Featured Connection Stats

Question

Following some interest and comments on the proportion of Anglo-American-centric themes and profile choices, I've gathered some stats to show where much of the Connection Finder and Example Profile of the Week choices fall. In addition to these stats are traffic stats for WikiTree.

This first graph shows stats for countries represented since we started the Example Profile of the Week in 2016 until now. These are only the nationalities of the actual example profile each week, since when it started there was only one profile shared each week. I can list the numbers for those smaller representations, if we need them, in a comment.

This second graph shows the distribution of countries represented in the current Featured Connections lineup, the entire lineup each week, not just the Example Profiles, which encompasses the previous week (so in this case, the Friends week) plus the 16 weeks before that (that is what comes out to just under 200 profiles in the Featured Connection category at any given time, a total right now of 17 weeks of CF features). This is not of all profiles featured since we began the Connection Finder feature, just the most recent 17 weeks.

These are themes, broken down on whether they could potentially have been a  multinational line-up (and likely were, if WikiTreers nominated from more than the US, since this is in the priorities we look for, in addition to CC7 numbers, diversity, etc.) or country-specific (meaning there was no chance for profiles from outside that country to be nominated; I'm being generous here as many early US profiles represent immigrants, but I'm counting them as "US" only anyway). Though the theme itself is sometimes US-based (say, an American movie or television theme), usually, if not always, there are international options to suggest that fill that theme. The issue often lies in those people profiles not being present on WikiTree, or not connected, or the profiles being unimproved. This is for only those posts since we started the list of Connection Finder features in late 2020, not the solo Example Profile posts which started in 2016.

This is a graph representing our site traffic, focusing on the top ten regions:

Comments

See also:

• Why aren't WikiTree's Featured Connections more diverse?
• Top Twenty Connection Finder Themes

Answer 1

Thank you for providing these statistics.

It's evident that apart from one profile in the second graph, all the countries mentioned are either in Europe or predominantly English-speaking. The question becomes whether the Connection Finder themes should only reflect WikiTree's current membership, or whether a conscious effort to provide wider national diversity and attract the attention of potential members from elsewhere is worthwhile, to live up to WikiTree's mission to be a single family tree that connects us all and is open to the world.

Even among the countries that are present, and taking site traffic as the basis for comparison, Australia and New Zealand seem to be significantly under-represented in featured profiles and themes.

In the preceding discussion, repeated choice of Christian-based themes—at Christmas and Easter—was also raised as an issue, with several suggestions for themes based on other religions or on secular festivals. This aspect offers a further opportunity for increasing diversity, as does the representation of women. 

Beyond choice of theme, WikiTreers could be encouraged in the weekly "Help us find" post to offer nominations from a broad field on race, nationality and gender, and when profiles are selected by the Team from among those nominated, even more effort than at present could be made to avoid repetition and increase diversity.

Comments

Just a note that the France project stopped suggesting French profiles since it surfaced that CC7 is now one of the criteria. French profiles don't stand a chance there, they do not have a high CC7. The only case we'd intervene is when there IS a French profile in the suggested lineup and we do not consider it suitable (this happened just last week with Political Dynasties). In that case rather than complaining that we don't like it we prefer suggesting alternatives.

The other issue is that it is quite rare when we have a profile that fits the topic. "Friends cast", "Stephen King actor", "Screen doctor", Charlton Heston", "James", "female rockstar" etc. may be considered as "international" topics in the graph above (I assume they are), in  reality they will always center heavily on US profiles, and almost exclusively on Anglo-Saxon ones. (For instance, we do have French rock singers, but since they are not known abroad, they are not picked in rock-themed lineups).

You'd have to go back to April 24 (TV police) to find another French profile in the lineup. That said, we're not complaining. After a couple of years of trying, we chose to withdraw.

Not speaking about France here: seeing a "female rockstars" lineup without even Nina Hagen in it for instance, it hurts a bit. I suppose she's unknown in English-speaking countries.

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Thanks for these points, Isabelle.

The statistics on the proportion of women featured show a drop since CC7 was introduced as a criterion, but it's not large.

Similarly to the US-centred themes you mention, there are a number of them not overtly limited to be all male that either are in practice (polar explorer, pope), or need a lot of ingenuity to squeeze one or two women in (Re-Mark-able Mark, famous James). There have been some explicitly all-female themes, which is good, but not nearly enough to redress the balance.

Nina Hagen was certainly worthy of a feature spot.

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Thanks, Jim. I'd like to clarify - to my (admittedly biased) perception, the diversity of topics has regressed, rather than progressed, since the "Featured connections" lineups were introduced. (This is not just my perception: France went from 4.4% in "Featured profile" to 0.5% in Featured Connections lineups). As soon as planned topics appear we can see that there is perhaps one topic every 3 months where we might be able to suggest something. And that point would be valid for all non-English speaking European countries.

Agree with you about the under-representation of women, obviously.

Answer 2

Quote: The issue often lies in those people profiles not being present on WikiTree, or not connected, or the profiles being unimproved.

The Global Project is being relaunched in January - in line with the community challenges, WT Games and 15 for 15 World trip, why don't we spend the year on trying to redress the balance.

Use the Thons (different set of countries each day?) and weekly challenges to source, connect and improve for a given country/selection of countries. eg. orphans from x and y country. 

Members seemed to enjoy the random teams of the WT games - this would give the teams the necessary expertise from around the world (instead of the purely smaller location based teams). 

Imagine the power of a Connect-a-Thon all directed at a group of countries or a Source-a-Thon for female profiles only. Or how about a challenge to tackle the outer rim profiles?

I do think the WikiTeam needs to make use of the ideas of the country (and soon Global) projects more - they will have plenty of suggestions of themes and profiles to promote for their countries. You all did a fantastic job with WT Games, I'm sure that you could apply that expertise to these issues of diversity. 

And yes, there may be lower member participation to start with (as David Randall noted with the World trip), but the problem will just perpetuate if concerted action is not taken regularly - it cannot be a world tree if we don't attract a wider audience. And some people will never hope to get connected 

Comments

the problem will just perpetuate if concerted action is not taken regularly

This is important. Diversity doesn't just happen by saying "all are welcome." You have to repeatedly choose to make it happen until it becomes a regular part of WikiTree.

It kind of reminds me of an old Stephen Colbert interview: “It wasn’t until we said, no please, don’t send us anyone but women. Because we would say, you know it’s very important, we want writers of color, we want women, and you would get 150 packets and there would be eight women. And we’re like, ‘God, that’s so frustrating.’ Until I said no, only women, and then I got 87 women.”

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We've been working tirelessly with the France Project to connect more notables (and with some success, although I have pretty much given up updating the free-space pages devoted to tracking progress) and the result is that the representation of French profiles in Featured Connections has decreased, not increased.

And I can explain it - the half dozen French notables vaguely known in America have already been featured, and the topics where we could hope to squeeze a French profile have become more and more rare with time.

Answer 3

Thank you for the stats. I know this has come up in the past before numerous times, and I know the usual response is that there are not enough connections and/or nominations.

Statistically, that makes sense. But honestly? It's also kind of a cop-out. Because yes, mathematically, there are bound to be more profiles from the biggest pools. It's going to happen. But I've seen profiles created and connected on the fly once a topic had been announced (the tech connections list a couple of months ago comes to mind--one had 1-2 sentences of a bio, and it was still used). And there's really no excuse for the gender disparities.

The profiles that DO exist are never going to see the light of day if we don't create the space to highlight them. Look at the current list. It's not tied to a specific country and it's AMAZING, way better than what was originally proposed (US presidential hopefuls). It still features people who have probably been featured before, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Another thing that I think contributes to the problem is featuring the same people/themes over and over in a short time frame (are stats kept on how frequently a person has been nominated in, say, a 3-year period?). There should be a limit on repetition.

Answer 4

For anybody looking for a more international experience on WikiTree, here are some suggestions:

1) Join one of our 37 Geographical Projects

2) Use the Global tag to receive updates on the soon-to-launch Global Project which will host links to 197 individual country project pages. Better yet, volunteer to lead one of those 197 country projects. (Lots of opportunities still available!)

3) Help out the 15 Nations Global Tour with our goal of developing and connecting the profiles of 225 Notables from 15 different countries.  

4) Inquire with the U.S. Black Heritage Project, the Jewish Roots Project, or the Native American Project to learn more about the amazing research opportunities they provide all year round.  

5) Participate in the Sports Notables' current Cricket Challenge, featuring 40 non-American men and women. Or checkout last month's Association Football Challenge, which featured 90 legendary soccer players from 90 different nations (and which is still open for participation). 

6) Help out with the Olympics Project, whose goal it is to connect every Olympic athlete from every country of the world. 

7) And while our TV-USA Project is admittedly American-centric, we inaugurated our project by celebrating 40 legendary women of television. We are now up to 151 women, which equates to 62% of our total featured profiles.  We have also featured numerous African-American, Latino, and Asian actors. We can always use more volunteers.

8) Make your voice heard by joining a WikiTree planning committee to help our team plan, develop, and carry out our numerous year-round events, challenges, and projects. 

9) Finally, remember that WikiTree has fewer than a dozen employees. The rest of us are all volunteers just like you. So, if there is something you'd like to see added or changed, instead of waiting for others to make those changes for you, how about creating your own project or challenge? There's so much uncharted territory still out there. 

Comments

These are all great initiatives, but I think the people calling for more diversity are already working on WT diversity projects. It all comes back to EPOW. Profiles already exist (though we could always do better), but there are few opportunities for them to be spotlit because of the topics chosen.

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Great post, David!

To correct one thing: WikiTree has no employees. Zero. That's how we stay free and community-based. Team members are independent free-lancers with other income that makes their work here possible.

WikiTree does have considerable expenses. Running this site takes a lot of resources. We need to make compromises in order to generate traffic and ad revenue to pay the bills.

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@David, Thanks for posting this.  It offers great insight! So many things to do!

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Thanks for posting this, Abby and Chris.  It gives great perspective on how things are and how they can be changed. And thank you for all your hard work that you put into projects. I appreciate it.

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8) We are making our voice heard (and getting shot down for it)

9) We'd like the EPOW changed. It is run by the WT team.

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There is already a subproject of Notables for diversity but it doesn't get promoted. I have been creating and adding profiles for quite some time (many got removed from the category last month for some reason) and added a list of ideas to the project page.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Notables_Diversity

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Thanks Chris. That's an important clarification.

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@D - projects don't just randomly get promoted. Project leaders (or project members) have to be proactive in doing things like planning events/challenges, posting about their events/accomplishments in G2G, and adding their events to the "What's happening around WikiTree in [month]?" posts on G2G. I do some of this for the USBH project and I know our events and accomplishments would not get much attention if I/other project leaders didn't do these things.

The Notables Diversity page's linked lists of people who could use profiles is great, but it might help to make free space pages like this one or use a shared GoogleSheets spreadsheet (like the USBH project did for this sprint) to track the progress that is being made on different notables from one or more of those lists. That way, people who want to work with the project can figure out what's already been done (is there a WikiTree profile? Is it connected? etc.) and they can see where they can jump in and help. And post about it G2G! If you add a list to a FSP, almost no one will know it's there. If you post in G2G "Help connect these 10 female Nobel laureates", then a lot of WikiTreers will see the post and you may get some help. If you post that as a pop-up challenge on International Women's Day or on the day that new Nobel Prizes are being awarded, you're even more likely to get help.

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Like this for example:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1660409/women-of-ww1-pop-up-challenges

All the suggestions being made are worthwhile, though perhaps they underestimate what people who want to see more diversity are already doing. They won't solve the problem of under-representation in Connection Finder features unless a conscious choice is made by the Team to favour and positively promote non-exclusionary themes, both for nationality and gender.

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@Christy it is a subproject of Notables, so Notables should be promoting and creating challenges as they do for other topics within their purview.

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Thank you, Carol!

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The WikiTree Diversity Project is an old project that seems to have never fully taken off and has been inactive for some time. In fact, being relatively new to the Notables Project, I was not even aware it existed before now.

This is a project that will take some time to build back up, but as of today I am working on it. I have what I think are some cool ideas, but if anyone would like to offer their own thoughts or perhaps even volunteer to help me with it, I'd love to hear from you.

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Hi David, that's good news and thank you. I sent you a PM about Barbados a couple of days ago, so please accept this as my expression of interest for Diversity too

Answer 5

Abby, I want to echo the thanks for posting the data.  The data is interesting to review and consider.

I would encourage joining and working with projects and especially to increase the diversity of profiles that the projects manage.

As many, I started by suggesting themes and profiles for Connection Finder and Example Profile of the Week. I transitioned from just suggesting profiles and themes to working on profiles including making connections, improving bios, adding images, and increasing CC7 numbers.

You can do this as an individual, but also with a project. I am not discounting that themes are important. But having the profiles to fill any theme is a key.

Perhaps said differently, for any theme that you want to suggest, consider including the names of individuals who fit the category, are connected, have images, and have decent CC7 numbers. If you can't find a dozen individuals to fit the requirements, work with others to develop those profiles.

Comments

This is a great suggestion:

for any theme that you want to suggest, consider including the names of individuals who fit the category, are connected, have images, and have decent CC7 numbers. If you can't find a dozen individuals to fit the requirements, work with others to develop those profiles.

Also, you don't have to wait until there is a specific theme announced/suggested. If there's a country/group you want to see featured more, there are probably some notables from the group that are almost guaranteed to fit into a Featured Connections theme at some point - military heroes, government leaders/royals, athletes, musicians, actors, etc. Who are the most famous from your group/country and who is known worldwide?  There is often some kind of feature for people born 100 years ago and/or celebrating their 100th birthday. Maybe not quite as satisfying but possibly more likely to get picked - who was born in your country but became famous in the US or another major English-speaking country? Start working on those kinds of profiles, even if there's not currently a planned theme they'd fit into. For living people, see if they fit this criteria and work with the Notables project or another suitable project to see if they could have a profile created and project-protected.

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I started by suggesting themes and profiles for Connection Finder and Example Profile of the Week. I transitioned from just suggesting profiles and themes to working on profiles including making connections, improving bios, adding images . . .

answered by Russell Butler

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I was doing this.  I stopped doing this because downvotes hurt, and being ignored also hurts.
One can only "argue" for change so many times before it falls afoul of the discussion rules.  

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I offered here a criticism of people who downvote, under the option for criticism of groups, but then decided that it did not fulfil all the criteria in Discussion Rule 2, so have edited.

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@Melanie, you are a great Wikitreer! Everyone should be open to discuss and treat everyone else with civility. When I was totally lost with images, you were very patient with me.  Collaboration requires respect even when others disagree or might not understand the position of another. Unfortunately, some individuals can be mean and they may intentionally or unintentionally hurt others.  I wish there was an eraser that could easily remove the hurt. The Wikitree community needs you to be creating profiles to help with diversity. When I did understand images and thought I would never understand, you continue to assist me.  One thing I learned long ago, I have no control regarding what others do. Some individuals may never change. Just as you urged me to continue with the images, I urge you to get back to creating and connecting profiles. Actions speak far louder than words.

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Russell, well said!

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Melanie, don't let what other people do or say make you stop being creative.  Russell is right.  I've never personally had the opportunity to work with you on anything but it sounds like you "know your stuff".  People will always find something to complain about.  Ignore and Rise above!

Answer 6

I started by suggesting themes and profiles for Connection Finder and Example Profile of the Week. I transitioned from just suggesting profiles and themes to working on profiles including making connections, improving bios, adding images . . .

Answer 7

Two points of consideration regarding diversity I would include would be percentages of genealogist who are male and female and the least or bottom 20 connection finder themes. Until I see topics that are meant to exclude certain groups, I assume all are included. The top twenty themes make perfect sense when compared to information in the charts of who are most active. I don't think you can increase diversity by excluding segments of the majority. Manipulation of statistics may appease those who feel somehow slighted but doesn't really change reality. The top 15 of the twenty themes are dominated by male figures. Making it even worse, they are predominantly white. Without changing people's interest, the numbers (representation) needed to make diversity appear equally weighted is virtually impossible.

Answer 8

Thanks Abby for gathering and analysing all the data and showing us the results. One thing that I am wondering is how much the data might be skewed by the weeks when the theme is changed at the last minute?

In another related thread (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1661663/connection-finder-planning-2024?show=1663450#c1663450) you said "we have to ride on the current events wave". Is that "current events wave" based mainly on what is making the news on US news outlets (or even English-language news outlets)? Those outlets will obviously focus on news they think will be of interest to their primarily US/English-language audiences. Sometimes that will be news about somebody who is well known all over the world, but sometimes it will be somebody who is very well known in the US/English-speaking countries but almost unknown in the rest of the world, which would presumably then affect where the site traffic comes from.

For comparison, are there any examples of last minute changes for deaths of people who were well known in large parts of the world but relatively unknown in the US? Those presumably could be the events that would attract a more international audience and hopefully develop a more international membership. I realise that the practicalities of quickly trying to connect somebody from one of the under-represented regions on WikiTree may often prevent this being possible, but on the occasions when it can be done it could be something to aim for.

Comments

The figures show that site traffic is overwhelmingly coming from Anglo-Saxon countries. Reacting to main news from US based (or English language) based outlets caters to that audience, but it will not attract anyone else. The question is what the goal is. My impression is that it's not to attract a wider audience.

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The goal is MARKETING!!!

Answer 9

Abby (and Chris), thank you so much for this information, particularly the form of graphs which make it so much easier for me (at least) to comprehend and understand.

I do not have much more to add as I believe the observations made by Jim Richardson (probably a cousin as I have Richardson ancestry), D Anon (who is definitely a cousin), Melissa Arjona, David Randall (great 15 tours presentation on our 15th anniversary) and all of the others responding to this post.

I agree that the comment "Everyone is Welcome" is not necessarily going to help make our Tree more inclusive, more diverse, or to get people to go where they have never gone before (my apologies to Star Trek). Sometimes we need to be 'gently' forced out of our comfort zone (like I was when I lived in East Asia for 3 years teaching for the military - and not so gently forced...shocked more like).

 English speaking countries have greater representation on our Tree by virtue of the fact that English is still the most spoken language followed by (are you all ready for this?): Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, then Portuguese. 

Japanese and Korean are not even listed, yet their contributions to technology, comic books (yup, even before common US comics) Anime, hand fans, film (Kurasawa was a role model for the likes of Scorsese, Spielberg, Eastwood and other American directors...he gave us Fistful of Dollars in the form of Yojimbo and Magnificent Seven in the form of Seven Samurai). Oh...and the very first full novel in the word was written by a Japanese WOMAN, Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji. 

There's so much more, but I want to mention Korea: technology, ondol heating, which was adapted by Frank Lloyd Wright after a visit to Japan (the Japanese copped this excellent under-floor heating concept from Korea), bullet proof vests, Hangul (the featural writing system...I learned it when I lived in Korea), moveable type and more! BOTH countries gave us traditional medicine (e.g., acupuncture, accupressure, herbal remedies). Oh, and lets not forget Martial Arts!

OK...we need to find ways to get a number of our members out of their Western European, English speaking comfort zone to truly make WikiTree more global AND start to feature/emphasize women. Someone commented during the Anniversary that one of the most common surnames on our Tree is 'Unknown'. No prizes for guessing which sex gets this LNAB the most. 

Alternatively, we cannot CRAM this diversity down Wiki-members throats because it will turn them off. There is no doubt that the cultures I described above (Japan, Korea), as well as others may not be of interest to our members because of their 'Western safety zone.' 

Perhaps we could try something like a genealogical 'Treasure Hunt' on a monthly basis to get members engaged. By Treasure Hunt I mean spending a couple of weeks to a month 'discovering' various famous Martial Artists (other than the Walker Texas Ranger guy, who is from the US) and Bruce Lee who everyone reveres, and find out who in Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines are 'notable' martial artists and include information on their culture, beliefs, location, language spoken, arts techniques and such. Maybe depending on how much (or little) they contribute, they could be awarded a belt sticker (white, yellow, green, blue, red, black , I think those are all the color levels) depending on the number of profiles they do (and PROFILES as COMPLETE as possible - not just a name and birth dates). So if they do six fab profiles, they get a black belt. Don't ask me to lead this because I watched Korean, Japanese Okinawan martial arts, but never practiced. I spent my time spelunking on Okinawa to find Japanese death artifacts, learning ikebana, watching Kurasawa films with my favorite actor Toshiro Mifune (who was better in Yojimbo than Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars).

Any of contributions over the centuries (medicine, business practices, technology, arts like kibuki, bonsai/ikibana, printing, Anime, etc.) could be topics that might entice more of our members to participate and learn more about things that they do (other than WikiTree) but have no idea where it began. Especially if they have backgrouns in medicine, tech, theatre, etc. These activities could also help us grow our East Asian, etc. profiles. 

That's all I have to say. Now I have to return to working on my kid sister's paternal line (we have different fathers) as a Christmas present. Her paternal line is all German, Swedish and Polish...talk about being out of my comfort zone! Japanese and Korean are easier than these German and Swedish names and locations. I can only mimic the Swedish Chef on Sesame Street. I have to acknowledge Maria (Hedberg) Lundholm for all her help with the Swedish ancestors! She's expanded a generation or two, found records (in Swedish), added those little circles over the A and has had the patience of a saint with me!

Answer 10

A new category:
"Outside the Box"
The most obscure, least known, most overlooked, and least meeting the criteria to be included.