User group meeting minutes 27 January 2009

= Minutes =

Facilitator was Michael Ritchey, Note taker was Jimmy Parker.

Prayer by Michael Ritchey

This week, there are now 6,476 registered users of the FamilySearch Wiki. That is an increase of 285 new registered users over the last 2 weeks.

Attendees
Michael Ritchey, Mollie Forbes, David Crowther, Jim Greene, Kip Enger, Barbara Baker, Diane Loosle, David Dilts, David Samuelson, Sister Felsted, James Anderson.

Remote Attendees
[Michael Ritchey], {Anne Roach], [Mollie Forbes], Fran Jensen, Thomas Lerman, Jimmy Parker

Items Discussed

 * There was a brief discussion on the need some users are feeling for more communication. Jim Greene has offered to provide a brief summary on progress being made from management's perspective. Michael Ritchey provided a report on the Maryland barn-raising. There have been several new sign-ups for pages for Maryland. A lot of new work has been done on War of 1812 records under the Maryland - History page, for example.
 * Jim Anderson brought up the transfer of forms from FamilySearch.org to the Research Wiki -- forms such as census abstract forms -- in a way they can be edited and printed. The whole subject of the transfer of forms is being discussed in other committees right now, outside of the user group. The transfer of register information also was discussed (see FamilySearch Library Registers as an example).
 * Michael Ritchey also reported on progress on adding information about a help page about tables. Efforts are underway to provide a way to create tables, sith sortable columns, etc. More will be coming on this.
 * Mollie Forbes provided a demo on ways of doing "News and Events." She has created a template to assist in adding news and events to the main page for each state (see Maryland for an example). The format for adding this information on the state pages includes a "more" and an "add" link. The "add" link takes the contributor to the template to add news and events. Michael suggested that users will need to provide input on how we suggest this be done, as we move forward.
 * Mollie also provided a demo on image map input into the Wiki.
 * A question was asked about moving the navigation bar back to the left. That is still waiting for the FamilySearch.org design team.