Hi WikiTreers,
As we've talked about we've been developing ways to connect genealogists who share the same surnames or other interests, and to encourage those who share interests to collaborate through projects.
Today three key parts of this plan went into place:
First, there are member indexes for each tag, e.g. http://www.wikitree.com/genealogists/CARRIER or http://www.wikitree.com/genealogists/ACADIA
The tags on a member's profile now link to these indexes. For example, clicking CARRIER on Vic Watt's profile goes to the CARRIER Genealogists member index.
Each member's comments on why they're interested in the tag will appear on these indexes. There aren't many of these yet because the ability to add comments is new. (Add or edit at Special:Following).
Second, member index pages are now linked from the top of surname index pages, or genealogy content indexes as we're now calling them. For example, http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/CARRIER links to http://www.wikitree.com/genealogists/CARRIER right at the top of the page, in a tab, thereby presenting it as something equally important: CARRIER Genealogy | CARRIER Genealogists.
This is significant because surname/content index pages get a lot of traffic from new members and non-members.
Note that because we've thought of these as surname index pages in the past, rather than genealogy content index pages, they don't work particularly well if the tag isn't a surname. The tagged G2G questions and free-space profiles are linked, but only some of them. We will be working on this.
Third, as a few of you might have seen this morning, if a new member added a tag you're following in the past 24 hours, their name and their comment will appear in your daily Wiki Genealogy e-mail update. (Reach out and make a new friend! :-)
Onward and upward, for the collaborative single family tree,
Chris
P.S. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
