How to promote quality work?

Question

Hi all, and happy new year!

I've added a section to my own profile called "Showcases", with links to profiles where I've done a lot of original work. In several cases, the work stretches a long way back in time. It is my hope that some of those expositions may be entertaining as well as educating.

I hope that others will follow up with profiles that are the outcome of hard work, with substantial discussion, and which you feel some pride in.

Edit: It has been hard to find a good title for this thread, and I've changed it several times. I don't want to come across as bragging about my work. This is rather about finding a way to promote quality work in general, not just my own. Hopefully, the idea will be picked up by someone at a higher level.

Comments

Good idea, Leif!

---

Gold stars.....

Answer 1

Great idea, show us how it's done by the "best"!

Especially like your focus on quality, as discussed on your profile, which you directed us to check out to view your "showcases".

Hope you get all those files transferred, what an addition to WT!

Thanks for the info,

Rick

Comments

Thank you, Rick, for your appreciation.

I keep a daily track of my data, and during 2022, my number of profiles on Wikitree has grown from 13,322 last New year to 23,037 today. Hopefully, I'll reach my goal of transferring all connected and reasonably sourced profiles to Wikitree some time in 2024. Then I will go back to transcribing sources and add even more profiles.

I've just passed seventy and hope that I still have many years left with a clear mind.

Answer 2

Nice idea well carried out. Admirably succinct descriptions of some complicated cases of problem solving!

Bad question title: I skipped reading it until I caught sight of your name ;-)

Comments

Thank you, Eva. I can see your point about the title 

"Shameless plug" was of course a little tongue-in-cheek. Usually, I'm quite modest (for a Norwegian), and not much for blatant self-promotion. But I think that we need to put more focus on quality work, to balance out the emphasis on hurried mass additions of barely sourced profiles.

Answer 3

Hah! The new title certainly was better suited to catch my eye! I don't think that G2G is the right place to be bashful about bragging - although I sympathize with your feeling there.

It's a very good idea to showcase some quality research. We could perhaps link some sort of collection of showcases to the Nordic project.

Answer 4

Great thought, Leif!  Once upon a time, WikiTree had a Profile Of The Week feature, created to seek this objective.  Members could nominate a profile to a committee, who would then select a winner each week, based on content quality and presentation.

Eventually, it grew to have political undertones, with personal favoritism rumored as the winner selection basis.  Also, a lot of the "eye candy" (fancy stuff using more advanced coding) was being prohibited by new rules about what coding we could/couldn't use in an attempt to unify the look and feel of WikiTree profiles and make it easier for non-geeks to edit them, since this is a wiki.

It evolved to the Collaborative Profile Of The Week, with a specific profile selected in advance to be improved by everyone during the week, after which it could be showcased as an example WikiTree product.

I don't remember when that ended, but I like your thinking and agree that a way of showcasing profiles in which we take pride would be a very good feature for us to have.

Comments

We still have this page, which claims to show examples of great person profiles:

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

Perhaps they are, but they all profiles of notable people, so I'm not sure how much help they provide to an ordinary member just looking for examples of how to write up a Bio for grandma and grandpa.  It would be helpful to have just a couple of good examples of ordinary people, as opposed to a gallery that takes all day to read.

---

Thanks for looking up the Example Profile gallery, Dennis. Couldn't find it when I looked (but I didn't look very long).

You're right they're all (or mostly all) notables; I guess they serve OK for showing a decent standard for Notable profiles.

What I liked most about Leif's showcases was the myth busting example (myth busting is always nice) and the one where the vicar had swapped the names of two babies (errors in original records being one of the trickier problems a genealogist may face).

---

Thanks Gaile, it is interesting to read about the "Profile of the Week" which I seem to have a vague memory of from before.

I have pondered the idea a little more myself, and thought about some criteria. First, I think that celebrities, nobility and even what we call "Notables" should be avoided, as those may be amply described and get lots of attention in other places. I'd like to keep the focus on common people, preferably ones who have been "mistreated" in other works.

The focus should be on content, not form. "Eye-candy" is irrelevant.

The quality wouldn't need to be scholarly or on the level of an article in one of the larger periodicals, What should really count is good usage of sources, originality, ability to see things from new perspectives, and a lucid exposition.

Edit: I went to dinner after writing most of the above, and haven't had the opportunity to study Dennis' examples yet. But they seem to be all about celebrities.

Answer 5

There are two challenges I can think of that promote quality profiles: Profile Improvement Project and BioBuilders.

Here is my page where I record the profiles I have worked for these two challenges https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Michelle_Ketcham_Bio_Builders_List

And also another page where I link to profiles I deem "interesting" in hopes that one day someone might want to read highlights of what I have researched. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Interesting_connections_of_MichelleK