User Group Meeting Minutes 6 January 2009

= Minutes =

Facilitator was Michael Ritchey, Note taker was Jimmy B. Parker, Time keeper was [Add name here].

Prayer by Michael Ritchey

This week, there are now 6,088 registered users of the FamilySearch Wiki. That is an increase of 88 new registered users over the last week.

Attendees :
Michael Ritchey, David Samulesen, Sister Felsted (Interpretor for David S.), James Anderson, David Crowther, Baerbel Johnson, Fran Jensen, Jim Greene, Kip Enger

Remote Attendees
(Anne Roach), (David Crowther), (Michael Ritchey), Jimmy Parker, Thomas Lerman, (Mollie Forbes), Sister Edwards

Items Discussed

 * The Users Group Meeting next week will be conducted only as a virtual meeting. We want to try doing so as a test for future Users Group Meetings.
 * Michael announced that there will be a backlog of items for the Users Group Meetings for the next couple of weeks until items raised over the holidays can be processed and worked into the agendas for upcoming meetings.
 * David Crowther reported on what he has done to create a place for individuals to report a "bug" in the system. He has created a link which will capture information about the user and the system they are using, and then allow that user to report the bug. By so doing, it will be easier to isolate the problem. When those reports of bugs are sent in, they will go to Clarify and an automatically generated email will go back to the person reporting the problem, acknowledging receipt of the message.
 * Michael presented information regarding the Maryland Barn Raising, which is scheduled for January. Since it is now January, we will move forward as quickly as possible.


 * A sample subject page has been prepared for "Maryland Newspapers."


 * A Maryland "Preliminary Tasks" page has also been created, which identifies many of the tasks to be completed on the barn raising. Contributors mat sign up for any of the tasks by adding their names to the task page under the topic or county they wish to work on.


 * David Samuelson suggested that church records and church history be combined.


 * Michael suggested that there are several reasons for doing a barn-raising -- (1) to gain information about how to write an article in a collaborative way, (2) to gain experience in what it is like to have a big group working in a focused area or topic.


 * Maryland was chosen for a couple of reasons -- (1) because they have a good digitized collection of sources already in place, and (2) it is a fairly small state in terms of demand for reference (research) help, so it was chosen before we tackle some of the more high-demand states such as Ohio or New York.


 * How to sign up for a topic was demonstrated.


 * The U.S. Reference team in the Family History Library is now scheduled to write on the Wiki now.


 * "Simple Tasks" is a place to list tasks that a "research assistant" could do, to save the time of the more detailed and experienced contributor.


 * The ISBN search cannot be used on the Wiki right now without some code changes, so no request will go forward to add that functionality the the Family History Library Catalog.

[NOTE: This was added by Thomas Lerman and I'm not sure which item it refers to. -- JBP]

Concerning the ISBN search breaking when edited. I personally would disagree that it is the editor. It seems to be how the link is created! The links are created completely different between Wikipedia and Research Wiki. That happens before the editor gets to it. Thomas Lerman 22:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It was brought up the problem with the editor not working from Wikitext back to WYSIWYG. I thought that was fixed a while ago. It is working for me. Thomas Lerman 22:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Action Items

 * Michael -- Make arrangements for James Anderson and David Samuelson for next week.
 * All Users -- Please sign up for some of the tasks for Maryland
 * All Users -- Add processes, tasks, etc. that may be missing to the page of preliminary tasks.