Westward Ho Mexican American War sub-project template

Question

I've just discovered the Mexican American War sub-project for the Westward Ho project and added the template {{Westward Ho|sub-project=Mexican American War}} to my ancestor, Valentine Smith.

That apparently caused a new category (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Mexican_American_War) to show up so I clicked the link to see what it was about. At the top, in red, are the words: WARNING THIS IS A MISNAMED CATEGORY AND SHOULD NOT BE USED

Have I missed a step somewhere or does the template need to be updated?

Answer 1

Hi Debi,

The Mexican American War Project was created as a sub-project of the Westward Ho! Project. However, when the new Military and War Project was created to oversee all the projects falling under this category, the Mexican American War Project was moved and is now a sub-project of Military and War. The original template was retired and should no longer be used. It is my understanding that a new template will be created for this project but not until a review of all WikiTree templates has been completed.

I have added a note under the Templates section of the Mexican American War Project page so that everyone is aware. I apologize for the misunderstanding!

Comments

Hi Allison,

Thanks for the clarification. I've removed the Westward Ho template, so that's fixed. I already had the Mexican-American War category on the profile, so it looks like we're good for now.

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Allison what is the name of the template? It isn't in Category:Retired Templates.

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I don't profess to know much about template creation or how they are named so I have sent a note to its designer to answer this question. ;-)

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Hello Michelle the Mexican American War template was part of the Westward Ho Template.Rob made the Westward Ho template so all the sub projects were added to the one  template, as the Mexican American War is now a sub project of the Military and War Project and not the Westward Ho project it has been removed if you look at changes on this page http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Westward_Ho Terry

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Thanks Terry. I knew it was part of the Westward Ho previously. But, Alison said it had been retired so I was making sure there wasn't another template floating around.

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When the template issue is worked out we will have to make a New Mexican American War template ?

Answer 2

Looks like the categorization naming changed since the template was created - it'll be fixed in a few minutes.

Comments

Thanks, Rob!

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OK, that's better but I'm not sure it's correct yet. Now the template links to http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Mexican-American_War which seems ok. But it's causing my ancestor's profile to appear as a link on that page. Part of the verbiage at the top of the category, though, says it is a high-level category and that profiles should not be assigned there.

Does that wording only apply if the assignment is manual rather than through template?

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Hi Debi -

No the wording still applies, but hopefully having the template dumping the profiles into the top-level category will motivate some discussion between the categorization project and the mexican-american war sub-project about what categories should be applied by the template, instead of just 'abandoning' them in a 'do not use' category.

It would be relatively simple to add a parameter to the template so that a unit can be specified for categorization purposes, with the default 'dumping ground' when a unit is not specified being Category:Mexican-American War, United States of America - A similar feature already exists for one of the other sub-projects (assigning people to specific tribes).

Alternatively, categorization for that sub-project could just be 'disabled'. This would defeat some of the the benefit of having a project template - but some projects choose to go that route. My opinion is that adding a template parameter(s) on a profile is no harder than manually adding a link to a category, and using templates can help standardize new category names (to a point) and if the categories ever need to be changed it can save a ton of work.

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Just saw Alison's post ---- makes much of what I said somewhat moot....

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Rob,

I've removed the template for now, but really appreciate the thought you put in to the reply. I like the idea of adding the additional parameter for unit but will await the decisions of the PTB in the project.

I'm still contemplating how/where to add a link for the roster book I found about the North Carolina Foot Volunteers of which my Valentine Smith was a member.

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Actually, The Military and War Project Leaders and all sub Project Leaders are forbidden to create, modify or suggest any category or category structure.  We are still waiting on the categorization project leader, Maryann to provide one.

We have a Military and War Category Liaison that is working directly with Maryann to represent the Project.

"Dumping" all profiles in the top category is precisely what we were told to do till a category structure was approved by Maryann.

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Based on your last comment, Terri, I'm not sure if I have the category set up correctly or not for my Valentine Smith. Would you be able to take a look and advise please. Thanks

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Sorry Debi, I'm a leader in those projects, I'm not permitted to give advice about categories. We use templates to populate the categories.

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Ok, now I'm confuzzled and give up. As I understand it, there is no template at this time for the Mexican American War because somebody has to identify the category that a template can reference but categories can only be assigned by the template.

If I've got that wrong, let me know and I'll try again. Otherwise, Valentine is staying like he is and I'm moving on to some of my other profiles that still have GEDCOM cleanup needed.