Welcome to my family history blog. Finding more about my family's history is very rewarding as well as being interesting and educational.
I created this blog to share my thoughts, experiences, tips and resources in my search for my ancestors' history and maybe, help you in your research as well. I am particularly interested in the history of Upper Canada and the Loyalist period in history.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Is GenealogyWise Being Wise?

I joined GenealogyWise a few days ago after reading Randy Seaver's blog at Genea-musings, when there were only 19 groups and a couple of hundred members. I had received an email earlier in the day from FamilyLink.com, requesting help in launching the site. They were looking to hire 15 people to work for 10 hours to help get the site ready for the launch date, on July 17th. I thought that they wanted people with experience in IT field, but they just wanted people to create as many groups as they could think of in 10 hours, it seems. The membership is growing but not nearly as fast as the groups! There were about 1900 members and over 1100 groups this morning.

I have started receiving what I would call "spam" in my inbox, from members who were hired to promote the site. I don't think creating thousands of groups will promote anything, it seems as if the creators are just concerned with "who can make the most groups". I joined a couple of groups at first, but now I don't think I'll stay with the ones that were created by the "employees" of FamilyLink.com, how can they possibly expect to manage and monitor all of the groups that they create? Or will they abandon them after a few weeks? I did join the Geneabloggers group there and some special interest groups, but, unless a group is highly reccommended I will not be joining any more.
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5 comments:

  1. Yes, there are paid "employees" [which I am not one] creating content, but I don't think that's the reason there are so many groups. I started 6 surname groups and will moderate them, but I think most people like the idea of creating their "own" group. Maybe they've had a bad experience in the past with one, and thought they could do a better job, etc. Certainly Genealogy Wise should've have set-up some rules on the creation of groups or something. If you look at the groups, there are a lot of duplicates, and they aren't the same 15 people creating the groups. Like I said, I created 6 surname ones, but I'm not being paid [nor asked to] promote the site. I do so because I like the idea & I'm familiar with the Ning.com platform which it uses. [I am a member of other social network groups on Ning.com]. I think that the genealogy world needed something of its kind to fulfill a need that message boards and Facebook don't fulfill. It's somewhere in the middle.

    Caroline

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  2. I agree that the emails can get out of control and I am not sure what plans GenealogyWise has in terms of "policing" groups so that spammers don't dominate the site. Either GW will need someone to review or to have a self-managed community to set standards.

    You can regulate your emails on GenealogyWise - see the post over at BootCamp for GeneaBloggers http://fbbootcamp.blogspot.com/2009/07/manage-your-genealogywise-email.html

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  3. I have the email situation under control, I like the Genealogywise site also. I just think they are going about it the wrong way. I'd like it if there were family tree pages like at Ancestry, so members doing similar research can connect without sorting through thousands of groups.
    I think I have the spam under control too, I left the group that was sending messages. I have joined groups that I was interested in that fellow geneabloggers in the community have started, but I don't plan on starting any myself, I couldn't think of a group topic that isn't already there. I'm just happy being a member.

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  4. I like the customization of GenealogyWise, I've controlled the emails and I'm waiting for the dust to settle.

    I created an "old photos group" called Shades of the Departed. I don't see your smiling face, but I know you have some great old photos.

    I am not being paid. Heck, I'm not paid for anything I do and husband reminds me often.

    -fM

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  5. Hi!
    Thanks for providing this background information. I'm one of those who created a group right away but like the others above I wasn't paid to do so.
    I joined Facebook originally to manage my genealogical relations but because it's both genealogy and personal, I'm having more and more trouble sorting through all the messages.
    I think GenealogyWise holds promise for certain niche interest groups.
    A proliferation of sites is not a good thing, but the beauty of the internet, in my opinion, is that if this concept doesn't work it will collapse within months, but if it does work we'll have created something new!
    Evelyn in Montreal
    55+ and hanging on for dear life to Rapid Change!

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