FamilySearch Wiki:Technical Meeting Agenda 19 October 2010

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Purpose of the meeting To forge solutions with other community contributors. To discuss content, technical issues, workarounds, community, site design, and strategy.

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From the Community

Wiki Articles that are the "Learn More" link from Historical Records collections in FamilySearch don't seem to answer the most important questions about the records.

• Example: Illinois, Cook County Vital Records (FamilySearch Historical Records).
  • I can't find anything that explains the difference between the Cook County (Illinois) Birth Registers (1871-1915) and Birth Certificates (1878-1922).
  • Should *all* certificates from 1878 forward ALSO be found in the registers?
  • Were the registers used in a different part of Cook County than the Birth Certificates?
  • How did they differ in purpose when the records were created?
  • The invitation for users to contribute information about the collection to the wiki article is nice, but how would any user actually know where the data is coming from?
  • The text of the wiki article speaks to all Cook county records generically (and is the "Learn More" link from more than one database), but each collection is different. Why isn't there a wiki article tied to each individual database?
• Since the number of Historical Records collections is only going to increase (yipee! love those resources and keep 'em coming!), I think it is increasingly important to provide more specific and relevant information to those who use the collections. I would love to create a forum thread on this topic. Since this touches both Historical Records on Beta and the wiki, where should that forum reside? Get Satisfaction (because I can't use Historical Records effectively without better information) or Forums (because the information I'm using is found in the wiki)? Lise 20:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

  My questions and comments on Lise's statements above.Thomas_Lerman 21:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

  • I see links back to the Historical Records search such as the links by "Access and search the records" as shown on the page you mentioned. Why do we have multiple databases on the same page? Incidentally, I think the text for these links look pretty bad because of the way they wrap.
  • What about links to the microfilms in the FHLC or wherever the originals exists?
  • It seems to me that the Historical Records information in the Research Wiki is redundant with what is in the FHLC. I am not so sure that the information is needed in both places. I am not suggesting that we eliminate the FHLC. It just seems like we are kind of building a mess of duplicate information into the Wiki.
  • One thing that I am quite concerned about it that "Record Search" is officially retired. I read that as data is moved from "Record Search" to "Historical Records", it is deleted off of "Record Search" and after it is all moved, "Record Search" will be completely shut down. After beta.FamilySearch.org is taken out of beta, it will go to www.FamilySearch.org. This means that the Research Wiki will have more and more broken links as the migration happens and then even more when it comes out of beta. It seems we should also be talking about having the engineers migrate these links to the {{RecordSearch}} template. I have created a thread in the forum for Links to "Historical Records" in hopes that this subject will not be lost.

  I would also like to better understand the reasons for including details about multiple collections in a single wiki article. I know that such articles are about related collections, however I would be keen to know why (the pros and cons) the decision has been made to have one consolidated article, rather than multiple articles that can cover the specifics for each unique collection. --Steve 18:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

From FamilySearch Staff

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