Robin and Bill, is this perhaps a "Special Project"? What's the criteria for a "special project"? Jillaine 16:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- A special project is anything we want it to be... At one point I started using the term as a shorthand for a "Portal" page... but ... a true portal was something that needed more volume in terms of user access---a critical mass issue. We weren't anywhere near critical mass a year ago, and I don't think we are today, though we're definitely gaining ground...
- My personal intent along these lines was to start up with a list of the "first ships", and gradually add in things like passenger lists...
(See Rutherfordiana and Indian Captivity Stories as possible models. The Brimberry family history is anther example.)
In the present case I have the following specific recommendations
On the main article page do two things
- a) Explain what it is, and something of its history and significance
- b) Give a list of the ships involved, and their sailing dates.
Bill 18:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, per Robin Patterson:
Create subpages for each ship/trip. That subpage could
- a) provide any details of the voyage itself, and
- b) provide a passenger list...
First Ships vs. Great Migration vs. Winthrop's Fleet[]
- When I refer to the "First Ships", I mean the first ship(s) bearing settlers to each colony---ie, the Mayflower at Plymouth Colony, the Susan Comfort/Discovery/Godspeed at Jamestown, the Kalmar Nyckel at New Sweden, etc. The Wintrop fleet would not be included since its arrival was well after the Mayflower landing in 1620. Bill 20:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- The Winthrop Fleet is pretty much a specific sailing event, with a number of specific ships, sailing over a span of a few months at most. Not trying to be smart here, but they ALL had people on them. The distinction you are making is whether or not they had anyone onboard who intended to actually settle. (oops! -- jillaine)
- Between the Mayflower landing in 1620 and the arrival of the Wintrhrop Fleet, other ships with settlers came and went. I believe that most people think of the Great Migration as beginning with the Winthrop fleet. If so, the this particular Great Migration began about 1630 and ended about 1640.
- A compendium of ALL of the identified ships bearing settlers from 1620 to 1640, whether part of the Winthrop Fleet, or part of the Great Migration, would certainly be of interest. Showing their passenger lists would also be most interesting and useful to many. Bill 20:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Bill and others, I'll follow the lead you've outlined above. I'm more likely, for now, to link to existing sources that have passenger lists, etc. vs. recreating them. Jillaine 22:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- There's different ways to look at that. Mostly I don't think it useful to reinvent wheels, but on the otherhand, sometimes its clearly useful to have the data here---among other things, can you count on somewhere else maintaining the data on the page you said it was?---so to avoid broken links, perhaps putting the information here has some advantage. Keep in mind were talking about information. How something is said can affect how you can import it onto another site. There are ethical and legal considerations that need to be taken into consideration, and you have to be sure that you are not violating someone elses intellectual property.. Bill 00:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Progress[]
I agree with basically everything you've both said there. Ship subpages; putting uncopyrightable names of people on this site (internally linkable and embellishable etc) instead of hoping other sites will maintain them (but linking to external sites wherever relevant); eloquent split infinitives; - but please watch your initial colons so that they really do their job of separating different speakers!
Wikipedia's "periods" of history will help keep all of your early ships fairly close together. I'll do some more organising of that.
"Portals" are facilitated, I presume, if your wiki has a portal namespace. WP has; we haven't but we could have.
Robin Patterson 02:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Disambiguation[]
I see that someone has added a category Disambiguation. I've read up on this and am fairly certain I understand its use. On this particular topic (Great Migration), I followed the lead of WP, which added "(Puritan)"
My sense is that in general we wish to avoid disambiguation.
Insight for the more experienced concerning newbies (like me) entering wikiland: Good grief, what an odd word... as soon as I type the above, I think I must have stated it incorrectly-- wouldn't we want to be avoiding ambiguation? i.e., ambiguity? Isn't disambiguation making something non-ambiguous? Wow, it really is a real word-- I just looked it up. And I'm right. Okay, so that makes me think that adding Category Disambiguation to a page is a warning to readers as well as to contributors? I just remain confused about what, if anything, I'm supposed to do about this particular one. Maybe nothing?
- It would be nice if disambiguation could be avoided, but in general, its necessary. Even making a title explicit by adding a specialized term (e.g, "Puritan") does not avoid the need, as you can't predict how people will search for articles on "The Great Migration", or which one they might want. Disambiguation is one of those processes in the MediaWiki that has been well thought through. As to what you need to do about this particular article with regard to disambiguation, the answer is that you do not need to do anything. Bill 13:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)