Talk:User group meeting & agenda 9 December 2008

Lise Embley sent an email to Mollie with a copy to me regarding the possibility of partnering with a group in Kentucky as contributors. I think it is time to "strike while the iron is hot" with a group such as this. Maybe we don't have everything in order yet to push partnerships with outside groups, but this is an opportunity that should be encouraged, in my opinion.

Jbparker 05:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

One thought on the "what's working/not working" with the wiki user group - you might consider splitting in to two groups - users and contributors. Or better yet, consider spinning off a FamilySearch "umbrella" user group. For full time family history missionaries or church employees, it is probably clear enough the boundaries between FamilySearch, RecordSearch, new FamilySearch, the wiki, forums (which one for which purpose?), feedback, knowledgebases, etc. For the rest of us, those are all church-developed tools to help in the important work of turning hearts to the fathers. In what instances do I look for something in the wiki? When is it most effective to use RecordSearch? What datasets are available through FamilySearch (all of the old Vital Records Index sets, just some of them? which census years? IGI versus Pedigree Resource File, etc.)? If there are similar sounding databases on Footnote.com and FamilySearch, are they exactly the same information and the same index, or is there something different about them? I know the answers to some of these questions (at least I THINK I know the answers), but things are changing rapidly. I continue to lurk on the wiki user group because I learn things I haven't figured out how to learn any other way. But oddly enough, in spite of what I've learned, I now feel LESS qualified to formally contribute!

lembley