FamilySearch Wiki:Wikiproject Cemeteries U.S.

To do: Identify who is currently in charge of missionaries doing the project. What states have they done, spot check for accuracy. Is it ongoing? If so, perhaps we are only setting this standard for Texas, Washington, and a few other states.

Overall Objectives
The purpose of the Cemeteries U.S. Wiki project is to provide contributors a pattern and help content for adding and maintaining the cemetery tables on county pages.

Guiding Principles
These principles guide the project to provide immediate and lasting value to both wiki users and contributors regarding the Cemeteries section of county wiki pages.
 * Provide at-a-glance understanding
 * Help users quickly find cemetery records for each county and to use them effectively.
 * Create guides and patterns to for contributors update the cemetery sections of counties more easily.
 * Promote a consistent, inviting look.

Project Offerings

 * Refine a pattern or model to be copied to counties
 * Suggest a format for the [state] Cemeteries page, to help readers understand how to use the sites listed on the county pages.
 * Create a state list of cemeteries, arranged county by county. A county page will then link to it's section of the state page, rather than creating a separate page for each county. (Also standardizes links.)

Pattern or Model

 * Discuss format with community (color, heading names, placement on the county page,
 * Create guidelines (criteria for inclusion, matching both site name and order of appearance with the state cemeteries page—which can also give needed explanations,
 * Write easy-to-follow tasks (add a table to a county, add a resource to a chart, correct existing links,
 * Site-specific instructions will be needed for those that:
 * Identify counties by numbers rather than by name. We need to tell contributors the key. Also, some cities in a state may have a separate #, requiring both links to be on the chart.
 * Those that identify counties by name: how do they treat counties such as San Juan (two words). Also, are larger cities included, or will they only be found by city/town name?
 * This needs to be specific to the sites used: some just change the county name—which may work differently for counties with two names. Others use a number or other ID for a specific county.

County/State Cemeteries pages
Guiding principle: Get readers to the best cemetery sites and quickly understand what they will find by:
 * [State] Cemeteries page: 1) set the best order for this state (quantity, quality, not alpha -- this can be very subjective); 2) Tell readers if it is a list of cems, some of which are searchable one cem at a time, or is it searchable county-wide, etc.
 * Use the same titles and in the same order on the county chart. Do not list a site if it has little or nothing for that county.

Creating an alpha county list
This will be one page for the state, alpha by county, then alpha by cemeteries in each county.
 * The county sections will have a list of cemeteries, with columns identifying where transcriptions are found: online, such as Find A Grave, state sites, etc. Also identifying publications or even specific periodicals over time.
 * Where desired by contributors, the town or other area of the county can be identified.
 * During a state cemetery project, it is likely that an Excel database will be used. That process will be delineated as part of this project definition.