Quoting Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)earthlink.net>et>:
[snip]
I can see why misuse of this project to host personal
vanity webpages
would be a concern, but I think there may be better ways to discourage
that. I don't see a good reason to ban articles about the living,
especially since it's probably easier to get information about a person
while they're still alive.
Instead, if the project is oriented toward genealogy rather than
encyclopedic biography, it could be designed to focus on certain
categories of information. "Family trees" all have something in common
in terms of format, and most genealogical data is directed towards
things like dates and places for major life events. A genealogy project
might have more in common with Wiktionary than Wikipedia, in the sense
that entries are more restricted in the types of information that are
presented. An article might allow for dates and places of birth, death,
marriage, etc., cause of death, names of parents and siblings, and other
appropriate information, the same way that a Wiktionary article would
consist primarily of spelling, pronunciation, part of speech,
definition, etymology, usage, etc. If the purpose of the project is
clear, we can set boundaries that prevent people from using it as a
vehicle for a blog, or whatever else it is we don't want them doing with it.
Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind. My original rough template proposal is
at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFamilyTree. I had intended it to have a
set of well-structured information, including names of relatives, dates,
places, etc., with space for a few paragraphs about who the person was. That
last part would be the part that could be abused, but it is also what gives the
genealogy its character. If it is restricted to the format of a few paragraphs,
I think the potential for abuse would be minimized.
I started a Wikipeople page <http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople> to
discuss this further.
--
Joel Konkle-Parker
Webmaster [
Ballsome.com]
E-mail [jjk3(a)msstate.edu]
Phone [662-518-1636]