Do we really need to keep letting people import more gedcom files to wikitree

Question

I am fairly new to Wikitree and have have found some excellent profiles on the site. I have also found some absolute rubbish, especially on gedcom imports, when the people who made the import appear to have abandoned the site soon as it was done.  I can appreciate that importing gedcom files might have given the site a kick start in the early days of wikitree, but I think it is now time to call it a day. We have enough rubbish. Lets concentrate on the good stuff and try to put the bad stuff right, and stop irresponsible imports.

When I first found wikitree I considered importing the 3000 or so  people I have in my file via gedcom. It would have been the easy way.  I am so glad that I chose not to do so. It is taking considerable effort to feed in my research person by person, but doing so has enabled me to take a fresh look at my research, add to it, and identify errors in my original research. Its time to look at quality rather than quantity.

Comments

I sympathise with you Joan, and also made the decision to manually input my previous research. Let's hope, as Nan says, the revision makes it easier for the good stuff to get through whilst filtering out the rubbish.

Answer 1

This has been discussed here a number of times.  Apparently the decision is to continue to allow gedcom imports.

However, I understand they are working on a major revision of the gedcom import process.  My hope is that it will block a lot of the garbage, and improve the quality of gedcom-generated profiles.

Comments

I think the main concern has been that the inability to upload your existing research right away will be a barrier to those coming from other sites and software.

The junk created may be a cost of finding new volunteers to work the tree. Also while there is a lot of historical errors on the gedcoms in 50-100 years they will be a primary source as to the creator's family. Serving as a repository for those, that will never be behind a pay wall, is a worthy endeavor.

Answer 2

Yes, we do.