On 3/07/2016 1:49 PM, Andrew Lancaster via wrote: > Dear Peter > > > This misses the point that the value of the Henry Project is largely > that it does not rely on "sources like Richardson and Complete Peerage". > > No, in fact I think you might be missing the point I was making. I am > saying that something like wikitree is not aiming at the same thing as > something like the Henry project. I am trying to say there is an apples > and pears problem in the discussion, because there is assumption which > keeps slipping back between the lines that there is only one worthwhile > aim in online genealogical collaboration. Works like Complete Peerage > are useful to even the best genealogists for example, because of how > much they bring together. I'm not missing your point - this was made clear enough when you wrote: "Projects like the Henry project can also help improve other online collaborations as a source itself (properly cited and all that)." My point is that if the Henry Project is the current gold standard of online medieval genealogy, and if the proposed wiki aims to match its quality, then Complete Peerage and Richardson's works should be considered at most as aids to research of primary sources but not "sources" in themselves. The fudging of definition on this is as unhelpful as calling the wiki community in itself a "wiki". > Most genealogists are unable to achieve anything like the Henry > project's aims, or to find flaws in Complete Peerage, but many try to > perform more menial tasks that they would think still achieves something > positive. The aim of the most massive online collaborations is to > organize pre-digested information, which is largely having to come from > somewhere else. Wikitree and similar projects often describe themselves > as having the aim of putting together in one place, with all the > software tools, a single family tree which links all family trees. As > information is accumulated on to such a platform it can be played with > (read and absorbed) in ways that were not possible before computers > developed to the level existing today. > > You are correctly pointing out that any such project will never be > better than whatever other sources it cites. Right. That is why, once > you solve the various other problems we have discussed such as proper > citations, no gedcom uploads, such projects can be better or worse in > different periods and different families depending on what types of > sourcing is available, and indeed what types of volunteers are > available. (You keep asking for an example of a good wikitree article > for example, but in a way the question is meaningless, because you or me > can literally go and make what we consider to be one right now and say > "look". The more interesting questions are what that SHOULD look like, > and whether it will stay that way. Any project can set whatever aims it > wants. Some might have silly aims, and some much more impressive.) I think you are confusing two different people - I am Peter Stewart, while this part of your response is evidently addressed to Stewart Baldwin (I have not asked for an example of a good wiki - indeed, the existence of such a thing has not entered my head). > > But, just in case you are wondering, Wikitree does not forbid original > research like Wikipedia does. It is possible to cite primary documents > and "correct" a respected source. Richardson and Complete Peerage are > respected partly because they also explain their sourcing (maybe not > always perfectly), which is as we all agree very important for such > large scale collating work. Richardson is not universally respected - very far from it outside the transparent bubble of his admirers - in part because his works do NOT consistently explain the sourcing but rather dump lists of authorities (some of which he demonstrably has not studied) without specifying what information has been drawn from these. As countless SGM discussions have shown, much is taken from the far too many obsolete secondary works that he habitually wallows in and/or filched without citation from the work of contemporaries. Peter Stewart