Proposal of Change Survey

Question

Hi All,

Currently WikiTrees Privacy and Marriage Policies do not allow living spouses of living members and non-members to be restricted insofar as the public display of the relationships of the living nuclear family members.

There has been some interest over the years to make a change to WikiTree's policies surrounding living noteables and their living family members including their spouse ( even if the spouse is a noteable person ) prime examples of these restrictions apply to profiles like Bill Clinton & Hillary Clinton, King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla. Prince William and Princess Kate, Beyonce & Jay-Z, The Kardashians and many other living noteable individual.

The rationale is, noteable families like the Clintons et al, do not require such a restrictive view on privacy when the information being protected is readily available to the public and not classed as " Private" and the release of information is not a breach of any privacy laws, and is not jeopardizing anyones safety and well being.

If there is enough response from our community indicating that change is needed, the formal proposal will be submitted for review.

*** ALL RESPONSES ARE SUBMITTED ANONYMOUSLY AND CANNOT BE TRACED BACK TO YOU ****

Secure Link to Survey. Thanks in advance for your participation.

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

Comments

The normal way to do this is to put the voting options as answers in this thread so that people can upvote them here.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Developing_New_Rules

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Thank You Ian. I'm aware of this, this survey is a precursor to determine if there is enough general interest in the subject to illicit the formal proposal to be submitted for a vote.

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Thanks Matt. As Ian says, this is not the usual approach, but a straw poll may provide useful information.

Would you consider setting a deadline when you will close the poll and report results, maybe something like 1200/midday UTC on Wednesday 7 February (three days from now)? It should not be indefinite.

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For those who are interested in the discussion that lead to this initiative, I linked the G2G discussion below:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1697490/bill-clintons-profile?show=1699669#c1699669

Good catch Jim, Yes, of course I agree with a deadline, as it is Sunday I was thinking of cutting off responses at the end of the week ( Friday ) but Im open to your cut off date as well. Other than writing it in is there a function to put an "end date" on the G2G post ?.

** So far 5 responses all for change, lets see how this cookie crumbles**

Thanks to all of those who have worked on this topic of discussion, stay tuned for further developments as they unfold**

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Matthew, I might need another cup of coffee this morning but I'm not sure what you are suggesting.

Currently WikiTrees Privacy and Marriage Policies do not allow living spouses of living members and non-members to be restricted insofar as the public display of the relationships of the living nuclear family members.

What is it you want to restrict or not restrict? Explain simply as I'm still waiting for the second coffee to kick in.

When I look at the public view of my profile, my husband is not visible, he recently joined WT, so prior to that date, he was blacklisted as a living non-member. 

When I look at the public view of his profile, I am not visible. 

I deliberately have not entered my living siblings, or my children or my grandchildren. 

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He wants Living Spouses of all Notables to be shown as linked if the spouse is also Notable, I think, instead of just adding a line to Bio with the spouses link, as was done with Clintons.

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Hi M Ross... yes....coffee.... much needed.  Linda is correct, the proposal being considered for submission is a change to the privacy level settings for Living Noteables and their spouses if they are also noteables and living.

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This would be some sort of change for living Notables only?

And I'm still not sure where this statement fits in.

Currently WikiTrees Privacy and Marriage Policies do not allow living spouses of living members and non-members to be restricted insofar as the public display of the relationships of the living nuclear family members.

My interpretation of your statement is: current policies allow living spouses of living members and non members to be publicly displayed. 

Because as you said; current policies do not allow the relationships between living spouses of living members and non members to be restricted as the public display of the relationships. 

Relationships between living family members such as spouses, children and other family members are not public unless the person profiled is a WT member. And profiles for children are always restricted.

Personally I do not have an objection to such people as the Clintons or King Charles and his wife Camilla and other similar people having a spouse or other family members shown on their profile as connected rather than just mentioned as spouses or family members in the biography. 

What I am questioning is the use of the bolded statement above as a basis for change. 

How will the creation process for profiles of living Notables be changed to allow only those living Notables to have living Notable spouses connected?

I'm not being deliberately difficult I just want a better explanation of how this would be implemented.

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My biggest concern for this is that non-Notables spouses would need to have their privacy restricted, while Notable spouses most likely could be shown. How this could be done? I have no clue. But in effect, if we're presuming that someone who marries a Notable suddenly gives up their rights to privacy, then we will eventually encounter a problem. For living Notables married to living Notables, we should add references in the Biography section to address the restriction on privacy, as there is less expectation of privacy in those situations. However, there is every expectation of privacy for non-Notable spouses and children, so there would have to be some way to separate them.

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Scott, you say "non-Notables spouses would need to have their privacy restricted", but isn't this already the case? The profile of any living person who is not Notable and not a WikiTree member must have Unlisted privacy.

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Jim and Scott,  This question is at the top of my list. 

How will this change be implemented? 

Will there be some type of change made to how living notable spouses of living notables are created, with a special box to click that says 'This spouse is notable therefore their privacy is not required". 

It's the mechanics of the process that confuse me, and I think it is a topic that needs to be addressed before any changes are made.

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I think we should allow time for Matthew's survey to conclude, maybe on Friday, to show whether or not a proposal has a chance of success. If the answer is yes, and if a proposal is then presented, it should contain much more detail, and informed discussion will become possible.

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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

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Why don't you do it in G2G, which is totally free and the way that these things are supposed to be done?