tag in order for the citations to be displayed.  That list of extraneous numbers appearing on the view page is the price we pay for the benefits we gain on the editing page.

*** WARNING - THIS IS TEKKY-TALK - IGNORE IF YOU WISH ***

It would be an extremely simple matter for WikiTree to add one single class to the master css file that would permit removal of the display of this line of numbers.  It would also be possible - and easy - to remove the display of the line of numbers if WikiTree upgraded to a newer version of wiki code than it now uses.

​About your suggested names for the ref tags - It has been recommended that people who name their ref tags choose names that will be easily meaningful to all who look at the editing page.  I also always use name attributes on tags, but I try to name the tags in a way that describes what information the source supports that will be immediately meaningful to anyone.  The kinds of names that are recommended are things like name="birth", name="immigration", name="census1900", etc.  For your example, I would much rather see something like name="household" than the long number you used.

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Mangus

Your way is fine. This way was to help new members to understand sources so that they can enter them and edit pages without so much clutter that they would remove a source. That has and will happen because people on a Wiki can remove things and will if they think it is just clutter. No one has said that this way must be used but if it makes it easier for new people to add sources then that is a good thing.

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Thanks for your answer understand what you say but don't agree maybe the solution is a better editing tool...

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Video I did with my thoughts

"unfortunate need for this citation system to work. "

yes and that I argue is wrong.... better use tags as they are supposed to...

"editing page more easily readable for people who work on it,"

Isnt it easier to have the ref where its used?!?!? Next to the fact it claims to prove. If you have bad unique names on the quotes you will find duplicates with the preview...

Normally you have a source and then you claim that this source prove some facts ==> start add the source at the first fact and then just reuse the name of the sources at the rest of the facts.....

This system eliminates "bloat" 

But if you use preview you don't see the "bloat"

Maybe an argument but I use more and more a timeline part of the bio and then a source often prove something at a specific time period so its work ok plus... I always use the preview to read the text ==> then the ref info is "gone" ;-) 

Maybe the solution is a better editing tool. If you add refs in MS Word you always did that at one place and the MS Word was hiding the citation or if you add a link in this editor you hide it.... or maybe start to learn people to use the preview?!?!?

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Agree - No div with css style then you move even more far away from the original idea with one ref where its used and reuse a ref with the name tag...

rather see something like name="household" than the long number you used.

All people who are working with Swedish genealogy know AID and using it you jump directly to one page out of 55 million see video at 1:40m plus its so fast and easy to see if this source has been used before. 

Another question is this reference system good when you have a lot of citations?!?!?

When I create a profile with like Sofia Olivia Lindner that have 34 sources I feel its better to have the reference next to the fact.... A list of 34 sources at the bottom feels also "bloated" ;-)

There are no easy solution more than a better editing tool is my feeling...

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We have to do the best we can with what we have. This system makes the edit page easier to read and minimizes the risk of others removing source data. Not everyone has or uses MS Word so that is not a good solution, so far this is the best we have been able to come up with under the current system. No one is forcing you to use this system, but most of us on here like it so making a change to your way is going to be next to impossible. I will not wast any more time debating with you because in the last 2 hours I have added 1 sourced profile and added many sources (9 on one) for 4 unsourced profiles and that is a better use of my time.

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I dont speak about using MS Word...

I recorded this video have a look at  6 minutes how a new tool address working with citations at wikipedia

Wikipedia has identified  a problem that less people are editing articles. And one solution to that is the Visual Editor project to make it easier than it is today with the markup language.

As Wikitree is a platform where "everyone" should edit I feel we have a much bigger problem as in Wikitree you write profiles much more than you read at Wikipedia its a small number of people adding articles but they think they have a problem.....

Video at 6 minutes adding citations

• Why the Wikipedia project Visual Editor 
• Sandbox to test the tool
• Manual about editing references

Its still on test but the Swedish Parish project at Wikipedia has activated it and the user experience is great

 

Screen dumps

 

Reuse an existing reference

In the Reference dialog, look at the list for the reference you want to reuse, and select it. If there are many references, you can use the search box (labeled "Search within current citations") to list only those references that include certain text.

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Last comment by me with you Mangus

I have looked at your contributions on WikiTree and for those that were not undone by the manager most made no sense and made the profile worse than before you started. They are very hard to read and only add clutter to the profile, If you made over 1000 contributions in 11 days you are just playing the system to get the badges and you are not doing any serious research to the person. That takes more time than just going thru profiles and adding templates or making up categories.

I will discuss nothing more with you because I am going to do real research on the profiles I manage and use the WikiTree Style Guide to improve them rather than your methods, That is the better way.

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Dale its nothing to discuss... and good luck with your real research and thanks for the feedback about doing Swedish genealogy

A) You have found out that people have problem with adding references

Your solution with the tools we have today is a new style guide... Fine

B) Wikipedia has found out they have problem with less editors and one reason is Wikipedia syntax with markup language that is a major problem for people

Wikipedia address this in the Visual Editor project

Wikitree is based on an old Wikipedia engine and if we are lucky we could use the Visual Editor if not we will still have a big problem

My biased opinion is that Wikitree has a bigger challenge to make it easy for users to add information. And I feel one of the most important things is that we get people to start editing profiles and not just upload non-sourced gedcom files from Ancestry and then jump out the back....

The concept of Wikitree is that its a platform where everyone shall edit and add value. In Wikipedia land it is more the inner circle adding articles but still they have a problem with people understanding the markup language....

---------
To many contributions and not following good genealogy standards....
Most of my changes is not seen Dale ;-) as they are part of the Swedish Category project and on Category pages. Please join all feedback is welcome ;-)

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http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&who=S%C3%A4lg%C3%B6-1

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I agree with the ancestry issue Magnus Sälgö it was not a issue in the begining because Wikitree view is ancestry.com is not a valid source, but we have a new set of wikitree people, that view ancestry.com as finial say it's God, and that is not wikitree, we are a different site.  doing the actual text work takes time and effort and takes asking people and takes looking it up.

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The images are minor

Answer 16

The ref is easy, really very simple, you just need to remember pairs.

and to put in the call, and have the Displayer <references /> at the bottom which create all footnotes

this is in the source<ref name="whatever"> 

you put the call in the Bio<ref name="whatever"/> and it displays a [?] Number in the order it is postion, in the bio, fron other calls, so say five are before it, it is [6].

The source display the writing before it in the title, so you will see on the source 

this is in the source[6]

then it will put every thing else you write in the footnote.

if <references /> is above the sources it will create an error.

Comments

@Amy, this style is not recommended.  Read here:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Alternative_Sourcing_Methods

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Navarro Mariott No, you should do it the way you learned it, I learned a version in 2013, I asked why.. can't I do that.. Why Dale turned it to span.

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I didn't turn it to span. The method Amy wants to use is not recommended.

DALE

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Well it is span, it wasn't open, and it wasn't span.. and now it is span.

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and if all the change is removing the title === Footnotes ===  and putting 

and the coding to the bio for ref's that is a altnative method I also use, not very often. 

== Sources == 

<references /> 

but if that is recommend.. I can use that.

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It doesn't actually say what is not recommend in the style, guide lines and many groups use this coding, to get rid of a style used that is built in and default is weird.. and there is nothing wrong with fork styles.

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It doesn't actually say?  How about this sentence, then:
However, despite their advantages, these alternative methods are not recommended. And as with all style rules, if they are not recommended, they should not be used especially on Open profile.

and this one
Here are some alternative methods that are not recommended:
(and 'The Proposed ULTIMATE Solution' is included)

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Actually that alternative method for me...

Formatting Example

Here is an example of a properly-formatted sources section:

== Sources ==
<references />
See also:
* Smith, Elsie Hawes, ''Edmund Rice and His Family'' Boston, MA: Meador press (1938)

There should be no "Footnotes" or other headline above the references. You will see this on some older profiles because it used to be the default style.

Is the guideline exactly....

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So my alternative method on all my dutch profiles will not be touched

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and since I have been on for such a long time.. as per the guide line.. I will take the time to change the 1000+ profiles I do have in the old default style. I will do things per the guide lines... since I have over 1000+ Profiles with coding.