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

[Ray Saintonge]

Simply asking a person's permission would simply lead to chaos.  The 
person whom you ask may agree, but his brother may not.  A 110 year rule 
may be a little excessive.  The US census, for example, is in the public 
domain after 72 years.  BMD announcements in newspapers are all a matter 
of public record; telephone directories, property tax records and the 
Social Security Death Index are all publicly available sources of 
information. 

Ec

Benjamin Webb wrote:

>Hmm. Well Rodovid is designed to have a My Tree button, so would it be
>alright to have information about yourself? The current policy on
>Rodovid is ask permision if you are going to include living people. By
>default living people are not imported during a GEDCOM inport. What do
>you think of this? What must we do by law, because that is most
>important, although it would be best to have better privacy.
>
>On 29/03/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>This strikes me as somewhat irresponsible.  Some GEDCOM files are huge.
>>>Are you suggesting that we just accept them as valid without any
>>>standards for verifiability?  We also need to address the privacy
>>>issues.  The copyright question may turn out to be a less critical problem.
>>>      
>>>
>>The best privacy policy I've seen regarding geneological information is
>>to not list anybody who is currently alive, or in other words does not
>>have a listed death date and is less than 110 years old, under the
>>assumption that people over 110 years of age are so unusual that they
>>deserve special mention anyway, or can be generally assumed to be dead.
>> I think it might be safer for 120 years instead, but that is a fine
>>point to quibble here.
>>
>>Some exceptions might happen for very famous people, but that is
>>certainly something to express concern over.  It is also something that
>>can be automated directly in the software if a policy is set up, where
>>the information can be added but not displayed if it fails the living
>>person criteria.
>>
>>A good point to raise, however.
>>    
>>