FamilySearch Wiki:Council liaisons

Liason meetings: Bi-weekly on Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m. on alternate weeks of GS-WAC and Community Council. Click to join the meeting, 9:00–10:00 a.m. Wednesdays'''(Mountain). Meeting ID: 0424, click '''

Liasons: 4/24/2013: David Dilts (Username=DiltsGD), Lynda Avery (until May 2), Wilma Adkins (username=AdkinsWH). New liason for Support (May 8) is Robin Foster (Username=SavingStories) (instrumental with getting our presence on Facebook, blogger, etc.) replacing Lynda Avery.

Purposes:


 * Transparency: Making an effort to be open about activities in order to avoid surprises and duplication of effort.
 * Improved communication: Each group needs to know what is going on with another group. Also the community.
 * Collaboration: Hope to generate synergy, pool ideas, work together on projects.

We review/understand/ minutes from Support, GS-WAC, and Community Council and report back.

19 June 2013
Community Council - Wilma Adkins
 * Reviewed Community Council minutes June 12

Support - Robin Foster

GS-WAC - David Dilts
 * Cancelled indefinitely
 * Reorganization

5 June 2013
Community Council - Wilma Adkins
 * Reviewed Community Council minutes 29 May
 * Encouraged: when pasting from Wikipedia or Genuki or any other source, include the reference. In general, it is not the best practice to paste large blocks of materials from another site into the Wiki.

Support - Robin Foster
 * Invitations were sent to moderators re:Thursday meeting. Some responses - some with status questions.
 * Lessons for volunteers, feedback given
 * New volunteers: emailing, staying in contact
 * GPlus communities - hangout, lessons recorded, etc.

GS-WAC - David Dilts
 * Cancelled last week
 * Strategy pages by US/Canada: explaining in detail for how to find BMD for each state. Each one has already created at least one state page. User test them (a relative or someone), finish by end of July.
 * Suggestion: reinforce people before they start an article, search for similar pages, link, strengthen.
 * Wouldn't we want every page to be written in a way that the core concepts are contained there. Not a links dumping ground and it needs to be how to help people do their genealogy
 * Columbia, South Carolina page - town pages give places for many more people to contribute. Such as local librarians, invite them to contribute. Historical, museums, archives. Promote their collections and help users

22 May 2013
Community Council - Wilma Adkins
 * Reviewed Community Council minutes 15 May

Support - Robin Foster
 * User page changed as above
 * Exciting week: Robin's stewardship is volunteers; has been in contact with them including "submit Content" has __ items that are being added; people with more expertise - would they like to accept this assignment?; many beginners, yet many are wanting to serve many hours per week; training lessons; recording their assignments (google spreadsheet) and monitoring  (watch the pages) their contributions; getting them under the stewardship of the moderators; they are responding very well to their assignments;
 * Until they become comfortable with doing more on their own.
 * The ones contributing to a foreign country in English, encouraging them to contribute same content on the foreign language site
 * Holding pattern on moderators - getting the new volunteers in place, then going to activate the moderators to assume responsibilities
 * Creating a Google community for moderators so they work together.
 * Dennis Knox and Howard Camp have direct responsibility for moderators
 * About half-way through consultation process - giving them a small assignment so they are not inactive so we don't lose them.
 * Also the training lessons are being written -- they will get them once a week. They will also be on the Wiki in the near future. Also receiving feedback from them, from Support Team, and from moderators for effectiveness and clarity in prep for putting on the wiki

GS-WAC - David Dilts
 * 2 main topics 16 May: 46 volunteers world-wide- 10-20 hours/wk; many interested in the already well-populated states - wanting to get them populated
 * SEO expert Luiz Bonilla: to improve the optimization -- asked for a county template to apply to all counties in US and Canada. Take to community and moderators before project
 * Suggestions on a specific county: put a key word everywhere on a page -- Google ends up penalizing, such as if every heading had "Boston Massachusetts." Suggest Capitalize the word Genealogy.
 * The suggestion from the Community Council to add the county at the end of each link would end up in penalizing by Google and perhaps other search engines, per David's understanding.
 * Certain things on a page that do not show up on a google search: probably what is in a table will not show.
 * Most important factor by far is the title of the page. The first 154 characters of text are very important to ranking. Other areas affect: links to other sites and links in from other sites; also how many are linking from Facebook, Twitter, etc.
 * Can affect google searches by selecting best key words. Genealogy is the best. Get a tool that will neutralize the history of your previous searches. David, Nathan, and others are working deeply with the SEO's now on many county pages.
 * Suggested on Utah SEOs - move the county formation later - since first 154 characters are most critical after the title of the page. is what ranks above comparative sites.
 * Subtle differences - dozens of other internet sites competing for attention. When there is stiff competition for the Google link (like Ancestry, Fold3, etc.)
 * David has requested the minutes on the Wiki. This will come in the future. For now, transparency will come through this liaison meeting. Ray of hope that minutes can be posted.

8 May 2013
David excused - NGS conference. Wilma (Salt Lake City) and Robin (near Columbia, SC) got acquainted.


 * Colors -- school bus yellow, fuchia -- not appropriate - more pastel background. Moderator can suggest to the person. (is this on the Moderators' list of responsibilities?) With David at NGS, this was not fully discussed.
 * Support: working on procedures for new volunteers
 * training on different topics; on Wikitext; ongoing training; referring to materials already there, etc. Help them keep learning as they go.
 * tracking system for volunteers; info comes in on a spreadsheet tells experience (computer and genealogy); welcome letter, assessed to know where they fit best; several are signing up for 10-20 hours per week.
 * assignment by skills, location, interests; assigned to a consultant in the Library or elsewhere or assign a specific part in the wiki -- such as an article on VA cemeteries;
 * Main qualifications of a moderator: Wikitext experience; real researcher - skills in location/subject matter; good writer
 * Reviewed Council minutes for May 1.

2013 April 24
Discussed purposes GS-WAC issues:


 * Global maps -- David will ask
 * Strategy -- to help management know we are trying to reach beginners;
 * Business reports -- working on this with Janell and others
 * Wiki page formatting -- Where to place a table for beginners, and other formatting problems.
 * Metadata for Historical Records -- working on a way to generate the metadata by computer; purpose is to bring users to the pages. On the verge of that happening now, will shorten the time and make a better process.
 * Volunteer pages -- a form was put on by Support and have over 30 signed up. Some look very trained.
 * Photo uploads in Wiki: Support trying to get engineers to make it more instructive re: license, etc. -- at top of list when "new skin" problems are fixed. -- no search box, tables were a problem; wiki has so many convoluted pieces, makes it difficult. Wider screens created a lot of (wasted) blank space, images were coming up huge again.
 * Moderator things to do page: Support has made some changes to the page, have taken the questions off the page and sent them directly to the form. (Lynda did this in the last few days.)
 * Support will be sending a mass mailing to recruit moderators and contact them on a 1/1 basis.
 * Digital Online Collection pages: Pretty good for US, 3-5 European countries now have similar pages; placement on the page
 * Main goal of the GS-WAC: what are the priorities? One is to get a higher % of FamilySearch Center staff using the Wiki

Community WAC


 * Moderators and adopters need to be aware of or involved in even small projects that missionaries are doing.
 * Some projects are global -- should all of them be notified? Creating the project, then asking is sometimes unavoidable, but for the most part first contact is better.
 * Missionary projects need to heed to the information already present. Use the dispute and resolution process.
 * If it is put on the talk pages, the support missionaries patrol the talk pages and bring issues to a knowledgeable person to check them. This process calls the attention and gets them to where they can be helped.
 * Also use the email function to that person to alert them.
 * Or put it their user talk page. It must be saved twice, if they don't have a talk page, in order to bring it to the attention of Support.