What is Digg?110 Comments
- jnorris441, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34Before you get all of humanity on your website you might want to upgrade your server.
- treed, on 10/12/2007, -9/+32Your mother is a pet?
- aggrazel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Great idea until you realize that half the creditors out there use your "mothers maiden name" as some sort of "secret" ...
- leodavinci, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I hope that this, or a project like it, gains steam. I have been interested in finding out my family tree for a long time, but all the online services are costly.
Hope to see some OSS software or something that could help with this... I could definitely see some Googler using their 20% to make a utility like this. Gtree perhaps? - redwards, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18"Great idea until you realize that half the creditors out there use your "mothers maiden name" as some sort of "secret" ..."
Hey, as long as there's no WikiTree for pets, I'm safe. - cogent_bob, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17The LDS church has a free site. http://www.familysearch.org.
It's harder to use than it should be, but it has tons of info already in there. - sobriquet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9This should be interesting if it takes off. The site seems to be glitchy as hell though.
- redwards, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7This is a great idea, though it has the potential to become very confused. I've got a family history traced back to about 700AD, and some of the earlier entries are kind of in the gray are as far as whether the people are real or fictional.
- unfletch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I put my immediate family's info on this site when I first saw it about a year ago. There were tons of bugs then, and unfortunately most of them are still around.
Their biggest problem is that they're trying to do too much magic. For example, there's no way to explicitly define a relationship, except for offspring. All other relationships are inferred. There's also no unique person ID. They just use name. These design decisions have both led to problems. One that's been particularly annoying to me is that they ignore name suffixes when doing their offspring-based relationship inference. As a result, last time I looked, I was my own grandfather, and my dad is listed as one of my offspring. (I'm named after my grandfather, and their algorithm partially merged us into one person.)
Another big oversight I've run into is not being able to indicate marriage when there aren't any offspring.
It had potential, but these major bugs have been around for over a year, and I've given up hope. - cogent_bob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Hey, Look! I'm replying to my own reply.
Yes, the records are of varying quality.
Yes, the software that "The Church" provides is SOOO 20th century.
Yes, they do cover Mormon families better than Non-Mormon. That's because it's the Mormons themselves that are doing the research.
And, for privacy reasons, they don't publish the names of persons who are living. (at least they try. They make errors in both directions occasionally.)
Still, once you get started, it's kinda addictive to see how far you can go down a family tree. - anorris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That is a really neat idea, and if it really takes off would be an amazing thing to have available.
- Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiTree
- JustinPM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In the whole "Digg kills webserver" terminology, I always like grave digg.
- DarthTurducken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Seeing as my maternal grandfather was a medic for the Nazis at Normandy - maybe I don't want to publicize my family tree. Oops, too late.
- hypnotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is one of those things where you wonder, how was this not done already? My grandmother is going to love it.
Digg effect though - delong, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7No, it isn't just for LDS folks. The LDS Church maintains the largest collection of geneological records on the planet. They buy birth and death records from all over the world every year. It's pretty impressive.
- hellsyeah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That sounds like a really good idea if you could trust people to be honest. In reality you are going to have people putting up false info, and policing members wouldn't be capable of monitorinig all of this because there is no good way to fact check these things.
- jolivierld, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Interesting idea, needs more bandwidth.
- whux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Mormons have always been exceptionally helpful and open with their records. Their collection is outstanding and free to use to anyone at all. It's never bothered me that they're doing this to ensure that everyone goes to heaven; it's kind of nice gesture anyway (even though I'm a Buddhist).
If WikiTree takes off, I will be there with bells on. I can't get their site to come up right now, though. Digg dugg. :) - dpknc84, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Only about 104 diggs and already down? Dang.
I'd really like to see the implementation of this, get it back up! - fullcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I saw it before when it was just submitted, it was just the wikimedia script, with nothing changed (looks exactly like wikipedia).. althought i didnt have a proper look.
- pennyfx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Friggin Awesome!! I had this idea a few years ago.. Hopefully the theory works and we will create a huge family tree encompassing everyone!
- BritOverseas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I too would like to see this work. Genealogy is quite interesting. You never know what kind of nutters have been in your family.
There are pretty good records for the most part in the U.K, right back to the 11th century when the "Great Census" was taken. Some churches and monastaries go much further back than that even. They were the record keepers of their day. - ctech2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Google cache version took a while to load for me, but at least it came up:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:gYzEWNpCWe8J:www.wikitree.org/index.php%3Ftitle%3DMain_Page+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 - Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5this is really cool, and it's an awesome method of using the wiki format for a very good cause. On the other hand, they might have to implement a per-family password to avoid vandalization
- whux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@redwards
I have mine traced back to about 950AD, and could probably stretch another hundred or so back, but like you say, there's so much grey area back there because of the amount of lore in place of real records.
If this takes off, though, traffic and fact-checking gen nuts will hopefully keep the fantasy to a minimum (if the servers stay up). I will be there with bells on to log all my records and wait for revisions (and new cousins). I can't get to their site right now, though.
Dugg. "... the gradual emergence of global family forest of humanity" is a great way to put it. - redwards, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@whux
I'm sure that, aside from fact checking, wikipedia-style disclaimers for various people could be used for a lot of it. It sounds like a great project, and I have a ton to contribute. I wish the site would recover. - MrFisty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A global family forest of humanity? Is that like inbreeding on a planet-wide scale?
- joshsz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There's some pretty great OSS software out there.. phpGedView is one that I use. It's an installable webapp and supports all kinds of features. It's very robust and well written in my opinion.
- brianjz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm pretty sure that FamilySearch (LDS) was working on something like this in the near future. I thought I read about it somewhere. Ancestry.com has something similar called the "OneWorldTree", but I think it's only part of their paid plan. It takes all of the uploaded trees from the free WorldConnect (via RootsWeb.com) and merges the similar people, etc.
- gorndog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Will this become an "open source Equifax"?
It can when you add in not just geneology, but social network attributes as well, such as "friends", "works for", "education", etc.
It is just a matter of time. - shteve, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5In principle this is a good idea but I fear that it will be overrun by misinformation and trolling like wikipedia. Probably even more so, as there will be less people able to verify family lines as fact.
Perhaps it'd be better if it was seeded with data from various countries' census offices and historical documents, with that information noted on the site to be of a higher quality than user-submitted trees. - royeiror, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2it would be very cool indeed, although i have no clue how it could work and determine blood relation
- Fraghappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Awareness of the project would have to become very high, so people would be able to ensure that information about their family lineage is correct. Digging up information from people uninterested in the project is also doomed to be difficult.
It's a wonderful idea, and hopefully it will suceed, it just has more of a potential to encounter problems than Wikipedia. - cathode, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's an interesting idea, it would be almost impossible to make it accurate, however.
- equusdc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cogent Bob:
I really must be suspect of that interface as one side of my family is actively Mormon and neither of my grandparents records have either birth or death. My father's death, on the other hand, DOES show up--twice, with differing birthplaces. He is correctly tied to my grandparents, but the tree ends there despite the fact that reliable records exist for that family for the last four hundred years at least--and despite the fact that he has eleven sisters and brothers (all living, all but one practicing Mormon), none of whom appear. I can't imagine that those records aren't in the church and it baffles me how they would be so limited online. - RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Haha! "DiggDOS".
- ericab, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2funny the site owner says it suffered a DOS attack. apparently he has not yet been taught the joys of the digg effect.
http://vacilando.org/ - eaasness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have to Digg just based on the idea presented in the Title and Description. I know someone how has tons of info they would be willing to post to something like this. She even heads her own Google group about Portuguese Genealogy.
- nighthwk1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Except for the more recent census information. The UK won't release it until 100 years after it was collected. I wish there was some way to see the 1911 Census before 2012...
- bcmatteagles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2As previously mentioned this is a great idea however there are a few keys that I see to making it successful.
1. Design it with the hope to gain viral type usage. ie. Make referrals as easy to do as possible. Add some sort of contact information included with the genealogy of course if that were to be included, privacy and security would have to be a top priority in design.
2. Along the same lines as privacy, I think it may make sense to build some sort of trust system in order to allow modification of a family tree. Let the trees grow organically through referrals or by enlisting genealogy subject matter experts to form some sort of "seeds" from which to grow out the tree.
Just a couple ideas, curious if others have similar thoughts... would also be nice if the server didn't crash. - jupo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2
This has a great chance of success and if it does the result will be amazing. Imagine being able to determine how distantly (or not) related any two people are? This kind of collaboration is only possible online. Once again, data is the new wealth. - l3ill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2cant you imagine the wiki wars between family members
- stratmancj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1its back up again!
- nighthwk1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't get to the site to see any info...
Does it allow you to import pre-existing family tree data? It would suck if everything has to be manually entered, one by one, as there are thousands (millions?) of GED files out there containing all kinds of information. - juicehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1All you have is an idea though, you have not seen any of the function in use. What if this site just had a nice pictograph showing what their plans was, would you digg that too? Read first, Then Digg.
- StealthTomato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm pretty sure I heard that on "The Stupids" years ago...great movie...I think. I don't remember it too well....
- kacymartin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually its an old song. Im sure its where Futurama got it from.
- Heiliger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Think of the possibilities! With this technology... LoneStar could have discovered who his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate was ahead of time.
- cogent_bob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Because of the 15 previous comments that said the same thing.
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