Thanks Gnangarra and Kerry, the policy issues are important as you both noted - notability, CoI, Copyright/IP.
A couple of articles that illustrate some of the issues are * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_brothers and * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallach_brothers I am interested in anything to help. The time was suggested by the Society, Kerry, I will keep in mind what you have written. Paul On 24 January 2016 at 18:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote: > Paul > > > > I talk to local history groups which often have a cross-over with family > history (often their ancestors lived in that local area). > > > > I agree with you re Trove obits (I’ve created or expanded articles with > these many times). The main problem is that the language is a bit flowery > and needs to be toned down. Also, reflecting the times they were written, > those obits tend to be somewhat sexist, e.g. it is commonplace to refer to > the wife/widow and female daughters without any mention of their names (or > as Mrs Fred Smith), whereas male relatives are generally named. I try to > ensure that both men and women are described more equally.The obits can > also very insensitive to Indigenous occupation of Australia prior to > European settlement. Words like “pioneer” and “discovered” usually need to > be qualified in that regard, e.g. “European settler” or “discovered by the > British” or similar. Direct quotes can (in moderation) retain politically > incorrect language, but I’d tend to do this only a view to making a point > about the different attitudes of those times. > > > > I agree entirely that articles written by family historians about family > members can be problematic. While they often have copious sources and > those sources are often reliable, those sources tend to be comprehensive by > their nature (everyone has a birth certificate, everyone buried in a > cemetery is listed in the burial register, etc). And in country towns, > everyone gets an obit in the local newspaper. So it’s a situation where the > general principle of having a lot of reliable sources doesn’t always equal > being notable. The claim to fame is often pretty marginal – the first > settler in Smallville, the secretary of the Smallville football club for 30 > years, etc. I try to divert them into adding these claims into the > [[Smallville]] article, usually in the History section. It’s also worth > pointing out that your ancestors are a Conflict of Interest situation and > that is a good reason not to create articles about them (admittedly it’s > more a Conflict of Interest in the sense of “your ancestor is more > interesting to you than to everyone else”). > > > > Regarding your 1.5 hour timeplan, I would suggest you are overly ambitious > about how much you can cover in that time. Firstly there are always a lot > of basic facts about Wikipedia that people want to know and need to know. > In particular, “if anyone can edit it, isn’t going to be full of rubbish?”. > You will need to spend a little time explaining how Wikipedia manages the > vandalism and incorrect information problem. Do not assume that they know > how Wikipedia “works” behind the scenes, because they don’t. Secondly it > takes a lot of time to teach them the basics of editing. You do not say > whether you will be teaching the source editor or the new Visual Editor. > Having taught using the source editor many times and once with the VE, I > think people will learn the VE much faster and it’s my plan to teach the VE > going forward. There are some gotchas to teaching the VE – you can’t edit a > Talk page with VE, you never want them to open an infobox (they will be > exposed to source editing) and just about every piece of documentation in > Wikipedia assumes you are using the source editor L BUT they will be able > to make basic edits much more quickly. > > > > I assume you are talking about hands-on editing. If not, I think give up > now on teaching them how to edit and just give them a talk on Wikipedia > instead. It’s hard enough to teach them to contribute with a computer in > front of them; I doubt you can do it with slides alone. > > > > A family history group is an older group of people (so are local history > groups). You will also have some people whose idea of “basic computer > skills” and yours will be very different. A lot of older people send and > receive email and use Google to search the web and write newsletters for > their golf club in Microsoft word without managing to learn how to do > something like copy-and-paste. It’s hard to make a citation without some > copy-and-paste, particularly copying the URL for web citations. Don’t > expect them to know what a URL is either (try “web address” while pointing > to it on the screen in the browser). Many are not accustomed to using > multiple applications/windows at the same time, so having the Wikipedia > article open for editing in one window and the source material in another > may be a new experience for them. > > > > With any group, you will have issues with copying material from other > websites and wanting to upload photos of unknown provenance. Most do not > understand copyright at all. Some will not have had a level of education > where they were expected to use citations and won’t know what they are and > why they matter. Even those with university degrees may be completely > unfamiliar with inline citation, being accustomed to just listing their > sources at the end without linking them to the claims (particularly true > for those in the humanities). > > > > What I tend to suggest when I get asked to do a “short intro” to Wikipedia > is now offer two sessions. The first one is just a talk about Wikipedia > aimed at reading Wikipedia with realistic expectations based on knowing how > it all works. Then have a second hands-on session for those interested to > want to learn to edit; this will be a much smaller group than the first > talk and you have got a lot of the learning curve about Wikipedia out of > the way and can focus on the skills development. If you can have multiple > sessions to teach the hands-on stuff, even better. Practice is important. > > > > I have some slidepacks for general talks and edit training (source editor) > available if you want to use them as a starting point. I don’t yet have a > slide pack for the VE yet although I will be creating one in the next week > or so, as I have to deliver VE training on 8 Feb. Let me know if I can help. > > > > Kerry > > > > > > *From:* Wikimediaau-l [mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On > Behalf Of *Paul Foord > *Sent:* Sunday, 24 January 2016 2:36 PM > *To:* Wikimedia-au <wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > *Subject:* [Wikimediaau-l] Family History related Australian biographies > on Wikipedia > > > > Hi all > > > > At a meeting of the Genealogy SA Research and Development Committee I > offered to provide a session on writing biographies for Wikipedia. > > Triggers for this were: > > - my experience finding obituaries and other sources in Trove that > appeared to justify an article, or allowed significant expansion of a stub. > Often for politicians and sportspeople there is already a stub that can be > filled out. > > - finding that a number of the articles apparently written by family > historians were not encyclopedic in their selection of information nor well > presented. > > > > It looks like there will be a 1.5 hour session: > > - an intro to WP > > - familiarisation with Wikiproject Biography (WP:Notability) > > - WP:RS > > - Using hardcopy and online resources, (WP:Citing sources) > > > > Any thoughts, comments, offers to work on the project. Is anybody else > already doing something along these lines? > > > > Regards > > > > Paul Foord > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaau-l mailing list > Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l > >
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