FamilySearch Wiki:Contributors Meeting 7 February 2013

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Introduce new members

• Drew Bartley (Boston) working on content for Wiki

Updates and follow up

• Moderators

Community Council Report

Surnmame pages discussion. Found Chinese Surnames page on Wikipedia. Will have links to various pages ABOUT surnames, and not genealogical information other than what is necessary to trace origins or meanings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_surname

• Minutes are online for yesterday's meeting
• Discussion of Surname project suggested by Lee Drew - issues,etc. are summarized in the minutes. There is a concern about opening the door to individual names being added to the Wiki.
• Should be further explored but guidelines would have to exist
• Nathan Murphy has worked surnames on other pages - he would be a good reference person
• Pages would have to be fully developed
• Wikipedia has handled this very well.
• Different spellings would have to be addressed - separate pages or just on the main page?
• Would this project draw people in to the Wiki?
• Considering the extent of the work we need to do in the Wiki now, should we give resources to this kind of a large project?
• Volunteers could be used to populate these pages
• Next step to a decision of whether to pursue this as a project or to reject:
• This would cause a change to the scope of the Wiki - we would need a project proposal that would contain the discussion here and that would go to the Community Council and General Services Community Council
• We would need a project leader
• A vote was taken and the results were almost even, for and against.
• No one is willing to lead this at this time. We will add this project to a list of possible projects.
• Page on discussion topics that would involve items like this to be brought up later. (Lynda)

New Agenda Items

Heads-up: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Experiment (David Dilts). SEO is a way of designing Wiki pages to make them rank high on Google search result lists. We propose to test SEO techniques on five Wiki pages. If it significantly improves traffic to those pages after several months we can make similar changes to all Wiki pages that have reasonably good content. Proposed changes:

1. Modify page titles, for example, Plymouth, Massachusetts would become Plymouth Massachusetts genealogy
2. Add introductory lines or paragraph (154 characters) with carefully chosen key search terms of interest to genealogists varied from page to page according to content.
3. Modify section headings to repeat key phrases, bold key phrases in text, for example, the heading Vital Records would become Plymouth Massachusetts Vital Records
4. Link to Wiki pages from social media like Facebook and Google+.

Proposed pages for the SEO experiment:

• Plymouth County, Massachusetts
• Plymouth, Massachusetts
• Boston, Massachusetts
• New York City, New York
• Georgetown County, South Carolina (good example)

WARNING!: This may eventually cause us to change most Wiki page titles and content to attract a larger audience.

Keep an eye on these pages. Results will be calculated from the above.

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

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.