I think we can all agree that most Wikis are rubbish in the medieval period, that this is due to poor "management" and too many "copiers without understanding and "importers of gedcoms". The question is whether the response is to create a new "pure" wiki project or to try and improve one or all of those already available (in which case there's the question of "which one?"). My basic hypothesis is that for those who are interested in sharing what they know (i.e. not Denis by the sound of it), the second route makes more sense. This is not to denigrate those who want to retain control / ownership of "their" work, merely saying that almost by definition, they are not likely to find the wiki ethos of "intellectual commons" congenial. Having said that, the history of trade and intellectual property rights shows that generally knowledge expands fastest when barriers are lowest, which brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people. I assumed when I joined the group that its main reason for existing was to share knowledge: something I'm all for. In that regard it's ironic that the two posts I've made asking for information / guidance on specifics have not received a single post in reply... However, this thread seems to be generating more heat than light. So, to turn Denis' question round: why would anyone outside its existing "community" want to contribute to this board? Regards James

On 30/06/16 11:02, WJH wrote: > I think we can all agree that most Wikis are rubbish in the medieval period, that this is due to poor "management" and too many "copiers without understanding and "importers of gedcoms". > > The question is whether the response is to create a new "pure" wiki project or to try and improve one or all of those already available (in which case there's the question of "which one?"). > This is jumping to a conclusion that a wiki is the best format. The original proposal was for a fairly simple list of people. Wiki is no longer alone as a means of building collaborative data structures and for something which is essentially a list, of even a collection of lists of related data from different types of document, it might not be the most appropriate, it's simply that it's the one which is probably most familiar to those in this group. It might be a boring, old-fashioned ITer's approach to development but it might be best to start out deciding on scope, then on requirements, then on the data format that the requirements dictate and finally work out how to put it on line. -- Hotmail is my spam bin. Real address is ianng at austonley org uk

On 6/30/2016 5:02 AM, WJH via wrote: > I think we can all agree that most Wikis are rubbish in the medieval period, that this is due to poor "management" and too many "copiers without understanding and "importers of gedcoms". This statement is very misleading, unless you replace the word "most" by "all". If you disagree, it would be interesting to know of a genealogy Wiki that is not rubbish for the medieval period. Personally, I would be unable to identify an example even if the qualifying words "in the medieval period" were removed. > The question is whether the response is to create a new "pure" wiki project or to try and improve one or all of those already available (in which case there's the question of "which one?"). > > My basic hypothesis is that for those who are interested in sharing what they know (i.e. not Denis by the sound of it), the second route makes more sense. In my opinion, it is unlikely that the second route will ever lead to anything better than "not quite as bad as it used to be." Even if it were possible (which would require a method that corrects errors faster than they are being introduced), the labor involved in cleaning up these messes would be much more than just starting from scratch. Of course, no large project could ever be error-free. However, the only reasonable way of producing something of real value is to keep the number of errors to a minimum from the very beginning. Whether a new VERY strictly managed "wiki" or something else is the best way of doing this is unclear. As has been pointed out, any such project would need to attract knowledgeable genealogists. In my experience, the better genealogists do not particularly care for the "cleaning up other people's messes" approach to genealogical research. > This is not to denigrate those who want to retain control / ownership of "their" work, merely saying that almost by definition, they are not likely to find the wiki ethos of "intellectual commons" congenial. > > Having said that, the history of trade and intellectual property rights shows that generally knowledge expands fastest when barriers are lowest, which brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people. > > I assumed when I joined the group that its main reason for existing was to share knowledge: something I'm all for. In that regard it's ironic that the two posts I've made asking for information / guidance on specifics have not received a single post in reply... However, this thread seems to be generating more heat than light. > > So, to turn Denis' question round: why would anyone outside its existing "community" want to contribute to this board? Its not just about "ownership" rights, but also (and more important to me) in taking pride in one's work. I have already seen too many cases where someone has copy-pasted my work and then butchered it in various ways. People doing higher quality work might be less reluctant to contribute material to a project managed by individuals competent to deal with such material. Stewart