From my strange vantage point, a hospital bed in traction for the foreseeable future, I have been more active lately than in all my previous years, as mostly a sleeper, in WikiTree.
Convalescence is boring, so a bit of WT can help engage the mind when the body is in stasis.
To that end, I joined a recent challenge to crack some hard nuts passed to WT by our colleagues over at AHSGR. It’s now over, but I have kept on working on one of the subjects selected for WTers to work on.
The purpose of a WT Challenge is, I gather, to provide some special focus on a particular category of Tree in the Forest.
That comes in the form of a week or month or more of attention placed on the area chosen for a Challenge.
What I want to suggest is a way that ongoing interest sparked by these Challenges can be tracked, added to, and encouraged over the longer term as a sort of follow up.
I suggest the name Slow-Burner for this as sometimes enthusiasm for a subject (Challenge) may take time to build, just as not all Forest Fires are the result of a major impetus leading to an immediate conflagration.
One aspect of this proposal would be that it would enable WT to gauge over the longer haul whether a Challenge did serve its purpose and lead to more cultivars taking root in our variegated and not altogether laissez faire or natural Forest of Trees.
So new membership ought to be encouraged in Slow-Burner to allow a small initial fire starter a chance to smoulder away and slowly build (or not, of course) until we have a healthy and rejuvenating, monitored fire in the WikiForest that opens up new territories for growth.
Just some thoughts from my bed of pain (and WT pleasure).
Regards,
Upton (or Laird which may be easier as sometimes I fail to notice that my iPAD has ‘corrected’ Upton to Uptown when typing in a spurt of energy with my jerry-rigged, teeth-held pointer)
