FindAGrave Template Guidance Requested

Question

Sorry to raise this topic again.... definitive guidance needed...

Is it acceptable to use the FindAGrave template?

See Also recent discussion  and template 

 

Comments

This is the answer to this same question I asked in the Google Group.  Answered by Team Member Eowyn Langholf:

"The Find A Grave template is an exception {to source templates which are not supposed to be used} and is fine to use. Thanks!"

{words in brackets is my addition}

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So should Kay add a tag for tech or improvements to get Chris' attention so he can update this guideline?

A quick update would certainly solve this specific problem!!

 

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Abby, a Team member, replied below, perhaps someone could mention the need to update the template pages under her answer.

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I'm sorry that this has been left in limbo for so long.

Here is a new proposal: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/543146/should-link-templates-be-officially-recommended

Answer 1

<ref>Find A Grave, database and images , memorial page for George E Scranton (1872–1962), Find A Grave Memorial no. 79745932, citing DeLand Memorial Gardens, DeLand, Volusia County, Florida, USA ; Maintained by RobMinteer57 (contributor 47389024) .  {{FindAGrave|79745932|~~~~|sameas=yes}}</ref>

This would probably be the proper way to set it up. If you leave www.findagrave.com in the beginning part you WILL get a suggestion error. This is because it sees the link to findagrave but it isn't linked to a specific memorial.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79745932  will also work.

the 4 tildas adds who accessed it and when. The sameas determines if it IS the memorial of the person in the profile. Sameas=no should be used if it is mentioned on a relatives memorial.

If the suggestions finds a valid "sameas=yes" link it will ignore all other references to findagrave.

sameas=no will stop the error on THAT instance but it will look at any others 

Comments

I can't find the FindAGrave suggestions in this week's report. Is it just me gone blind?

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I've never seen the template with the 4 tildes included! I've been doing it exactly the same, otherwise -- as in {{FindAGrave|79745932|sameas=no}}, and it appears to work. Are we supposed to include the 4 tildes, and if so, how did I miss that?

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Stephanie, you don't have to use the tildes.  It is an option if you want to add the date and your name as the person who accessed the source.

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The time stamp (4 tildes) code doesn't seem work when enclosed within the inline-citation (<ref></ref>) code. At least it didn't work when I just tested it on a profile. My test included placing the time stamp outside the template braces. And I recall this problem has been mentioned before.

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The tildas are optional. 4 displays your wiki-id and timestamp. 5 tildas displays just the timestamp.

And evidently the tildas do not work inside ref statements.

Answer 2

Your comment should be directed to  Whitten-1.  Chris Whitten,  is the ultimate authority of everything here.

Wikitree-X uses the Find A Grave template, Wikidata uses Find A Grave template, Ales, who works closely with Chris continues to improve the template and many users use the Find A Grave template. 

But Whitten says

• This usage of templates is not currently approved. -- Whitten-1 11:14, 15 December 2016 (EST)

 

Perhaps there is some legal reason to keep this question in limbo. 

 

It appears it is trying to be resolved in a round about way. The current definition of template does not include what is being used here. We used to call it a template, we used to call them errors. Now it is a wikidata link, and now they are suggestions. 

Comments

I think that statement was the result of a previous G2G discussion regarding whether or not to approve the general usage of external link templates, Lance. That discussion ended without a consensus either way, more or less.

Chris probably added the time-stamped statement to let us know when the last discussion on this issue was held. It wouldn't have been a case of Chris' having the ultimate authority to decide the issue (my opinion, at least). And I can't imagine any legal issues of using an external link template versus the other website's own link (and I am quite imaginative!!).

WikiTree membership discusses and sets policies and guidelines for such issues. My opinion is that we should re-open this issue for further discussion.

Answer 3

The FAG template isn't recommended, but it is not excluded from use. In fact, the Data Doctors project (which I am a member), has recently revived the usage of the FAG template (from what I've been told this was a leadership decision). This has caused a lot of confusion and misuse of the template itself.

WikiTree standards are that all sources be cited and that they follow the Evidence Explained standard.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources_Style_Guide

The template is intended to provide a way to create a hyperlink to a memorial page without direct copying and pasting the URL from the location bar of your browser. Either way, this doesn't follow EE standards.

A proper citation should never have a direct link to the source material because of the ever changing nature of websites. The FAG template transfers the effort of maintaining URLs from WikiTree members to the Data Doctor leaders. But again, it is not necessary if someone has cited their FAG source properly.

The misuse of the FAG template is a bigger problem than the simpliest use of the template (and even the instruction page for the template encourages the misuse). If someone uses the template only to create a hyperlink to the memorial page, then it could be part of an EE style citation.

So, for example. here is a FAG citation example from the EE forums where someone asked how to properly cite FAG:

https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/find-grave

Find A Grave, database and images (http://findagrave.com : accessed 14 March 2011), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (1861–1862), Find A Grave Memorial no.7,487,109, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin; the accompanying photographs by Mike [--?--] and Kari Waterbury are materially informative, but do not provide a legible image of the inscribed data.

Here is the same example with Wiki markup:

<ref>''Find A Grave'', database and images (http://findagrave.com : accessed 14 March 2011), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (1861–1862), Find A Grave Memorial No. 7487109, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin; the accompanying photographs by Mike [--?--] and Kari Waterbury are materially informative, but do not provide a legible image of the inscribed data.</ref>

Above, I have also modified the memorial number to remove the commas to make the number more internationally friendly as not every language puts the commas in numbers the same way we do in English (not every language uses commas!)

Now, if you wanted to use the FAG template in a citation as above, which I do not, then you could do this:

<ref>''Find A Grave'', database and images (http://findagrave.com : accessed 14 March 2011), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (1861–1862), Find A Grave Memorial No. {{FindAGrave|7487109}}, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin; the accompanying photographs by Mike [--?--] and Kari Waterbury are materially informative, but do not provide a legible image of the inscribed data.</ref>

This would be the only usage that, in my opinion, would be tolerable give the conflicting standards of following EE and the Data Doctors usage of the FAG template. Anything else would not be following EE standards.

Why does EE not allow for adding links directly to material? For the very reason why Data Doctors decided to re-introduce the template, URLs are ever changing on the World Wide Web! While even the EE standard assumes that a domain name (the wikitree in www.wikitree.com) will never change, the reality is that can and does also change. But more common is that the content of a website often changes and URLs are fleeting. All citations to a website should only provide the URL of the domain (www.findagrave.com) and then enough information for any other genealogist to find the information themselves.

The reproducibility of a source is part of the EE and the Genealogy Proof Standard. Meaning, if you put a source citation on the profile of your 2x great-grandmother, and I read the citation, I should be able to go to the URL (or find it if it's changed) and use the information in the citation to find the data you found, today, tomorrow, in fifty years (or whatever you feel is reasonable).

So, with regards to FAG, does a source citation provide enough information, that you could go to www.findagrave.com and find the memorial page (using their search function). Try it!

EDITED: Removed extra white space.

Comments

Allison,

I agree that the citation should included complete information, preferably following EvidenceExplained. To that end, the "Source Citation" on the new FindAGrave goes a long way to providing the data. Other information about the citation (e.g., are there pictures, is there a biography or are there sources on the page, is there a comment that the gravestone date is wrong with supporting source, etc.) I prefer to include in the biography.

That was not my question. Rather it was use of the template to provide the link, such as in the following:

<ref>Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 21 November 2017), memorial page for George E Scranton (1872–1962), Find A Grave Memorial no. 79745932, citing DeLand Memorial Gardens, DeLand, Volusia County, Florida, USA ; Maintained by RobMinteer57 (contributor 47389024) .  {{FindAGrave|79745932}}</ref>

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Kay,

Your questions was:

Is it acceptable to use the FindAGrave template?

I answered that the best way I knew how by providing what I know of the template, it's history, it's current usages, links to sourcing standards and examples.

As to your your comment:

That was not my question. Rather it was use of the template to provide the link, such as in the following:

I also believe I provided an example of the appropriate use of the template in an EE style citation. 

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I don't believe your statement accurately reflects WikiTree guidelines, Allison (at least, not my interpretation!):

WikiTree standards are that all sources be cited and that they follow the Evidence Explained standard.

Here is the quoted text from the Sources Style Guide:

On WikiTree the preferred style is the Evidence Explained format^[1], based on the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS). 

Evidence Explained is the preferred style, but we are not required to follow that style.

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And if Evidence Explained says not to use a direct link, then I won't be following their guideline for linking to source documents. I see no point in including a link at all if the viewer will be required to put in additional effort to find the referenced source document.

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Lindy,

I agree, it's not required, it's recommended, in fact, I provided the link to which you quote, and the terms used are "preferred" and "ideal."

As a profile manager, you can decide if you want to follow the WikiTree style guides are not, but those guides are there to provide a consistent style across all profiles and were decided on by leadership. So you aren't telling me you won't follow the guides, you are telling WikiTree leaders that you won't.

Most websites do not have a way for anyone to permanently link to a resource (called a permalink) and others do. For example, FamilySearch provides permalinks. When citing your source, using the standards laid out by WikiTree, you could integrate a permalink much like I provided a proper use of the FAG template above. The source is still cited properly, another genealogist could follow your research and find the same record, and you are using the advantage of a hyperlink to take someone directly there. But if the permalink changes, then the information is still there for the next researcher to find the resource since it's been properly cited.

WikiTree allows us all the freedom edit freely and make the profiles better, so eventually for all the poorly and improperly cited sources, someone will, hopefully, come along and fix them. In the meantime, if I can encourage even one person to cite their sources properly and follow WikiTree guidelines, then I'll take it. :)

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Actually, I'm telling Evidence Explained that I won't follow their specific guidelines regarding how to cite a website!

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Whether or not the link is a permalink is irrelevant, in my opinion. When I cite information from a webpage, I use that page's link in my citation. That is the page that has the information I am citing, so that is the link I use in my citation.

To me, a citation that takes the viewer as close as possible to where I/we obtained the information - and is thorough, yet succinct - is a well-written citation.

Repetition of a website's name or link is unnecessary, bulky, and distracting, in my opinion. We can write a proper citation without the overload.

 

Answer 4

Hi Kay,

 

Find a Grave's new citation at the bottom of their pages is great. I use it, so you get the full information, but also with the template within, so any updates to their web address in the future is easily redirected. This is what I end up with, notice the template usage in the middle where they'd just have the Memorial number:

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 January 2018), memorial page for Elvis Aaron Presley (8 Jan 1935–16 Aug 1977), {{FindAGrave|9904}}, citing Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown, Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave .

 

Comments

But that is very poor style.  Find A Grave is repeated 4 times; only need it once. Birth and death date should be in the bio not the source citation.  The cemetery name and location should be in a burial entry in the bio.  Accessed date is unimportant to many of us.  So what it boils down to is all that is needed is the template.  My 2 cents.

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The template is incomplete.  And I didn't format the citation - it is what Find a Grave suggests pin their page.  Generally,  if a site suggests a way to cite their page,  thats what I use.

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Ok, picking nits.... and the department of redundancy department.

Take a look through the link above to the EE discussion of citing FindAGrave.

Find A Grave, database and images is the name of the website.

https://www.findagrave.com is the location of the website

: accessed date tells when the information was obtained (note this is important since it can change after you access it and could be important to some of us

memorial page for name(date-date) Memorial No. num, citing cemetery, location is the full description of the record that was accessed

The full description of the record accessed should be in the citation. The dates in the citation may or may not match the biography, but are the description of the findagrave record (e.g., actual dates may be more precise or different from findagrave). Similarly the name of the cemetery and its location are ideally in the bio, but the idea of the citation is to provide enough information to find it again when (not if) any link breaks.

 

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If the FindAGrave memorial page includes some source images or transcriptions, I save the page to the Internet Archive so that information can be found again, even if it is taken off the memorial page. In that case, the access date is critical so that the desired version of the page can be found using the WayBack Machine.

Answer 5

In my opinion, as long as Findagrave discrepancies are a major part of our Suggestions report, then usage of the Findagrave template as the external link within the citation for Findagrave is, de facto, approved.

Most of the discussions regarding usage of the Findagrave template seem to be based on a misunderstanding of the purpose of an external link template.

The template only replaces Findagrave's link to the individual's memorial (hence the term, external link template); the template is not the full citation for Findagrave as a source for an individual's data.

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General usage of external link templates has not been approved, as per the referenced statement:

This usage of templates is not currently approved. -- Whitten-1 11:14, 15 December 2016 (EST)

However, we the members of WikiTree, are the ones who set policy and style guidelines. Part of our job as WikiTree Volunteers is to discuss issues such as the usage of external link templates, and change or refine our guidelines when we feel that is necessary to improve WikiTree.

I, for one, feel we need to update our guidelines on the usage of external link templates. At minimum, we should approve the usage of those templates that have already been created and are being used extensively.

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I recall that at least one previous discussion regarding the usage of external link templates ended without general approval. That discussion probably resulted in the referenced statement's addition to the guidelines.