Re: [Wikimedia-genealogy] Wikimedia-genealogy Digest, Vol 5, Issue 5

Tell us more about CRUD data interfaces. Mack Sent from my HTC ----- Reply message ----- From: wikimedia-genealogy-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org To: <wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Wikimedia-genealogy Digest, Vol 5, Issue 5 Date: Fri, Sep 8, 2017 8:00 AM Send Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list submissions to wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to wikimedia-genealogy-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at wikimedia-genealogy-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-genealogy digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Is the delivery of software fundamental to this project? (Amgine) 2. Re: Is the delivery of software fundamental to this project? (Sam Wilson) 3. tiny URL (Sam Wilson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2017 17:30:43 -0700 From: Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca> To: wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-genealogy] Is the delivery of software fundamental to this project? Message-ID: <8219628e-99cb-f046-5250-c4289f381c91(a)wikimedians.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Thanks for the response Sam! Again I am replying to a digest, and apologize... Genealogy data is not free-form. It is extremely structured, rather like Wiktionary's data. To represent that data in wiki syntax will require extensive templating and modules, resulting in the kind of professional-only-contributors you find at Wiktionary - and the unpleasant work-arounds required as pages bump up against the limitations of Mediawiki (e.g. [[wikt:en:water]].) I've been working with that project for a dozen+ years, and it is now so beginner-hostile I do not feel qualified to make more than the most-minor edits, and most of those assisted by js gadgets. I would hate to see a genealogy project go down that path. Since most genealogy practice works with CRUD data interfaces, and this has been extremely successful in helping people of all ages and technical experience begin their personal genealogies on their desktops, I think we should focus on that for the actual genealogy work. We can leverage Wikisource and commons for documents/sources; for example transcription of government census, voter rolls. Other elements might also better be 'outsourced', like geolocation names in temporal context. But just in case you are missing the free-form text box, WebTrees allows hand-editing of GED textual representation, either of a whole entry or any single object. Each edit pop-up and record includes a link to edit as Raw GED. (I do not believe WebTrees actually store entries in GED format, so your edits will round-trip into database representations much as Parsoid does for MW syntax.) Amgine ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2017 08:46:43 +0800 From: Sam Wilson <sam(a)samwilson.id.au> To: wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-genealogy] Is the delivery of software fundamental to this project? Message-ID: <1504831603.958760.1099016000.0B14F984(a)webmail.messagingengine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Hm, yes, I really do see the multiple sides to this! :-) It's very interesting. Thank you for going into it all. I'm not sure I agree that genealogical research is *uniquely* structured. It's no more sturctured than, say, writing histories of companies, or political parties, or railways... I mean that there are always requirements for strucutred data in any research, but that we don't bother with bespoke tools for most of them. I think primarily because the ultimate desired output is readable, linear prose, with images, figures etc. — I think this is my usual goal with genealogy too. Perhaps that's where I'm understanding things wrong. Wikipedia might be a pain to edit (although, I think it's getting easier) but it *is* easy to read. I think it's worth keeping the audiences in mind when talking about different approaches to a genealogy project. We could look at setting up a demo Webtrees site too, if we want. :-) The other thing, of WeRelate's approach of forcing Gedcom structures into MediaWiki, I still feel is a bit clunky... I'm very open to being convinced though! I have the beginnings of some code here that was about syncing trees off werelate into a modern WeRelate extension; it could be resurrected. —sam On Fri, 8 Sep 2017, at 08:30 AM, Amgine wrote: ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2017 15:23:19 +0800 From: Sam Wilson <sam(a)samwilson.id.au> To: Wikimedia Genealogy <wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wikimedia-genealogy] tiny URL Message-ID: <1504855399.1836036.1099264352.238D7AF9(a)webmail.messagingengine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I made a tiny URL for the Meta-Wiki page: http://tinyurl.com/wikigenealogy — just recording the fact here in case anyone else needs such a thing. (I know tiny URLs are bad, but I wanted a thing to put on a piece of paper! :-) ) One day we'll be able to use https://w.wiki but I dunno when... ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy ------------------------------ End of Wikimedia-genealogy Digest, Vol 5, Issue 5 *************************************************