List: I received the following from Colin Hinson concerning some changes on the Genuki pages. I know it is long, but it is important to read so you understand the changes which have been made to the GENUKI web site. Sarah McCray ENG-LANCS-YORKS list administrator ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2004 6:52 AM Subject: Genuki: Major changes in Contents pages. > Dear All, > Any of you who have been using the Contents pages for the Genuki Yorkshire > pages will have noticed a major change recently - i.e. they don't exist as > contents pages anymore, and now are in the form of an hierarchical diagram > and an explanation, along with search facilities. > > There are several reasons for this change: > 1. the contents pages used to list all the links on all the pages on the > Yorkshire sections of Genuki (around 12,600 pages). This information was > extracted by the Genuki "spider" which is run once every month to check for > link and html errors on the whole of Genuki. The output from this data was > used by Brian Pears to generate the Contents/Index pages with software > written by Brian. Unfortunately, not all Genuki maintainers abide by the > standards (this does not include me<g>) and so the software was unable to > extract the correct data all the time - as a "for instance" a line which > reads "click here to go to the parish registers" where you have to click on > the "click here" words, tells the software nothing - only that "click here" > is the link (the line should have read "Here are the Parish registers for > XXX parish", where the link is on "Parish registers for XXX > parish"). Because of this, Brian was having to spend more and more time > correcting all these problems, and it got to the point where in July 2003 > it took him 3 weeks of work (full time!) to deal with the months data, and > he said "enough is enough". > 2. Due to the month (+ 3weeks) lag on the contents pages catching up with > the "real world", by the time the contents pages were updated, they were > already out of date - both with missing links and new pages with no > reference. This causes people to send error messages telling us of these > problems, thus adding to the mail we already receive on similar subjects. > 3. There has always been a problem with the Contents pages and > "newbies". First, despite it saying in big bold letters at the top of the > contents pages that links and references should not be made to these pages, > lots of people did so. The result of this is that "newbies" (and others) > could arrive at the bottom of the hierarchy of the site and find a > reference to say "Registration district" without having come through the > main Yorkshire page which tells you how to find the relevant Registration > district. Heaps of other problems in this area too - those who live in > North America have little concept of a "parish", "Riding", "wapentake" etc. > and so not having read the "Important information" page on the main > Yorkshire page, immediately fire off a message to either me or a mailing > list saying "what is a Riding" etc. > 4. Errors thrown up by the Genuki spider include all the errors in the out > of date Contents pages - this is a sort of "Catch 22" situation, as the > content were derived from the spider data! > > In August, the decision was take to stop generating any new contents pages > and to come up with a low or zero maintenance system to take its place. I > suggested that we might use a hierarchical diagram (such as the one already > on the Yorkshire page), and this was taken up, but with additional > information below the diagram, such as access to the search engine > etc. This has taken several months to iron out, not helped by it being me > that ended up driving the project and at the same time spending a lot of > time working in France (yes, OK, it is the south of France, near Nice - it > is hell working down there in the sun <g>). We (Genuki) are now at the > point were the images for the hierarchy diagrams for each county are being > generated by one of the maintainers, and should all be up and running by > the end of April. Due to Yorkshire having 3 Ridings, it has an extra > level of hierarchy compared to all the other counties, and so I have > generated the image required for this and implemented this new contents system. > > There are of course some downsides to all this from the users point of > view. It is no longer possible to take a short cut down the hierarchy - > you are forced to go down the levels one at a time, however it is only a > three mouse clicks to get from the main Yorkshire page to any given parish: > On the main Genuki Yorkshire page, take the link at the top of the page to > the "Yorkshire Towns and Parishes", then go to the correct Riding, then go > to the correct parish BUT, if you're a "newbie", read all the information > along the way - such as that on the main Yorkshire page. > > If you have any bright ideas as to how we can make this new system any > better, I would be pleased to hear from you but please remember: > 1. We cannot go gack to the system we had before due to the time an effort > taken to maintain it. > 2. We cannot make shortcuts that will entice any of our "newbies" to bypass > information that they should be aware of before doing Family History > research for Yorkshire. For example, if you look at the new contents page: > http://www.genuki.org.uk/contents/YKScontents.shtml > you will see that there are no hyperlinks on the Ridings. This is because > it would entice people to bypass the main Yorkshire page, and every bypass > of a page creates email in my in-tray. > > For those of you who haven't used Genuki Yorkshire before: > 1. If you don't know where a place in Yorskhire is, use the "Where is it in > Yorkshire" pages. If you can't find it, it is probably not in Yorkshire or > you have the wrong spelling. > 2. Look under "Civil Registration" on the main Yorkshire page to find out > which Registration district a place is in. > 3. Look under "Church Records" on the relevant parish page to find out > where the Parish registers are now, and the years for which they are available. > 4. Lots more besides....................<g> > > Best wishes, > Colin Hinson > > In the village of Blunham in Bedfordshire U.K. > Webmaster for the Genuki Yorkshire pages: > http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ > Rare Books on CD: http://cdroms.blunham.com/ > Yorkshire Genealogist, Harrogate Records, Todmorden area, > Baine's, Bulmers & Whites directories, Heywood/Northowram, > Histories: Craven, York & NRY, Yorkshire, Holderness, Brighouse > Halifax, Hunter's Hallamshire (Sheffield), Hull, Bradford, > Bingley, Thoresby's Leeds, Horton, Morley, Bolton & Bowling etc. >