Bill Clintons Profile

Question

On 28 Jan 2024 Matthew Ryckman wrote on Blythe-6:

Living Notable Profiles should only be made for very well-known public figures for whom personal information has been widely reported elsewhere. Direct Excerpt from WikiTree Basic eligibility requirements: the notable person is at least 18-years-old, and there is a Wikipedia article about them, thereby showing that they meet Wikipedia's guidelines for notability, and the Wikipedia article appears in at least three languages, and the Wikipedia article, in more than one language, includes information about at least one nuclear family member (parent, sibling, spouse, or child), and we are not aware that the notable person would prefer to keep the information we are putting on WikiTree private. Beyond this basic eligibility there must be a WikiTree Project that is willing and able to manage it according to the rules described on this page and other WikiTree rules and policies. Criteria: Met Also a direct excerpt from WikiTree We respect privacy. We privacy-protect anything we think our family members might not want public. If that's not enough for someone, we delete their personal information. As a general rule, WikiTree prohibits any information about a living person to be made public on WikiTree without first recording the person's explicit consent to our Privacy Policy. However, we make exceptions for highly-visible public figures if we can safely assume that they have consented to the public distribution of at least some of their personal information. It would appear to me that the exception rule applies to allow the info in the profile to be unrestricted and set to not set at a level that only allows members of the trusted list to see, it would also appear that the eligibility criteria has been met regarding living noteables Show quoted text

Comments

Living profiles, Notable or not, do not show a Living Spouse, which is what I think you are expecting.  There is a statement on the profile with a link to Hillary's profile.

Members of wikitree may have their spouse added to their profile, but if the spouse is still living, it is visible only to the member and anyone of their Trusted List.  That is the same with Living Notables profiles.

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Deceased spouses do not show on the profiles of living members.   It is not anyone's "fault" in not reviewing the privacy levels.   It's just how the system works.

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Hi Matthew. This seems to be a very similar issue to another recent question and also to points you have raised in profile comments. Maybe it's time to revise Discussion Rule 5 which says

Do not express the same disagreement repeatedly. Everyone in a community disagrees with some decisions. If you disagree with how decisions are made on WikiTree you can propose a change.

Whether proposing a change would be successful I tend to doubt. Absence of a link between notable spouses may be more a technical restriction than a policy one, as Melanie said. However, if you were to make a change proposal according to the documented procedure, it would draw attention to the issue in the approved way, and allow more scope for open discussion than this series of separate profile comments and G2G questions.

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Jim Richardson , Im disappointed you feel that way, but we are all entitled to our own opinions, be that as it may, it appears to me that this issue has been long running ( especially as it applies to this profile) for the better part of a decade there has been push by a few members for change and members being told to propose a change and thrown links for the policies they feel are relevant. As other members have expressed, and of note ( long before I piped up ) that the policies should not apply in this case as Hillary is noteable herself. And Bills full name should not be private, privacy is meant to protect people and sensitive information not common knowledge and publicly available information.

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Matthew, you are entitled to have your opinion, but as I pointed out, the discussion rule denies an entitlement to express it repeatedly. If this argument has been going on for a decade, it definitely sounds repetitive. If you feel so strongly about it, your way forward is a policy change proposal.

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Matthew

You are not understanding something.  It has 'nothing' to do with a Notable person.  Living people do not have spouses shown.   Look at any member profile.  I don't think you will find any spouses shown.  You seem to think that Living Notables should be treated differently than other Living people records, but they are not treated differently as far as the relatives are concerned.

If you think they should be treated differently, then a Policy change would be needed.  A change was made to allow Living Notables profiles to be seen and it is very specific that a Project must be the PM to monitor it, as well as how the privacy should be set, but you are trying to change what the privacy levels mean for wikitree, not just for Notables.

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Linda, I agree with spouses of living people should not be displayed as it would be violating privacy. I dont know who your spouse is, nor do I know who your children and parents are, and for good reason, and that being privacy.

Furthernore, I can assure you that a lot more people know who Bill Clintons wife is, as well as his daughters name.

I do feel that there is misinterpretation in reading wikitrees policies that surround noteable profiles. I do not see anything that does not allow the relationships of living noteables to be attached and seen in WikiTree ( outside the trusted list)

Im not asking for a change to policies for all of the profiles of living individuals on wikitree, just the ones that are highly visible in the public eye ie) Oprah Winfrey, King Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry etc etc. When the information on attached relationships to living noteables is public knowledge, and easily sourced, it is not a concern of privacy , if its not private.

Are you for or against this "initiative". If anyone is up for a collaborative effort in procuring a change to this policy Im willing to do a group effort proposal but I cant do it alone. I have too much on my plate as it is. Plus the process is rather onerous and daunting. If anything a change to the proposal policy should be tackled first and foremost. I feel its rather restrictive and limiting

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I dont believe I have breach Discussion Rule #5. If you read it and apply it as it is worded.

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You would be asking for a revision of the Privacy policy for a small group of profiles and I wouldn't agree with that. Making software to something on an 'exception' basis for a small group does not make sense.  That would involve more effort than it is worth.  If you they are notable and you know their name, then search for it.  The spouse could also be listed in the bio with a link to their profile, if they want to do that.

The policy that WT has to not show connections of living relatives is fine as it is.  Notables is a small portion of all the profiles on WT. Then to determine, how many of the spouses of those Notables are also Notable, makes it a much smaller number, easily remedied by adding a line to the bio stating who the spouse is, if their profile is open for others to see it.

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Update:

I really wished I read the fine print when signing up with surveymonkey. Apparently, they only give the first 25 responses free of charge under their free plan. Needless to say, there is no other option to get the data from the survey ( outside the 25 free responses, amd there were '''48''' Responses to the survey) They dont offer a reasonable monthly subscription the lowest offer to retrieve the results is at a cost of $99.00 which is far more than what im willing to pay.

What I have done is set up a survey in Google Forms and its 100% free 100% of the responses are available no extra fees.

The link to the survey is below. I would be grateful of a few further moments of your time to complete the new survey. Again, my apologies for the oversight on my end. Ive spent 3 days arguing with surveymonkey but they will not budge.

** its my recommendation to steer clear of them for your survey needs as they are not customer service oriented and are sort of extortionists ( im my view ).

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZboBp0RBSOMeaaJ9SkmF0dETIu_5IyZ1BqV0Lv_GR8w/edit

The survey will remain open until Friday February 16, 2024.

Thanks Again !!!

commented 1 minute ago by Matthew Ryckman G2G3

Answer 1

Matthew has asked above for assistance with a policy change proposal. Here is a draft for a skeleton of such a proposal. I have no dog in this fight; I'm just trying to move the discussion forward in the way recommended by rule 5. Comments, suggestions for improvement, and explanation as to why this will not fly or how I've missed the point are welcome.

This policy proposal relates to the Help page section Private with Public Family Tree. The proposal is to insert a new sentence (italicised here) in the middle of the first paragraph so that it will read:

"Exactly like Private profiles except that relatives are visible if the relative also has a public family tree. For this purpose, relatives include spouses. For example, if a child has a public family tree but their mother does not it will say "[private mother]" on the child's profile and family tree pages."

If this proposal is successful, WikiTree software should be updated to implement it.

Comments

Not arguing either way at this point, but I don't think that's the right part of the help pages to target to address this issue. The last sentence in the Private with Public Family Tree section says "Spouses may also be public, but are treated a little differently." and links to this Marriage Privacy page. I believe that Marriage Privacy policy is the part that would need to be amended.

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Thanks Christy, I missed that. The Marriage Privacy page admits that this is an inconsistency for historical reasons, and says

many WikiTreers felt strongly about wanting to make their family tree public but ... wanted to keep their marriage information private...

Is it still true that "many WikiTreers" feel this way? The "Do not display" flag is available, as is not entering the marriage at all.

Even if people feel this way about their own families, we could look for a wording which would cover the case of notable couples where the marriage is public knowledge.

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In the light of Christy's remarks, here is a stronger draft skeleton proposal.

This policy proposal relates to the Help page section Private with Public Family Tree. The proposal is to replace the entire section with the following heading and three paragraphs:

"Private with Public Family Tree

"Exactly like Private profiles except that relatives are visible if the relative also has a public family tree. For this purpose, relatives include spouses. For example, if a child has a public family tree but their mother does not it will say "[private mother]" on the child's profile and family tree pages.

"Having a public family tree also means that DNA Test Connections and Sex at Birth are public.

"If for profiles of spouses both having Public Family Tree it is desired that the marriage not be displayed, the "Do not display" status should be selected on the marriage. For complete privacy about the marriage, even hiding it from those on the Trusted Lists, the marriage should not be entered on WikiTree at all."

Simultaneously, the Help page Marriage Privacy, which itself acknowledges inconsistency and confusion, would be withdrawn.

If the proposal is adopted, WikiTree software will be updated so that profiles with Public Family Tree display exactly as at present if the marriage "Do not display" flag is present, but if the flag is absent and both spouses have Public Family Tree, then the marriage will be displayed in the data section of the profiles in the same way as other relationships.

The stakes on this would be high. If successful, such a proposal would achieve Matthew's goal for notable profiles, and simplify what at present for historical reasons is a complicated hotchpotch. A defeat for the proposal would mean that further repetition of disagreement on the subject would be flagged as venting under discussion rule 5.

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If this proposal were to go into use, it seems that profiles of currently living people that have a spouse currently connected will 'all of a sudden' have those spouses be seen!!  That is a privacy violation that has been expected since the spouses were connected! To me, it looks like you are changing something that has been in use and 'assumed' by all users that they would not be displayed.  

You think that should be thrown out the window because a few Notables profiles should show their spouses?

Do you think that something should be done to set all the 'Do Not Display' options for spouses so they will continue to look as they have when they were entered?

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That's a good addition to the idea, Linda. Once only, when the change was being introduced, all the "Do not display" flags where either spouse is living could be turned on in the database by a script. Then people on the Trusted Lists who didn't want it that way, in particular for appropriate notable couples, could turn the flag off again manually.

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But I do NOT agree it should be done. To me, it would be changing a major policy to satisfy a 'few' profiles, when the easier solution is to do, as was done with the Clinton's biography, is to add a  link to the spouse profile.

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Sure. If a proposal goes ahead, you can vote against. Under rule 5, a proposal is the way to resolve the argument once and for all. It's a waste of everyone's time to have it come up perennially and drag on undecided either way.

Matthew, as you specifically asked for collaboration on this, I'm hoping you'll comment on how the above is looking to you so far.

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I feel as though it might be best to leave this to a vote. I have made the following survey with a couple of multiple choice questions. If there is a strong enough response indicating WikiTree members are interested in change, we can then propose the change formally. I have included the survey link and will be creating another G2G Question asking members to complete the survey ( that way it is more widespread than the few members that are following this discussion.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QPHVFP3

Thanks for all the input everyone, I really appreciate all the comments and points raised, both for and against.

Matt

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Hello Jim. Just wanted to check in to see where things stand with a policy change proposal?. Is this still ongoing?. If it was dropped I will close the question off.

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Hi Matthew. At present I think the ball is in your court. Unless I've missed something, we are still waiting to hear the results of the second survey you did, not on SurveyMonkey but on a Google form.

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My apologies Jim, the Google survey did not get any responses, I forgot to post that result.

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Odd. I responded to it myself, or at least tried to, so it should have got at least one. Could there have been a technical problem?

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When I closed it there were no responses. I'm not sure if there was a glitch or not. I can say at the time the survey responses were within the 25 free responses allowed, 68% or 17 out of the 25 agreed that there was no harm in releasing the restrictions on information that is publicly available  by performing an internet search.

52% or 13/25 felt that there was a need to distinguish the privacy policies between living noteable profiles and those of other "average" living non-members.

As far as changing the policies 48% or 12/25 agreed there was a need for change.

There were 48 responses to the surveymonkey servey, that being said I cannot say with any degree of confidence what the results looked after the first 25 responses, almost an equal amount of responses were esentially kidnapped and held for ransom by survemonkey. Its pretty pathetic that they have no ability to discount the responses on a one off basis if there is no desire to purchase a pricy yearly membership.... im finding more and more these days it seems like there are an awful lot of gimmicks and games being played to steal peoples hard earned money my manipulation and to me borders ethical business practises and fraud in my eyes

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Weird. I just checked again and there were 6 responses to the survey. Im not sure what happened there but when i closed it there were 0 responses logged and upon closer inspection,it would appear that it was never closed?!?!?! ...... technology.....

Here are the Google Form Responses:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZboBp0RBSOMeaaJ9SkmF0dETIu_5IyZ1BqV0Lv_GR8w/viewanalytics

It would appear that of the members who completed the survey in combination with the results of the surveymonkey results there is a need for change surrounding the privacy and display settings of living noteables, spouses et al.

** Sorry for dropping the ball on this, I clearly remember closing it with no responses, Im curious now if I was dreaming or if it was one of those paralell universe, Mandella Effect situations.Lol

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Thanks for the information. There does seem to be some support for a change. Here is an updated version of the suggestion I made above for a policy change proposal, now incorporating Linda's additional idea:

This policy proposal relates to the Help page section Private with Public Family Tree. The proposal is to replace the entire section with the following heading and three paragraphs:

"Private with Public Family Tree

"Exactly like Private profiles except that relatives are visible if the relative also has a public family tree. For this purpose, relatives include spouses. For example, if a child has a public family tree but their mother does not it will say "[private mother]" on the child's profile and family tree pages.

"Having a public family tree also means that DNA Test Connections and Sex at Birth are public.

"If for profiles of spouses both having Public Family Tree it is desired that the marriage not be displayed, the "Do not display" status should be selected on the marriage. For complete privacy about the marriage, even hiding it from those on the Trusted Lists, the marriage should not be entered on WikiTree at all."

Simultaneously, the Help page Marriage Privacy, which itself acknowledges inconsistency and confusion, would be withdrawn.

If the proposal is adopted, WikiTree software will be updated so that profiles with Public Family Tree display exactly as at present if the marriage "Do not display" flag is present, but if the flag is absent and both spouses have Public Family Tree, then the marriage will be displayed in the data section of the profiles in the same way as other relationships. Once only, at the same time as the change is introduced, all the "Do not display" flags where either spouse is living will be turned on in the database by a script. Subsequently people on the Trusted Lists who do not want it that way, in particular for appropriate notable couples, can turn the flag off again manually.

I have recently submitted two other policy change proposals for which responses are still not in, and am not keen to take on another at this point. Matthew, you might like to post the above or a variant yourself as a new G2G question, with suitable title and tags.

Answer 2

Hillary Clinton is notable in her own right. It makes no sense to make Bill and her daughter Chelsea's profiles visible (both living) and deny her from having a profile because she is living. The Wikitree policy about not making a spouse public if they are living is if that spouse or family member is not notable. Which doesn't apply in this case.

Comments

Agreed. Jimmy.

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Jimmy, Hillary's profile is visible:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rodham-1

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Bill has a profile
Hillary has a profile.

It's just that they are not linked as husband and wife in the view the public can see.  If you are on the Trusted List, you can see the spousal link.  If you are not, you can't.  You just have to trust that the PM *knows* they are husband and wife and has linked them 'in the background'.