I love Wikitree & Profile Advice

Question

I want to share my love for this website.  It's something that I've been looking for for awhile.  I feel there's a few improvements that could be made, but they're minor and, in the end, wouldn't really make a huge difference and would be mostly cosmetic (one such suggestion is taking a larger picture and being able to select a section to "tag" an individual, rather than just a general tag; another is to make writing the biography a little easier - kind of hard to read the "text" with the citations).

I've spent the last two months or so working on just a few people in order to "complete" their biographies and complete as much information I can currently find about them.  There's definitely more out there; but, at this time, it's what I've been able to find.  That said...trying to find out what others feel about them.

I've looked at a few other profiles and it seems many of them are more skeleton and more bullet point rather than a narrative.  I've tried to write a story, but because of the information, it still feels somewhat stilted.  I've also tried to find as many resources as I can to cite, but also feel that it might be too much at times.

So, I'm wondering if anybody can give advice for the following profiles that I've (at the time) "completed".  Also looking for more "advanced" ways to add to a profile.  I've added categories, links to other profiles, in-line citations, and in biography category links (though, not sure how much it adds). Always looking to learn more!

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kienzle-77
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kienzle-76
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Glab-8

Answer 1

You do very beautiful work. I agree that the biographies are a little hard to read at first, but then your eyes sort of skim over all those citation numbers.  Ordinarily, I only put a couple of inline citation and list the remainder at the bottom under Sources. I might also suggest that you consider using <span></span> tags to consolidate some of your sources.  This way, you only need one source for City Directory, and each different year will be attached to the citation.  You could also consolidate the Wikipedia articles in the same way.

Comments

The <span> sounds like something I would really, really like.  Do you have an example of what that looks like in the edit box (ie, a biography that uses it)?  I looked it up online, and it doesn't seem to match what I take your meaning to be.

The "sources" section, for me, is all automated.  I use <references /> and don't have them individually listed.  Would using <span> prevent me from using that?

Thanks for the more the kind words and suggestion, would love to make it a tad easier to read and a tad more smooth.

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Tim, see this old post: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/225656/how-cite-different-pages-from-same-source-misunderstood-span

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Dennis, thanks for the link to the span information.  It was just what I needed!  We all help each other!

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Tim, I like that your bios are done in a narrative style. One small point that will help the reader's eye (aside from reducing the number of citations already dealt with): the punctuation should come before the citation. Thanks for asking the question-- I've bookmarked the link Dennis provided!

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Thanks Stephanie, I noticed one or two of those and had made a mental note to check to see where it's supposed to go.  Thanks for the answer without the question!!

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I'm going to have to take some time to process that, I'm kind of confused as to what that is saying! HAHA

Answer 2

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the kind words about WikiTree. Those are great profiles! Very impressive.

Chris