Help talk:Tour

Changes to this page
I have heard comments about this Tour page and that when people get to the page, it's not what they expected to see. There is a lot of "how to get help" information here, but not enough of a "Tour" to tell you about the wiki.

I have a few suggestions so that this page can be a little more focused to what the Wiki is all about and downplay the need for getting help - after all, the Wiki is of itself a self-help tool, and we should encourage users to to use it as a researcher; you don't need that much help in the beginning. You need the help later as you get more in depth into researching your family.

That said, here are some thoughts. We'd start by breaking the pages up into four main sections:


 * Getting Started - add links to more getting started materials, search helps, etc., and reword to take away the idea that you need help from community members.
 * How to do Genealogy Research - move the “How to Research” section up higher on the page
 * Research Forums – here is where we will talk more about getting help and refer researchers to the Forums
 * Contribute to the Wiki – talk about contributing and link to the Edit/Contribute page and to the Community Center

What do you think?

janellv 23:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok all, here is a potential new version of the Wiki Tour - what do you think? --janellv 23:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I am making these changes to the main tour page now. janellv 21:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And...done! Hope you like the new sections and of course feel free to edit/add/subtract if need be. I hope this gives the main 3-4 "starting points" for these different areas/purposes of the Wiki. janellv 22:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the "LAWSON DEWITT SPRATT / TEXAS / FAMILY HISTORY" about on this page? Was this a bad copy and paste? Thomas_Lerman 23:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm sure that was a mistake... -- janellv (talk | contribs) 20:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Simplify article
I am considering how it would change things if I moved the contributor information out of this article and into another, linking from this article to that one, so that this article was mostly about research. Thoughts? -- janellv 17:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I do think this page could be broken up and each resulting new article be more specific. The top section, then articles on Research your Family History, Contribute Your Knowledge to the Wiki and Collaborate in the Wiki. I think the Tour name was chosen as it wanted to cover all aspects of the wiki. If just the beginning section is kept it would serve as a general welcome/about page with links to more details depending on a person purpose for using the wiki. --Steve 17:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I am wondering what exactly this page is for. If you are trying to help the first time user, it is very conusing and complicated. Also, why is there so much here about "contributing", when people are trying to use the Wiki for "research". The emphasis on contributing, I think should be separated from researching. People, especially non-members or those just researching, do not want nor need to contribute to these pages. What they want is a good solid guide to using the Wiki as a reserch tool. Also, why say it is for researching one's family lines when guidelines for contributing expressly say this is not a place for the placing of family lines but links to ways of researching places and records. This whole project seems to be going in several directions at the same time and is very confusing. Also many of the "videos" which should help are on youtube and cannot be viewed at family histor centers as the church blocks all youtube videos, even those put there by the LDS Church!

I am not sure any of this is really helpful to anyone. And why is the pictured "treasure map" a link to a larger picture of the same map? This seems a waste of space. Marling McReynolds Wiki trainer at the Miranda Branch, Eureka CA stake.


 * Marling, thanks for your comments. I agree that the page isn't exactly what is needed. Do you have some time to put an alternate suggestion together? We are working on a more complete redesign of the Wiki home page and creating additional landing pages, you can see a couple of examples of new home pages here:


 * Example 1
 * Example 2

Many of the pages being linked to from those two pages are new. Feel free to share any thoughts and suggestions there too, thanks. -- janellv 22:20, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

The Video Tour is 2-3 years out of date--it begins by telling people how to get to the wiki years ago--not using the present FamilySearch pages. Not only will this not help newbees get on the page, but it will confuse them. Ken Knight 04:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)