FamilySearch Wiki:New Contributors Training

WHEN: Thursday 2:00 - 3:00 MST (4:00 - 5:00 EST)
The first part of the meeting is training on a scheduled topic. The last part of the meeting is open for personalized help with questions you may have, or with projects you may be working on. Current Wiki news and concerns may also be discussed.

WHERE: Online with MeetingPlace
MeetingPlace ID 5252 Link to Meeting

To both view and hear the meeting:

 * 1) Click Link to Meeting, above.
 * 2) If necessary, in the Meeting ID field, enter 5252, and then click the Attend Meeting button.
 * 3) On the Attend Meeting screen, enter either a guest user name or your LDS Account information, and then click the Attend Meeting button.
 * 4) Under Connect Me, make sure that the boxes next to both Join the web conference and Have MeetingPlace call my phone have a checkmark in them; type your phone number (including area code, with no dashes or parentheses) in the appropriate field; and then click the Connect button.

To hear the meeting only:
Call 801 240-2663 (or toll-free 877-453-7266), and then follow the prompts. The Meeting ID is 5252.

PURPOSE: Support &amp; Collaboration

 * 1) If you have experience with family history but are new to using the Wiki, this meeting is for you! You may receive support in contributing to the Wiki, which helps others with direction in their personal research.
 * 2) Project leaders with Wiki projects may find these meetings a good place to meet and recruit team members for your projects. New users will learn about the Wiki from you and other members of your project team.
 * 3) The Family history community naturally reaches out to mentor and share our knowledge and sources with each other. As we do this, we experience the support of collaboration and the sweetness of success. Working together, we will find our ancestors!

Scheduled Topics:

 * 1) Ways to get to the Wiki; registering; signing in; setting your preferences; MeetingPlace tips
 * 2) Understanding the Home page and the navigation bar; Community guidelines; Forums
 * 3) Editing pages using the Rich Text/FCK editor; setting up your User page; watching pages and understanding the Watched Pages e-mail
 * 4) Creating and editing links; setting up your Sandbox (a subpage) and linking back to your User page; using Talk pages; signing your name
 * 5) Editing pages using the standard editor; intro to Wikitext; creating and editing links - continued; IE browser tips
 * 6) The Table of Contents (TOC); heading levels; advanced searching; types of pages, including special pages
 * 7) Copying and pasting – from within the Wiki, from other Web sites including Wikipedia
 * 8) Copying and pasting – from Microsoft Office Word, from OpenOffice.org Writer; running OpenOffice from a flash drive
 * 9) Uploading images and files; placing images and files and their thumbnails in an article; roles in the Wiki
 * 10) Creating and adding tables; using templates, infoboxes, and userboxes; adding References/Citations to an article
 * 11) Understanding Wiki namespaces; creating and naming a new page; splitting an article; renaming, moving, and redirecting articles
 * 12) Combining articles; deleting articles; understanding and adding Categories to articles

* These dates are subject to change.

Lesson Plans
Listed below are copies of the lesson plans used for the New Wiki Contributors Training meetings. They correspond to the Scheduled Topics list, above. The information given was accurate at the time of the lesson, but may change slightly as our Wiki grows and matures.

To download a file, right-click the name of the file, and then select either Save target as... (IE) or Save Link As... (Firefox). Select a location on your computer, and then click Save.


 * New Wiki Contributors Training - Lesson 1
 * New Wiki Contributors Training - Lesson 2
 * New Wiki Contributors Training - Lesson 3
 * New Wiki Contributors Training - Lesson 4
 * New Wiki Contributors Training - Lesson 5

Past Meetings
To review the recording or access attachments of a previous meeting:


 * 1) Click MeetingPlace.
 * 2) Enter 5252, and then click the Find Meeting button (not Attend Meeting).
 * 3) Type in your name, and then click Find Meeting.
 * 4) Under Meeting Search, select Past.
 * 5) Enter the date (or date range -- such as From: Apr 7, 2011 To: current date), and then click Search.
 * 6) In the Past Meetings list, for the desired date, click the Meeting ID link (5252).
 * 7) On the right, under Options, click Attachments/Recordings.
 * 8) The Web Recording can be played, but not downloaded. It has both audio and video. The audio recordings and attachments can be downloaded to your computer by right-clicking the icon or link, and then selecting Save Target As....