Template talk:RecordSearch

Name of this template

Thomas Lerman raised the question about the name of this template in a forum post. His suggestion was {{RecordSearch}}. I would not object to a name change, but I think the reason I choose {{CID}} still holds.

Firstly I noticed that Horandm was creating article for various record search collections, such as England Cheshire Nonconformist Church Records and including at the bottom of the article a line of code that included a CID ref. Why this is being done and why the coding is in a particular format is still unclear to me.

I also coded the template to include an optional display text parameter, but if that is not given the default display is

CID #######

Finally, when coding an article, templates with short titles are easier to type. --Steve 20:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I would agree that short titles are easier to type, I believe this may be a mistake. CID appears to be the name of the ID used in the URL to identify which collection is being used within the Record Search product (although it is still considered a pilot product at this time). To me, using this name to reference something within Record Search is not very intuitive nor user friendly . . . maybe even a bit geeky (I resemble that remark, by the way). Being not intuitive, I believe it will be harder for people to remember. It would be similar to referring to a record contained in Ancestry as {{dbid}} since that is the database identifier they use in their URL. Similarly, the IGI uses recid and the new FamilySearch uses bookid. If a template was created for these (very unlikely), I would be opposed to them be called {{recid}} and {{bookid}} respectively. It would make more sense to me to use the actual source name rather than an identifier that is used for internal purposes. Thomas Lerman 00:58, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the template from {{CID}} to {{RecordSearch}}. --Steve 17:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No parameter

I noticed at Pilot.familysearch.org (boy do I really dislike the name of that page), it accesses Record Search. Actually, too many people are getting "pilot" mixed up in the name . . . the product is "Record Search" and it happens to be a "pilot" site. We do not call this "beta wiki" because it is a "beta" site. Anyway, off of the soap box. A thought that I had was wondering what you thought about having the template go to the main page of Record Search if no collection ID is passed in? Side question: how do we get all references to use the template? Thomas Lerman 14:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

International Genealogical Index (FamilySearch) - free