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

[Benjamin Webb]

I agree with all of what you have said. Seeing as we have a test database,
engine.rodovid.org, there shouldn't be a propblem. Any non-real records can
be put there.

On 27/03/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> >
> >
> >>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.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >Being able to freely edit is an important feature, but that opens up a
> >wide range of other problems like our policies on original research.
> >
> >Ec
> >
> >
> >
> I think in this situation the term "original research" is not really
> applicable.  By definition all geneological research is all secondary
> research in terms of relying on other original source material to prove
> if a particular fact is true or not.  The closest that anybody is going
> to get to a traditional definition of original research with a project
> of this nature is going to be those who seek oral histories for groups
> of people who traditionally did not keep written records.  I have a
> brother-in-law with Ga ancestry (one of the tribal groups in Ghana)
> where this is the only source of that sort of knowledge.  This is an
> area of human knowledge, BTW, that is as fragile as linguistic
> preservation efforts, and a key part of the transmission of human culture.
>
> I think this can be kept in check considerably with this sort of
> proposal for a geneoligical project, where research projects that have
> absolutely nothing to do with geneology would be prohibited.  Another
> point to make is perhaps the prohibition of fictional geneologies, such
> as the geneology of the Baggins Family from the works of J.R.R. Tolkein.
> Even the use of ancient ancestral records such as those from classical
> religious texts like the Bible might be at least a point of discussion
> among participants.  I think this is going to be the grey area that
> would have to be in check, not the prohibition on original research to
> keep publication of crackpot ideas off of Wikipedia.  That is the main
> purpose of the no original research policy anyway... to politely tell
> people with these wild theories that Wikipedia is not a forum for
> primary publication of these concepts.  A UFO researcher adding
> genological information about the ancestral history of "the greys" would
> be justifiably laughed off any serious geneological forum.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
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