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Archiver > TMG > 2010-07 > 1278787996


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Genealogy wiki
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:53:16 -0400
In-Reply-To: <2010710133717.294212@Terry>


Terry Reigel wrote, in part:
> On the other hand, I seems to me like a great media for a
> discussion about questionable issues about a person or
> family.

Terry,

I agree that a wiki might be an effective way for multiple researchers to
collaborate on specific genealogical problems. Forum software is often used
for that purpose, with the disadvantage that finding the current shared
opinion--to whatever extent that exists--can be difficult. The current state
of a wiki page would probably make that easier. There would be some
challenges inherited from the genealogy wiki I described earlier, such as
how to organize and format sources in a manner that satisfied most
contributors. That wouldn't be terribly important in an application where
users would probably migrate the results into their personal genealogy
projects.

> Another possible application I see would be as way to
> establish contact with other researchers, not only on highly
> targeted people as I've done so far, but for your whole
> database. In other words, publish at least an outline of many
> or most of the non-living people in your project, like you
> would on Rootsweb WorldConnect. I've not done that for two reasons:
>
> 1. The inability to control how my data would be presented.
> For example, I can't find a way to add a note to the person
> page inviting others to contact me for more details, as I do
> on WorldConnect and on my "Outline" site.
>
> 2. The difficulty of making updates to add corrections or new people.
>
> While I think the first issue could be fixed by more
> development, I'm not sure the second can be. In short, I'm
> not too optimistic about the prospects of the wiki approach.

I don't think that the strengths of a wiki apply to that application
particularly well. Wikis are made to be updated, so it's probably possible
to address your point number 2, but the main strength of a wiki is the
management of contributions from a lot of people, and I don't see how that
applies.

John


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