Ask Aleš (April 2024) [closed]

Question

It's time for a new session of "Ask Aleš - What Do You Want To Know About WikiTree Plus?"

See you on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, 9:00am EST aka 14:00 UTC. 

What questions do you have? You can ask by posting an answer below and your question will be answered on March 5. (It's OK if you don't watch live. The April video will remain on YouTube, like the March video.)

If you want to just watch, use this YouTube link.

Greg Clarke will be my co-host.

Answer 1

I am wondering why these profiles, with a correct region of Lancashire, in a correct form of country for the date (England, Great Britain for the years 1707-1801) are not found with a search for region=Lancashire but are instead in region=unknownregion. Did I do something wrong in the search?

https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=open+birthlocation%3DLancashire+birthcountry%3DEngland+birthlocation%3D%22Great+Britain%22+not+birthregion%3DLancashire&MaxProfiles=500&Format=&SortOrder=BiDa&PageSize=50

I realize it is a very small number, and even across all of England for all counties it is a small number. Because they seem to not be included, it means that when people use wikitree+ these profiles will not be found. My hope is that they would be included in a search for birthregion=Lancashire.

Edited to add a broader England wide search:
https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=birthcountry%3Dengland+birthlocation%3D%22great+britain%22+birthregion%3Dunknownregion+sql%3D%22not+(%5BDefault%5D.%5BBirth+Location%5D.AsString+%3D+%27England%2C+Great+Britain%27)%22&MaxProfiles=500&Format=&SortOrder=BiLoc&PageSize=500

Comments

Because Great Britain is not acceptable spelling in location. It is marked as NO in the table.
https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=ENG

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Thanks for clarifying this Ales.  'England, United Kingdom' is in line with the England Project Standards.  Could this please be marked as YES in the table?

If this setting is changed, would this mean that profiles with eg "Lancashire, England, United Kingdom" in a location field are allocated to Lancashire, or would you need to add "Lancashire, England, United Kingdom" to the Lancashire section of the table?

Thanks

Steve

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Yes, England, Great Britain is acceptable per the England Project for the years 1707-1801 - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:England_Project_Profile_Standards#Locations

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@Steven: England, United Kingdom is marked "Yes" as acceptable spelling. That is defined in 4th column.

And Lancashire, England, United Kingdom is already defined.

My guess is that you were talking about "Great Britain". Table says there are only 500 profiles using it and falling. I wouldn't define it for each region. That represents 0.0001% of all all England profiles. Table resolves only major places.

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Thank you for clarifying. I am disappointed that the table will remain unaligned with England Project location standards

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I suspect this might be my fault. Back in the early days of the England Project Alés and I spoke about this and we agreed on the 1801 date for pre and post UK and opted to ignore the Great Britain dates in order to keep things as simple as possible. I am aware from the conversation on Discord that the policies of the England Project have changed and so it would be good for everything to be in line with those standards if that can be done. I apologise if this has caused some confusion and unnecessary work.

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I checked the project standards about location. I can change Great Brittan to official location and add it to other location variations. I still don't understand why there are so few of them if it is official.
Does the same apply also for Scotland and Wales?
I updated the table. But it will not be applied this week, since locations are already processed.

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Thank you!  I expect the numbers for Great Britain have been low because people have been avoiding it so profiles could be found in wikitree+  and were in reports.

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Many thank Ales.  

The 'Great Britain' profile numbers have possibly been reducing as we have been removing the term when the birth/marriage/death occurs outside the permitted dates.  

The numbers are small as 'Great Britain' is an optional (albeit accurate) variation; most people wont use it.  

I appreciate that the changes you are making only affect a relatively small number of profiles, but in the context of our efforts to format location fields correctly, it is significant. It is motivating to for the members of the England Project to know that the profiles for which the term is properly used will be allocated to the correct county.

This, together with all the other support you give us, is very much appreciated.

I would have thought that the same rules should apply to Wales and Scotland, but I dont belong to those projects so I can't really make the call on their behalf.

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Yes, I should have written 'Great Britain.  Thanks for realising what I intended to say

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As counties coordinator for the Wales Project can I ask that it be treated the same as England for the use of Great Britain in the aforementioned time period.

Many Thanks to those involved in highlighting this.

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As PC for Scotland, I agree that Scotland should also be included.  Quantity is probably small because Great Britain is not in the drop down location.

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I added Great Brittan variations also for Scotland and Wales.

With Scotland there are some complications with City entities (first 3) and associated shires and with Lothian at the end of the table. I improved variations for Cities, since now I can handle 4 parts of the name so I added "Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom" and similar with a lot of matches. I hope I got everything right. Linda, you should check the table. https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=SCO

For wales there were no problems. https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=WAL

How about Ireland? North Ireland should probably be excluded.

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Ireland and Great Britain are, and always have been, separate islands.  They were the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1922, when 26 counties of Ireland left to form the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland.

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I see at
https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=IRL
that Eire is considered an Accepted spelling of Éire.

Does this mean that Ales is an accepted spelling of Aleš?!

If it was my choice, I would insist on the inclusion of the accent, which changes the pronunciation.

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I am good with Ales. Better than Alex, which is short for Alexander and is different name. I also need to use ales in many internet forms, where they don't support Unicode characters. But that is not important.

I know Eire is not the same or correct. But we often overlook such misnaming. I did set it to No. I can also change it to report a Suggestion if the project wants to correct them.

Answer 2

I was using the suggestion box on the bottom of the profile in edit mode to click either fixed or false after correcting the suggestion. I noticed that after a few minutes the profile would no longer show up on the list in WikiTree+ when I refreshed it. When I used WikiTree+ to get the 612 suggestion list for England it came back with 160. I opened about 20 profiles in a new tab and when I scrolled all the way down the box was not there for me to click fixed. By  the time I was done and refreshed the list it still listed 160 profiles even though I or someone else had corrected the error on 20 profiles. The only way to get rid of the profile from the list was for me to click the status button all the way on the right hand side of the list and then refresh the list. Is this a glitch or is it new and staying this way?

Comments

I might have explained this wrong earlier. I want to report that a suggestion is not showing on a profile, when the suggestion has not been fixed. The suggestion for 612 location too early in birth location doesn't show on the bottom of George Joslin's profile. The United Kingdom didn't exist before 1801 so I remove it when working on the suggestion lists for 612, 642 and 672. 

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I just corrected Peirson-242 which did not show the 2 872 and 863 suggestions when editing the profile. Neither suggestion had been corrected previously.

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Blacklaw-52  and McGregor-6246 had the 872 suggestion, but neither suggestion was shown on the profile.

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I am missing more suggestions on profiles.

Answer 3

Hello Aleš,

Is it possible to use the report produced for 'Category: Cheshire, Unsourced Profiles' on 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Cheshire%2C_Unsourced_Profiles

with the Map navigator to show the profiles listed in the report on a map of Cheshire?,

thanks, Allan

Comments

Hey Allan,

Just a heads up that this thread was to ask question for last months' video. Not to say that you can't put it here, but it may get lost in the shuffle later.

I don't believe I've seen a thread for the early May video yet. RUMINT has that it it might be delayed slightly due to vacation plans.