I would be happy for some input regarding the next genealogy newsletter.
we now have a good number of readers, and while some 4-5 users removed their names from the list of subscribers, the rest will most probably be happy to receive the next newsletter. And this is of course very positive, through that newsletter, we have an information bridge to users who may supprt ideas and suggestons, participate in votes, and help us take one step further in the development of he genealogy project.
But! I dont want to send a new, nice newsletter, which they may read, and then forget. I want this newsletter to actually make an impact, and a difference for the project, and be much more optimized than the previous, and more synchonized wth the fantastic possibilities we have, in order to reach some goals!
So I ask for your help:
I believe the impact of that newsletter can be much better, if more than me would be willing to give some time and energy, putting together something with a clearer message, with stronger arguments, and with a better english than mine.
So please, take some minutes and reflect on what possibly could be acchived with the next newsletter, and how and with what content it should be written?
maybe someone would care to make the entire letter? Othervise, please send me some lines, or at least some advice and ideas for the content.
best regards, Dan Koehl
Good idea!
We could start a draft at e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_genealogy_project/Newsletter_Septe... then everyone could add items there?
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017, at 01:07 AM, Dan Koehl wrote:
I would be happy for some input regarding the next genealogy newsletter.> we now have a good number of readers, and while some 4-5 users removed their names from the list of subscribers, the rest will most probably be happy to receive the next newsletter. And this is of course very positive, through that newsletter, we have an information bridge to users who may supprt ideas and suggestons, participate in votes, and help us take one step further in the development of he genealogy project.> But! I dont want to send a new, nice newsletter, which they may read, and then forget. I want this newsletter to actually make an impact, and a difference for the project, and be much more optimized than the previous, and more synchonized wth the fantastic possibilities we have, in order to reach some goals!> So I ask for your help:
I believe the impact of that newsletter can be much better, if more than me would be willing to give some time and energy, putting together something with a clearer message, with stronger arguments, and with a better english than mine.> So please, take some minutes and reflect on what possibly could be acchived with the next newsletter, and how and with what content it should be written?> maybe someone would care to make the entire letter? Othervise, please send me some lines, or at least some advice and ideas for the content.> best regards, Dan Koehl
--
Kontor/Office: Ljusterö Information Box 75, 184 03 Ljusterö Telefon: 11.00-17.00: 08-542 424 01
Dan Koehl, Kårbodavägen 39, 184 97 Ljusterö, Sweden. Mobil telefon 1 (Comviq): 0767 15 45 70 Mobil telefon 2 (Telia): 0739 17 17 89 Skype: DanKoehl ICQ: 40467 87
Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
Links:
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_genealogy_project/Newsletter/
Yes, I think that will work well. I made an edit, a suggestion starting with the previous layout, which of course is n must. I do hope that you all feel encouraged to add something! :)
Dan
2017-08-29 0:27 GMT+02:00 Sam Wilson sam@samwilson.id.au:
Good idea!
We could start a draft at e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_genealogy_ project/Newsletter_September_2017 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_genealogy_project/Newsletter/ and then everyone could add items there?
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017, at 01:07 AM, Dan Koehl wrote:
I would be happy for some input regarding the next genealogy newsletter.
we now have a good number of readers, and while some 4-5 users removed their names from the list of subscribers, the rest will most probably be happy to receive the next newsletter. And this is of course very positive, through that newsletter, we have an information bridge to users who may supprt ideas and suggestons, participate in votes, and help us take one step further in the development of he genealogy project.
But! I dont want to send a new, nice newsletter, which they may read, and then forget. I want this newsletter to actually make an impact, and a difference for the project, and be much more optimized than the previous, and more synchonized wth the fantastic possibilities we have, in order to reach some goals!
So I ask for your help:
I believe the impact of that newsletter can be much better, if more than me would be willing to give some time and energy, putting together something with a clearer message, with stronger arguments, and with a better english than mine.
So please, take some minutes and reflect on what possibly could be acchived with the next newsletter, and how and with what content it should be written?
maybe someone would care to make the entire letter? Othervise, please send me some lines, or at least some advice and ideas for the content.
best regards, Dan Koehl
--
Kontor/Office: Ljusterö Information Box 75, 184 03 Ljusterö Telefon: 11.00-17.00: 08-542 424 01
Dan Koehl, Kårbodavägen 39, 184 97 Ljusterö, Sweden. Mobil telefon 1 (Comviq): 0767 15 45 70 Mobil telefon 2 (Telia): 0739 17 17 89 Skype: DanKoehl ICQ: 40467 87
*_______________________________________________* Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
Several different systems have been put forward as candidates to be "the" Wikimedia genealogy project. Of those, several have been in existence for a number of years and are in regular use. Yet I have seen very little on the question of why any of those may or may not have been chosen as a starting point.
It now sounds like more effort is being invested in a project to develop another such system - but I wonder how it can succeed. Since there isn't clarity about why any of the existing projects were not selected - how can another hope to be "more" successful. I'm not trying to throw cold water on the good intentions of people who wish to design or implement such software - but neither would I want to see their efforts come to naught.
I wonder if the better approach is to try to select a reasonable interim system? With the dual goals of beginning to accumulate a genealogy database AND serving as an example against which new software ideas can be compared? Or perhaps - taking the approach of creating something rather more like Wikidata - intended more as a centralized genealogy data repository usable by a variety of consumers (I know LDS was working on something like this - but I don't know where it stands at present). (FYI - I assume that Wikidata proper really can't be such a database - on the basis of notability requirements - however limited).
Please forgive me if my remarks are hopelessly out of step with what others may be thinking... :) !
-jrm
James Mason; Nashua, NH, USA
This is a really good point.
I'm certainly not keen to develop yet another software system for genealogy (although, I've tinkered with doing so and am using such software as one of my main research systems at the moment... oops). But I think there's space for multiple options. As far as existing systems go, I would say that WeRelate is the best: it's a wiki, and so very flexible; it's big and has an active user base; it's properly licenced. The reason I don't currently use it personally is that its software is very out of date and so hard to work with (it's basically a fork of MediaWiki from ten years ago), and I feel like the software tries to do things (such as citation management) that I don't believe should be part of genealogy software. The other thing I feel might be possible is Wikidata as a central repository (and I know you say it can't because of notability, but I'm not so sure; there's more to be discussed here I think). The problem then is that there's nowhere for the 'other' genealogy data to go, apart from notable individuals who can go on Wikipedia. My personal approach these days is that everyone should host their own wikis, and pull what data they can from Wikidata and link where they can to Wikipedia. All up, I really do think that some software development, on some front, is required. (Hmm... but then, I'm a software engineer, so everything does rather look like a code-shaped nail to me!) —Sam.
On Fri, 1 Sep 2017, at 01:50 AM, James Mason wrote:
Several different systems have been put forward as candidates to be "the" Wikimedia genealogy project. Of those, several have been in existence for a number of years and are in regular use. Yet I have seen very little on the question of why any of those may or may not have been chosen as a starting point.> It now sounds like more effort is being invested in a project to develop another such system - but I wonder how it can succeed. Since there isn't clarity about why any of the existing projects were not selected - how can another hope to be "more" successful. I'm not trying to throw cold water on the good intentions of people who wish to design or implement such software - but neither would I want to see their efforts come to naught.> I wonder if the better approach is to try to select a reasonable interim system? With the dual goals of beginning to accumulate a genealogy database AND serving as an example against which new software ideas can be compared? Or perhaps - taking the approach of creating something rather more like Wikidata - intended more as a centralized genealogy data repository usable by a variety of consumers (I know LDS was working on something like this - but I don't know where it stands at present). (FYI - I assume that Wikidata proper really can't be such a database - on the basis of notability requirements - however limited).> Please forgive me if my remarks are hopelessly out of step with what others may be thinking... :) !> -jrm
James Mason; Nashua, NH, USA
Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
I'm concerned that we're trying to find a perfect media-wiki software solution - but there aren't enough people listening to know if we've arrived. In any case - the real truth is you never get to perfect. I think we find something that's good enough to start - hopefully a user community starts to gel around that - then we evolve over time to something better (but probably never perfect).
I certainly have a personal preference for WeRelate - I think it gets a number of important things right - but the dated wiki base is becoming a problem. A key to understanding WeRelate is that DallanQ started with the idea of maintaining the semantics of an uploaded GEDCOM. With that in mind - I think most everything you find on the site starts to make sense.
The WR software is freely available - have you considered starting from that base instead? Is there something that's fundamentally wrong - such that attempting to evolve a WR 2.0 on new wiki base software - isn't a reasonable way to go?
-jrm
On 2017-08-31 20:15, Sam Wilson wrote:
This is a really good point.
I'm certainly not keen to develop yet another software system for genealogy (although, I've tinkered with doing so and am using such software as one of my main research systems at the moment... oops). But I think there's space for multiple options.
As far as existing systems go, I would say that WeRelate is the best: it's a wiki, and so very flexible; it's big and has an active user base; it's properly licenced. The reason I don't currently use it personally is that its software is very out of date and so hard to work with (it's basically a fork of MediaWiki from ten years ago), and I feel like the software tries to do things (such as citation management) that I don't believe should be part of genealogy software.
The other thing I feel might be possible is Wikidata as a central repository (and I know you say it can't because of notability, but I'm not so sure; there's more to be discussed here I think). The problem then is that there's nowhere for the 'other' genealogy data to go, apart from notable individuals who can go on Wikipedia.
My personal approach these days is that everyone should host their own wikis, and pull what data they can from Wikidata and link where they can to Wikipedia.
All up, I really do think that some software development, on some front, is required. (Hmm... but then, I'm a software engineer, so everything does rather look like a code-shaped nail to me!)
--Sam.
On Fri, 1 Sep 2017, at 01:50 AM, James Mason wrote:
Several different systems have been put forward as candidates to be "the" Wikimedia genealogy project. Of those, several have been in existence for a number of years and are in regular use. Yet I have seen very little on the question of why any of those may or may not have been chosen as a starting point.
It now sounds like more effort is being invested in a project to develop another such system - but I wonder how it can succeed. Since there isn't clarity about why any of the existing projects were not selected - how can another hope to be "more" successful. I'm not trying to throw cold water on the good intentions of people who wish to design or implement such software - but neither would I want to see their efforts come to naught.
I wonder if the better approach is to try to select a reasonable interim system? With the dual goals of beginning to accumulate a genealogy database AND serving as an example against which new software ideas can be compared? Or perhaps - taking the approach of creating something rather more like Wikidata - intended more as a centralized genealogy data repository usable by a variety of consumers (I know LDS was working on something like this - but I don't know where it stands at present). (FYI - I assume that Wikidata proper really can't be such a database - on the basis of notability requirements - however limited).
Please forgive me if my remarks are hopelessly out of step with what others may be thinking... :) !
-jrm
James Mason; Nashua, NH, USA
Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
Wikimedia-genealogy mailing list Wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy
wikimedia-genealogy@lists.wikimedia.org