[Foundation-l] Project Proposal: GlobalFamilyTree

Mon May 24 18:21:22 UTC 2004

Mav (Daniel Mayer) wrote:

>Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:

>>What I had in mind was a living genealogy reference, not so much memorializing
>>the past, but serving as a reference guide to those curious about their
>>ancestors. This goal wouldn't require a ban on content for the living, either
>>(I'd be interested in looking up my uncle and seeing "So-and-so is a consultant
>>for Whatchamathingy Inc.).

>I fear that having pages on the living would cause the creation of vanity pages
>and the use of Wikimedia resources for personal webpages. At least at first, I
>would like to ban any articles about any person still living. That still leaves
>billions of articles to write. If and when this project reaches critical mass
>and has a 24/7 user community watching the place, then we can talk about
>expanding the focus to include the living.

The format being discussed on Joel's meta page would work for the living,
since there's no room for much vanity -- not even a space for Whatchamathingy.
If we require that every page contain a link to another extant page,
then even the vain people must put in their parents or siblings --
and at that point, we're building the global family tree that Joel wants.

There is a problem with verifiability, the usual problem with vanity pages.
But of course, restricting to dead people doesn't help with that.
I suspect that we'll have to accept that either Wikimemorial or Wikipeople
will contain falsehoods that are never corrected.

>>But I agree that these projects can be merged without too much lost. As for the
>>name, I like "Wikipeople", "GlobalFamilyTree", "Wikialogy"(?), "Ancestors"(?).

>Of those, I like Wikipeople the best.

Me too!

Although in my mind, as I consider this idea, I'm somewhat distinguishing
"Wikimemorial" (mav's plan, only dead people, format like [[sep11:]])
from "Wikipeople" (Joel's plan, with living people, format like his meta page).

-- Toby