On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:23:47 +0000 (UTC), Todd Carnes <[email protected]> wrote: >On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 20:55:46 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote: > >> Some people seem to only keep their family history information on such >> sites, and when I ask if we can share and compare information, they >> offer access to their online tree, where there seems to be no >> possibility of sharing GEDCOM files. Is it really as bad as it looks, or >> am I missing something important? > >Ancestry.com has the ability to import and/or export via gedcom files, >but most people don't seem to realize that. Mundia are asking for feedback on thee beta version www.mundia.com Here's what I said: The whole experience of Mundia is a bit like feeling one's way in the dark, and very frustrating. You are directed (in the dark) to a group of objects. You can feel them, and chose one and turn on the light to look at it, but when you put it back on the shelf the light goes off again, and there is no way you can know whether you have picked up the same object, or one of the others. There is no way of comparing two objects to know which is the original or which is the copy. The objects are "trees". You enter a person to search for, and are shown a list of "trees" with that person. About five of them have exactly 10542 people in them. So which is the original and which are the copies? There's no point in contacting the owner if they have just copied everything from somewhere else. There is no identifying informatrion in the list to show which is which, so once you put a "tree" back on the shelf the light goes off, and you might pick up the same one five times. The "home" page for each user is singularly uninformative. There's nothing to say which families you are interested in and how you connect to them. There isn't even a list of links to web pages where the person can give more details. The whole thing seems to be designed to encourage bad "copy and paste" genealogy. As a bare minimum of improvements I suggest the following: 1. On the user profile, allow an explanation of the main familties being researched, or that the person links to, and a space for a link to the person's web page or blog. 2. When a list of "trees" is shown, provide enough identifying information so that you can know whether you have already looked at it -- even the owner's user name. 3. Provide an easy way of GEDCOM import and export, with the export clearly showing which "tree" the information came from in the source tag. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk