FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Feedback

Call For Feedback!
We need your feedback! Our goal is to make wiki.familysearch.org a friendly, welcoming place that is easy for you to use and make contributions. Please leave your comments regarding the ease of use and/or contributing to the wiki. What is your experience? What challenges do you face in doing what you want to do? Where do you find help? This is the page for making comments on the problems.

To post comments for the answers you recommend, please go to What New Users and Contributors Want to Make Wiki Easier. Then, please add your "Vote" for what you feel is most urgent and important at Newbies Priorities. Experienced user/contributor feedback on early, new user experiences is also needed. This page is not placed on forums.familysearch.org to simplify access for newbies.

Written and verbal feedback already received has been posted below. Please feel free to sign your comments or leave them annonymous. Thanks! Kara aka CK Whipple 17:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Communications

 * "There's no way to know if my feedback is heard, so why bother?" I can totally understand! What if I created a page where users can view the progress of issues that have been submitted. At least you will be able to see what is in progress and the date things are finished.  Communication isn't communication if it isn't two-way.  I will do my best to get information out to you.Kara aka CK Whipple 02:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Discussion pages need to be template and threaded and make it easier to add and respond topics for discussion.
 * The wiki is not very friendly - how do you connect with other contributors or see if someone else is working on what you want to do?
 * Requests for fixes are not responded to. There is serious lack of communication.
 * You need a place on wiki for feedback.

Sign in

 * Why do we need forums separate from the wiki? And a separate sign-in?
 * Don't like having to sign in again to link to the forum.

Design / color

 * The Community Portal is too cluttered. Is it even being monitored?
 * The front page is very cluttered.
 * The colors are bland.
 * LDSphilanthropies.org has more color. It is a church website.
 * The first screen (home page) needs to be more user friendly and inviting.
 * The wiki is beige and boring.
 * Wiki is bland - it needs to look more creative.
 * The wiki needs a "Here's what you will love" opening matrix, if possible.
 * The site needs color.

Organization / navigation

 * I'm discouraged by the complexities: discussion pages on multiple levels, forums, creating columns/tables, importing images, placing signatures on a discussion page is different than doing so in forums, sandboxes, user pages, why there can't be one editing tool instead of two that do two different things.
 * What value is the wiki? It doesn't seem organized. The home page needs to be simplified, attractive and clear.
 * Home is hard to find.
 * The site is too crowded and disorganized. I have to scroll to find the navigation. Home should be on top.
 * The wiki has incomplete and cryptic information and unsure lead-in to it. Needs to open with 10-15 research categories to stimulate and direct the user.
 * Need clear meaningful categories of real interest up front. Step-by-step, simple and attractive. Don't bury links in sentences or paragraphs. The countries are good, especialy USA but general and incomplete. The map to the States is great!
 * Wiki needs to start out with a better opening. One in a country or category it gets better.
 * When I first tried to explore the site I got lost or was refused entry.
 * I had a hard time finding "Home". Most sites have it on top center or left to easily get back to the home page.
 * It's hard to figure out if something is already there.
 * Where does a particular piece of information go. It is hard to figure out.
 * Where is the 'creative' team? A real Home Page is needed to attract people to this web-site. Put buttons on there that help people navigate or find instructions on how to input their own information. In English please and not computerese! Also a 'contact' button where people can sent e-mails and have them answered!
 * For every country have a file where people can put copies of pictures in (plus the link where it was taken from), so that when they want to add a picture they can go to that file and copy and paste it instead of having to follow so many steps to add a picture - that will also assure that people can check on the copyright of that picture.
 * When you minimize your screen on your monitor, the navigation on the right side of the page (or anything that is on that side) should not disappear to the bottom of the screen where people can't find it.
 * Great application!!! Fun to use. Keep text on the left instead of RHS. Better to scroll to navigation rather than for every line of text. It's time to nail down the place naming policy. Glitz and colour are unimportant.

Search

 * The wiki is hard to use because it is hard to figure out the best way to search. Perhaps add a few tips on how to search.
 * Have to hunt for things. Can't find what I'm looking for.
 * Hard to find "how to topics"
 * It's too hard to figure out what to put in the search box without suggestions.

Contributing

 * What information can be added from where? What about copyright issues?
 * Creating columns is sooo hard. I try to avoid them.
 * I'll be honest, I feel like contributing to the wiki is boring. I have passion about genealogy but can't see how that translates to contributing to the wiki.
 * I liked how easy it is to edit what other contributors have done. But it is hard to make brand new contributions yourself.
 * Wiki needs easily creatable formats for new pages.
 * Why 'wiki-text' and not just the 'copy and paste' possibility?

Editing

 * The wiki is not easy to use and it is a complicated editing process with wikitext.
 * There is a steep learning curve to editing the wiki. Tools need to be simple. Adding photos easiers.
 * I would like to see more edit options on the tool bar and less working in wikitext. (techie person)
 * Adding to the wiki - some of it is straight forward and some of it is hard to figure out.
 * Columns - an absolute nightmare!!!

Referencing

 * It would be nice if there was a central "bank" from which we could copy and paste references when we edit. Many are used frequently and the only format that I've found is within "footnotes"--which doesn't work.

Help and training for users

 * Need to be able to connect with someone that can help me.
 * There needs to be a place for people who don't know how to do it.
 * I don't know what to put in there so I use information from others. You need a format that we help fill in. It is too hard to create it ourselves.
 * I would like to contribute but it is so hard that I resent the time I have to put in on it. People around me don't want to be intruded upon.
 * If I have trouble on other sites I write them and they respond to me.
 * We need contact with a person who knows it to help us learn.
 * The help feature on the home page needs to stand out. Currently it blends in with all of the other material on the Home Page
 * Too much training required to even start - discouraging. Needs to be 1 2 3 done.
 * You need training to use it.
 * The "Help" needs to be more visible and more helpful.
 * I couldn't figure out the rules and was afraid to contribute and break one.
 * Editing is hard. I couldn't find training or support. The wiki really needs quick guides on how to edit.
 * The wiki could use a video to help train on how to use it.
 * If I want to contribute but it is too hard, could I email the information to someone and they could enter it for me?
 * To introduce a new person to this wiki, if you are familiar with computers, this is still a problem. It takes a long time to learn how to do this program. Originally it was a little easier with the portal pages. Now, as I introduce others to this program, they still have difficulty finding what they want. A specific research problem, or area both involved.

Needs of professional genealogists

 * I'm embarrassed to suggest that my professional colleagues contribute.
 * Professionals won't be drawn to the wiki unless there are tools that we need to use.
 * Professionals want to make money and not have their articles edited. If we publish we want credit for our work.
 * Is the wiki mature enough to be valuable to people? Why would I, as a genealogist, care the wiki is there?
 * Genealogy tool like soundex, dictionaries, word lists, census forms perpetual calendar, age calculator, relationship calculator, and calendar converters or a tool for autocitations would be useful. Put all of this under tools. Need space and images more and less lists.(prof)
 * As far as foreign language research goes, other websits are more thorough like genealogy.net. Most serious contributors are outside of the USA and are not capable to contribute in English. Societies or individuals who want to contribute something usually have their own sites or contibute through societies.

General

 * You really need to dumb it down. It is like computer geeks don't know how to talk to everyday people.
 * People are intimidated by it.
 * Too complicated and circurtous.
 * Sorry, I just find it a pain to work with and postpone it as long as I can!!!