Why aren't WikiTree's Featured Connections more diverse?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

This is a common question.

Why do we feature so many Americans, celebrities from the English-speaking world, and famous names in European history? Why are we more likely to feature someone like Michael Jackson, than, say, Fan Bingbing, even though the latter is currently better known to a larger percentage of the world's population?

The most obvious answer is that WikiTree's audience is not equally distributed geographically, or by age, religion, interest, etc. See Featured Connection Stats.

The most common response to that is that our Featured Connections should be aspirational. If we aspire to be worldwide and reach everyone, everywhere, our features should be truly international and appeal to all sorts of people, of every age and interest.

To some degree, this is what we attempt to do. See our past features. We don't just feature American Founders and English Royals.

More fundamentally, many WikiTreers choose to participate in an idealistic, altruistic way. Some of the most talented genealogists on WikiTree devote their efforts to researching under-represented populations instead of their own ancestors. It's one of the things I'm most proud of in our community.

We encourage these wonderful projects, but we don't tell members where to focus. We can't. Members volunteer here because they enjoy it or find it meaningful and rewarding. What is interesting and meaningful to you ... is up to you.

Most members start with an interest in their own genealogy and close connections. What makes WikiTree different from most genealogy websites is that it doesn't start and end with your own family tree. The more involved you become in our community, the more likely you are to generously grow connections that are very distant from your own roots.

Growing worldwide connections is what we're all about. One person at a time, we're doing it. I am proud of our community and the progress we have made on our mission, even if I never live to see the populations of China, India, and Africa connected.

Great things are achieved one step at a time.

Our Featured Connections are a step on the path for new members. Unlike most projects and activities here, these features are not aimed at members who are already highly engaged in growing the worldwide tree. If you are reading this G2G post, these features are probably not intended for you. They are intended to attract attention and encourage more involvement. That involvement then leads to more global connections.

How do we know what will attract and engage members? Experience. We have learned over time what features get the most attention. Like it or not, American Founders and European Royals top the list. That doesn't mean we won't continue to experiment and add diversity. Fan Bingbing might make a great feature.

Onward and upward,

Chris and the WikiTree Team

Comments

This is, when you think about it, pretty natural. I think almost everyone wants to be connected to, or know how you are connected to, someone famous.

But its not as fun if the person is not famous to you!

I guess the ultimate way to solve this is to have it be dynamic, but then there is no reason for global discussion of the connections.
 

But if we ignore that you could in theory have different sets of featureds, depending on if you are not logged in, and if logged in, from where in the world you are! As a Swede Iv'e felt a bit left out since its seldom I see anyone closely connected to me. I can only imagine how it is for people where Wikitree is even less popular, and where you are further removed from US/UK notables.

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Hi John! You do have a not very short but nice all-Swedish connection to me. Of course I'm not famous ;-) I am always a little disappointed when my connection to another Swede goes through an overseas loop. But I think we have been collectively improving that over the years.

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Hej John, Även om ditt förslag om att ha en annan uppsättning profiler är trevligt kan det vara lite opraktiskt. Anledningen är att det kan vara svårt att hitta tillräckligt många profiler för de aktuella kopplingarna då de måste ha bra kopplingar redan och att utöka det för de tio bästa länen som besöker Wikitree enligt https://www.wikitree.com/g2g /1662663/featured-connection-stats skulle vara ganska svårt, strunt i alla andra länder. När jag tittar på min anslutning till dig är det 32 grader. Jag har haft flera anslutningar som varit högre, men som Kiwi med anglosaxisk bakgrund får jag i genomsnitt 18 till 28 grader normalt.

Please let me know if there are errors in what I have wrote. I used Google translate to write in Swedish but things do not always translate well.

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I think we all agree that more diversity in Featured Connections is a good thing.

I too have often felt that the selections are overly US centric.

I know it should be obvious, but we have to remember that the profiles have to be connected to be featured.

There are many interesting people in countries all over the globe who could be included in Featured Connections if the records needed to create their profile and other family connections were available.

In some countries the records needed don't currently exist, have never existed, are not available on line, are not available at all.

Do we have a list of places where the necessary records are not available for any of the reasons listed above?

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Hi M, the Global project relaunches in the New Year which means that 195 countries will have a project page with info about resources (or lack of) etc.

David Randall from Notables is doing a great job setting them all up for us.

Answer 1

Thoughtfully accurate Chris. Now I have to go find Fan Bingbing and see what I am missing!

Thanks for the rabbit hole.

Mags

Comments

For those who were wondering:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_Bingbing 

Answer 2

Thanks, Chris and the Team for all you do, including the thought and care that goes into these posts and responding to questions like these.

Answer 3

That is so true, Chirs. As our membership has expanded, so has our diversity in projects. The Southern Colonies Native American subproject was able to move to a project of its own, Native Americans, through the generous efforts of a WikiTree member who was on the council of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Shortly after, the First Peoples Canada project was created. We also have an Indigenous Australians project. WikiTree's diversity has grown as quickly as our membership.

Profiles featured across time are always changing. Profiles are often featured because of sudden interest, such as when a notable person dies, receives an award, or breaks a record. The number of times a profile is visited makes it a natural choice. Many profiles are featured because they are well-researched, well-written, and have a great story to tell, even if they are not notables.

There is usually a G2G asking for suggestions or nominations of which profiles to feature. Anyone can increase the diversity of featured profiles by developing a profile and suggesting it. Just like we are one World Wide Tree, we are one community, and all of our efforts toward diversity count.

Answer 4

Chris writes:

The most obvious answer is that WikiTree's audience is not equally distributed geographically, or by age, religion, interest, etc.

How is it distributed by gender?

Featured profiles between the start of 2022 and 14 November 2023 were only 32.6% women. It would be surprising if WikiTree membership, or non-member viewers of the features, were so dramatically skewed male.

Comments

I'm not sure that gender ratios of WikiTree membership or non-member viewers is really a fair thing to judge it on. For one thing, there are major historical disparities, as previously discussed here. For another thing, there are currently only 7,931 connected female notables - that's 16% of the total 48,731 connected notables. From my work with USBH notables, I know that not all of those 7,931 are profiles that are probably ever going to get featured. For example, we have several that are notable for being the first Black woman to graduate from X university, but realistically, probably only 1 or 2 of them would ever get chosen for Featured Connections. I'm sure there are plenty of other situations like this (first female mayor of X city, let alone mayors who were not firsts and/or were mayors of smaller cities; female Olympians who didn't medal or even got a bronze medal, but weren't a "first" for their sport or country; etc.).

From working on some suggested themes for next year over the last week, I can say that for some themes which seem like we should be able to find 50-50 women or even 100% women (and I definitely tried to find them!), there just aren't that many connected female profiles that fit the topic. There are some exceptions, but I see a lot of suggestions for topics for next year that would include women or be female-only where the person suggesting it doesn't do the work of going out and finding connected female profiles that fit the theme and assumes there are plenty. But from the ideas I've worked on this week, I can say that it's a lot harder than you'd expect and for a lot of themes, there just aren't are as many connected women as you may think.  So if we want a better ratio of female profiles featured, people either need to do a lot more work to put together suggestions of themes where there are enough connected women and/or we need to do a lot of work to get more female notables created, connected, and in good shape. 

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Distribution of the audience is the main argument Chris offered to explain disproportionate national representation. It seems like moving the goalposts not to use the same criterion for gender. Instead of replicating historical bias, it's possible to take positive proactive steps to overcome it.

I agree the difficulties you point out are significant, Christy. But many good ideas for women-only themes have been proposed, not least by yourself. We do need to keep working actively on these to find existing profiles that are suitable and to develop others; I hope more WikiTree members will join those who are already doing this. I'm grateful that when women's profiles have been nominated for past themes, they've often been accepted. However, I'm sure that by choosing more women-only themes, and by reducing the number that are de facto all or mainly men, the Team can substantially improve the current ratio of women repesented.

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A short note about the gender distribution of WikiTree members. It may be strongly skewed in favour of women. At least if you look at the Project Leaders the number of women is roughly twice the number of men.

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Good point thanks, Eva. That is one way of getting a measure. I tried but couldn't work out if WikiTree Plus can count members by gender.

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Jim, to use WikiTree+ to query members I normally use isLiving (profiles for living non-members must be Unlisted and WikiTree+ doesn't include Unlisted profiles, so any living profiles in WikiTree+ must be members). It looks like a lot of guest members and family members don't bother entering their gender at birth, but for members who have entered their gender at birth the split is 159,014 male and 188,006 female (https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm?report=srch1&Query=isLiving+Female&MaxProfiles=500000&Format=&PageSize=100)

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Great, thanks very much for this, Paul! So it looks as if WikiTree members of specified gender are 54% female.

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Other than for the sadness of the underlying event, it's good that the choice of next week's First Ladies theme will (probably) provide an all-women outcome. There is also opportunity for wide international diversity.

Answer 5

Excellent post!

Answer 6

From time to time there is a G2G post requesting nominations for a forthcoming connections list, for one Royals list I nominated various Pasifika royals and one was selected, that list also included a fair number of non-European royals (Japanese, Thai?).
 For diversity in the weekly lists we need two things, people to nominate suitable, preferably diverse and well connected profiles, that are also well written and sourced profiles to chose from, Asian, Pacific, South American or African profiles may well be in short supply of suitable well written, connected profiles.
 Before we can have more diversity we may well need more profiles created or improved.
 As someone from the South Pacific the lists do appear very Western Euro-American centric, hopefully the natural growth of WT will give more options in the future.

Comments

Well said, Gary! Diversity doesn't happen by accident. We have to do the work to create the profiles first.

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Some diversity ideas from previous years where profiles were suggested, and worked on --

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1497540/connection-finder-planning-2023?show=1581445#a1581445

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1497540/connection-finder-planning-2023?show=1589113#a1589113

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1332314/connection-finder-planning-2022?show=1438321#a1438321

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I liked your suggestion on Diminutive Performers. That’s very much outside of the box thinking.

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In fairness to the people who did not choose those three specific themes, the first one was a recent-death theme suggested about three weeks after the person's death, and it looks like the calendar was probably already pretty full for several weeks after that, except for maybe the week when the Gordon Lightfoot challenge ran. Barry Humphries had already been featured and it seems like Gordon Lightfoot had not, so that may explain why Barry didn't get a feature.

The second one only had five connected profiles suggested, so it wasn't going to work.

The third one had a suggested date that ended up being the Mayflower feature, which is one of the top 20 past themes.

I hope you will not be discouraged from continuing to suggest more diverse ideas, but I think we also need to be realistic about why some ideas don't make the cut when we want them to. The reasons might not be 100% satisfactory in all cases, but I don't think they're totally unreasonable in these three cases.

Also, FWIW, I've suggested a similar Pride month theme related to LGBTQ+ rights activists again for next year (here), but I could not find enough connected profiles for it to be a feasible theme yet. So if other people want to get this theme chosen, please add links over there to any other connected profiles you know of or work on getting more of them connected before then. Or suggest a different Pride-related theme that would have more connected profiles.

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"Full calendar" does not prevent a theme being pushed aside when an American celebrity dies.

There are strong reasons many who used to be active in EPOW threads no longer participate.

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There are many options available for Pride themes. See my comment.

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I suspect this may already happen, but one way to improve diversity would be to work backward from the well-connected, developed profiles to the theme, rather than starting with the theme.

Answer 7

I’m just over here adding as many Italians from Gesualdo and San Pietro a Maida as possible. I mean it’s not like I don’t have a one place study for those very Italian towns.

Will be adding more soon.

Very true and very accurate, Chris. As time goes on, we will get more worldwide. In the Italy project alone, we have members from Brazil, Switzerland, Argentina and of course IN Italy itself.

One just has to look carefully to find just how many countries are represented on the site. It just takes time to grow. And growing we are. We just invited a few Italians to the project. Will they accept? Stay tuned.

Great post, Chris! Ciao!

Now we just need a Japan Project.

Answer 8

Hi Chris,

I’ve read your answer, with your explanation. And I do see your point in General. And I don’t want to go on repeat. However I do think even you have to admit that the whole Netherlands Project went up in smoke after the meddling of some teammembers. And that you must have noticed many people (not only the Dutch), don’t feel comfortable speaking up or being honest.

I hope at this moment or in the future you do accept more European, Indian, Chinese challenges. Because in the past we’ve tried to set up challenges for example about WW-II but those didn’t ‘fit’ the Kalender so we set it up ourselves. (Until almost the complete team left, which was caused because we weren’t allowed to (devise corrected in) discuss in our own language).

So I do hope that Wikitree gets more global, divers and tolerant in the future as I still think if you really want to go global, think global and accept that we’re different but all have the same goal.

Comments

Thanks, Margreet, for sharing your experience! I hadn‘t realized that WikiTree wasn‘t allowing other languages than English; after all, there are all kinds of translation projects. En Nederlands is echt een mooie taal! Thanks to AI translations, it should be possible to follow discussions even if they are not in one‘s mother tongue or in English. (M‘n moedertaal is Duits maar ik praat ook een beetje Nederlands als ik in Maastricht gewerkt heb - hoewel dat is fijfendertig jaaren geleden.) Multilingualism rocks, so more power to you!

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Too bad you can't award a Best Comment star.

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You can write posts and communicate in other languages, and write profile biographies in multiple languages. On G2G, I even try to respond in the language the person posted in if I know some basics of the language.

Non-English communication still has to follow the Honor Code though, including in Project channels such as Google Groups and Discord servers.

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Jamie, I fully agree with the Honor Code. 

However the problem is that sometimes forreigners can't follow if the Honer Code is being followed if they are not native speakers. Exactly that happened and we were summoned to discuss in English. However that's not our native language and not everybody can express themselves very well, with all the different layers of complexity in the way how you should say something,  in discussions in another language. And we (Dutch) are for sure discussing in a complete different way then people from other countries. That should be taken into account and it should not limit any Foreign Project Team. I would not be participating as a Project coördinator in a Polish project if I don't speak that language very well. Or don't know where to find the archives or what the customs and habits of that specific country are. My English is pretty good, but I don't know all the layers of what you would consider courtesy, because we have another perception of courtesy. Most of our country members prefer honesty, because we consider that as being polite and transparant. That's the only point I would like to make. If you want to be global, you should consider to accept differences in the way people react.

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Miscommunication between people who speak different languages is definitely a hard challenge to overcome.

I just didn't want people like Oliver to get the incorrect idea that people aren't allowed to use other languages on WikiTree.

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Well, Jamie, I do know that other languages are allowed. My comment, being addressed to a Dutch recipient, probably made more sense (or rather cultural appropriateness) in Dutch than in US English. Which just goes to prove the point …

Now, what I really deplore is that local projects (or national ones for that matter) would be summoned to discuss in English instead of in the language that they are most comfortable with. That really stifles development. It would help, both in the short and in the long run, if WikiTree could be as open as the wiki concept warrants (e.g. discussions on different wikipedias happen in the respective languages as I know from Swahili Wikipedia which I co-moderated for many years).

Even if I switched to Swahili now (and yes, I am fluent in that language), you‘d probably be able to get it via GoogleTranslate. Ebu nijaribu kuonesha ukweli wa kauli yangu, maana nikiandikia Kiswahili hapa sasa, mungeweza kuielewa kupitia utafsiri wa kimtandao.

I just looked up the translation, and „Let me try to show the truth of my statement, because if I write in Kiswahili here now, you would be able to understand it through online translation“ is pretty accurate. :-o

Imho, no need to summon anyone to use English, not even in project communication. And if the WikiTree team is in doubt whether project communication is according to the honor code, they would do well to trust the project coordinators to vouchsafe for that.

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I hadn‘t realized that WikiTree wasn‘t allowing other languages than English; after all, there are all kinds of translation projects.

I was addressing this statement -- to me, it sounded like you thought other languages were not allowed. 

Wikipedia is a bit different with regards to discussions because there isn't just one wiki with different languages being used on it -- it's a bunch of linked wikis, each in a different language. So it makes sense to have discussions in Swahili in the Swahili wiki. But for WikiTree, some discussions will probably always default to English -- such as discussions about site-wide policy or in conflict-resolution situations where all parties do not speak the same language.

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we weren't allowed to [...] discuss in our own language

And I was picking up on Margreet's wording in her answer. Some verbal interactions are best done face to face over a cuppa, but not everyone has a Stammtisch ...

For every comparison, similarities or differences can be emphasized. Why not see country-specific projects as parts of WikiTree where discussions in the respective language make sense? Wikimedia also has areas where English dominates (like Commons or WikiCon).

I perceive Chris's post as apologetic and defensive, focusing on the achievements of WikiTree and the importance of the US. Most non-US members are grateful for what the team is doing and what has been achieved so far. All we wish for is  more acceptance of localization incl. diversity of culture and language. (And I'm not saying that nothing has been done in that regard but rather that more efforts are desirable for the good of genealogy worldwide.)

And finally: especially in conflict resolution, it's important that all sides feel heard and understood, and that includes using multiple languages and appropriate interpreters (cf. international politics).

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I agree with Oliver's comment. Yes, the English-speaking market (and the US-market in particular) are the most important markets to generate money from to keep the website running. But there is a big BUT. The but is written in the mission of WikiTree. "We collaborate on creating a single family tree, that connects us all." If we are all connected, and there is hardly a connected user that doesn't celebrate their connection to the Big Tree every week, then the Team has to acknowledge that there are people from outside the Anglosaxon cosmos, who are not only connected to the Big Tree, but also have a different way of communication. I admit I miss the Dutch community, they were a huge help, not only but especially with all things Dutch-related and they are all very knowledgable genealogists.

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Thank you, Oliver and Jelena (and Margreet) for articulating these thoughts - much better than I would have.

Particularly agree with Oliver's perception of the initial post.

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@Jamie Thanks to Jim Richardson's comment cross-referencing our interaction above, I have now understood that whatever happened with the Netherlands Project was not in accordance with WT's language policy. I stand corrected!

Answer 9

Hi Chris, I really appreciate this post!

Besides working on my own family, I've been collaborating with Projects Italy and Latin America, and most recently trying to organize an Argentina sub-project. I've been asked several times to provide candidates for the FC - and I'd LOVE to se more diversity there. I find it very educative specially when I get a relatively close connection to someone I do know nothing about, and I have to find out who that person was.

But then there're are some barriers that for now can't be avoided: the lack of online records to connect relevant personalities to the tree, specially modern ones. Europe has strict privacy rules regarding 20th century vital records and Italy in particular has an issue with records before the 1860' Unification. Argentina's on-line resources are at best spotty, but slowly getting larger with time. Another issue is the way census are recorded in the USA compared with other countries: at least in the two I'm more familiar with (Italy and Argentina) from the 20th century on, they are anonymous - that means that no names are kept. Etc, etc.

So, many times, it's not that there isn't an interest in providing profiles for diversity, but that said profiles are not easy to connect to the big tree (but I'll keep trying!).

Answer 10

Hello Chris,

I truly appreciate the context and perspective that you provided in this post.  Your comment about free will with regard to how members devote their time and energy on WikiTree resonated with me in particular.  This was a topic that we discussed often at the Chicago arts high school where I was a teacher and leader for almost 15 years.  The school population reflected that of Chicago which is to say that it was very diverse.  As we thought about how to best "grow" these young artists to make change in the world to come, we always had to remind ourselves that their artistic voice needs to come from their soul, not their appearance or sound of their name.

These conversations are vital and I feel confident that WikiTree will indeed keep moving onward and upward through continued dialogue, intention setting,  and creative thinking.

Thanks to you and the team for all that you do to steer our wonderful community.

Betsy

PS--I hope that at some point I'll be able to put enough of my Taiwanese family (who originated from China) on WikiTree in time for the day when Fan Bingbing is one of our featured connections.