I've used WebTrees, and WeRelate, and other software that takes Gedcom
as its basis for structuring data (which is pretty much *all*
genealogical software I think!), and I keep coming back to the idea that
it's actually a bit of a limiting way to do things. Don't get me wrong:
I see the attraction of having the software/file-format define a
structure in which to work, it makes research more organised and makes
it easier to share research. But it's not a good structure for
*publishing* genealogical information. It's a bit like using EndNote or
Zotero as the main output for a article: good for the writing process,
but should be completely hidden by the time it reaches a reader.
Genealogy should be about more than chronological lists of facts!
I used to put all my genealogical research on WeRelate (it's all still
there, apart from one or two source documents I've deleted and moved to
Wikisource I think). I got right into WeRelate, and wanted to help out
with the software side of things — and that's basically why I'm no
longer using the site. It's running MediaWiki 1.7.1[1] which was
released on 8 July 2006[2], because the genealogy parts of WeRelate were
written in as modifications to MediaWiki core (rather than as
extensions), and so it's very hard to upgrade. I thought it'd be
possible to start the process of moving all that code out of core and
into extensions, and so help get WeRelate up to the modern eara (and so
get useful things such as InstantCommons[3]). I didn't have all that
much luck with this, partly because there is just so much that needs to
be changed to fit in with how MediaWiki now does things, but also
because there is basically zero software development around WeRelate —
there's no community of programmers, working together (as there is for
MediaWiki generally).
My opinion these days is that genealogical software should do one thing
well[4], and so for instance not handle citation management or
photo/media description; these are things that have good existing
solutions and are not restricted to the world of genealogical research.
(This is also why MediaWiki, rather than WebTrees, seems to me like the
best platform for a genealogical website.) On top of MediaWiki, however,
we do need *some* sort of purpose-built software, because otherwise we'd
be duplicating things like lists of siblings on multiple pages, and
updating them would be a pain.
However, all that aside, if WeRelate were to be reinvigorated, and
software contributions were welcomed, I'd probably head back there. :-)
In the meantime, I'm (slowly) working on Extension:Genealogy[5] which
does nothing much beyond making it easier to link genealogically-related
biography articles via their infoboxes.
—Sam
On Sun, 14 May 2017, at 09:09 AM, Michael Smith wrote:
I have to say this strikes me as re-inventing the
wheel. There are
already several collaborative projects out there. My personal
preference is for
WeRelate.org, which was the first of note. (I've
been involved with them from the beginning and I'm a volunteer admin
there.) They're co-sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy
(a 501c3) and the Allen County Library, they're totally free (and
always will be), and they currently have pages for 2.8 million people.
It's one of the 20 most-visited genealogical websites. The Advisory
Board incoudes people like Curt Wicher and Fick Eastman, and also Brad
Patrick from the Wikimedia Foundation. Like WP, they use WikiMedia, so
you all know already how to do everything there. WeRelate isn't the
largest project of its kind, but we go to considerable lengths to
avoid "drive-by GEDCOMs," where people register, dump a lot of junk,
and disappear forever. In addition to uploading GEDCOMs, you can
create and modify pages by hand. Most important, the fundamental point
behind WeRelate is a single, universal shared family tree. Anything
posted there is available for everyone to see and modify (though you
have to register). There are no "private" trees, as at Ancestry and
Geni, and no one "owns" what's posted.> Michael K. Smith
On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 5:30 PM, Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca> wrote:>> I
understand the interest in creating a collaborative
genealogical site.>> The question I have
is what kind of data standard would be
supported?>> GEDCOM is widely supported, but is biased toward a specific
religious>> viewpoint of what a family *is*, and how relationships can be
described.>>
Are people aware of software like WebTrees[1], which allows many
people>> to work on shared family trees? I am not sure how scalable it
would be>> for a single world family tree. I have been running an
instance of it>> for a few years now, and it seems reasonably stable, but there
are some>> issues with the transportability of media assets (scans of
documents,>> photos, etc.) requiring manual backup.
What other kinds of software and data have been used by people
in the>> project? What kind of data product does the project envision?
Amgine
[1]
https://www.webtrees.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtrees>>
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Links:
1.
http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:Version
2.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Release_notes/1.7#MediaWiki_1.7.1
3.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/InstantCommons
4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_and_Do_It_Well
5.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Genealogy
6. mailto:mksmith1@bellsouth.net
7.
http://www.oldbooksmith.com/booksmith.html