FamilySearch Wiki:Contributors Meeting 18 Oct 2011

MeetingPlace ID: 7770; Join the meeting; Dial-in number: 877-453-7266 1 p.m. Mountain time on Tuesdays


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Introduce new members

 * Chelsie Woehl and Dorthy Horan

Kudos go to ...

 * Jane Colmenares

Updates and follow up

 * During an 11 October 2011 meeting of the Wiki Community and Wiki Engineers, a committee was appointed and charged to address issues related to stubs in the wiki. Our report follows; we invite comment and discussion on this forum. Items are numbered to facilitate responses to specific points . 1. We need stubs. Without the stub on the page the page does not exist. This also makes the article searchable, and easier to find.
 * 2. Changing the name “stub” is not a good idea; this would cause many dead links and things that would need to be corrected.
 * 3. Develop a system to track all stub pages, so that we can maintain them. Place them on the maintenance page sorted by date of last edit. a. Develop a template to put on a stub page that indicates it will be removed by _____ [insert a date] if content is not added. This would be accompanied by an email to the last contributor to the page of the pending action.
 * Concerns about adding a date or deleting these pages. Removing leaves no incentive to add to the page.  It could be perceived as a threat, rather than an invitation to add more.
 * Some pages were set up but never developed. Moderators and/or Adopters could be looking at Stubs and evaluating them.
 * For pages that have been there a long time, projects that are working with these pages could evaluate the usefulness of the page and put the stub template on the page.
 * How do we get stub banner removed on pages that have been developed.
 * A project could link to a list of stubs for that project so that people can see what needs to be added.
 * b. At present there is a sentence on the FamilySearch Wiki:Stub page (https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki:Stub) that seems to capture stubs. It states “Find a listing of them in the Category:Stubs.” This page is inadequate, however; it returned only five stubs (on 12 October 2011). See Category:Help stubs Category:Help stubs. We know there are many more than five. 4. Refine the criteria for removing stub labels. The present criteria just defines the challenge: FamilySearch Wiki:stub (https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Wiki:Stub) “There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub. While very short articles are likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which there is very little that can be written. Conversely, there are subjects about which a lot could be written - their articles may still be stubs even if they are a few paragraphs long. As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the article has to come down to an editor's best judgement “ We have placed this on the Forums
 * Wikipedia has a graduated template, depending on the status of the article, but we don't have the people to follow through on something like this. It could be a future project.  How do other sites handle this?
 * The community could be helpful in working with the stubs.
 * Could the contributor evaluate whether the article is needing more information or is complete, but is it ready to be used as a feature article?
 * The stub template needs to be more inviting. Would you like to help?
 * Review of short pages are probably stubs but are not identified with the template

Business/Announcements

 * Pass along cards can be mailed out. James Tanner, Lynda Avery, Dorothy Horan, Ken Knight, Linda Carver, Wiki support team,

Project Help Requests

 * Need help with your project? See a project that needs to be done? Add it here:

Improve the Wiki

 * What is the process for selecting feature articles? How do we emphasize the best?  How do we make sure less-than-best or less-than-ready don't end up featured? Lise 14:07, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A criteria is needed - could use one from Wikipedia with refinements.
 * Would be nice to have a page with articles that will be featured in the near future, so that edits could be made before it's featured. Put a comment on the Talk page so that people will be notified of the change.
 * Spam - how to get it removed very quickly - in Forums. Sometimes, there is a time lag before marked threads are dealt with.  Could there be a way that the thread is hidden until it is deleted.
 * Subpages – Clarification and possible policy change. Help:Subpages says: “By default, MediaWiki's subpage feature is turned off in the main namespace, but can be used on talk pages and user pages. See Help:Namespaces. In namespaces where the feature is switched off, any slashes (/) within a page name are simply part of the page name and do nothing special.”


 * The above paragraph seems to talk about two different things.


 * Where subpages can be used. This seems to imply that subpages are only for talk and user pages.
 * The breadcrumb trail that can be automatically generated. Should this be turned on for other types of pages? Judy 19:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * What are all the FCK editor bugs? Can someone volunteer to add them to the Known Issues page and/or the Editing Tool page?

Forums Overview

 * Be part of the solution! Make your opinions known! Post comments to an existing thread or start a new discussion at Wiki Contributors Corner forum.