User group meeting agenda & minutes 7 May 2008

Proposing ideas for this agenda
To propose or discuss ideas for this agenda, please use the Discussion tab above. As the meeting draws near, we will review the items proposed on the Discussions page and decide which ones should get highest priority on the agenda.

Administrative items

 * 1) Assignment of time keeper, note taker, and facilitator
 * 2) Introduction of members: 10 seconds for name and desired takeaways.
 * 3) Today's agenda preview
 * 4) Where we'll look for initial ideas to cover (feedback page and agenda discussion page)
 * 5) Where to propose items for next agenda

Information items

 * 1) New Wiki Search feedback (Mark) Is now in the Wiki forum. Will make the linking easier. Please supply as much information as possible when submitting feedback. The forums are accessible from a link in the left column of the Wiki. Search is under the Products category. Forums are pretty active. Jimmy asked about registering for the forum.
 * 2) First go to the forum
 * 3) click on the "register" link
 * 4) read the terms &amp; click register
 * 5) enter information
 * 6) user name &amp; password (advisable same as on Wiki, some time will be integrated)
 * 7) e-mail (verification of user and notification of responses from posting)
 * 8) image verification (prevent bots and spammers, may refresh image until something more readable) Thomas Lerman 20:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 9) Tech moment: how to change text of a link. (Mollie) Want to add a link in the "Navigation" box that allows "Browse by topic". Thomas Lerman 20:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 10) Top level category: The creation of a browse experience. (Michael/Mollie) This is for the ability to "Browse by topic" from the "Navigation" box. Have not had a way to do this. Currently, can look at "Special:Categories" page which shows ALL categories in a flat alphabetic list with no hierarchy. This is overwhelming and really not useful. One way to take care of this is to use a page that needs to get manually updated for the category hierarchy. This would be a huge pain. Wikipedia uses only one top-level category called "Category:Contents". If you go there, you see the next level of sub-categories. You can click on one of these sub-categories to get to the sub-categories under that sub-category, etc. Mollie has created this same "Category:Contents" to do this. It is an automatic generation of these lists as people categorize articles and categories. Thomas Lerman 20:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion items

 * 1) Editing etiquette (Michael) We have already had people disagree. How to discuss this and avoid editing wars. Use the discussion if you disagree. May be on the watch (notification) list to see when others change. If disagree with a category, can create a new category. Thomas Lerman 20:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) At what point should we market the site to family history consultants? What state should content be in? Should we invite all consultants at once or are there subsets we should target first? (Michael) To be succcessful, community sites should hit a critical mass. 1% regular contributors. Need many users. We do have issues that need to be resolved. Over 500 people in 30 minutes will bring down database . . . not ready to scale. However, okay to talk about and individually point people to it. If bring down site, more evidence that we need. However, do not want people to have a bad experience. Limit it to English and within the English speaking, what geography? What about the highest concentration of people that would contribute the most? Get the most bang for the buck? Do not the people that live in the area probably have a deeping understanding of that locality? What about the Spanish speakers? Out of time. Thomas Lerman 20:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) What are the most effective ways we can coach reluctant authors through their technical issues? (Michael) Ran out of time. Thomas Lerman 20:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Minutes
Facilitator was Michael Ritchey, Note taker was Thomas Lerman, Time keeper was [none].

Attendees
Michael Ritchey, Mollie, Anne, Sammy, Thomas Lerman, Barbara Baker, Geoff Morris, Marc Feickert, Jimmy Parker, Joan Healey, Wilma Adkins, James Anderson, Fran Jensen, Don Stringham, Jim Ison, Phil Dunn

Remote Attendees: &lt;none&gt;