Eventually open the profiles of currently living people?

Question

Today I was reading this page ...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy#Open

Where it states:

• Profiles of people born over 150 years ago or who died over 100 years ago must be Open.

Does this mean that profiles for currently living individuals (which are always locked) will automatically be open 150 years after their birth date; or is manual intervention required?

It is my understanding that a profile cannot be created without a birthdate; therefore, all data will *eventually* be open?

BTW: I think this a GREAT idea; just want to confirm I got it right. I could add data about lots of living people into WikiTree; trusting that the data will eventually be released?

Answer 1

Hmmm.  While, yes, in theory many years after you create the profiles, they should be open.  A couple problems in actual practice.

First, when you create a profile for a living person, there may be more likelihood of duplicates, misunderstandings, etc.  

Second, as far as I know, the opening process is not automatic, although it seems impossible to predict what will happen on WikiTree in 100 or 150 years, if it survives that long, if any of us do.

Third, it may be that some living people do not want to have WikiTree profiles.

My advice is to confine your creation of profiles for living people to your own immediate relatives.

Answer 2

Yes Frank, you're reading that correctly.  If WikiTree is still around in 150 years, all of our profiles will be open.  So you can think of your profile as a bit of a time capsule that will be opened when you are long since gone.

Comments

Apparently this is NOT the case if WikiTree management finds out manager has died before that 150 year time period has expired. This page says the profiles will be deleted without a new manager!

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Death_of_a_Member

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That's my understanding as well, Frank.

My understanding, based on current WikiTree privacy/other related policies, is that upon my decease (or any other event for which I'm deemed an unresponsive profile manager) ...

• any Open profiles that I solely manage will be orphaned, but they will remain in WikiTree
• any Unlisted (living non-member) profiles for which I'm the only PM/TL member, they will be deleted
• for Private-locked deceased profiles for which there is no other PM/TL that can take over/retain management, then those profiles would likely also be deleted

I don't expect that the existing privacy policies will be relaxed in the future (and I don't feel that they should be relaxed). Even if you can find someone that will agree to be a co-manager of such a profile, IMHO it's unlikely that sustainable management of an Unlisted/Privacy-locked profile will be maintained long enough to ensure the eventual opening of it.

So, I agree with Julie's advice: I don't plan to spend much time (other than on my closest relatives) creating Unlisted/Private-locked profiles, for which my efforts will likely be wasted.

There are so many deceased individuals for which I can more appropriately use my time to create/develop (Open) profiles to honor their memories.