GeniWiki:Community Portal

Welcome to the Geni User Wiki!

The purpose of the wiki is to enable users to provide as much information to other users as possible on Geni features, tips, tricks, etc. in order to enhance their Geni experience.

Please feel free to edit any page or add new ones. To edit any page use the 'edit' link on the top of any page.

To link to an existing page or create a new page place double brackets around the name of the page. For example to link to the Genealogy page you can type [[Genealogy]]. In general, words should NOT be linked out to external sources. If an external source is needed, then we need to use conventions for external sources.

Nederlandstalige gebruikers maken wij attent op:

• het Portaal voor Nederlandstaligen en *Nederlandse handleiding

(De volgende pagina's zijn verouderd: *de Nederlandse HULP-pagina, *het Portaal voor Nederlandstaligen op deze wiki)
Voor bronnen: Nederlandse bronnen en Nederland gerelateerde Bronnen

Categories

A list of categories currently used on the Geni Wiki can be found here.

Suggested Wiki features

See Suggestions page first!

Should we add a 'glossary' category similar to the 'genealogy' category?

Personally I think lists always look better in Categories but thats just me. --jon.jaques 08:39, 9 August 2007 (PDT)

I also prefer lists, at least for smaller groups. Do you think that it's better to use a list or a category for countries? --Ilya 11:18, 9 August 2007 (PDT)

I like the idea of a Glossary. Take, for instance, the Terms catagory, it is starting to become a bit fragmented as one needs to figure out where a genealogy term may fit in. As the Terms catagory grows it may be best to list all the terms in alphabetical order rather then by sub-category. Then again, it does make it nice for someone just interested in terms relavant to a specific area. I think that a Glossary of total terms would fit nicely with a Terms category.--ScotHibb 11:39, 15 August 2007 (PDT)

Allow image uploads --AceKiller 11:58, 4 August 2007 (PDT)

MediaWiki does allow image/file uploads directly, but it is a security risk. SeanFromIT 12:37, 19 September 2007 (PDT)

File uploads have been disabled on this wiki. Noah, can you turn it on? I have files loaded in the Commons but they are not being allowed here. See here: File:Ancestral chart.pdf

Category:Surname should be longer than 200 articles per page, anyway to change this Noah or Ilya? --jon.jaques 06:36, 15 August 2007 (PDT)

We also need the references template set up. Some data is being lifted verbatim from other sites. We need to credit them appropriately. Anyone been able to get it to work?

I tried referencing using the <ref> tag but to no avail. I just resorted to entering the address and letting it put a [1] after. I think this might be something Geni needs to set up because its in the Wikimedia instructions so it should work. --jon.jaques 05:49, 22 August 2007 (PDT)

Any word on the references yet? The <ref>, </ref> and <references/> tages still do not work. --jon.jaques 18:16, 7 September 2007 (PDT)

For help, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources. SeanFromIT 06:58, 20 September 2007 (PDT)

Performance and Associated Observations

I noticed that the Wiki became unavailable a few times today (Saturday). It came back each time after a period of waiting. I don't know if there is maintenance going on with it, but it should be noted.--AceKiller 12:43, 4 August 2007 (PDT)

Over the past 24 hours, I found 5 instances of inability to resolve the name 'wiki.geni.com'. This also occurred while I was browsing around and attempting to edit some pages. At the exact same time, I was able to resolve 'www.geni.com' and 'forum.geni.com'. A quick check showed it had expired from name cache. Digging a bit further, I noticed a short TTL on the records, which shouldn't cause a problem but is bad practice. I also noted that the same address is used for both 'forum...' and 'wiki...' Clearing name cache and re-resolving each address still has problems with 'wiki'geni.com' while the others resolve instantly. --AceKiller 09:10, 6 August 2007 (PDT)

Since going public the page layout has been changed thus causing the buttons to edit, discuss, etc to be sent off to the left side of the page or not seen at all.

Detlev, you are one of the lucky adopters, you have to change the skin that you are using, this can be done in the Preferences area, the skin they want us to use is the "GeniBook" skin. --jon.jaques 12:04, 16 August 2007 (PDT)

Basic templates

Hi all. I have added a couple of basic templates that may be useful.

• {{Tl}} A template link template. It's what I used to build the text between those curly braces!
• {{Unsigned}} A template to mark unsigned comments on talk pages.
• {{Wp}} A template to easily link to wikipedia articles

Rolando 12:09, 4 March 2008 (PST)

• {{Surname infobox}} A template with basic surname information. Very basic.

Rolando 17:24, 5 March 2008 (PST)

• {{YouTube}} A consistent way to link to YouTube videos.

Rolando 22:32, 30 May 2008 (PDT)

• {{Geni forum topic}} A consistent way to link to topics in the Geni forum.
• {{Geni profile}} A consistent way to link to a Geni.com profile

Rolando 17:20, 31 May 2008 (PDT)

Observations from using Geni

If you build a large tree in GENI from your history you start to see several notable things.

Listed Going Back in Time

• PCs storing files from Digital Cameras ~ Starting about 2000
• Smaller Family Planning from birth control, decisions and careers Starting around 1950
• Successful large birth rates from health and food supply Starting around 1600
• Family records keeping in several communities in Europe starts around 1400 —Preceding unsigned comment added by exprexxo (talk • contribs) 4 March 2008 exprexxo: Please sign future contributions with ~~~~

Grandma

Here is an interesting story about the influnce of maternal grandmothers on the success of their grandchildren. [1] This story was voted one of the best science stories of 2003.

It would be interesting for people in Geni to denote grandmothers that participated in the next generation's upbringing. Then have the data correlated across all GENI without identity tracing.

Regardless, it is a good read.—Preceding unsigned comment added by exprexxo (talk • contribs) 4 March 2008 exprexxo: Please sign future contributions with ~~~~

Categorizing

I visited Special:Uncategorizedpages and started going a little bonkers categorizing pages. One thing I did was to create a {{Request for deletion}} tmeplate which puts articles in Category:Requests for deletion. It would be great if the Wiki admins could periodically delete the pages listed there. Rolando 20:57, 1 June 2008 (PDT)