FamilySearch Wiki talk:WikiProject Improving the Help content

Grouping Wiki Help and Research Help
One of the sections within this project talks about separating Wiki Help and Research Help. I think this is a good idea. The wiki help articles should also be in the Help namespace whereas articles about Research Help should be in the Main namespace. --Steve 10:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Notes Field is Needed
We need a notes field added to the table. So far the table identifies the Help content pages and also some fo the FamilySearch Wiki content pages that are related to help. Nothing on the page allows for communication related to what kind (if any) of editing or updating is needed in order to "fix" the content on the Help page. A comments or note field for every line item would resolve this need. Thanks, -Fran 16:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We didn't create an area for suggestions/comments as this page was simply to track the progress of the project, what pages we were going to redo and who had signed them out to work on them, pages that had been created but had no content as well as any new pages we created as a result of this project. We had planned on any ideas/suggestions for a page be placed on the Talk Page for that page. That way, all users would find it, as opposed to only those who knew this Improving the Help Content page existed, and the discussion around changing that page would be linked with the page itself. If you see any reason this plan won't work, let me know evancol
 * That will work and is actually the best plan I think. I didn't see instructions anywhere on this project page that explained this process, so will everyone working on the project be taught to look at the Talk pages before proceeding with the edits? This will be a good usage of the Talk pages, so I'm excited to see it progress. Thanks for all that you are doing to help! -Fran 16:05, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Section headings
Can we have section headings added to this project page? There's a lot of content on the page and I think it would help to see how it's organized if we had a table of contents instead of having to scroll the whole page to see what's there and what's not there. I'd be glad to add the headings, just let me know. --Fran 16:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Research Help
I don't understand why "research help" is listed here as part of this project for improving the help content.The research help is listed under the section: CURRENT HELP CONTENT. The two projects are totally separate - one for help using the system and one for help with getting started in your research. The support team is not responsible for writing the research help content, which is everything in the Main namespace. So, I need some help with understand the line of thinking here. Thanks! -Fran 16:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Those 3 research help articles should probably be removed. They were added because they were part of a table that talked about User Help. janellv 04:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

FamilySearch Wiki Namespace
Editing of content that resides in the FamilySearch Wiki namespace should be a different project. The majority of the pages that reside in the namespace are not Help content pages, but instead are pages that explain the project itself (the FamilySearch Research Wiki project). If there is anything in the FSWiki namespace that is truly a Help content page and not a project-related page then we should discuss the issue on the Talk page and possibly move the page to the Help namespace. Or it's possible that an associated Help page needs creating and then linking between the two. Any editing that might be needed on the project pages should be done via the Talk page. The section of this page that is entirely linked to FSWiki project pages is bordered in a pink color. I'm going to sign my name to each item so I can be closely involved with this effort. Thanks! --Fran 16:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * See the clarification I added to the page about what the review of the FamilySearch Wiki review is all about. I hope that makes more sense. This is not to change things in those artilces, but as has been mentioned, many FSW pages were created back before it was well understood what the difference was between the FSW and the Help namespace. This is nothing more than a check to see that there is not Help information in those FSW namespaces, to create Help information for them when needed, and to check to see that there are maintenance templates where needed for policies. janellv 04:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think content should be removed from the FSW project/policy/guideline articles after only a week of waiting for discussion. It's taken a lot longer to change headings on county pages, and that doesn't even affect the policies. So a week is too short. --Fran 20:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The FamilySearch Wiki:Policies/Proposed enhancements article documents what the procedures were for policy and guideline issues, plus identified if there was a template (aka flag) already created; if there was a help article; and what category(s) were needed or in place for the policy. Each of the tables could be revised to change the word "Flags" to "Template" and we may know what the categories are and can populate that information. We also tried to identify what "Role" in the wiki was required in order to act on the consequence based upon the policy. (If deleting was needed, the person has to be an administrator). --Fran 21:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the confusion, the idea isn't to give things only a week for the entire discussion. The idea is to give it a week to see if anyone has any concerns about it. If no one comes in to discuss in a week, then action could be taken. If discussion is happening, then it will wait as long as the discussion needs to take. Does a week still sound too short for that? We could give it two if need be, we just want to be able to take action if no one raises concern after a set amount of time. And thank you for the reminer about that link, that is very helpful. I knew about it at one point in time but had forgotten it was there. -- janellv (talk | contribs) 20:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I still think a week is too short. Considerations such as vacations, sick days, assignments, etc. When it comes to policy pages, I think we should be more thorough with the communication. In most cases I think the communication will be easy and quick, but for those times when it take a while to reach everyone, we should allow for that up front. Have you looked at the timing of policy discussions on Wikipedia? I'm just curious about their timing for things like this. I've seen how they have used Bots to auto-manage many communications and if issues are not acknowledged or replied to within a specific timeframe, then the issue is automatically removed from the list of things to do. Managing this wiki is going to get harder, so keep in mind how a Bot could help and I will get it on the backlog. --Fran 20:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC) PS: I like what you've done with your signature by adding links to your talk page and contributions. Good idea. Assume those links are manually added?


 * Ok, it can be longer, I can see changing to two weeks. I really don't want things to drag out forever though because then they don't get followed up on. And things can always change back. I haven't looked at Wikipedia timing..that's interesting that they just remove those things.
 * About the signature, there's something you add to your preferences to make that automatic, I'll see if I can find it and send it to you... -- janellv (talk&thinsp;|&thinsp;contribs) 20:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)