Community Meeting Agenda 10 November 2009

Be bold! Post your agenda items!
Feel free to post on the agenda any items you wish to cover during the meeting. If your item requires details or feedback, post some details on the discussion page and link to the discussion from the agenda.

Administrative items

 * 1) Assignment of time keeper and note taker
 * 2) Introduction of new members: 10 seconds for name and desired takeaways.
 * 3) Review of Minutes
 * 4) Today's agenda preview

CID link issue
I'm just curious about the state of the CID link issue on the informational wiki pages for FamilySearch collections. The discussion had good options but I've not heard or seen if any decisions were reached. Laralee 18:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not know the current status, or if a decision has been reached. I'll look into in and report back next week. In the mean time, maybe someone else knows the answer to this question. Fran 20:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Techie Skunk(s) Wanted
I chatted briefly over e-mail with Chris Hadley, one of the developers of WikiHow, about the Spotlight Articles frame they have on their home page. I told him we're interested in implementing something similar, but we're struggling to schedule the engineering time to do it. He said there's a template-based version they implemented on German WikiHow that we may be able to implement without any engineering cost. Calling all techie skunks: could any of you take a look at this template-based implementation and tell us how hard it would be to do on our wiki? Maybe even implement the thing on your user talk page and demo it next week? Ritcheymt 20:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not able to attend todays meeting in person, and I don't know German but it looks like they are using the #ifexist parser function to only produce a link to an article that has been created with the current date included in full article name. This is similar to how Wikipedia produce their main page content. They use the built in magic words 2024, August, 27 whereas wikiHow use the #time function. Both sites duplicate content into a new location, which is then transcluded into the main page. I do not think it would be hard to develop a template to transclude the data to the main page, but it would require someone to choose which article to feature and to create the spotlight version. I would suggest to begin with, it should be an "Article of the Month"? --Steve 17:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yorkshire category mess
Laralee and I took care of the category mess, straightening and putting where each link belonged in. Somebody has to do it. dsammy 07:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you Fran 20:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Feedback Needed
We need your feedback. You guys are technically brilliant, but take a moment to see through the eyes of newbies. Genealogists that only use a computer because they have to! Our goal is for wiki.familysearch.org to be a friendly, welcoming place that is easy for newbies to use and make contributions.

I have two questions:

1. What would help create a connected community for new genealogy users/contributors when they come to the wiki?

2. What would make the wiki more user friendly, easy to understand, easy to find help, get for genealogists to get involved and to use/contribute?

Please share your ideas and comments. What is your experience in inviting new users/contributors? What challenges do they face in using and contributing to the wiki? What would make it easier for them to find help?

If you have additional comments, the following three pages have been made available for feedback. Note, I have already entered feedback from surveys, meetings and verbal interviews.

1. Challenges Facing New Users This is the page for making comments on challenges newbies have encountered (the complaints page).


 * I can say about some of the comments, some are unbelievable. Training too long? Took me poking around to find basics in less than a week. dsammy

2. What New Users and Contributors Want to Make Wiki Easier This is for discussing ideas that will make the wiki community feel more like a community and making it user friendly.

3. Newbies Priorities was created to post the few ideas that are most urgent and important for promoting ease of use and a community atmosphere.