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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MundoMango (talk | contribs) at 23:18, 6 August 2023 (Delete vote, with evaluation of cited sources.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

WikiTree

AfDs for this article:

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WikiTree (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Insufficient outside sources Belle Fast (talk) 09:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. Belle Fast (talk) 09:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and SALT per first AfD, page serves no use, very little if any reliable second source coverage, seems to fail WP:GNG. Bunch of primary/self cites on the page now. May serve as a magnet for various WP:PROMO and WP:SOAP activities for and against the site but there is little meat here. SALT against creation for either positive or negative material and edit warring over that. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you very much for a prompt and balanced response Belle Fast (talk) 11:07, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That previous AfD nomination and subsequent deletion are not relevant to the current situation. Apparently the earlier AfD was for an article about a different entity named "WikiTree." It appears from the Wayback Machine that the site called WikiTree in 2005 and 2006 had the same domain owner, but that site apparently was taken down. The WikiTree.com site covered by the current article asserts (at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:About_WikiTree) that the site opened in 2008. Orlady (talk) 18:52, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Orlady: Thanks for looking into that. If it was a genealogy site (which archive.org shows) with the same domain owner, it does seem relevant to this discussion, no? Their first party assertions about the start date don't hold a lot of weight. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:28, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This is an article about a website, not a domain name. I haven't determined what the contents were of the article that was deleted 17 years ago, but archive.org images of wikitree.com back in 2005 (https://web.archive.org/web/20050209002555/http://www.wikitree.com/) and 2006 (https://web.archive.org/web/20061129183230/http://www.wikitree.com/) look more like a parked domain than they do a website. I can't see how the deletion of an article about whatever existed in 2006 should prejudice all future decisions about articles of the same name.
    The current "WikiTree" article was created in 2014, 8 years after the deletion of the previous article. On the Internet, 8 years is like a lifetime. Orlady (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Correction: I have reviewed the history of the deleted article (which in fact was deleted several times between 2006 and 2008). The subject was not Wikitree.com, but rather was Wikitree.org, which apparently belonged to a man named Tomáš J. Fülöpp (not the current owner of wikitree.com). From archive.org, it appears that at some point the owner of Wikitree.com acquired the wikitree.org domain and redirected it to wikitree.com. Orlady (talk) 22:35, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There are relevant scholarly articles that have utilized data provided by WikiTree. Notably, the research papers titled 'Quantitative Analysis of Genealogy Using Digitised Family Trees' and 'Data Mining of Online Genealogy Datasets for Revealing Lifespan Patterns in Human Population' have relied on the data offered by WikiTree. These references demonstrate the value and importance of WikiTree as a resource for researchers and academics in the field of genealogy and population studies. While the absence of some outside sources may be a valid concern, it is crucial to recognize that Wikipedia itself is an ever-evolving platform, and the absence of cited external sources at a particular moment does not necessarily warrant deletion. As a community-driven encyclopedia, Wikipedia should strive to provide comprehensive coverage of notable subjects, and WikiTree undoubtedly falls within that category. 2601:2C5:4700:310:3A14:457E:FCB5:7AE2 (talk) 15:20, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    From the first of these learned papers, I quote: “The data we use were provided by WikiTree, a free, collaborative worldwide family tree project created by a community of amateur genealogists. Data are available on 6.67 million people in over 160 countries (but mainly the US, UK, Germany, Canada, New Zealand and Holland) going as far back as the 1st century …... Data were validated by WikiTree using their in-house procedures which include checking source materials and by making individuals' profiles editable only by a limited list of users, and we provided additional validation by comparing lifespans in the data with those reported by third party sources.”[1]
    The three authors betray a considerable degree of naivety. WikiTree members are indeed amateurs and most of their work shows it. Fiction plays a strong part in many of their trees, hence the ludicrous claim of descents from the 1st century. An example is the profile for “Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus Born before 12 Feb 41 in Rome, Italy Son of father unknown and Valeria Messalina Brother of Claudia Octavia Died 11 Feb 55 after age 13 in Rome, Italy”[2] The only source cited for this rather distant ancestor is Wikipedia!
    As for the unbelievable claim that data for 6.67 million people was validated by WikiTree, one has only to look at random cases from the past twenty centuries or even just the last couple of centuries to find endless examples of people with no credible source at all. The whole set-up is flawed and shoddy. Restricting editing powers to certfied users may limit the amount of fake info being added, but will they ever be able to clean up millions of valueless profles already there?
    I'm sorry, but I do not believe that a survey like this can whitewash WikiTree and do not think it should count against deletion. Belle Fast (talk) 19:07, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    2601:2C5:4700:310:3A14:457E:FCB5:7AE2, it seems you might have forgotten to log in before commenting. Would you mind saying whether you have any connection to PureRedneck, or any relationship to WikiTree? Thanks, MundoMango (talk) 21:43, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Orlady (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There doesn't appear to be even an attempt by the nominator to address the reliable source coverage already used in the article? Difficult to claim non-notability when there's no discussion of existing sourcing in relation to said notability. I've done a brief search and found several more usable sources as well.
  • Patton-Imani, Sandra (2018). "Legitimacy and the Transfer of Children: Adoption, Belonging, and Online Genealogy". Genealogy. 2 (4). doi:10.3390/genealogy2040037. Retrieved August 5, 2023.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  • Beidler, James M. (June 24, 2012). "Roots and Branches: New genealogical mantra - 'Collaboration'". Lebanon Daily News. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
  • McGyver, Diane (November 13, 2012). "What's a WikiTree?". Kings County Record. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
And it looks like this stemmed from an ANI thread about an editor who was behaving inappropriately? But that has nothing to do with the notability of this article and subject. Also, based off of the talk page of this article, there just seems to be several users with a personal WP:IDONTLIKEIT issue with the article subject. SilverserenC 18:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some sources have been added since this was nominated I think. Most of the cites on this page seemed to be to Wikitree itself, genealogy blogs, genealogy sites that on inspection could probably not be called WP:RS, etc. My google search (which perhaps was not exhaustive) found very little mention that wasn't fluff. If this site were getting substantial coverage I would've expected more than a few local news reports (for a national site?) and some genealogy blogs. I'll reconsider my !vote if I see significant in depth coverage. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:33, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The latter two sources I gave above aren't local news reports, but syndicated articles that were in a ton of papers nationally. I just picked one of those papers to use, but they are very much not local content. SilverserenC 05:50, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The newspapers are paywalled for me, did you get them through The Wikipedia Library? —DIYeditor (talk) 05:54, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's the primary resource I use. SilverserenC 05:57, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The first item is a very interesting and illuminating piece of academic research, for which the author found WikiTree a great help. That is however one individual's case, hardly enough on its own to establish notability for the whole site? As for the cited newspaper mentions, which date from over 11 years ago, are they anything more than PR puff? Belle Fast (talk) 10:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And since it has been suggested that I personally “do not like” WikiTree, that may be true but I will not demur at an article which cites adequate outside sources instead of being self-referential and includes critical comment as well as laudatory. Belle Fast (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, no, Belle Fast did not to my recollection or knowledge make this because of an ANI report, but rather because of a dispute resolution request which I found confusing and malformed, and in my response to which I suggested that someone could nominate the article for deletion if they wanted, which I believe I had seen discussed on the article's talk page already. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:36, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While WikiTree does have many excellent pages which show links to reliable online sources, scans of proof documents, relevant images, and well-written biographies, these cannot outweigh the vast accumulation of user-contributed dross which, to my mind, renders the site as a whole (unless its supporters can prove otherwise) non-notable. Belle Fast (talk) 08:46, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    FYI Belle Fast, I believe your !vote is already counted as the proponent. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:35, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The article lacks sufficient reliable sources to establish notability. I attempt to survey them here, to address the deficiency noted by Silver seren. As of the latest edit (5 August 2023 05:50 UTC) the article has 32 citations, of which 14 link to WikiTree.com content and seven are user review sites or favorable blog posts. Reference #20 (as numbered in the current version) is the website for the 2015 Global Family Reunion event, which mentioned WikiTree briefly as a “partner.” Of the two list entries, GenealogyInTime's 2016 “Top 100” chart (#6) did not describe its rating criteria, and Similarweb (#7) rated WikiTree eighth most visited, with no text description.
The ISOGG wiki entry (#31) describes DNA-related features using information obtainable on WikiTree.com, with no in-depth evaluation. The entry cites WikiTree.com, blog posts, and Wikipedia.
Five citations are media reports. The Daily Beast article (#2) is a report about the 2015 Global Family Reunion event, giving only brief mention to WikiTree. The New York Times (#8) published a general overview article about online genealogy sites. It mentions WikiTree in two paragraphs, presenting basic information available at WikiTree's Home and About pages. USA Today (#10) provided a similar summary of WikiTree-provided information. Familytree magazine (#29) offered one paragraph of information, again gleaned from WikiTree.com. None of these articles contains anything resembling in-depth coverage. The fifth media article, from the Lebanon Daily News (#11, also mentioned by Silver seren), is paywall protected from both my home computer and those at my local public library.
The remaining two sources (#1, #17) are academic journal articles having two authors (Fire and Elovici) in common. The first, quoted above by Belle Fast, was not a peer-reviewed publication. The second was peer reviewed, but the paywall only shows the abstract. The abstract describes “a large online genealogy dataset with over a million profiles and over 9 million connections, all of which were collected from the WikiTree website.” This language, from two of the same authors, suggests that both papers suffer from the same excess of credulity. I think it worth noting that WikiTree provides data to researchers, gratis.
In my opinion, the above sources (with the possible exception of the unviewable #11) fail to establish notability. If better sources do exist, the article's contributors have not been able to find them with nine years of effort. Moreover, the lack of independent, in-depth, balanced, coverage makes it unlikely the article can achieve NPOV. It seems that reliable sources of information critical of WikiTree are vanishingly rare. MundoMango (talk) 23:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC) (former member and frequent critic of WikiTree management).[reply]
  1. ^ Quantitative Analysis of Genealogy Using Digitised Family Trees Michael Fire, Thomas Chesney & Yuval Elovici September 2, 2014 https://archive.org/details/arxiv-1408.5571 retrieved 4 August 2023
  2. ^ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brittanicus-1
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