Australia Project Biography Builders

Profile managers: Melanie Paul [send private message] and Australia Project WikiTree [send private message]

Welcome to the Australia Biography Builders Team, one of the Australian Profile Improvement teams, and part of the Australia Project

Team Leader — Melanie Paul

Who we are, and What we do.

• Members (and their general area(s) of interest):
• Sue Crerar
• Neil Croll - Tasmania; East Gippsland, Victoria
• Maree Evans
• Leonne Guidoux - mostly New South Wales, but also elsewhere
• Danielle Lautrec
• Amanda Myers - Victoria, South Australia, other states as needed
• Melanie Paul - anywhere the rabbits lead.
• John Rosser
• T Walker
• Judy Weggelaar - Western Australia and South Australia
• Melanie White
• Tony Woods - Victoria
• Mary-Ann Cook

• Biography Builders make profiles as complete as possible with well-written biographies and sources. They research as much as they can find on a person, writing the information onto the profiles to create as complete a life story for a person. They can also include categories and links to events and people connected to that profile and citing all those additions.
  • While they may also be Sourcerers, not all are. Some prefer to focus mainly on building out the biography, often where someone else has provided the citations to verify the statements made, leaving the collecting of those source citations to others. This is collaboration!

• A Basic Checklist

• Data Section:
• Birth date and place.
• Marriage date and place.
• Death date and place.
• If the full date is not known, then month year is acceptable, or just the year if the month is not known.
• Place names should be spelt out in full, no abbreviations such as NSW, or WA, etc. these can be confusing to anyone not familiar with local terminology and can be viewed as a different place where similar abbreviations may be used.

• Biography Section:
• Should be written in full sentences, stating the facts from the data fields and adding inline sources to each fact.
• Generally, biographies should be in your own words. Paraphrase and rewrite don't copy and paste from anywhere else (unless it's your own words on that anywhere else).
• Was the person baptised? Is there information regards a burial, or cremation? Did they serve in the military? Are there other life events, such as education, or voter registrations (denoting residences)? Where possible, attach inline citations for those events.
• Is there something that can be added to "humanise" the person, such as a career, or types of occupation.
• Where possible note any children with at least one pertinent fact.
• Add Research Notes if there is anything that needs extra explaining (and don't forget to "sign" it with four ~ tildes).
• Are there any photos, or other pictures? If embedding those in the biography, please consider those readers who may have vision difficulties and use the "label=" parameter for the braces {{ image }] code. If there are a number of images related to the person, or the family, please consider creating a Free Space page and using that for the images, which can then be embedded in the biography without the "double vision" problem of images appearing on the right-side pane, and in the biography text box. Consider, too, a background image, but be aware some images do not seamlessly tile and, therefore, are visually jarring. All images must be in the public domain, allowed under a Creative Commons, or GNU, license, or allowed by way of the owner's given permission. Don't just copy an image from ancestry.com, or Find a Grave, or other website. If possible, seek the permission from the person who posted it to the other site – presuming they own the image(s).
  NOTE: if you are not familiar (or comfortable) with the adding of images in the biography text box, just let me know. My contact information is at the bottom of the page.
• If you are comfortable adding categories, the easiest way to do so is by using the category picker tool in edit mode. (It looks like little steps.) Just start typing the word, or words, you want, and then check the dropdown. If your category exists, select it, and it will automatically appear above the Biography header. If there is no existing category, and you are comfortable creating a new one, go ahead. Otherwise ask for your category to be created by editing our Categories Waiting to be Added or Renamed page. (Don't forget to add the profile where the category is needed.)
• Are there others with whom the person interacted, or events that occurred, during their lifetime? Add links to such persons and events (Wikipedia may have the event/s, and may have the people if they are/were notable) where possible. Links to siblings, grandparents, or cousins, if such have WT profiles, is also a handy way of connecting the dots within a biography.
  If the person held office — such as Member of the House of Representatives (MHR) / Legislative Assembly (MLA) / Senator — consider adding a succession box such as the one on Sir Gerald Strickland GCMG. (Note: they don't all need to be that elaborate.)
• While not all Biography Builders are also Sourcerers, sources are fundamental to having an accurate tree. If the profile on which you are working has lots of citations beneath the Sources header, but no biography, you can "go to town" and turn those sources into "in-line" citations. If the profile has some sources cited, and a minimal biography, you can build with what you have, or you can search for more references that can be used to support the facts as noted in the text.
• Be cautious about marking dates from other sites as "certain", even if carved in stone on a grave marker, unless and until confirmed by supporting documents (although caution may also need to be applied to documents as well, as the identity of the informant can be relevant to the likely accuracy of the information).
• If working on the profile of a notable person, be sure to note the reason they were considered notable, and add the relevant Wikipedia page, or Dictionary of National Biography page mentions. The Wikipedia page link is usually "paired" with the Wikidata item for that person. In the case of Margaret Fulton OAM her Wikidata item is "Q6759431". This number can be found by clicking the Wikidata link on the Wikipedia page, and looking at the top of the page. it generally follows the name and is presented in parentheses.
• Stickers can be used to visually indicate an aspect of the person's life but should be used with discretion — and should be placed beneath the Biography header. (Remember: there is an upper limit of five (5) per non-Member profile.) Occupation stickers can be used to draw attention to that aspect of a person's life, especially when placed near to that statement within the biography. (Remember, too, stickers should only be placed by someone actively contributing to a profile (not someone doing a "drive-by" edit) — although consulting with an active profile manger before adding such is a good idea — and can be removed by any active contributor to the profile. If removed, a sticker should not be replaced without communicating with the contributor who removed it.)
• If you find any clear duplicates, then a merge should be initiated. If you suspect that profiles may be duplicates, but there are differences in some facts, an unmerged match can be set to allow for further research.
• Spelling and punctuation. — Some frequent errors seen all over the place are the use of "alot" (which is not yet a word), when what is meant is "a space lot", meaning "many", or "lots". Another frequent error used in place of a lot is the word "allot", which has a totally different meaning.
  Also — meet ' apostrophe. He does not mean "here come an s." Apostrophe can indicate plurals, or contractions. Be very careful when using "it's" that you actually mean "it is", otherwise it should be "its". There is no such word as "your's", or "our's". Proofread your work. After all, it is meant for the generations who are yet to come. Be careful, too, when copying and pasting text from elsewhere – even your own computer files. What is (are) known as "smart quotes" (or curly quotation marks and apostrophes) can cause errors. Configure your text files to use the "straight quote" (or straight apostrophe) when the paste is intended to be WikiTree.

Members Communication:

What else would you like to see on the team page??

Do you have any ideas for the page or for team collaboration??

Please add your comments to this page, send me a comment or private message, or chat with me on our WikiAustralia discord server.

Links to reports, resources, help pages etc are on the main Profile Improvement Portal page.