Alexandria, Virginia - people profiles should be in "Category: Alexandria, Virginia" yes? [closed]

Question

My goal for 2024 is to add appropriate location categories to all of the profiles on my watchlist. But I've run into some confusion about location categories and parallel location categories with "One Place Study" appended.

For example, I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. My profile and many of my relatives have been categorized under Category: Alexandria, Virginia.

But I recently saw a new category, created in January 2024, for Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study, that says people profiles should be added to it. And the space page, Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study, says to add the sticker with coding that adds the profile to that category:

This profile is part of the Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study.

{{One Place Study|place=Alexandria, Virginia|category=Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study}}

That just doesn't make sense to me. Why should people profiles be categorized under both the location category Alexandria, Virginia AND the Place Study category for the same place?

A comment from [this G2G thread] made what seemed a logical argument against using the Place Study category for people profiles:

Since a good place study will have a whole bunch of space pages, I'd make a category to put them in. But the object is defeated if they get lost in a big bunch of people-profiles added to the same category.

However, it seems that all Place Studies/Place Study Categories are set up to have people profiles added to the Place Study location.

Wouldn't it be better to have the category added by the One Place Study sticker to be the actual location category?

Comments

I wish I could answer this, Liz, but this is something that has also bugged me, for a very long time.

I encountered this in connection with a town where I have ancestors. Another member had started a one-place study (OPS) that apparently is intended to cover the entire span (nearly four centuries) of the town's history. The OPS study creator had created a category for the OPS and had added the profiles that she created to the OPS category, but not also to the town category.. Meanwhile, other members (myself included) had added  profiles to the town category, but not to the OPS category (at first because we didn't know what the OPS creator intended to cover in the OPS). It is now apparent that the OPS and the Town category have the same scope, but the categories have different contents (some whole families are in one category but not the other). It looks like someone intends to do the same thing in the Alexandria situation, but at the moment there are no people profiles in Space:Alexandria,_Virginia_One_Place_Study.

If the OPS had a restricted scope such as "19th century" or "World War II years"  (or subcomponents with similar restricted scope), I could see the reason for special OPS categories. But the current situation in the town I refer to suggests that WikiTree is fostering a civil war between the OPS and the place it represents.

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I think that the compromise I propose would work for existing county-level locations - see https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:One_Place_Studies#Oversize_Areas

Alexandria, as an Independent City, is a county equivalent. I've posted a comment on the Alexandria OPS space page about making changes.

I think that the proposal should be considered for any location OPS with a broad scope, such as the span of time (nearly 400 years) for the town you spoke of.

Answer 1

perhaps a compromise can be arranged? In this case, I would suggest the following:

The space page and category page for Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study would note that people profiles should be categorized under Category: Alexandria, Virginia and that the category Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study is for OPS project pages and OPS subcategories.

Since there are no people profiles in the OPS category yet, this would simply mean changing the example sticker on both category & space page to add Category: Alexandria, Virginia and editing text as needed.

Comments

I just tested the sticker to add Category: Alexandria, Virginia & it works great & looks just the same:

This profile is part of the Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study.

test:

 

This profile is part of the Alexandria, Virginia One Place Study.

space page:

("Alexandria, Virginia" is bold on the space page because it is on the page the link goes to.)

The link on the OPS space page - WikiTree Profiles that link here - picked up the profile I tested it on (not as versatile as a category, but it would still collect profiles displaying the sticker).

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forgot to include the coding I used:

{{One Place Study
|place=Alexandria, Virginia
|category=Alexandria, Virginia}}

Answer 2

I have long agreed that the location category needs to be added to a profile in addition to the OPS sticker for any given place that has an OPS. Too often, it is overlooked.

Comments

Since the One Place Study sticker automatically creates a link to the OPS space page, having the directions for the sticker on said space page (and companion category page) be to add the location category - not the location category with "One Place Study" appended - would be a step in the right direction.

Answer 3

Actually, in doing research in regards to another G2G question I had about county-level One Place Studies, I think that the definitions given by the OPS Project should preclude USA Counties and Independent Cities from being the subject of a One Place Study (see [my answer to my own question]).

Alexandria, as an Independent City with a large population and long history (159,467 in 2020; founded in 1749) should probably have not been a One Place Study.

Answer 4

To answer part of the question, I know of a couple of place studies in my part of the world that have stickers adding the profiles to the OPS category.  Said profiles have had their location categories added as appropriate, which do NOT all copy the OPS category name, as we went with timeline categories, where the name changes (Canada, Nouvelle-France - > Province de Québec - > Bas-Canada ....)