Home page placement[]
One of the axioms of web sites is that they should always look fresh- like there is always new things there, and some glimpse of the depth of the site is made available to "sometimes" visitors.
We can do this right away by setting up a rotation of featured articles like what is done on Wikipedia's, WikiQuote's, or Commons' main pages.
I propose that anyone that wishes to participate should place a list of articles they think would be of interest on their User pages. Then we can set up some rotation scheme for the content. After the list is exhausted, it will rotate. I don't think it should be about famous dead white guys, but more obscure relatives- maybe with some slice of microhistory- like a WWII war story, or a diary entry about a day in the life on a pioneer farm in Nebraska in the 1860s. They should have at least one picture (eg if no picture of the relative, for 1860s farm, then upload a picture of a typical Nebraska farm or town in the 1860s.)
The subtext message to the visitor is that their interesting relative could have their name in lights too. (That is, if they took the time to contribute).
Unrelated note- I shall be away for two weeks starting tomorrow- Happy Holidays everyone! ~ Phlox 17:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
- It's a great idea. Perhaps call it "Person of the day." -AMK152(Talk • Contributions 03:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
- It is a good idea, and we are perhaps ready for it because of our number of active contributors (as evidenced by the Wikistats linked at Special:Statistics). (Psychology Wikia started something like that when there were really only two or three active contributors, and one feature remained for months.) Listing on user pages seems a bit obscure; I suggest a page called Project:List of possible featured articles, where any contributor can add a link to two or three (maximum!) of their favourites, and we can vote on them - same sort of process as used for the Featured Wikia and Collaboration of the Month at Wikia Central. Robin Patterson 14:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps this? Genealogy:Featured articles. Simply name of the page. We can list all the information there and have the proposals on it too. -AMK152(Talk • Contributions 22:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
- Hello. Have you seen the suggestion for a Featured Article System on the Inside Wikia? Angela (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you, Angela. I've adapted that and one of the examples. See Category:Featured content. Robin Patterson 10:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
- No longer relevant - new wiki. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:12, December 26, 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, Angela. I've adapted that and one of the examples. See Category:Featured content. Robin Patterson 10:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Article assessment[]
Wikipedia has an article assessment system in which articles are assessed based on the chart. These articles are categorized by such, and the actual assessment is given on the page's talkpage. The statistics is gathered by a bot and placed in a table, a log, and a chart. Perhaps this may be a good idea to use for articles here, especially since there are many people out there and an assessment would be great to have in order to improve articles and show which articles have a lot of information. We could even make our own assessment process, rather than just using FA, A, GA, B, Start, and Stub, perhaps even more detailed assessment. Any thoughts? -AMK152(Talk • Contributions) 22:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm going to start this. We may not have a bot (yet), but we have categories. I will create a template that can be place on the talk pages of articles of people. The categories will categorize them (Featured, Good, A, B, C, Start, Stub) and we could come up with the criteria for each rating. As the ratings reach A and B, they could be come Good or even be featured on the Main Page. However, before we go and start the featured article section on the main page, we would at least need a list of articles to start as featured. We can start the featured article thing once this system takes off. -AMK152(talk • contribs) 22:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
- We have at least two bots.
- Good idea to create a template, but with our current megabyte size and contributor numbers I doubt if we need anything like the number of ratings WP has.
- Robin Patterson 09:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Let's get this going[]
Okay, we've talked about this and come up with methods and such. Anyway, here is what I propose. Since Genealogy is the study of family history, and the family members are the main part of the study, we should stick with featured person of the day for now. Wikipedia has in addition to featured article, picture, list, etc. We can apply featured places, and featured lists (such as cemetery listing transcript,s census transcripts, etc.) but for the main page, we should stick with people. I propose that from now until the end of this year create a list of the 365 best people articles at Familypedia. One for each day of 2009. We can list them at Genealogy:Featured articles. Then, each of them will be featured on the Main Page daily. 3 months is plenty of time to come up with that list. It will make the front page more appealing, and when people read the featured article, it could encourage them to seek out their family history and/or contribute to the wiki. In 2009, we can come up with 365 articles to be featured for 2010. As we get this system going, a strong assessment system will develop, and by 2010, there will be more articles, more research, and more uploaded documents, thus better featured articles. -AMK152(talk • contribs) 23:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
- We got one page on the list in 9 months. And you don't want that page. You haven't added one. All of our other 300 members haven't added one. Who's going to get a list of 365 in 3 months? And have you got the bot ready to change them once a day? (Maybe "Article of the Week" would be a more realistic goal for 2009.) Robin Patterson 05:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
System improving; now needs "votes"[]
There's a list at Familypedia:Featured articles. User:AMK152 has been beavering away without much support from the rest of us. The list would last a few months, but it should be longer and there's little guidance to selection. Time for a few other contributors to look through the list, examine a few articles, and add an evaluation for each one examined. I've done a few — didn't look at them all.
Three or four reviews from each of our regular contributors could give the organizer more confidence. Add a few new items to the list: no reason not to include your own for others to evaluate!
— Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Progress by Christmas 2016[]
One of our rising stars has added a few suggested articles. Our featured article has not changed in about the last three years. System worth reviving, I think. Change at least once a month if we can. However, the current semi-automatic setup provides for weekly updates, so maybe we can rise to that challenge. We do, after all, have over 50,000 SMW-based person-articles! (To see whether an article has been featured, see Familypedia:Featured articles/Archive or (when that gets to be lengthy) check "What links here" to see if the article is on that page. Maybe we should also have a marker on the page - as suggested above? - to show that the article has been featured.) -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:12, December 26, 2016 (UTC)
2017[]
OK, 5 weeks later, I've tweaked then promoted Hannah Dustin (1678-1732). -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:48, January 28, 2017 (UTC)
Ten months - time for a change? Who's got a new favo[u]rite article? Don't be shy: check that it's really above-average quality then substitute it for what's there. -- Robin Patterson (Talk) 10:50, December 10, 2017 (UTC)