[Foundation-l] Rodovid.org, family tree wiki, wishes to become a wiki project

[Robert Scott Horning]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>  
>
>>Or more to the point, I think that starting a geneology project is 
>>actually going to be a significant source of revenue for the Wikimedia 
>>Foundation rather than being a drag on the resources.  
>>    
>>
>Probabably so, and by charging very modest fees at that.  The question 
>to ask then, given the massive number of genealogical websites out 
>there, what can we do that will make our site more desirable than all 
>the others.
>
>Ec
>  
>
The thing that the spin-offs from Wikimedia users (Rodovid.org and 
Wikitree.org) have in common is that the content is free to be 
redistributed and is not encumbered with sometimes very draconian 
copyright protections.  And a strong spirit of cooperation among users 
to help each other out.  The current drive to push for citation 
standards with Wikipedia is also going to have a strong spill-over 
effect for a project like this, where it would be possible to 
demonstrate the quality of the information.  Indeed this has been a 
major complaint of some other massive on-line geneology projects like 
familysearch.org, where the quality of the data is seriously lacking in 
many situations.  Another big advantage is the ability for people who 
have the correct information to be able to easily update the information 
and not require manuvering through bureaucratic red tape and obtaining a 
CS degree in order to be able to submit any changes.

I'd also like to give an example of the typical licensing terms for most 
of these websites:

http://familysearch.org/Eng/policy/FSI_terms.asp

Note especially the clause:

"All material found at this site is owned or licensed by us. You may 
view, download, and print material from this site only for your 
personal, noncommercial use or, if you are a professional genealogist, 
for use by a current client."

Compare that to the GFDL, and you will see that most data has been 
signifcantly restricted for re-use in most cases, even if you were the 
person who submitted the information in the first place.  GFDL (or 
Creative Commons type licensing) is one area where sites like what is 
being proposed here is going to blow all of the other geneology sites 
out of the water.

All of these are aspects that are derived from Wikimedia users' 
experience with developing other on-line content.  The current internal 
push for this sort of development is where users like myself have been 
so used to how things are done with Wiki software that we wonder why 
this isn't be done for geneological research, where these ideas of free 
access to information and the ability to freely edit the information 
havn't yet caught on.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning