TechNet Wiki - Enter the Council

Do you know about the TechNet Wiki Community Council? Well we've been running hard for a month, and I think we're ready to tell you about some of the bag of tricks we've been up to.

First, here are the current 2013 members...

Microsoft Employees (4)

• Ed Price - Profile
• Peter Geelen - Profile
• Bruno Lewin - Profile
• Markus Vilcinskas - Profile

Observers:

• Brent Groom -  Profile

External (7)

• Luiz Henrique Lima Campos - Profile
• Peter Laker (aka XAMLguy) - Profile 
• Luigi Bruno - Profile
• Steef-Jan Wiggers - Profile
• Margriet Bruggeman - Profile
• Ana Paula de Almeida - Profile
• Richard Mueller - Profile

And what are we doing? We're working on the TechNet Wiki Community Council Areas of Focus.

The basic idea is that we're pushing forward and making progress in a lot of areas. 

I want to brag about (announce) the great things we have going in some of the areas...

1.  General Guidelines& Best Practices - Luigi Bruno
1. Luigi made this new portal to include all our articles on this topic: Wiki: Governance and Guidelines Portal
2. I linked to that article from the Home Page of TechNet Wiki.
3. Got ideas for Luigi? Leave a comment!
2.  Portal Growth - Luiz Henrique Lima Campos
1. Luiz came up with a new list of four articles to feature on the home page of the Portuguese Wiki.
2. I completed writing up the administrative process for our support team and submitted the request. They updated the Portuguese Wiki with the new recommended articles.
3. Luiz has a lot of other big ideas to improve our portals. Leave a comment if you want to help him.
3. Cross-Linking Expansion - Markus Vilcinskas
1. Markus is getting started. Leave a comment with any questions for him or if you want to help.
4. General Wiki Feature Requests and Bug Requests - Richard Mueller (& Ed Price)
1. Richard is currently updating the Wiki: Known Issues.
2. Richard is collecting feedback on what bugs are fixed in this Wiki Discussion forum thread. Please check it out and let him know when you've last seen those bugs. 
3. I've assembled the feature requests and bugs into a spreadsheet that we review with the wiki/social tools team monthly to track progress. We had our first meeting, and it went very well.
5. Spammers & Article Deletion - Peter Geelen
1. Peter has done a fantastic job getting the last three years of spam and spammers cleaned up. Thanks to all the community members who have marked the Wiki articles as spam for him!
2. If you come across any spam on TechNet Wiki, Peter's article does a great job of giving you steps to take... Wiki User Guide: Handling Abuse.
3. Eventually we'll probably retire this area of focus and focus on another area instead.
6. TechNet Wiki Featured Articles
1. No one is assigned to this area yet.
7. Product-based Community Growth (Leveraging Forums + Blogs) - Peter Laker (& Ed Price)
1. Peter added this WPF forum thread to integrate that forum with TechNet Wiki better.
2. Peter is off to an amazing start with the new TechNet Guru contest! Check out the TechNet Guru Contributions for May.
3. We're starting with contests with some of the most popular forums:
1. VisualBasic
2. VisualC#
3. SharePoint 2010 General and SharePoint 2010 Development
4. Transact SQL
5. Windows Phone Development
4. Starting in June, I hope to add...
1. Small Basic
2. BizTalk
3. SSAS
4. SSRS
5. SSIS
6. WPF
5. If you have any questions or requests, please leave a comment!
8. Wiki Ninjas Blog Planning
1. No one is assigned to this area yet.
9. TNWiki Forum Community - Steef-Jan Wiggers
1. Steef-Jan left an announcement on the Wiki Discussion forum about the Wiki Ninjas blog (this blog).
2. Steef-Jan started this forum thread to discuss connecting the forums to TechNet Wiki better.
3. If you have any more ideas or suggestions for Steef-Jan, leave a comment!
10. General Community Projects and Social Initiatives  - Peter Geelen (& Peter Laker)
1. Both Peters are getting started with their ideas on this one. Leave a comment if you have ideas!
11. TechNet Wiki International Council - Bruno Lewin (& Luigi Bruno)
1. The two "Bruno's" are getting a new council going that specializes on growing non-English languages on TechNet Wiki.
12. TechNet Wiki Advisory Board - Ed Price (& Monica Rush) 
1. I'm working with Monica Rush to get this board going again: TechNet Wiki Advisory Board
2. Leave a comment if you have any ideas or suggestions!
13. Wiki Ninja Belt Rankings - Margriet Bruggeman (& Ed Price)
1. Margriet and I are building out a new idea for a TechNet Wiki rewards system: Wiki Ninja Belt Rankings

So there you are! A lot of amazing things are going on! Let us know if you want to help with any of these individual efforts (or if you have any questions)!

   - Ninja Ed