mkmurray wrote:I have to admit that I have had the exact same thoughts as Alan at times with the FamilySearch Wiki posts. Could you perhaps explain the background of the Wiki being established, its goals, and to what extent its development is internal to the Church and external to the community at large?
Thanks.
I got frustrated enough with trying to figure out what was going on with the wiki that I went to the user group meetings. I am not a member of the internal Church wiki team.
Here is my 2c.
The wiki is REALLY new. It is a new concept, and relatively new that it involves the public. The group working on the wiki has built at least one wiki site that was not public.
So the wiki team is having a hard time with its identity, and with how to best include the public. There is a LOT of stuff that goes on inside the church team, and 'privately' that the community does not see. Even the user group minutes are (IMO) cryptic and useless.
The wiki team needs to be better about making its meetings and information public. They need to help people feel included. They need to get good guidelines published so that people can contribute in positive ways.
Some of this is a bit premature. The Church team is still working out things like policy and procedure, that might not lend itself to public discussion (see the copyright info). A lot this policy and procedure is implicit carryover (again IMO) from the previous iterations, so it is common knowledge among the inner circle, but not as obvious to us outsiders.
The wiki team is working to get a webcast of the users groups available. Barring this, your best bet may be to get to a meeting in person.
They (we) also need to get better about posting discussions and guidelines on the wiki, and keeping the wiki and the forum in sync.
The major players on the wiki team are also very responsive to forum and talk page messages. You may get your questions answered that way. Of course, expanding the 'inner circle' is not a viable long-term strategy.
In short, I feel you pain, and I am trying to do something about it. If you would like help, let me know what would help you best.
Thanks
The Earl