FamilySearch Wiki:Contributors Meeting 7 Feb 2012

MeetingPlace ID: 7770; Join the meeting; Dial-in number: 877-453-7266 1 p.m. Mountain time on Tuesdays


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Introduce new members

 * Jaimie Mayhew

Kudos go to ...

 * Carol &amp; Darris for great followup on the business cards. Thank you so much!
 * Lise for her Rootstech class (will get an outline posted)

Business/Announcements

 * Infobox for Rootstech that can be added to User pages for those who attended (search for Rootstech2012 or see Janell's user page)

Style Guide Discussions

 * Need examples of formatting that was done well or not done well. Template that would not be visible to reader but would indicate that it might need attention to create a list of things that could be done better  or that is a good example.  We don't want it visible on the page to discourage the contributor.
 * Put marker in section that needs attention
 * How can template be created to glean the information, not just the title of the article. (Steve?)
 * Lise will talk to Steve
 * Use template to mark styles - for the style guide, how do we want to use this?
 * Point to good examples for style guide

Project Help Requests

 * Need help with your project? See a project that needs to be done? Add it here:

Improve the Wiki

 * British Parish Page concerns of two patrons Klk3` see https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Talk:Horne,_Surrey 1. Copyrighted material (gazetteers) are being used 2. FS Moderators “may not be aware of the extent of copyright material that has been introduced into the county of Surrey pages” 3. “...lengthy description of a place contains much which is irrelevent to the parish history...and may be quite unhelpful” 4. “To some it appears that FamilySearch staff are permitted to add copyright text extensively whilst other contributors have had material deleted and as a result local English former contributors have left the project. There needs to be a level playing field for both American Genealogists and English Genealogists and the small clique mentality which is Salt Lake City centric should not be expressed in public forum posts which promotes alienation of English contributors and those of us who are not affiliated to the LDS church.” 5. It would be helpful if “a clear indication of what the parish history should include is offered to contributors somewhere within the England page as guidance when confronted with a template under a parish history heading or a slab of copyright gazetteer text.” 6. “...the introduction of American English spellings to England pages is not well received by either English contributors or readers and would hope that English spelling would be adopted for England (and other UK/Irish pages) again guidance would be helpful.
 * Suggestions discussed for the above topic:
 * Add the copyright template to the page, but asking for more information about what was copyrighted.
 * When we hear of a copyright problem, remove the information from the page (don't worry about researching or making a judgement call)
 * Add a note to the talk page that it has been removed and if there is a reason why the contributor had permission to add it - please post
 * Encourage contributor to fix the problems with copyrighted information and not expect the Support team to do it all.
 * Pages were created by Americans, but we welcome others to fix them and fix mistakes that were made.
 * Gazeteer is out of copyright, but material is being copied from a website. Material has to be taken from the actual book.
 * Style guide would apply to this page also.
 * Style guide indicates that spelling variant to be  used is started by original contributor.  There is no requirement to use the vernacular of the particular country. This issue has been discussed in the past and Steve directed us to the style guide.  Wikipedia deals with it the same way.
 * We need to work with some of the people on the English reference desk to work with these people who are frustrated and expecting answers on the Talk page
 * We need an England moderator
 * Janell will talk to Alan Mann and involve Ken in discussions
 * FHL needs to be involved
 * Allow England contributors to change page to reflect England -type language?
 * Copyright template will show up on Maintenance report and should be checked daily

Forums Overview

 * Be part of the solution! Make your opinions known! Post comments to an existing thread or start a new discussion at Wiki Contributors Corner forum.