Ideas for connection game improvements? [closed]

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

This is for those of you who have participated in Connection Combat, or considered doing so.

The game has been going well. It's been giving members a new reason to explore profiles, think critically about sources, and communicate with other members. These are core WikiTree activities that help improve our tree. So, we want to keep doing it. The question is, how can we increase participation? How can we make it more inviting and accessible to less-experienced WikiTreers?

With this in mind, what do you think about the following ideas?

Name Change

We may want to drop the military metaphor.

One possibility for the new name is "Connection Checkers." The idea isn't to change the game so it's more like checkers (aka draughts). The "checkers" here would refer to us checking connections.

Simplification

If the rules and instructions were simpler, more people might participate.

We're thinking about dropping the stuff about "WikiTree Weevils" so it's only about checking sources to confirm connections. Adding dates and locations and improving biographies is important work, but it adds complication.

One Notable

Also in the interest of simplification, it's been suggested that we just focus on connections to one notable per week instead of two. There would no longer be teams. Members would just compete to have the shortest, longest, or first verified connection.

Utilize "Confident" Relationship Status

After you have verified that there is a reliable source for a relationship, we might recommend using the Confident Relationship Status. (Relationship Status can't currently be set for spouses, but this is on the to-do list.)

This would be a way to track progress, and it could enable developers to do some interesting things in the future. Ales is already working on adding a feature to the Connection Finder that enables you to find your most confident connection to a person in addition to your shortest.

Create Easy Way to Show Progress

Advanced members have developed methods for showing the steps in their chosen connection path and when they've been verified, like David here.

We should be able to make this easier. Maybe we could ask Ian Beacall and the WikiTree Browser Extension volunteers if they could create a feature that would store a path, let you mark when a step has been verified, and easily copy-and-paste your progress into G2G.

Create Easy Way to Ask for Help

One of the best things about our community is how members help each other. WikiTreers in G2G and Discord are incredibly generous with their time and research abilities.

Sometimes new members don't realize how well-received a polite request will be, or they just don't know what question to ask. A good thing about the connections game is that it focuses you on specific, important questions. Is there a source for this specific relationship? If so, is it reliable? If not, how can I find a reliable source?

We want to encourage members to ask these questions. One idea would be to add another button to profiles. Right now we have a simple "Ask Question" button in the Collaboration section of profiles. We could add a more specific button that has more content and tags auto-filled. This would enable posts to appear here and in Discord. We'd then recommend using the form when you get stuck in the game.

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Do you have thoughts on the above?

What are the "pain points" in participation? What makes it fun and makes you want to participate? What has kept you from participating?

Would the ideas above make things better or worse? Do you have ideas of your own? Any general thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Thank you!

Chris and the WikiTree Team

P.S. Please reply with an answer instead of a comment. Comments at the top will be moved or hidden once read.

Comments

Update: We have integrated the new ideas into a plan at Help:Connection_Checkers

Please reply at https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1742759/what-do-you-think-of-this-new-connection-checkers-game-plan

Answer 1

I barely participate so take this with a whole thimblefull of salt, but:

1. Name Change - yes, definitely. I like Checkers or several of the others mentioned on Discord. we're an extremely collaborative site, the conflict metaphor is a bit out of place.
2. One Notable - disagree. the ability to tie in to one or the other has made it much more interesting than a stray "am I connected to Soandso? I do that all the time just in my own wanderings across the tree.
3. I worry that 'first' completed is a discouraging factor, but since I barely play that's just a vibe thing. Seeing some super user complete their chain in 20 minutes from launch before I even wake up is a little weird to my brain.

Answer 2

My casual impression from reading G2G posts by game players is that usually one of the two notables selected for the game is significantly more connected to most WikiTreers (or at least most of the WikiTreers that play the game) than the other, so that one team has many more participants than the other.  Because of that lopsidedness, the idea of not having teams and just having one notable to focus on seems like a good idea to me.

Answer 3

I agree with the name change to something non-violent.  

I disagree with the single notable because the two options means it's easier to have more global options in the game, and a bigger chance for the game to be fun for anyone on WT, not just those coming from the highly connected parts of the tree.  It is going to mean that there often won't be an even divide in participants between the two candidates, but I think it's just more important to remember and work on our global connections.

Answer 4

Name Change- I am military veteran so it has not offended me, but whatever the consensus goes with it fine with me.

One-Notable- I prefer two that gives me a choice. Sometime one person shows no connection to me totally at this point. Also if they have most of their lief in foreign areas outside of easy finds in the USA, it makes it difficult for me to participate. Such as with this new one Anna  Dudley-Bradstreet versus Ruth Park.  Anna is on my husbands side and mostly out of country. So will see what can do to connect Ruth Park to me. from my maternal side.

Yes I do use Confident so that should stay.

I would like to show it like David did for my connection, how can I do it very simply?

I am enjoying the Connection Game!

Answer 5

It could be fun to really lean into the "Who can have the longest verified connection" aspect. That way the game can run with multiple notables, more profiles get improved and checked over all, and it gives players the chance to compete without having to be quick on the draw. It would keep the competition going through the week, too: If I see someone has a trail that's 31 profiles long, maybe I want to go back and see if I can make one that's 32.

Comments

I haven't participated in this challenge and so was only reading through to see what was being said.

But this suggestion, I have to say, I really like it. It flips the script and incentivises reinforcing the web as it radiates out from the notable. And that's good for the tree on the whole!

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Jeff, I agree.

I really like what you're saying here, Erin.

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I agree that this is an innovation that really supports our overall mission.

Answer 6

Hello. First, I really like what this challenge is trying to achieve.

I participated in the very first CC and it was a great opportunity to add sources and consolidate the first few connections, starting from profiles closest to me. This part was great and felt useful. I strongly felt that if many WikiTree members did that, it would greatly improve the quality of the tree, at least the most recent generations.

Then I hit in snag with a connection I was never able to prove, something between pre-Revolution American profiles. Asked for help and nobody who answered found anything either. Tried an alternative path: same problem, still pre-Revolution American profiles.

I came back to check the challenges the first few weeks after that, but each time I saw that connection paths hinged on pre-1800 (yes pre-1800! Wider than pre-1700) American connections.

I have a limited number of paths to connect to pre-1776 America. Once there, I'm not skilled to help. And every CC challenge hinges on these connections.

I really should re-check ALL my connections to the USA as far as I can go, I know that, but it's only going to help a super small part of the tree that doesn't interest anyone. And I'm never going to be able to verify a full path to one notable because it will always go through similar profiles (first 5-6 generations after PGM) which I can't verify on my own.

So, unfortunately, I don't think I'll be coming back. I decided I would leave it to seasoned American researchers who know this stuff and have access to better resources to resolve these 18th (and possibly 17th) century connections.

Sorry for the long-winded self-centered reply, and thanks for your patience!

Comments

Just to add: I insist on the part between 1700 and 1800/1850 being the most problematic. In this time frame, only one source is needed to create a profile, it does not have to be considered accurate and the source is only there to confirm that the person existed. If I understand correctly, the Challenge seeks to improve on that to have (accurate? hopefully) sources confirming that the connections (parent/child/spouse) of the profile are correct, at least the 2 connections that make it part of the path. Which again is wonderful, that's what really makes the tree accurate, and way more demanding than "a source" - and a huge difficulty for those working out of their comfort zone.

Also, I think it's really a pity to drop the adding dates, places and biographies part. But if it helps accurately sourcing more connections, so be it.

(Edited - a lot - to clarify).

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I want to elaborate on Isabelle's comments, as a CC winner, and as an American researcher with boocoodles of 1700-1850 American kin.

After my win on easy 19th- and 20th-century connections, I have found, like Isabelle, that most of my CC paths have run through speculative 18th century American lineages that, at a glance, I judge to be unproven and unproveable.  I'm talking specifically about some dodgy family legends in the mid-Atlantic region connecting 19th century landowners to putative immigrant ancestors on the basis of sharing a surname in their region, basically.  These legends may even be true, but, in my family at least, there isn't any real evidence that would support a "confident" tag (other than the wide acceptance of the legend by generations of family researchers).  

To the extent that CC motivates WTers to dig into the estate records and land deals and lay out the real evidence for family connections in this period, I'm all for it.  However, when a family was connected together decades ago by examining, say, the 1810 census, and that research has propagated on familysearch and ancestry as "facts" sourced to that one census record, it does not feel like an advancement of WikiTree's mission to incentivize CC participants to tag those connections "confident" so they can win a profile badge. (is that what happens?  I'm not deep enough in the CC content to know)

And, with these legends in mind, I understand and share Isabelle's frustrations with being locked out of CC success by the quirks of poor colonial record-keeping, and by the enthusiastic creativity of a cohort of family historians making do decades ago with pen-and-paper research that does not stand up to the standard of evidence we can expect with broad electronic access to original records.

What can be done?  I am so deeply enamored of Bernard Vatant's 100 Circles project, and how WikiTree is a natural home for this analysis of our one shared tree.  My proposal would be to orient the CC targets toward interesting nodes in the 100 Circles analysis; even if that approach would limit the CC's social media reach, or its "data-doctoring" incentives.  And maybe not for every challenge.  But profiles that are notable for being globally connected might result in CCs that don't depend on our confidence in pre-Revolution American profiles.  

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I have exactly the same problem as you Isabelle.  I have only participated once, but I have looked at it several times.  Each time I get stuck in the same type of place.

Answer 7

I don't participate much in this challenge - I've verified a few steps on a few different weeks, but never done a complete connection path. Main reasons are lack of time, profiles in my connection path that are out of my comfort zone (in terms of time period/locations where I'm used to finding sources), and a general all-or-nothing vibe to the "rewards" for the challenge right now.

I think adding incentives for people to participate even if they can only verify some of the steps but not a whole connection path and incentives that allow people to work on a path for more than just a week would be good. My main suggestion would be adding something like the Club 100 and Club 1,000 badges - these would be goals everyone can work towards, not something that only one person per week can win like the current awards. I'd suggest one sticker/badge for steps verified per month and one for connection paths verified per year. And have two levels for each - one that's pretty attainable for everyone and one that's more difficult. Maybe 30 steps/month and 12 paths/year for the more attainable level and then 60 steps/month and 50 paths/year for the more difficult level. People may not be able to do a whole connection path each week, but they may be able to choose one per month to complete if they can take a little more time on it.

I'd also prefer using a challenge tracker and/or something with WTBE that would allow private tracking of progress rather than posting in G2G about what I've done. It doesn't feel great to post "I verified these three connection steps" when 10 other people already beat you to it and they all did their complete path, or to be the 10th person to verify a 16-step connection. You know you're not going to win, so what's the point of posting about it? I know some people enjoy the community aspect of talking about their connections and what they're working on, but as a very strong introvert I don't always want to make challenges a social thing on G2G; I'd rather just work independently on something that benefits the whole community. But I do like using challenge trackers to easily see my gradual progress on challenges, even if I know I'm not going to win. Participation and declaring your participation on G2G aren't always the same thing.

Answer 8

I don't participate in any Thon or Challenge like this, but saying that, I wholeheartedly would disagree with not requiring dates and locations when verifying the paths.  How can you verify a path if you have no dates and no locations?  There are too many profiles currently on WT that many of us are constantly working on to get dates and locations added to, as well as the sources.  

Having only one profile to work with means you have less profiles that could be improved on WT.  Isn't that supposed to be one of the purposes of this challenge to improve profiles and verify the paths?

Answer 9

Maybe there's a fun play here with Connection Finders and Connection Checkers. Connection Finders help Abby find the connections each week. Connection Checkers check on connections. Instead of having just one or two connections each week, we could think about opening it up to all connections that are in the Finder that week. People could still try and verify the shortest connection (out of all of them) or the longest or see who can verify the most from the list that week.

I also like Christy's idea of people being able to use the tracker to track how many steps they were able to verify and/or how many connections they were able to complete.

Answer 10

I eagerly look forward to this challenge every week. I don't always complete a path every week but I do enjoy trying. I do like the idea of having more than one path to choose from. No matter which path I choose, I almost always end up working outside of my comfort zone. This is a good thing! Judging by the state of the world always, changing the name to something less combative might be a good idea. No matter what this challenge might be named or what it might become, it helps Wikitree and it helps me.

Answer 11

I like having two notables to choose from. I choose the one that goes through a line I know needs more clean up on my end. I've never considered myself to be on one team or another by choosing one notable over another. I just happen to be working on that person at the same time as others.

More diversity would be nice. So far we've had a lot of Americans of European descent. I can check my connection to Michael Jordan in the same way I can work on my connection to Abraham Lincoln in the same way I can work on my connection to Paul Cézanne.

I'm all for simplicity. I'm not tracking Weevils, etc. I'm cleaning up my old gedcom junk, adding sources, checking proof of relationship, and clicking radio buttons. If there was an easy way to track our progress, I'd be very happy for that. Creating my post takes almost longer than doing the work which is definitely a pain point for me. When I get stuck in the research is other pain point. I don't have time to spend hours trying to prove a relationship for an area of research I don't usually do (like Colonial era). I'd rather leave that for someone else who can do it better and faster.

Personally, I love growing cc7s, so perhaps including points for adding to the cc7 would be nice. While I'm checking the connection, are there family members who need to be added (a couple with only 1 kid added instead of all 10?)

Answer 12

I have not participated due to profiles in my connection path being outside of my knowledge (ie outside of the UK or earlier profiles) and therefore outside my comfort zone. I am unsure how I would go about verifying my connection to some of the profiles.

I have been interested in joining this challenge and would love to be able to join in.

Steph

Answer 13

I have seen interesting posts to changing this game and how increase participation.
* I agree the name needs to be changed, WikiTree is about working together and not "Combating".
* Just curious, how does one check or verify sources on a "Connection Path" without dates and locations?
* Emma has some very good ideas: 
1) checking one's own Gedcom junk and cleaning it up 
2) checking and working on one's own CC7. This is a nice incentive because it allows everyone to improve their limb on the overall Tree. Although this may not be appropriate, how about everyone work on their own Suggestion list perhaps this will clear the connection path.
* I don't work on notables, seems like one is putting all one's efforts into one profile when (if you're like me) you have several profiles in your own line that needs a connection or just needs some TLC.

It was also mentioned, “I insist on the part between 1700 and 1800/1850 being the most problematic. Accurate sources are not needed there.” Here's hoping you will use some of WikiTree's apps and comeback. Every timeframe needs accurate sources.

Some of us are not as fast as others, competing in any of these games or thons one may feel inferior because one is not in the top 100 etc, but one's work on a profile maybe far superior to those who go too fast. Maybe accuracy should be a theme going forward and not quantity. How many (of whatever the game or thon is about) New Suggestions are created, maybe we could award the person with the fewest New Suggestions created. Again, just a thought.

Best of luck to those who do participate.

Comments

I have severely reworded that part of my post relating to 1700-1850 US profiles. My point being that per WikiTree rules, you only need "one source" to create such profiles (and are therefore, in theory, able to add as many unsourced *connections* to them as you choose). My understanding is that the challenge is an opportunity to properly source at least 2 connections of each profile on the chain - a much, much higher standard. And I must add, the standard I try to achieve when I work on profiles. Except in most of pre-1850 America, I don't know how to do it. No full family enumerations, and BMD records not available in many parts of the US. It's out of my comfort zone. Give me French profiles of that time period, I will know how to confirm connections in almost every case; but the Connection Challenge does not give me an opportunity to do that.

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Thank you. You are correct about the WikiTree rules for "only needs "One Source" ", I sincerely hope others follow your example by trying to fully source those profiles. I will be happy to help you source those problem profiles, just send me a private message. 

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This was the first week I even looked at this challenge and apparently I did not read the instructions thoroughly so I worked on profiles mostly in my CC7 and greatly improved them by adding more sources and bulking out the narrative. Many of these profiles I hadn't touched in years, so it was a good thing.

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Lucy, I'm glad you found something constructive to do and you probably increased your CC7 which is always good for the Tree. 

Answer 14

I've not found the recent challenges to be particularly compelling.

Regarding the "one notable" vs. "two notables" question, I think it would be nice to include all of the week's featured connection profiles in a game. Give everyone  a chance to pick their own favorite end point and work toward creating a verified connection path from themselves to that person. Then recognize the first, shortest, and longest verified path for each featured connection.That would create a lot of competitions (need a spreadsheet to keep track!), but it would increase members' chances of having a target person who interests them, more people could claim bragging rights for having won something, and improvements would be dispersed over more branches of the tree. To avoid domination by "super users," each member should be allowed to compete on only one of the week's featured profiles.

Comments

I think letting us choose from any of that week's Notables would be great! Then I can pick the one I'm interested in and try and see what I can find. For example, I did not do the poets this week because I like very few poets, but I would have picked Emily Dickinson as I found out she was a very distanced cousin. That would have been cool!

Answer 15

Have played the game once or twice, learned some useful things and stretched a bit, but pain points included 1) encountering locked profiles where you could find helpful sources but couldn’t add them (in a time-limited challenge it’s not really practical to factor in add’l outreach to PMs you don’t know), and 2) the process of giving attention to several profiles that needed work, only to encounter profiles in the deeper past that could be unexpected time sinks or even stop all progress after you’d invested the effort getting there (although it's all useful effort for the tree, it could be discouraging in this setting).

I support the name change proposal. And as others said, having more than one notable allows for more variety, gives participants a choice of what to work on, etc. I liked Eowyn’s suggestion of using the week’s Finder group for that, and Christy’s idea re the badge approach. Re the browser extension suggestion for showing progress: less-experienced participants may not use the browser extension, so if they are the target for this outreach, it wouldn’t necessarily benefit them.

For the collaboration suggestion: “One idea would be to add another button to profiles. Right now we have a simple ‘Ask Question’ button in the Collaboration section of profiles. We could add a more specific button that has more content and tags auto-filled. This would enable posts to appear here and in Discord. We'd then recommend using the form when you get stuck in the game.” Would it only be on the profiles selected for the game? Would it confuse people who are on the profile for other reasons? Focusing outreach options on the weekly announcement seems more personal; could introduce the outreach options earlier perhaps.  

Thanks for the outreach on this.

Answer 16

I have not participated at all.

I think a new name would make it clearer what it is all about and maybe more approachable.

No teams but two notables is still a good idea. Maybe choose two profiles from two different parts of the world or one man and one woman. Sorry, not sure how the profiles have been chosen so far.

Hopefully it is helpful to hear from someone who has never played!

Answer 17

I have also seen how things can get lopsided when two Notables are chosen. But limiting the game to just a single notable seems like it would eliminate much of the fun.

What if we went the other direction and utilized all twelve Notables? Twelve teams would allow for much more diversity and would increase the number of family lines being worked on each week.

Comments

In my (admittedly self-centered) view, the more notables in the challenge, the more pre-Revolution (or even pre-1850 census) connections to work on, and the less chance someone will be available to help sorting out those that concern ME. Hence, still less chance of completing the challenge. If everyone focuses on the same notable, there is a much better chance that the first circles around the notable will be sorted out and in the end, more participants will end up with a resolved connection path.

I'm not sure what the goal is there, however.

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I think part of this could be solved by not just having the "Aid Station" posts for people asking for specific sources, but by also encouraging people, who for whatever reason, are finding their connection challenging to share that in general. They can post where their bottleneck/challenge is, and anyone wanting to help can try to find the poster a new connection. For some people it might look like adding to their CC7 and trying to find new connections to the larger tree, or looking for a point of similarities between the notable and the poster and building out from there. (For example, the poster is from Sweden and their bottleneck is that removing a sketchy 16th century Welsh lord means they have no connection at all to the notable. The notable has a couple Swedish immigrants in their CC7, so working out from there might yield a better connection. Or looking at the poster's connection to the Welsh lord and building out from well sourced profiles in between so those branches have a better chance of leading other places.)

Answer 18

I'm not liking the fact that genealogy needs to be gamified to attract more activity.

I wish the community, collaboration, and completeness of profiles aspects were stressed more.

The "Sprint" structure where you join and challenge yourself within the confines of their expectations is a better option than the "one profile" being worked on intensely from my perspective. I've participated in both and the scavenger hunt benefiting one profile just leads to disappointment for those that want to join in, but don't due to scheduling conflicts and skill level barriers.

If you want more global participants, Wikitree is going to need to move beyond starting challenges only based on EST start times.

Answer 19

Recently took up this Challenge. The name catches the eye, I don't like Checkers as a name because that just reminds me how I always lost at checkers growing up. Maybe a name something like Find Your Connection, Connectivity, Connect to (Name).

I agree it should be just one Notable. We are all interested in who we are related to. If you want 2, use the same notable but have some choose shortest connection while others choose direct connection. I didn't engage in the Roosevelt one because my closest connection took me places I wasn't interested but my direct connection was too long.

It took me forever to figure out how to put my answer in with the link. I finally found Link up in the top, but only after giving up everything else I knew about computers. Maybe a "how to" would come in handy.

Don't think anyone should be "first" as I know, for example, that my direct relationship to Longshanks was complete with sources as he was in my direct line, and I add interesting people to MyHeritage tree and make sure the dates, sources, etc. are as reliable as possible. Maybe have closest relationship, most direct relationship, most interesting relationship (though, not sure how that would be determined - but along those lines).

As far as verification goes, that's part of the Honor Code. I don't fill out my answer until I've verified that the sources are there, are reliable, etc. It's easy enough to click to each one and follow the relationship up/down/sideways.

Addendum: In reading the other answers, I think instead of one Notable, we should each pick one from the list. I didn't do the challenge for poets this week as the only one I liked was Emily Dickinson. And, I found out we were distant cousins. Now, that I would have researched and verified. So, let the challengers pick one Notable for the week and go to town on that. We all have different interests and more profiles would be checked out. Although, we should be able to notify someone other than the PM (they don't always answer) when a profile should be removed from the line because it is not the right person, but I don't want to just go in and remove people without someone verifying that what I consider is a mistake truly is. I'm still trying to convince someone that a child born after the mother's approximate date of death should be removed or the mother's approximate date of death should be adjusted to allow for the birth. If we are verifying Notables, maybe this could be sent to a separate questions forum (or something).

Answer 20

Although I have not yet participated, I would think that if you have found a source then you have a date (or estimated date) and a location. If you are taking the time to click on a certainty button, you can also take the time to fill in the date/location data fields. Adding dates and sources lets us find connections and eliminate duplicates.