FamilySearch Wiki:FAQ/Technical

What happens if two or more people are editing the same page?

 * When the second person (and later persons) attempts to save the page, the Wiki will attempt to merge their changes into the current version of the text. If the merge fails then the user will receive an "edit conflict" message, and the opportunity to merge their changes manually. If multiple consecutive conflicts are noticed, it will generate a slightly different message. This is similar to Concurrent Versions System (CVS), a widely used software version management system.

How do I recover a password I have forgotten?
On the FamilySearch sign-in page, click "Forgot Username or Password." You will be redirected to a page giving you the option to recover your password using the mobile phone number listed in your account or with your e-mail.

How do I change my password?

 * You can change your password via Special:ChangePassword; you can also find a link to this in your preferences.

What kind of markup language does Wikipedia use?

 * Wikipedia uses a very simple markup. For more details, see Editing a Page.

Why not use HTML?

 * The short answer is: for simplicity and security.


 * And now the longer answer. FamilySearch Wiki, and wikis in general, are meant to be edited on the fly. HTML is not easy to use when you simply want to write an article. Creating links gives us a particularly dramatic example. To link to the HTML article using HTML, one would have to type


 * HTML


 * Using Wiki markup is much easier:


 * HTML


 * Then there's security. Different web browsers have bugs that can be exploited via HTML. Malicious users could also do things like Javascript popup windows or page redirects if they had full HTML ability on the wiki. Several "experimental" sites that allowed full-HTML editing have suffered such attacks, including a couple of other wikis that allowed arbitrary HTML.

So we can't use any HTML?

 * That's not true. Some HTML tags work. However, there's been some rumbling among the software developers that most HTML tags are deprecated.