Steve Hayes wrote:
> <daniel.f.morgan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Google wanted to. A spreadsheet isn't a database, but sorting or
>> filtering by columns is part of the way there, and people often use a
>> spreadsheet for transcribing, even if the result ends up merged into a
>> more powerful database eventually.
>
> That might be a better option for transcription of regularly formatted
records
> -- though a spreadsheet is not a database, it cvan be made to serve as a
> simple one, and is OK for initial entry.
>
> A wiki, however, can be good for collecting information in a lot of
different
> formats -- one could post a will, for example, a letter or summary of
one, a
> memoir, an obituary. Biographies of ancestors with many people
contributing
> could build up a fuller picture, and each page allows for critical
discussion
> of the content.
Furthermore, a Wiki is full-text searchable, and for searches
like "birth date between ABC and XYZ" the site creators could
develop a set of standard XML tags that a page scanner could use
to build an index. For example, if an obituary says
Sir Gabriel Cadwallider died Sunday after a brief illness
at his home, Knotticentingham Towers.
it might be entered
<decedent soundex="C343">Sir Gabriel Cadwallider</decedent> died
<deat date="22 Jun 2102">Sunday</deat> after a brief illness
at his home in <deat plac="Knotticentingham Towers, New Tokyo,
Mars">Knotticentingham Towers</deat>.
A lot of work, to be sure, and quite error-prone, but the advantage
of a Wiki is that an interested party will correct it very soon.
(If no one does, then no one is interested, and so it doesn't matter!)
Anyone accepting a Wiki of any sort (including Wikipedia) without
an alternate collaborating source deserves any errors that slip through.
Most browsers will just ignore the tags they don't recognize, though
if a CSS stylesheet changes the font or size or something for such
a tag, some browsers might honor that. And the Wiki software could
parse the tags after each edit and update an index.
Javascript could be written to cause the soundex, date, plac in the
above to appear when the mouse pointer hovers over the name, day, place.
(To see what I mean, hover over any link on NorthwestAllenTrails.org
or Lang-Learn.us)
If there's a Javascript expert that wants to help me test this,
I can provide some code to start from.. You could finish it up
while I prepare the HTML and CSS. We could put them together as
a "proof-of-concept" in a subdirectory of UniGen.us (or other site).
--
Wes Groleau
Expert, n.:
Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
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