FamilySearch Wiki talk:Welcoming committee

Purpose of the Welcoming committee
At the Community meeting held on 8 September 2009 the topic of welcoming new contributors was discussed. It was decided that the community needed to be more welcoming and friendly. Starting with Wikipedia's as a basic model we need to adopt something like this, but more detailed and hand-holding.

''We need people who will act as mentors to new contributors once they've contributed a certain number of edits. These mentors would ask what kinds of things they want to contribute and walk them kindly through stylistic and scope issues. Mentors would also watch the contributions of new contributors so as to gently redirect them in the early weeks/months.''

I have made a start but would welcome other to add to, modify and refine these notes for established contributors to refer to when welcoming new contributors. --Steve 09:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Steve, I would love to be a part of the Welcoming Committee. I agree that we need to be more friendly and helpful to the new contributor. I have been mentoring some of the missionaries who are wanting to contribute to the Wiki and have discovered some of their frustrations and needs that definitely need to be addressed. Although I am very busy with content, etc., I feel this is one way we can leverage our time to get more content contributed to the Wiki. I will give this whole area of "welcoming" some thought, but if you have anything you would like to discuss with me, we can do it here or on our User talk pages.Jbparker 17:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I started working on this last month, but with the influx of new contributors following on from the invitation to add details about local cemeteries I decided I needed to get it to a point where is could be put to some use. I think there is big room for improvement and your experience with the missionaries and their frustrations will be invaluable in understanding where the rough edges are that need smoothing. I look forward to working with you in this endeavour. I think it would be best to use this talk page to discuss the issues about "welcoming". That way others can easily follow the conversation. Thanks again. --Steve 17:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)