Some newcomers ask questions that are already apparently answered on the Help pages.
Assuming good faith, we who have been here longer realise that such newcomers haven't totally ignored the "Help" buttons but haven't actually found the right page. Or they tried "Search" on an obvious keyword but that function was having one of its bad days and didn't cooperate.
Please drag yourself away from those fascinating relatives and stimulating programming challenges for half an hour, to look at the questions you and others asked or were afraid to ask and see if you can help us oldies pinpoint the probable reason(s) for your failure to find the answers soon enough.
You may list them below as main headings with brief explanation. You may instead, or also, use the Talk page of a Help page to point out difficult parts of it and any pages it should additionally link to, and/or to offer ideas of why you couldn't find the page when you were looking for something on that subject.
Your humble though not always obedient servant, -- Robin Patterson 12:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Not knowing one needs help
Hi Robin! Erm, okay, so maybe I didn't look at the help first... but in my defense, I didn't know I needed help.
Let me explain... I fear that due to a bad rap given Wiki's by the media, there is a certain expectation that Wiki's are disorganized and ungoverned...
So I fear folks come into this Wiki not knowing they need certain kinds of help. Of course, if I couldn't program in Wiki, or had some issues with logging in, I'd go to help... but I wouldn't think that Naming Conventions is a thing I'd find in help... Indeed, I wandered off to the community zone to find the answers to that, thinking (rightfully so) that the community would have been chatting about this, and if not, then I could start the chatting (Which I did).
I think that there is a certain feeling that there is a difference between the operation of the Wiki (And Help), and the content of the Wiki (And the community)... This might simply be my feeling on the matter...
More emphasis on naming conventions
Anyway, I think the most vital thing here is naming conventions, as noted earlier in my posts in the forums, without a naming convention, two trees which should be linked could pass each other like ships in the night... I think it should be in big, bold letters on the very front page :D... Naming conventions. Everything else can be fixed by other researchers later...
I think to start, something on the Main Page, right up at the top that says something like "We love to have everyone's contributions, but please note the naming conventions before adding your trees to avoid duplication of effort!" or something like that really close to the top, easy to see. The great thing is that Genealogists are all about connecting their trees to other folks' trees (It means less work! :D), so I think most folks will be more than happy to join convention. I know it's a little confrontational, and maybe there needs to be a little rewording (I'm all for a very militant, draconian, start shooting people with lasers and whipping them sort of enforcement... but that's only because I've struggled with too many poorly kept trees in my time... thus... um... maybe you should skip that recommendation of mine... or just use lasers... :D). well... that would be about my 1 yen... Aabh 00:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Difference between operation and content
I would like to add my 2 euros to Aabh's 1 yen. Specifically I concur with Aabh's comment that there is a difference between the operation of the Wiki and the content of the wiki. I'm experiencing this very much as a newbie here. I see these kinds of help needed:
- General help about wiki's generally (i.e., not specifically about GenWikia and the use of this wiki for genealogical purposes)-- i.e., introduction to how the whole thing works, the philosophy behind it, then getting down into the nitty gritty of what the various "codes" mean.
- Using THIS WIKIA for the sharing of genealogical information-- how best to think about, set up and maintain pages to which you contribute genealogical/historical information.
- Using THIS WIKIA to FIND information about your family, history, etc...
These three types of help are very distinct, and I think y'all are doing a better job at #1 than at the other two. Or at best, you overlap #1 and #2 and it's sometimes confusing.
Jillaine 19:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
- "By Jove she's got it". Wikipedia has more than one Help category. See Wikipedia:Category:Wikipedia help - 21 subcategories(!) and 41 pages. Our Category:Help has only 9 subcategories, with 61 "articles" - over three times as many articles per category as WP has, which may be a pointer. I think we should make a more obvious or definite move in that direction. Our Help:Contents has part of such a move with its grouping of types of help, but there's clearly scope for much more of that grouping. Robin Patterson 05:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Jillaine's three types of help
Tentative headings.