FamilySearch Wiki:Contributors Meeting 6 September 2012

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Purpose of the meeting Improve the Wiki Forge solutions with other community contributors. Share best practices, ideas, and content. Discuss current issues, community matters, and strategies. Move issues to decision.

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Kudos go to ... 

• Everyone who works on the Wiki.  We are #2 in participation in all the FamilySearch products.  That's pretty impressive!

Updates and follow up

• Poll for proposal regarding Guidelines in Wiki for policy changes 
• Put in the links to the proposed template and proposed policy template
• Add the date for when the poll will be finished.
• Could you see on a state or country page, at or near the top, something like "The 3 most important things to know about researching in Kentucky" with a format underneath similar to how wikiHow does their steps? -- janellv (talk| contribs) 16:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
• This item was discussed and the general consensus was that it is a good idea.  We need more ways of making it easier for beginners.
• There is a  good example of this kind of idea on the England page, but it doesn't have images.
• Wilma will have the Utah team come up with a sandbox page
• Update: - Jana Stokes is working on this, and has made great progress.  Check the pages she's working on. Sandbox/Utah
• Discuss next week - concerning testing

• References in the wiki "the question really isn't about whether to use footnote or endnote styles, but rather how to display information so that readers can most effectively glean it."

• Philadelphia, PA is an example of a link to several books, rather having several links to each book (WeRelate).
• There are different styles - giving a source, as opposed to the reference information. Quotes in the body of the document would have the souce in the footnote.
• We need to present sufficient information to guide them to the title, etc. and then to further links for citing, etc. (endnote) The text should make the reader want to find more information on the topic, without giving too much information to muddy the waters (include the date information).
• More discussion is needed before we change the style guide.
• Create a separate page, such as in WeRelate - periodicals, etc. - avoiding long citations in our text, as well as a lot of links for the same information
• Links need to be made to more stable sites - also, linking to Google provides a good starting page, but we don't want multiple links on the page to the same site, etc.
• Have a page that lists sites that has books.  Do we have one? FamilySearch, Google, etc.
• WeRelate has some book lists, but it may not have been updated
  • If it's just a quote, it could be in the footnotes

Business/Announcements

• Survey for new home page http://bit.ly/R137je
  
• We would like to have people from all spectrums take the survey.  Example 2 has some bad links  that will be fixed tomorrow, probably.  
• If we can sit with people as they take the survey, it's helpful to get their comments.

New Agenda Items

• FGS Conference report:  Lise taught a workshop that will hopefully bring in some new contributors.
• There was a lot of interest in the FamilySearch booth.  FHC pages were created there.  Lise and Jane gave away a lot of business cards. The head of FGS will be having a private class on the Wiki.  
• Thomas McEntee has a class coming for RootsTech that will contain information on Wiki
• FS gave away an IPad and Jamie Mayhew won that.

Forums Overview

Be part of the solution! Make your opinions known! Post comments to an existing thread or start a new discussion at Wiki Contributors Corner forum.

Current forum threads of interest: Polls New since last week   Comments added since last week Decisions made since last week

Be bold, post your agenda items! Feel free to post on the agenda any items you wish to discuss during the meeting. If your item requires details or feedback, post them on the discussion page and link to them from the agenda. Possible topics include: Moderator and Adopters Style Guide Discussions Project Help Requests Training Requests Improve the Wiki

A family history conference hosted by FamilySearch. For online genealogical classes and videos see RootsTech.org.