Mav (Daniel Mayer) wrote:
Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
What I had in mind was a living genealogy reference, not so much memorializing the past, but serving as a reference guide to those curious about their ancestors. This goal wouldn't require a ban on content for the living, either (I'd be interested in looking up my uncle and seeing "So-and-so is a consultant for Whatchamathingy Inc.).
I fear that having pages on the living would cause the creation of vanity pages and the use of Wikimedia resources for personal webpages. At least at first, I would like to ban any articles about any person still living. That still leaves billions of articles to write. If and when this project reaches critical mass and has a 24/7 user community watching the place, then we can talk about expanding the focus to include the living.
The format being discussed on Joel's meta page would work for the living, since there's no room for much vanity -- not even a space for Whatchamathingy. If we require that every page contain a link to another extant page, then even the vain people must put in their parents or siblings -- and at that point, we're building the global family tree that Joel wants.
There is a problem with verifiability, the usual problem with vanity pages. But of course, restricting to dead people doesn't help with that. I suspect that we'll have to accept that either Wikimemorial or Wikipeople will contain falsehoods that are never corrected.
But I agree that these projects can be merged without too much lost. As for the name, I like "Wikipeople", "GlobalFamilyTree", "Wikialogy"(?), "Ancestors"(?).
Of those, I like Wikipeople the best.
Me too!
Although in my mind, as I consider this idea, I'm somewhat distinguishing "Wikimemorial" (mav's plan, only dead people, format like [[sep11:]]) from "Wikipeople" (Joel's plan, with living people, format like his meta page).
-- Toby