FamilySearch Wiki talk:Featured Articles

Preferences
Which option in the preferences has the ability to control the featured article star? -Fran 13:43, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Good question. The template code was developed in Wikipedia where they have a CCS class that is used to control the display of these topicons as I don't have access to the CSS code, I removed the class from the template, thus enabling it for all users. Bottom line there is no user preference to show/hide the featured article star in the FSwiki, so I have removed the reference to one from the article. --Steve 16:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Back to dates
In looking at Wikipedia and WikiHow we find their archive articles are dated. We know that we are in our infancy but we want to feature new articles much more often than we have been, as I looked at the the history of this archive it seems to be desires to go back to what was done in early April of 2010 with dates and boxed articles because there will come a time shortly when we are adding new articles much more often. Can someone help us go to that again? Much Thanks, Dawne 18:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Dawne, I agree, I think it is useful to show when the articles were featured on the main page. I will rework the page using the layout last used in April 2010. --Steve 16:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Dates and featured articles
Steve thank you that will be wonderful, l thank you so much for reworking it.

We are most grateful to you.

Dawne 17:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Awesome!
Steve-

you are grand!

perfect
this is wonderful Steve thank you so much the archives look so good. The user box for those working on the featured artcles looks fine, yes go a head with it. again Steve thank you.Dawne 20:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Understanding
I may not be understanding, how can I put a bronze star on all the articles we have featured thus far or can I?

Much thanks Steve,

Dawne 19:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Dawne, I think you already discovered the answer to your question, but for the benefit of others -- The way to add the star to an article is by using the Featured article template. Do this by adding the code to the bottom of an article, just before the categories. --Steve 16:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Counting the hits
I would like to be able to have the wiki keep track of the hits Community makes as they look at the Featured Articles

This is what I hope to show which is in an Excel file but I want it to be transparent in the Wki:

Date          Featured Article                  hits before posted       hits when taken off

2011 Poland                                                1,378

7/19/2011 Research logs                             9,350                     9498

7/20/2011 United States History                  1,613

7/21/2011 Involving Children &amp; Youth in FH   645

7/22/2011Tracing LDS Ancestors                 5,780

I have no idea how to do this PLEASE any thoughts?

Dawne 17:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We'd like to feature the page view count on the archive page, not the talk page. So, how can we edit the Archive page so that more detail can be added to the daily changes in featured articles. We are tracking what the page view count was on the day the article was featured and what was the page view count on the day the article was removed from the Main page as a featured article? Since we are changing featured articles on a daily basis, the Archive page should probably be changed to a daily view of what was featured on a given day. --Fran 15:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Featured article committee
Please would someone consider making one more section in the Featured Articles so the committee could be added. Dawne 14:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Dawne, I took your comment to mean, an extra section in the FA navbox Featured content. I have therefore added a new link to the FamilySearch Wiki:Featured Article Committee to that navbox. If this was a wrong interpretation, please let me know. --Steve (talk | contribs) 15:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Set the bar higher?
I don't mean to be disrespectful regarding the hard work contributors have put into the Find A Grave article, but how exactly does this article meet the specifications set for a featured article?

Juxtaposing this article against other featured articles like New Sweden or Maryland History, I see such a wide gap on so many levels that I'm baffled why we'd indicate that they're on the same plane. If an article like Find A Grave can achieve Featured or Bronze status, it seems like we may need to figure out how to set the bar higher for Bronze status.

To Feature an article is basically saying "This is among the best of the wiki." The Find A Grave article is simply not the best of the best. Unless someone can skillfully defend how it meets the specs set forth in FamilySearch Wiki:Featured article criteria, this page's Featured status should be removed. RitcheyMT 21:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank You
Find A Grave has been removed, much thanks for saying something. Also a note about that has been added to the Research Forums Dawne 22:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Please Help
I am so sorry that I have made a mess of the Archive page. If you can, please fix. thank YOU!!!

joy Wyzer17 00:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. --Steve 06:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Featuring Help Pages?
I don't understand why the wiki has featured Help:Talk Pages. I thought the point of Featured Articles was to market the wiki -- to direct new customers to the best genealogical articles the wiki has to offer. Help pages are for wiki contributors -- veterans who make up about 1% to 5% of the user base of any social media site. Why would we use prime real estate on the home page to direct customers to a type of page that only 1-5% of the user base would ever care about? That would be like eBay using a SuperBowl ad to direct people to their Sellers' Guides. RitcheyMT 14:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Good to see you Michael. It probably isn't a surprise that I disagree here (being in the 1-5%). If you don't have contributors, and don't provide teaching tools for them, I wonder how long you would have new "customers." There are still 2 articles posted featuring genealogical articles, this isn't replacing that, it is showing users, of all types, that we have a comprehensive, well developed help content should they need it. In addition, there are a number of features in the help content that are beneficial to a user who never intends to contribute, such as Getting Started in the Wiki (Wiki Basics), Watching a Page, User Preferences, Searching, Community Resources. I think there is room for both on the Main Page. My kudos to the team that has been keeping up with these articles. There is always something fresh and new on the front page, they seem to be looking for ways to display everything the wiki has to offer, as well as meet expectations everyone has for what they should be doing. (when to notify contributors to a featured article, what articles to feature, etc). evancol 15:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)