One More Round on Quality vs. Quantity vs. Sourcing Requirements -- Can We Please Resolve It?

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One More Round on Quality vs. Quantity vs. Sourcing Requirements -- Can We Please Resolve It?

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It's distressing to see this same subject debated over and over for years, with no sign whatsoever of any resolution, meeting of minds, accommodation, or attempt to somehow put the issue to bed. I think it reflects poorly on the site to ignore this problem, and WikiTree could be a much more congenial and cooperative environment in which to pursue one's hobby if the problem were addressed. And I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with both sides of the debate, so at the risk of sticking my head out of a foxhole located between two enemy lines, I would like to suggest one possible approach.

It is not unreasonable to believe that WikiTree must continue to attract new members, must remain welcoming to new members, must allow the less experienced members sufficient time to grow and mature in the hobby, and must continue to expand its data base. Long term survival depends on it. But it is also not unreasonable that many of the more experienced members want to strive for higher quality standards and reducing the proliferation of unsourced and poor quality profiles. Many of those members have created their full family trees here, viewable by all, and have family members following their work. They feel invested in the site, are providing quality content, and want it to be the best genealogy site it can be. Some of those members spend a great deal of their own time attempting to clean up some of the lower quality work and improve the product. Both positions have valid points, and what we need is an honest attempt to find some happy middle ground. We need to have policies that acknowledge all those valid points. It may be that proponents of neither extreme would be completely happy with them, but all of us could agree that we can live with them.

I do understand that WikiTree is not a democracy, and to my knowledge, there has never been any attempt to reach some moderate resolution that might be acceptable to both camps. So I ask, if collaboration is a good thing, could it perhaps take a shot at addressing this issue? I'd like to propose that a small group of members should be formed to try to define that happy middle ground. The group would be charged with recommending site policies that constitute a reasonable compromise we can all live with. I think the group should include proponents of both sides, members who have been vocal in past discussions, as well as a few newer members, a few greeters and mentors, and perhaps a few members who don't have strong feelings about any of it. The leadership team definitely needs to be involved too, in order to ensure that the group understands all the constraints and the reasons for our current policies. I don't think our benevolent dictatorship has ever tried an approach like this to resolving a contentious problem, but it sometimes works in other environments, and I don't think there would be anything to lose by giving it a go.

Final point that I feel I must include: in order for an effort like this to be successful, both sides would need to open their collective minds to different approaches and be willing to listen objectively to proposals that may not fully support their own views. If the participants approach this with an agenda of protecting a special interest or "circling the wagons," the effort would probably be doomed from the start. But even if such an effort does turn out to be a failure, at least both sides could claim that they gave it a shot, and I would suggest that nothing has really been lost -- we remain exactly where we are now, polarized and argumentative, and this debate will just continue to rage on. So I hereby request the leadership team to endorse the idea, authorize an activity like this, and specify up front any constraints or ground rules that would need to be observed. Thanks.

asked Mar 5, 2022 in The Tree House by Dennis Barton G2G6 Pilot (561k points)

In my other line of work (the one that pays the bills), I facilitate conversations to help people apply what they've learned to solving a new challenge. An important aspect of this approach is coming up with what we call a framing question-- forward focused and action oriented, the answer to which will make a significant difference in the quality of life for the people doing the work.

So, for example, if I were to take what you wrote above and convert it to a framing question (which I'm not saying is necessarily the best), it might look like:

What will it take to both welcome those with less genealogical research experience while at the same time appealing to those who hold high standards for accuracy?

I.e., what's the question that, if answered, would make the biggest difference, moving forward?

commented Mar 5, 2022 by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (915k points)

9 Answers

Answer 1 · 2022-03-05T02:42:25+0000

From my first activity here in 2008, I have always seen the sources section as a repository for all the information that can be found about an individual (Honor Code: We are united in a mission to increase the world's common store of knowledge. We always respect copyrights and privacy, but we keep information as free and open as possible.) I work on Smiths and I can tell you that YDNA is the only way we have successfully sorted through the mixed up Smith lines. Still, YDNA without traditional sources is not useful.

Personally, I don't think there was any problem in the beginning when we all worked to improve the WikiTree and followed Chris's excellent Honor Code. It is BRILLIANT for its approach to encouraging participation at all levels of expertise. The problems started when some wanted to institute rules and guidelines that limited participation to specific methods and goals. The first clauses of the Honor Code are all the guidance I need, thank you:

We collaborate. When we share ancestors we work together on the same ancestor profiles.
We care about accuracy. We're always aiming to improve upon our worldwide family tree and fix mistakes.
We know mistakes are inevitable. We don't want to be afraid to make them. We assume that mistakes are unintentional when others make them and ask for the same understanding.
We know misunderstandings are inevitable. We try to minimize them by being courteous to everyone, even those who don't act accordingly.

I would like to see a move back to the open format of the Honor Code. I already have way too many officials telling me what to do because they think their opinion rules.

Answer 2 · 2022-03-05T05:23:50+0000

I think it is a great idea, as I really like the plea to be open to each other's opinion and get an agreement in the middle.

My side is clear: old or new members that are not interested in quality have an enormous amount of other websites to work on. Working together really requires to be open to other ideas and still follow the general guidelines.

I have tried to help new members, old members, staff, non-staff here at WikiTree... not very successfully I have to say. If people are not open to learn something new, there is no point in trying.

So in addition to Kitty's list: VIII. We cite sources. Without sources we can't objectively resolve conflicting information.

Or in my word as a teacher on methodology: no sources and no reasoning in the bio = fraud.

edit:typo

answered Mar 5, 2022 by Michel Vorenhout G2G6 Pilot (318k points)
edited Mar 5, 2022 by Michel Vorenhout

Hello Michel,

I appreciate your view point on sources and documentation. I think my feelings are similar to yours.

I signed onto Wikitree just last week - 22 Feb, to be precise. Is there a specific place in G2G where I can request a mentor to coach me in Chicago Style? Unfortunately, many of the sources I have collected and organized are locked behind Ancestry's paywall; my tree there is public for now, so anyone with a subscription can view the sources. Many of the same records are likely on Family Search as well, but I am new there also.

Over the last several months I have been working on identifying the relationships among people in old family burial lots in Woodside Cemetery, Westminster, MA. All of the vital records have been digitized and made available on ancestry-the records, as well as transcripts. The town histories and relevant family genealogies are more reliable than most. The director of the town library grants me full access to the local history collection. The cemetery director allows me access to the old file cards and lets me photograph them. Since my family has been well regarded in the town as early as the 1750s, I think the clergy will help me as well. I want to do my best work, and that means properly formatting my source list and citations.

commented Mar 5, 2022 by Anonymous Reed G2G6 Pilot (184k points)
edited Mar 5, 2022 by Anonymous Reed

Anonymous, you can use any sources that are valid. Having access restricted by a paywall will not limit the value of the source. In Science, one sometimes has to pay 1000s of Euros/Dollars to get access, but the paper/article is still valid.

The style here at WikiTree is not defined, as WikiTree uses Evidence Explained. So as long as you can find the source somehow, it is a good way of describing the source. What a lot of members do is copy-paste the source "citation" text here in the sources list. There is a preference for inline citations, but even that is not required.

If you want examples, you can use the example on the right side of the page when you are in edit mode. You can also try to see if your profiles fit a location that is covered by a geographical project. They may have preferred citation styles. For MA (which is Massachusetts I think, better to use full names here as we are from all over the planet), there is a project page here.

If you ever work on Dutch profiles, you can use the tool genealogietools.nl which tries to create Chicago style inline citations. But you will also find that a lot of people here then start adding the events into the citation messing up the inline citation... ah well.

commented Mar 5, 2022 by Michel Vorenhout G2G6 Pilot (318k points)

Michel, Julie,

Thank you for your responses.

I think my best path forward from here will be to cozy up with my copy of Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources for Artifacts ti Cyberspace, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co.; Third Edition, Revised (May 22, 2015 [Kindle 2017]). As cited here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources#List_them_at_the_bottom

Julie, I will also check out WikiTree BEE and the Sourcer. Thank you for taking the time to specifically recommend them.

I think that bringing representatives together might help reveal more effective ways to welcome new users and guide them through the process of entering the data they have.

As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, I'm aware of some tensions here between those whose lives revolve around academics and those whose lives do not revolve around academics or the closely related medical, bio-engineering, and tech industries.

It also doesn't help matters if people from a large area of the United States feel disparaged as residents of flyover states while the suicide rate of farmers between 1992 and 2010 rose to 3.5 times the rate of the general population.

The optimist in me sees potential for bringing people together in Wikitree by emphasizing the point that the history of a family farm is every bit as important as the history of the Ford Motor Company, and the story of an individual miner as significant as the owner of that mining operation. Any documentation regarding a slave is precious because of intentional negligence or suppression of information in the past. A shoebox of family obituaries clipped from the local newspaper is a curated cache of historical documents- especially if the keeper of that shoebox can identify the name of the paper, the dates, or who worded those lifestories in the way they were published. Everyone deserves full credit for their work, not just those who have already learned how to claim full credit through their notation. Here are the steps to take to claim credit for collecting, preserving, and posting family items... Here's how to show that same respect for your collaborators, so that 100 years from now, not only can your great grandchildren can sign on learn about your Great Grampa's life and achievements, they will have a trail marked out for them should they wish to seek out these documents for themselves.

Speaking for myself, when I signed on last week, I followed the steps given as best I could except that I refused to enter any information about myself and my parents that I could possibly avoid until such time as I feel confident that I understand the privacy policy and options. Otherwise, I went through all the steps as directed, in the order that they were listed for me. I found the instructions on sources to be confusing and utterly overwhelming. I have a B.S. in Biology, but it is 40 years since I have written a bibliography or footnote; I completed three computer programming courses in college, but there were very few computers available to use on campus for anything other than testing programs we wrote for class. I have life-long debilitating chronic inflamatory disease, so my experience with computers is roughly analogous to a hunt and peck typist, though I've got the cursing [swearing] down pretty well. As for sources, I have confidence that I understand why to enter them into the record, and that I will be able to eventually figure out the keystrokes to do so. Personally, I found the Help: Sources section of WikiTree to be off-putting, both because of the ways in which tone I perceived resonated with previous unpleasant town and gown experiences, and with the sheer amount of information presented all at once. I'm sure neither is intentional on the part of those who have been devoted users and developers but question whether there might be a bit of a gap in communication. My G2G cruising in the past few days has reinforced this perception. I'm not ready to fault anyone who enters the sign up process with the best of intentions, reaches the guidance on sources, and reacts with some version of, "I know who my people were! I can't find them on this site and I'll put them on my own way."

I understand that parts of this comment are likely to come across as harsh. Please accept that I am trying to relate my own feelings regarding my experiences as a new member- and to do so with complete candor, while those experiences are still very fresh. I expect my perceptions of the site, its layout, and its methodology to change over the next few months as I gain experience using it. As my perceptions of the experience evolve, I believe they will be of less value to this conversation.

Regards, Eli

commented Mar 5, 2022 by Anonymous Reed G2G6 Pilot (184k points)

Anonymous, always good to see more Biologists here. You are very correct, the documentation is overwhelming and confusing at times. This is mainly as there are some very distinct opinions here about what good sources are, and what the preferred way to cite them is. Life is way easier if you are writing a biological paper where you simply follow the style of the journal, but that seems impossible here.

There is also the rule that for post 1700 profiles, basically anything will count as a source, and there is a big legacy from the first few years in which users uploaded Gedcoms without any source or reference attached.

I am sure you will do fine. There are also people, the Greeters, that are here to help you with any issue you encounter. Don't hesitate to contact your greeter.

commented Mar 6, 2022 by Michel Vorenhout G2G6 Pilot (318k points)

Michel - Wow! What a coincidence that I chose to engage you directly.

My thanks to Julie for kind words, and to Linda for sharing your work on the Biography Creation Helper.

Though I have a degree in biology, I have been too sick to have much of a career. I have been most active in advocay work on a volunteer basis- disability issues, quality affordable health care in Massachusetts with Health Care for All and Greater Boston Interfaith Organization during the early 2000s, which has evolved into today's Affordable Care Act, human rights issues, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America regarding racial integration and LGBT* issues. Lol, I guess I've got some expeience being piggy in the middle of conflicts that tap into deeply rooted emotions and disparities of income and opportunity.

Two specific options in WikiTree that I've found especially helpful when finding myself in that sink or swim headspace 1) Mayflower Treasure Hunt to find sources to fill out the bio of Desire Martin. I got the star for best answer and will always value that because it involved a pre-1700 profile and it was in my first week. 2) Sharing some well received sources by posting a link in a comment on their profile, AND THEN hearing watching a presentation someone recommended in a G2G in which Mags Gaulden shared how much she values just that sort of collaboration and credits the person who shared the link.

Both of those were more me randomly being me, than being steered in those directions. Should/could such moderated treasure hunts and sharing by comment be bumped up in the invitation process? Props to Mags Gaulden -7.

Has anyone here read/listened to Fiona Hill's book, There is Nothing for You Here ?

commented Mar 6, 2022 by Anonymous Reed G2G6 Pilot (184k points)

Answer 3 · 2022-03-05T05:35:08+0000

I look at WikiTree as if it were a Martial Art. There are varying levels of rankings for the level of skill of the participant. For instance in Karate there is a standard of progression in awarding belts as the student learns more. Typically it runs white, yellow, orange, green, purple, brown, and black. White for the novice to black for those with the highest skill level.

Those new to genealogy as a whole would be considered the white belts and those with years of experience as having obtained the black belt. It is up to the higher belt levels to help train those in the lower levels and not berate those of the lower levels for their lack of skills not yet obtained. Obtaining a black belt does not mean you have reached the pinnacle of your craft as there is always more to learn.

WikiTree is like a specialized school or order in this world of genealogical martial arts. It is the higher belt levels who train the lower belt levels. They should provide the insights and methods for the novice to progress through WikiTree. To lead by example Some new to the order may catch on quickly due to their commitment while others may languish for a time for their lack of resolve and may drop out entirely. I feel we have failed many of those who leave by not giving them the sufficient time and training to progress in their skills.

We were all white belts at one time in both genealogical research and WikiTree. We all had to progress in how to perform research in genealogy and as such, no one starts out on WikiTree with a black belt. As with all in life, there is constant learning from others as well as constant teaching to others. Knowledge is not wholly obtained though a collective consciousness but through watching and listening and imitating. With children we call it play. Einstein called play the highest form of research.

But as to the question(s) in your post, my feelings would have to be this . Trying to impose a logical resolution in reference to discord vis a vis human interaction in a semi-anonymous group setting is akin to trying to teach a pig to sing, it's a waste of time and annoys the pig. ;)

Answer 4 · 2022-03-05T14:30:02+0000

Thanks for the post. I wonder if there is something recently that provoked it? How the brief of such a committee would be defined?

I believe the aspiration of the site is clear - each profile is sourced in accordance with generally accepted genealogical standards - as is the Honor Code, quoted by Kitty above. The differences in approaches to reaching this goal tend to be around timing (what is necessary when a profile is created) and collaboration (either resistance to offered collaboration or a hesitation to offer collaboration).

I've thought that focusing on collaboration - the wiki aspect of WikiTree - may be more fruitful. Encouraging persons with experience (I won't say expertise) in particular areas to proactively work on profiles outside their families but within their experience (geographically and ethnically easily come to mind, but this is not exclusive) and a method to affirmatively handoff profiles. It often seems the only way to indicate I'm open to community-wide collaboration is to orphan (hate that word) a profile.

Just an example - I'm more or less at an end with my great-great grandparents, who immigrated to Chicago from "Germany." US records lost in the Great Chicago Fire. Local newspapers in German, which I do not speak or read. German records in Germany, outside of my expertise and personal genealogical goals. Wouldn't it be great to flag such a profile for care by others in the community who no doubt do have expertise/experience? This probably is rethinking, realigning and broadening "Projects" (would there was another name) rather than "sourcing rules." Refocusing on "Be Bold."

Answer 5 · 2022-03-05T15:49:56+0000

I read Dennis's question not to invite us to re-state our personal views about quality and sourcing standards, but to explore our interest in opening a meaningful dialog with the goal of developing a mutually acceptable set of revised standards and procedures. Although I welcome such an effort, I think its success depends critically on whether the decision makers have any willingness to revise the standards and procedures. The question has only been open for about fourteen hours. Perhaps they will join the discussion before long.

Answer 6 · 2022-03-05T17:27:41+0000

I agree with the post made by LJ Russell. But I will also put my spin on this.

I've worked in the Open Source software world for many years. WikiTree is very much like one of these projects, but also with differences.

Open source projects are always in a state of flux. There is never any kind of "perfect" end state. There will always be profiles on WikiTree that do not yet meet quality standards. Even from those people who are long-standing members here. I think it's ridiculous to impose too great of a quality standard to even begin using the site, because of what LJ Russell said that everyone has different skill levels on here. If we were to impose a certain quality standard to even create a profile on here, then it will drive users away. That mentality (of requiring more and more quality to even begin) rewards people who are more of "perfectionists". The level of quality, or "imperfection", grates on those people who perceive it to be a nuisance.

This is why we have a collaborative community. Anyone can go fix problems on nearly every profile (depending on Privacy level, of course). That's a lot of power, and a lot of freedom too. This situation reminds me of guidelines of what you're supposed to do when hiking in a forest. Ideally, you pack out your trash as you make it. But there will always be people, for whatever reason, who leave trash in the forest. So, if you see something in the forest that shouldn't be there, pick it up and take it out with you. In other words, you leave the place better than when you found it. Now, does that require time and energy? Absolutely, it does. Could someone be frustrated that someone else left trash in the forest? Sure, someone could. But that "being frustrated" part is a choice.

You could be frustrated that other people on WikiTree do not meet some quality standard. It could get under your skin and grate on you. You could get mad that other people just don't seem to understand the situation, or that they are willfully ignorant, or don't want to "play by the rules". But you can also choose a different emotion to feel, and choose a different set of behaviors.

I prefer to choose to "pack out the trash", using the hiking-in-the-forest metaphor. Everywhere I go, if I see something that could use an improvement, I do something. Even if it is a little something. I don't have to go out of my way to correct all the problems that someone has on a profile. But I can choose to correct a little something here or there. Because every correction, or fix, or improvement, will then improve the overall tree. I will correct a location field. Maybe reformat the Biography or Sources. Maybe cleanup a little bit of the GEDCOM garbage. Occasionally, I spot the odd merge that really should happen and I submit a merge request. I do all of this as I'm working on my stuff and I just happen to run across other people's profiles.

I implore everyone to give this some thought. WikiTree will NEVER be perfect. It is in a constant state of flux and always will be. Is it moving in the direction of becoming better in terms of quality? Yes, absolutely! We have some amazing projects and people that help to improve quality, and to even measure the quality. Then, if we are moving in that direction already, then what is the problem? We can simultaneously work on quality AND quantity. The two are not mutually exclusive.

If we worry less about other people's "quality" and focus more on: improving what we find, helping new people improve their skills, and use metrics of quality as a feedback mechanism for the community, then I think everyone will find that the situation is not as dire as one might think.

Let go of the emotional attachment that others aren't meeting up to some standard. Otherwise, you might find yourself constantly disappointed or frustrated with humanity.

I have seen amazing transformation of WikiTree over the 6 years that I have been here, all without having to "change the rules". It keeps getting better and better. We don't need to change the rules. Just keep bringing in more like-minded people, and do the work.

Answer 7 · 2022-03-05T17:57:04+0000

I completely agree Dennis!

Sounds like the voice of a Social Worker to me

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