Talk:Family History and Genealogy Wiki

(In response to a keen contributor's request, we will start archiving, or otherwise dealing with, older material on this page. Some of the material may go into a Forum. You can probably find an earlier full version for an unlimited length of time by using the "Page history" link. (June 2007))

Rodovid.org
I am interested in what you are doing here, but thought you might be interested in Rodovid.org another family tree wiki, which has automatic tree generation and GEDCOM import. It is also trying to become a wikimedia project. You comments on this project would be greatly appreciated. --172.214.9.154 20:50, 24 March 2006 (UTC), (User:Bjwebb on Wikipedia, Meta and Rodovid)

Hi again. I noticed I recieved no reply. Rodovid would be interested in merging with the site you have here, what do you think?--172.200.178.107 13:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi. You have a very nice site at Rodovid.org. I think the reason no one answered is that no one here really "owns" the project (although certainly there are Founders and Administrators) so they cannot really give the go-ahead to 'merge' the two. I would think it would be an unlikely fit, since it's an outside project and has a different mission and even a different way of showing subjects and descendants. However, it is a very impressive site you have and I bet many people here will use it as well as this one. Best of luck with it! Nhprman 19:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that and the fact that the idea behind this database is to provide a different format for genealogy records; one more suited to non-Western situations where the basic research hasn't been done, family names are often not used, and so on.

Plus, I'd like to understand further about what "being a Wikimedia project" means. What is the licensing situation of Rodovid? And so on.

&mdash;iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 22:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I can see what the Rodovid aim is - to be a sister project alongside Wiktionary and Wikibooks etc. Excellent aim! But the Rodovid licence would probably have to change. How about a link with WikiTravel, which has a similar licence?

Anyway, I'm sure we can arrange reciprocal links between many of our pages. Robin Patterson 20:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would like to be a sister project. Personally I do not think the license will be of much importance. CC-BY is attribution, which the GFDL also provides. So CC-BY can be relicensed under the GFDL. This means that pages from Rodovid could be moved to Wikipedia etc. if necessary. Of course, this can not happen the other way round, but is there any text that would want to be moved from Wikipedia etc. to Rodovid? If it does come to it, the license could easily be switched because CC-BY and the GFDL are one-way compatible.


 * Also, what do you think of the GEDCOM import that we have? I see that you are also developing a format of GEDCOM import and wondered what you thought of ours.


 * If you want to contact me quickly use my e-mail bjwebb67 [at] gamil [dot] com. I will check this site if I can, but not as frequently. --172.143.48.132 16:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The reason I proposed the G-Wiki when I did was to have a looser format than the one established for most mainstream GEDCOM files. This because I want to work in cultures that are not so mainstream. The filter converting our data to GEDCOM I love because it has the potential for people like me to collect data in our non-conventional ways and then have it converted to GEDCOM. I am not sure about merging this effort with a GEDCOM-defined effort, though...

&mdash;iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think GEDCOM efforts really need to wait for version 6.0, the XML version of the standard. That's really going to help coordinate all the various efforts for putting genealogy information online, and will enable comparisons to be made dynamically.  161.181.53.10 22:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Just FYI, the Gedcom 6.0 (XML) effort is probalby not going to happen. The LDS Church has taken a different approach with their next generation FamilySearch system, and I haven't seen anyone else stepping up to take it on.  There have been many other XML versions of GEDCOM proposed over the past five years, but none of them have gathered critical mass.--Dallan 08:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Template
Can we make the template one of the main navigation links? Chadlupkes 22:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've read about how to do that, but I forget what it needs. By all means create more links to it from other pages and encourage people to put such a link at the top of their User pages. Robin Patterson 01:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone figures it out and it needs an admin's access, please let me know.

&mdash;iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 08:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

WeRelate
Hello there. I am the same anon who posted comments about Rodovid. My username on Wikipedia, Rodovid and WeRelate is Bjwebb. Firstly, I just thought I'd point out something on your main page: and regions over four Hemispheres. This is wrong. A hemishpere is half the world, so four is 2 planets! Are you doing family trees for the martians? :)


 * Maybe you haven't heard of the Eastern Hemisphere. I didn't say four non-overlappin g hemispheres! Robin Patterson 20:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

WeRelate is yet another Genealogy wiki (which does not aim quite as far abroad as this site, we are sticking to people on Earth). Anyway, the point is, we are currently thinking about merging with several sites including Rodovid (which I mentioned before) and Wikitree (whose server is currently down). I just wondered if this site would be interested in a merger with WeRelate, or if the lack of ownership would make it near impossible.


 * Plenty of ownership here, and better prospects for stability than WikiTree. The question was asked and answered months ago. Robin Patterson 20:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

If a merge could not go ahead, and WeRelate merges with the other two sites to produce a much more useful (it includes tree generation and in a few months GEDCOM compatibility) site than can be found anywhere else (possibly including a dump from this site), what would this Wiki's position be. This may sound rather selfish on my part as a WeRelate user, but shouldn't you try to disuade people from editing on this site, as all the content and much more can be found on WeRelate. (This is not the case yet, so I don't suggest doing anything immediately).--172.143.105.61 17:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there. The merger of WeRelate, Robovid and Wikitree is fantastic news!  I'm looking forward to seeing the result.  Is there any progress in getting the Wikimedia Foundation to take this on as a formal project?


 * As far as merging with this site, I think grabbing the data itself from Genealogy.Wikia would be ok, but I don't know if I would want to see this site cancelled. At least Robovid has some built in tools that format the data in specific ways, and our standards here are a little more open, to allow people to enter their information as they choose and not be forced into a box.


 * Maybe intralinks back and forth would be a better option. Chadlupkes 19:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * From the fact you made no mention of it in your comment, I'm guessing a merge would not be a practicality. However, once there is one WeRelate site, and not 3 separate wikis, can you think of any advantage that this site would have over it? WeRelate currently has built in boxes for inputing names etc. to generate Pedigree trees, but also has the normal sized Wiki box beneath them, so any other information/text about a person can be entered, just as it would here.


 * Rather than actually going through the process of shutting down this wikia, perhaps you cut put a notice on the site's main page by community consensus. Something like:


 * "If you are looking to use a Genealogy wiki, we also recommend WeRelate.Org, a slightly/much larger site. (as appropriate)'' If you create pages here you may be duplicating somebody else's efforts at that site."


 * I hope my suggestion of this doesn't sound too selfish or big headed.--172.188.82.83 09:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it doesn't. It sounds like you are very proud of what you have built, and I certainly agree that it's something to be proud of.  And there's certainly no problem with sending invitations to merge data.  However, there is a place in the wikiverse for multiple sites on subjects like this.  Different sites will have different strengths, and different styles.  It's not a question of advantages that one site would have over the others, it's simply a recognition that there is room for all of us.  I don't stress too much about it.  We're certainly willing to post a notice about other sites like this one on the site somewhere.


 * Also, can you update AboutUs.org about your merger plans? Chadlupkes 15:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm pleased to see that WeRelate is also under the GFDL which makes these two projects compatible. Would you like Wikia to host WeRelate so you don't have to rely on donations? Angela talk 15:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello again. Whenever I promote these genealogy wikis it seems I am mistaken for the site's founder/creator/developer. I am not, simply a very enthusiastic user. I am not responsbile for making the decision of how the site is hosted, and do not feel that I am the one who should update AboutUs.org. The sites founder is Dallan. We are discussing merging on WeRelate itself, and he has mentioned contact with someone from Wikia and has decided against accepting hosting in the near future because of the traffic overload that WeRelate may receive if it were to be publicised (see the page on WeRelate).


 * Also, as I have stated on WeRelate, I think it might be better for WeRelate to be hosted by Wikimedia - although I hope I am not provoking any rivalry by saying this (during previous discussions on Wikia one well known user said that Wikia should snap up WeRelate before Wikimedia gets a chance to). Again I have explained this on our discussion page on WeRelate.


 * Finally, if Wikia were to provide hosting, would you be showing adverts? WeRelate currently doesn't, and I would prefer it if it stays this way.--172.206.42.227 23:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * There's no rivalry between Wikia and Wikimedia since Jimmy Wales is the founder of both. If Wikimedia ever wanted to start a genealogy wiki, this Wikia could be moved to Wikimedia servers. It's one of the reasons we use the GFDL and MediaWiki to remain compatible with them. Angela talk 04:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this wiki attracts a different clientele. Ultimately, these sites are all about the "clicks". Either clicks to read ads, or clicks from people who will be entice to make donations. The upkeep has to be paid one way or another. You prefer to donate (or perhaps have others donate for you). For myself, I'm happy with having advertiser's pay the freight; then I don't have to feel guilty about not paying may fair share. Like Google, the ads can be ignored if one chooses...and sometimes they are even helpful. In general, I prefer the ad-based model of Wikia to the charity based model of WeRelate. Also, I might add that there's a history in genealogy of web sites based on the charity model selling out to other organizations. Rootsweb and Genealogy.com come to mind. I understand its very profitable for the site founders; rather annoying for those who thought they were contributing to a user supported organization, only to find they were really funding someone else's business plan. It would be interesting to learn if WeRelate has organized its self as a not-for-profit.Bill 00:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Just a quick note on the above comment: I once spoke with the founder of RootsWeb, who said they were about to run out of money, which forced the sale to Ancestry. I could be wrong, but I believe he made the sale so the site wouldn't have to be taken down rather than as a way to make a lot of money. I agree that it is important for any site, for-profit or non-profit, to have a viable long-term business model.--Dallan 08:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what Rootsweb users were told at the time. It's still free (apart from a few "ads"). Genealogy.com was merged in later. Robin Patterson 20:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps so, but what I recall from the months proceeding the aquisition was that a number of folks offered to help set Rootsweb up as a non-for profit. For whatever reason it soon became clear that this was not a direction that the founders of rootsweb were interested in pursueing.  Then, as I recall, a few months later Rootsweb was sold with the provisio that it be maintained as a free service.  You could probably interpret that sequence in a number of ways.  Either way, it doesn't appear that the business model worked.  One wonders what the difference is between the model Rootsweb was employing, and the model WeRelate is using.  Bill 00:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. WeRelate is less than a year old, and to date I've focused more on defining the service than on developing the business model.  Eventually we'll have to support it through ads, fundraising drives, selling stuff, or some combination.  And just like any business, we'll have to see what works best.--Dallan 09:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I appreciate that candor. As you may realize one of the "selling points" Mr. Webb was presenting was that WeRelate was NOT funded by avertising---he was fairly clear that he didn't like seeing the ads. And in truth, WeRelate is not currently funded by advertising---though now we see that this is a likely eventuality.  Ultimately, as I said previously, its all about the clicks isn't it?  At least that's what its about if you are looking at a site as a business, which both you and the founders of Wikia are (albeit, in your case in particular there's likely to be direct and genuine interest in genealogy, as opposed to just another wiki subject).  But I will have to tell you, in the interest of candor, that I was rather putoff by Mr. Webb's approach to suggesting a merger.  Not to be overly harsh, but I don't think the best way to win folks over is to a) poke fun at their site, b) explain how inadequate it is, and c) suggest that they put a note on their site directing them to a "much better site, and don't waste your time with this one".  Frankly,I don't think the interests of WeRelate were well served by that approach.  Which is one of the reasons why I appreciate the candor in your above response.  On the otherhand, this did serve to initiate some discussion between the two sites.

This is User:Dallan, one of the founders of WeRelate. I just came across this discussion and thought I would comment. WeRelate is being developed by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy (FOLG), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The goal for WeRelate is to be a combination Wiki + Social network + Search engine for genealogy. That is: We're not there yet. We're currently in Beta trying to gather feedback from people about the features they would most like to see. In fact, we haven't even officially launched person and family pages - we've only told registered users about them so that we can get some feedback on the functionality before an official launch. (So please don't post a notice telling people to add their person and family pages on WeRelate, at least not yet.) Person and family pages should launch officially sometime in the next several weeks, and I expect we'll realize the full vision sometime the first half of next year.
 * enter what you know about your ancestors in wiki pages (pages can include both structured and unstructured information),
 * find matching wiki pages that others have entered in order to collaborate with them, and
 * use the search engine to find matching records on the Web.

I was very impressed with both the Wikia community and the Wikimedia Foundation when I met them at the Wikimania conference a few months ago. I think a merger with either would be worth discussing. The issues as I see them include:
 * I have modified the MediaWiki software - modifying about a dozen files, and adding many additional files. The modifications of existing files have been minor - I believe the software is architected well for extensibility - but the extensions are not minor.
 * WeRelate currently has about 2M wiki pages, with potential for many more. Once we support GEDCOM uploads, people will be able to generate 10's of thousands of pages at a time.  When Ancestry.com launched their new "create web pages from GEDCOM files" functionality, they said that people added 50M new names to their site in the first three months.  I don't expect that will happen, but I don't want to merge with someone and then take over their infrastructure.
 * The second and third functions: finding matching wiki pages and searching the Web for your ancestors, require different functionality than that traditionally provided by a wiki. However, we believe that integrating these two functions into a genealogy wiki is very important.  I'm not sure that Wikia would want to take on running a Web crawler.

There are several possibile approaches for a merger. One would be a partnership between FOLG and the Wikimedia Foundation (which could involve funding/hosting or could just as well involve knowledge-sharing and endorsement). Another would be a data-sharing agreement. A third would be an outright merger or hosting on Wikia. We're willing to explore these avenues if there is interest. I'll watch this page and my talk page if you want to talk.

We really do want to get feedback. If you are interested, please visit for example the main page a person page, and an. We know we have a long way to go, but good feedback will help us to get there in the best way possible.--Dallan 08:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you all. Dallan knows I'm working happily on both sites (and I use WorldConnect when I want a decent display!). Plenty of scope for more of that, I think. As I said months ago, different structures have different advantages. And the GFDL allows bulk copying where desired. Best of luck to all. Robin Patterson 20:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Revisions of Main Page
Drafts are being created here and there.

I agree with Bill's idea of having a calendar on the page. See Talk:Current events.

Robin Patterson 05:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

But I think the replacement came much too soon after the current version was opened for discussion. How many people commented on it?

It's too long, for starters. And the boxes have nice colours but are one above the other with several of them not full width, looking like a kid's amateurish pile of varied-size building blocks.

I may have time to go into more detail eventually. Maybe I'll shorten Help:Contents first (so that it looks more like a book's table of contents), on the assumption that all the stuff Bill likes has been copied or moved to Help. Robin Patterson 11:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You're probably right, that I jumped to quickly, though two people did say they liked it....but then again in other channels, this has been open for discussion for a couple of months....without comment.


 * I'm not sure of your "jumble of blocks" comment. It looks squared away to me.  There are some differences when you select different skins and that may be the source of the problem.  There are two boxes in the second tier.  No, they don't go all the way across, but together they consume the space.  Perhaps it displays differently for you.  I'll note that in the second tier the bottom of the calender box does not match the bottom of the adjacent box to the left.  That's a function of unequal comment, and probably can be adjusted for.


 * At anyrate, as ever I'm happy to have any and all input, corrections, suggestions, etc. We want something here that will put a 'best foot forward'. Bill 12:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I like the new look. I think it's more inviting than the original, and doesn't get bogged down.  The blocks can be tweaked to make them fit better, but the content is solid and it's really all we need.  The original page was actually longer.  Chadlupkes 13:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I checked the appearance under the various skins available to people in their preferences. Choice of skins does make a difference with regard to some features, but I didn't see anything that looked like what Robin was describing. The alignment of the bottom edge of the Calender box did vary from skin to skin, but I don't think this is a) serious, and b) fixable with the div format being used. This might be fixed going to a true portal system, but that has proven to be a lot of work. Eventually, time permiting, I'll get that fixed so portals can be used on this site, but for now we have to approximate the appearance. Bill 14:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of "skins", the default is "monobook" which is what I leave mine set to, since most people are going to go with the default setting anyway. I think some of the other skins do look better (except for the "search skin" which I think is a bug. I suspect that there's a bug in "simple" as well, though that may be a browser issue. Nostalgia has a nice clean look to it. However, each of these skins do have some distinctive features, and sometimes things appear significantly different depending on the skin used. Stray bits of code seem to appear in some of the skin displays for the main page.  I'll work to see if I can eliminate those kinds of problems in the main page, but this is going to happen on other pages as well.  And I don't think making every page "look right" no matter what skin is being used, is a workable problem.  So, word to the wise, if something doesn't seem to look right on a page, try a different skin. Bill 14:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

More Suggestions for Home Page
I think there's too much text on the home page. Ideally, one should not have to scroll to see what one needs to see on a home page. Do we really need all that text in the top box? And "Places on this Wiki" should definitely be "above the fold". A few more cents... Jillaine 20:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We always appreciate input and feedback. Both the main page and the Community Portal have been undergoing changes for the last several months, as we bring them into align with the needs of the site and the user community. Withregard to the item concerning the need to scroll down, please see Wikipedia's main page.  One development issue for our site is that we have not brought in all of the templates needed to do certain things, such as creation of portals.  The Portal look, such as it is here, is a workaround until more of the templates are imported. (Also, there are more fun things to do than fiddle with portalization (G)). Bill 20:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Check your page counter
Is this the number of pages of content on the site (which is around 6,100 pages) or the number of page views to the site? This site gets 500-1000 page views per day. --Mdavis 14:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Counter says 8167 today. I'll watch it! Robin Patterson 12:30, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be best to remove it. It now says 9484. If it's claiming that is the total number of visitors ever, it's very very wrong since this wiki gets more than than every fortnight now. Angela (talk) 23:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Language? I don't have fonts for the above unicode message installed on this machine- can anyone help out?   ~  Ph l o x   20:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That message was actually cross-wiki spam (now removed) posted on a number of other Wikia wikis. GHe (Talk) 19:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Main page is now unprotected
The main page could bear a lot of improvement. In particular, we need to have something that makes it dynamic- so that everytime the user enters, there is something new of interest to show them. We could do a featured article of the week type thing, or fun facts about genealogy to give folks a hook for diving deeper.

I commented out the dysfunctional calendar (feel free to fix it if you see any point). Also, I nutshelled the copyright main points and pointed to longer documents for those interested.

Anyone who has ideas in this respect is welcome to Be Bold and make the necessary edits. There is no reason why we shouldn't have the best Main Page in all wikiadom. ~  Ph l o x  20:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)