FamilySearch Wiki:Contributors Meeting 19 June 2014

WebEx ID: 990 733 804; Join the meeting; Dial-in number: Local / International: 1-801-240-9700 U.S. Toll-Free: 1-855-537-4000; 1 p.m. Mountain time on Thursdays


 * You can join up to 10 minutes early. If you try to join the meeting at any other time, you will get an error that the meeting doesn't exist.

Business/Announcements
What have we heard about Salesforce vs. Yammer? Still a few months out. Invite people to Yammer, get used to it.

Future meetings
Shall we have a focus for each week, rather than one subject week after week?


 * Training
 * Projects, such as red links, wanted pages: around 60,000 wanted pages mentioned in the Wiki: Ones with most links are at the top; Possibly incorporate something into existing pages.
 * Tip of the week on HTML
 * types of articles needed
 * Guest speaker
 * Where to find new information to add to the wiki
 * Focus on blogs, sites


 * 1) Moderators/Adopters
 * 2) Open forum
 * 1) Open forum
 * 1) Open forum
 * 1) Open forum

Summary of Yammer

 * FamilySearch releases NEW Freedmen's Bureau Records for Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia
 * The IL State page topic column lists a topic of "Emigration and Immigration" which is linked to an article named "Illinois Emigration and Immigration." It also lists a topic "Migration" which links to an article named "Illinois Migration." The FHL uses the topics "Emigration and Immigration" and "Migration, internal." What do you think about combining these two topics and articles on the Wiki?
 * Migration is totally different. Is there another term that is clear to new people?
 * Settlers?
 * Need to minimize confusion, increase understanding
 * Perhaps not combine them.
 * Creation of county seat pages, cont'd: This is the decision the Wiki Governance Council came up with, regarding the creation of county seat pages.
 * We want to avoid the creation of many empty pages, UNLESS, we have a plan to fill those pages in a reasonable amount of time. Exceptions should be submitted for approval to the Wiki Community Council. If empty pages have already been created we should work on finding content for them.
 * Clarification is needed for roles and differences between the councils, what is the process? To be continued.

User Testing update

 * There will be a new namespace assigned, so testing can be ongoing, and results will be more transparent.
 * The Illinois page will be tested starting next week

Discussion: redirecting locality pages
The Illinois page, for example, would become "Illinois Genealogy Research" Comments from meeting:
 * Will this mean we call it Illinois Genealogy Research Vital Records? No. Illinois Vital Records would remain the same
 * Don't SEO's solve this? Marketing has suggested the page names be changed. SEO's don't have as much weight.
 * Some opposition to the idea. Wilma: Put this in Yammer to get other comments
 * Our own search engine will complicate
 * Add "How to" as well?
 * Would this change make people think they could find the names of their ancestors on this page?

How will this affect the wiki?
 * Searching:
 * Google

Wiki Support
Caleb Love
 * Usability testing of hub page
 * Volunteer committees: What types do you suggest?

Wiki Content
Review pages added or updated since new format (cont'd)
 * How to Find Illinois Birth Records - your opinion needed: valuable for other states?

Community Council Report

 * No meeting held, due to international travel, unavoidable appointments

Items to pose to Community Council