Tell us more about CRUD data interfaces.
Mack
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Subject: Wikimedia-genealogy Digest, Vol 5, Issue 5
Date: Fri, Sep 8, 2017 8:00 AM
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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 <amg...@wikimedians.ca>
To: wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-genealogy] Is the delivery of software
fundamental to this project?
Message-ID: <8219628e-99cb-f046-5250-c4289f381...@wikimedians.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Thanks for the response Sam! Again I am replying to a digest, and
apologize...
> Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2017 15:37:20 +0800
> From: Sam Wilson
>
> I certainly agree with you about the NIH syndrome within the Wikimedia
> world. (I think it's getting better though, and I think a lot of it is
> part of the general PHP/web-dev community too, and not specific to
> MediaWiki.) I really don't think we need yet another software solution
> for genealogy! However... :-)
> I think I basically take as my starting point "base MediaWiki". As in:
> there's a great flexibility in a website that is basically just freeform
> text boxes into which you can put whatever. At its heart, a wiki is free
> and open and really easy to just jump into and start putting content up.
> That's why we love 'em! And I think it's a good platform for genealogy:
> we can write whatever we need to, and collaborate with others, and it's
> not constrained by any software-imposed structure.
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 <s...@samwilson.id.au>
To: wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-genealogy] Is the delivery of software
fundamental to this project?
Message-ID:
<1504831603.958760.1099016000.0b14f...@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:
> Thanks for the response Sam! Again I am replying to a digest, and
> apologize...
> > Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2017 15:37:20 +0800
> > From: Sam Wilson
> >
> > I certainly agree with you about the NIH syndrome within the Wikimedia
> > world. (I think it's getting better though, and I think a lot of it is
> > part of the general PHP/web-dev community too, and not specific to
> > MediaWiki.) I really don't think we need yet another software solution
> > for genealogy! However... :-)
> > I think I basically take as my starting point "base MediaWiki". As in:
> > there's a great flexibility in a website that is basically just freeform
> > text boxes into which you can put whatever. At its heart, a wiki is free
> > and open and really easy to just jump into and start putting content up.
> > That's why we love 'em! And I think it's a good platform for genealogy:
> > we can write whatever we need to, and collaborate with others, and it's
> > not constrained by any software-imposed structure.
>
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list
> Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2017 15:23:19 +0800
From: Sam Wilson <s...@samwilson.id.au>
To: Wikimedia Genealogy <wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-genealogy] tiny URL
Message-ID:
<1504855399.1836036.1099264352.238d7...@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...
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