TNWiki Article Spotlight - TechNet Wiki Community Council: Areas of Focus

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TechNet Wiki Community Council: Areas of Focus

 

As of the year 2013, the TechNet Wiki Community Councilhas 14 members (5 internal Microsoft employees and 9 community members). There are 16 areas of focus, and each member is assigned to a different area of focus each month. The council member leads the community in that area for the month.

 

What's interesting is that you can go back to the Focus Areas in the previous months, see who was working on what, and when the new areas were added. You can click to go right to those sections:

Table of Contents

 And finally, I'll end with showing you what December looked like for the Council...

 

December 2013 Areas of Focus

  1. Guidelines & Best Practices - Peter Geelen (& Ed Price)
    • General Governance Guidelines - Identify issues and disputes
    • Identifying best content and then publishing it as a White Paper series (Gokan)
    • As disputes and issues come up, the council determines what the “rules” should be and evangelizes them out to everyone, making them official
    • For example, we had a community member publish scripts to the Wiki. Then Company #1 used the code (or independently created similar code). Then Company #2 used the code. Later, Company #1 sued Company #2 for using their code (obviously not knowing that Company #2 got the code from the Wiki and likely that Company #1 also got the code from the Wiki).
    • For example, we have a lot of people pasting in Blogs. But the content is very personal. What are the best practices around converting that content for the Wiki?
    • These are behavior-based, but many issues will naturally create Best Practices...
    • Example: We created the concept of the Other Languages section at the bottom of each article. Each language cross-links with the others, so that it’s easy to navigate between the languages. Now we need to spread this through the community a little better.
    • Example: Using the language codes in the titles on the English/regular Wiki, such as including “(es-ES)” in the title of Spanish articles. We need to spread through the community these nuances a little better (such as not to use "(en-US)" in a title).
    • Example: Using title casing rather than sentence casing or inconsistent casing. We need to spread this through the community a little better.
    • Example: Using the same fonts and font sizes (Segoe UI 12). We need to spread this through the community a little better.
    • Example: We currently have articles that use titles like, “About Hyper-V”, “Hyper-V”, “Hyper-V Overview”. Which one is right? Should we be consistent? We need to make a final decision and then spread it through the community.
    • Example: We currently have articles that use titles like, “How Do I Use Hyper-V”, “How to Use Hyper-V”, and “Using Hyper-V”. Which one should we use? The stake in the ground (made with Tony Soper and me) was that “How to Use Hyper-V” was the right one, but it would be better to decide this by the council and have various council members work toward making sure the community implements this practice.
    • We would identify opportunities like these and then work toward spreading them through the community.
  2. Portal Growth - Richard Mueller (& Yagmoth, Ed Price, Naomi )
    • Focus: The Adoption and Evangelism of Wiki Portals.
    • One specific best practice that affects navigation is Portal Growth.
    • Are all the right technologies and articles represented on the portals?
    • Do we have the best story for navigation from the portals?
    • Do we need to add more portals?
    • Should we cross-link portals better?
    • Example: We need to update all the portals with links to current content.
    • Example: We need to cross-link the portals better.
  3. Cross-Linking Expansion - Richard Mueller (& Naomi N)
    • Focus: The Adoption and Evangelism of Cross-Linking in Wiki articles.
    • Similarly, a key point of navigation for Wikipedia is cross-linking articles. Each article has a link in the first sentence to the main topical article. The paragraph expands more in an overview format, linking to more related articles. At the bottom you have the See Also section.
    • We would expand these best practices and help influence the community to use them.
    • Example: Embedded cross-link to parent topic in the first sentence of an article. We need to add these more and help lead the community to adopt this practice.
    • Example: Building out the See Also sections at the bottom of the articles. We need to add these more and help lead the community to adopt this practice.
  4. Feature Requests & Bugs - Ed Price (& Richard Mueller)  
  5. Spam, Plagiarism, & Article Deletion - Peter Geelen (& Naomi)
    • Evaluate and delete spam appropriately
    • There are other articles to evaluate whether we should delete them in addition to spam, such as test articles and duplicate articles.
    • We have built some best practices… you rename the title, replace the content with a note about spam, replace the tags with “spam” and “Candidate for deletion”.
    • The council will need to evaluate and delete the spam articles. 
    • Evaluate Spam account removal requests. 
    • This is mostly maintainance now.
  6. TechNet Wiki Featured Articles - Ed Price (& Bruno Lewin, Gokan, Yagmoth)
    • Making sure we have a plan and people for featuring articles each week on the homepage of TNWiki
    • Helping refine the plan, process, and future schedule
    • Extend the plan for other languages as well, such as the Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese Wikis
    • To do: We need to update the Chinese and Russian featured articles. This includes several steps of building small teams with those key community members (small teams for each language) to pick the best articles.
    • To do: Build a monthly process of small teams for Portuguese, Russian, and Chinese so that it becomes a self-sustaining system where they submit the featured article updates each month. Since Portuguese is so active, we can rotate two new articles in every two weeks.
    • Ed created this framework: TechNet Wiki: Featured Article Teams 
  7. TechNet Guru (Leveraging Forums) - Peter Laker (& Ed Price)
    • Is the Active Directory forum community contributing to the Wiki? What about PowerPivot?
    • Peter Laker launched a hugely expansive effort across forums... TechNet Guru Contributions - May
    • Example: Markus V's work in the FIM.
    • Example: DSForum2Wiki – this was an effort I liked so much that I wrote a blog article to figure out how it got started. Articles (which came from the DS forum). Blog explanation.
    • Example: Small Basic – I held a contest on the Small Basic blog to get some good content started. Then I blog about the resulting articles.
    • So there’s a whole world of possibilities in building and expanding communities around technologies on TechNet Wiki.
    • Example: BizTalk - Steef-Jan blogs about BizTalk + TechNet Wiki about twice a month on Sundays (lots of views). The community includes Sandro, Tord, Steef-Jan (all MVPs), and MS technical writers like Nitin and Mandi
    • We need to get into the individual forums and Microsoft blogs (MSDN/TechNet/Office) and start some Wiki competitions and efforts to migrate forum content to the Wiki.
    • Each forum should have a sticky note at the top with a discussion around adding that technogy's content to TechNet Wiki. Small Basic forum example.
  8. Wiki Ninjas Blog Planning - Ed Price (& Peter Laker)
    • Running the quarterly schedules of the Wiki Ninjas blogs
    • Starting new blogs (per language)
    • Running the Wiki Ninjas Announcements blog
    • New contests or competitions (Translation Challenge, TechNet Guru, ...?)
    • Weekly Top Contributors
    • Where do we want to take the blog?
    • How can we make it more interesting or more interactive?
    • What kind of competitions do we want?
    • Inviting people who meet the requirements to become blog authors
    • Manage any authoring requests or changes
  9. TechNet Wiki Discussion Forum Community Growth- ?
    • How do we want to integrate the forums?
    • Improve this forum: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tnwiki/threads 
    • For example, the Small Basic community uses the forums for community driven contests and discussions around games they built. We could have a lot more of those discussions about Wiki content, content ideas, best practices, and community projects (like events or contests).
    • For example, the Portuguese community uses their Portuguese TechNet Wiki Forum to collaborate their efforts and goals better.
    • How can we integrate the Wiki Blog, Wiki Forum, and Wiki together better to increase community planning?
    • Example: Forum management... Evaluating Forum Moderation needs and adding/removing Moderators, Building Forum Moderation Best Practices, and Adding Sticky Posts and Announcements
  10. Community Evangelism and Social Initiatives - Gokan (& Peter Geelen)
    • All Non-Blog efforts
    • Such as contests/competitions, events, and efforts.
    • Determining strategies around other social tools, such as Twitter (Peter Geelen owns) and Facebook.
    • TechNet TV (Gokan)
    • TechNet Wiki White Papers (Gokan)
    • Spurring each other on to proactively get involved with contests, events, and community interactions
    • Example: Social Media explorations... Should there be a Facebook page?
    • Example: Should there be any updates to the Wiki Ninjas Twitter account? Should we add authors?
    • The Microsoft Answer Community started to create Wiki pages on their platforms. On the TNWiki there is page done for consumer product (a grey line there) Can both communities help each other? (I had this discussion some time ago with Jennifer-P: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feedback/forum/fdbk_commsite-suggest/now-seeking-wiki-authors/611bd41c-a816-4084-909b-9c9e7e90b7be?page=2 ) 
  11. TechNet Wiki International Council - Bruno Lewin (& Ed Price)
    • We created an article about the steps to getting your language established as a Wiki instance: Wiki: How to Get a New Language Started or Expanded on TechNet Wiki
    • We invited the initial members to join the council. private Forum in place.
    • We created an article that explains the council and lists the members: TechNet Wiki International Council
    • We have a French Forum to test effectiveness of language specific Wiki Forums. Bruno/Yagmoth need to figure roll out plan.
    • Next step: kick-off, establish communication channels, get input on what areas members want to work on [ETA week of 8/26]  
  12. TechNet Wiki Advisory Board - Ed Price  
    • Resurrect and grow the board: TechNet Wiki Advisory Board
    • This was re-launched.
    • The Advisory Board would exist to give feedback and advice on Wiki related articles, ideas, and activities.
    • It also exists so that the MVPs own their area of content.
    • Seek to fill it with MVPs only.
    • And then the monthly task is to keep it alive and kicking; to be the liaison between the Advisory Board and the Community Council and to also gather requests and topics from the Microsoft Technical Writers.
    • Next step: Add communication tools
  13. Wiki Ninja Belt Rankings - Benoit Jester (& Craig Lussier,  Ed Price,  Margriet Bruggeman)
    • Work to execute on this idea (a TechNet Wiki reward program): Wiki Ninja Belt Rankings
    • Done: Fill out the descriptions with short and creative/fun bits about how great each rank is. Try to tie it into the requirements if possible.
    • Done: Refine titles, order of ranks, and requirements. I think more requirements can be added. Refine the weight of the requirements.
    • Doing: Identify all the rewards with dependencies. Work to create solutions/processes around those dependencies.
      • For example, one reward is to make a Wiki Ninja statue. Kurt Hudson has made some of those. See if he would be willing to make them. Identify how many people would "win" those statues. Is it too much for him? Is there a backup plan or alternative prize?
      • For example, it would be great to have one reward be that our profile lists our rank. Well, that's maybe a year's worth of meetings and jumping in hoops to get that to happen. So work must be done!
      • For example, one reward is to get an article featured in TechNet Magazine. We need stakeholder buyoff and participation from the TechNet Magazine team to make that happen.
    • Done: Work with Peter Laker to tie in the rank Requirements with his weekly TechNet Wiki Top Contributors awards.
      • For example, one requirement might be that you need the "Longest Article" award from his blog post on one of your articles.
    • Doing: After the Wiki Ninja Belt program is perfected, then it needs to be rolled out with regular blog posts announcing the progress, winners, and prizes. So we need a structure/system around announcing that. I suggest that we move toward Thursdays being a permanent day for the Wiki Ninja Belts. The Community Win idea was great, but it's become less about community stories (which are great), and more about a combination between Tuesday (feature an article) and Wednesday (feature something about Wiki best practices and solutions). So Thursdays could become a Wiki Ninja Ceremony day instead (which is actually a good transition from Community Win, since the Belt awards are community wins). So the bloggers would basically report out on a Wiki article (or two), which is tracking who wins what.
    • Done: Create a Wiki article that tracks how people are progressing through the Wiki Ninja ranks.  
  14. Collaborating with Microsoft Field Representatives - Brent Groom
    • To leverage their content and customer interactions on TechNet Wiki.
    • First Brent is working to get TechNet Wiki involved in the Field Representatives' existing community initiatives.
  15. Leveraging User Groups - Craig Lussier (& Ed Price)
    • To leverage user groups as pockets of communities (focused on individual products) who can work together on TechNet Wiki content creation and evangelism.
    • This includes a partnership with MSTC to use the Wiki to advertise MSTC and then use MSTC to help funnel user groups to using TehcNet Wiki.
    • Also will use TechNet Wiki as the home of content related to User Group info and best practices.
  16. Tag Navigation - Craig Lussier
  • Craig is developing an Azure web application to make it easier to filter across multiple tags and access the results.

 

Thanks to all our council members!

   - Ninja Ed