How many know about Rape Victims as a Catagory set up in BLack SHeep? [closed]

Question

I would like to know how many know about this Rape Victims Category within the Black Sheep Project? I for one am not happy to see this as a Category, Do you know there is a Rape Victims Category? How does that make you think? or feel?  I'm against this.  Here are my reasons

1. I've read my own Ancestral grandmothers in history stories of their rapes and attacks on them in legal docs over a few hundred years, more than one.  Each incident left me speechless as their descendent, and crying for them as thier grandchild ancestor.

2. As a past Victim of such Crimes More than Once, the last thing I want for my grandchildren or my childrens children is for them to find me online in some genealogical site with some plaque that notes me as a Rape Victim instead of as a wife, mother, human being, and just a good person.

3. I know others who have been violated in this way, and none of them want to remember their nightmarish event because it is NOT what defines them as human beings or as women or men.  To be reminded of the incidences only adds salt to the wounds that are trying forever to just be covered with scare tissue to be forgotten with time.

4.  The Black Sheep Project is a place for those Accused of Crimes, Not a place for the innocent victims of these crimes.  If the project wants to acknowledge the victims, then honor the victims and the families by creating beautiful bios for each victim, and in that bio, write shortly about the person being the victim of a crime by "whom" did the crime and link to the perpetrator in a special notes section that warns- something like "warning the information through this link contains violent information not for the eyes of those under age 18 or for those for whom violence against another human being maybe disturbing".  In this way, you honor the victims, acknowledge the crime without making a specticle of the person in history who had to endure the crime.  The person is dead, why would this matter?  Because the families(descendents) of these people of these histories, are still ppl alive, may not know, may not want to know, and shouldn't be forced to see one of their own grandmothers with a plaque that shows them as a Rape Victim, instead of as the woman, person that they were.

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Rape_Victims&action=edit

Comments

Arora: Fully agree with you. This is not a proper category for a genealogy site, in my opinion, and it CERTAINLY is not a Black Sheep category. Victims are NOT Black Sheep!

It is also my opinion that the category be eliminated.

---

I;m not seeing the category Arora. Has it been removed? If not, can you provide a link to it?

Answer 1

I am the co-lead of the the Black Sheep Project. Rape Victims is not a category under Black Sheep Project.  There is a category for Rapists only.

When you posted, I checked and I can only find one profile that has this listed and it was just added on August 8th. It is not a valid category and if you were to look at the profile - it appears in red.

I will ask the profile manager to remove this from the profile.

If you have found a profile with this listed, could you please provide it and I will work with that PM to have it removed.

Susan

Comments

hi Susan, thank you for responding,

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Rape_Victims&action=edit

it apparently is listed as a wanted category, and there was a request back in Jan for this one to be removed,

see- https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/535269/plea-please-remove-disturbing-categories-black-sheep-project?show=535269#q535269

so if you could do this, that would be appreciated by quite a few thank you

---

Thank you for removing the unapproved and disturbing category Susan. I am breathing a big sigh of relief.

Answer 2

WEll it surely does not belong there - jeeze - but eliminated?  Maybe not if it would halp another living rape victim work through their trauma and move on from it - maybe they should be made anonymous or  ... yeah made like as vitim A, victim B or something - I understand the posters issue but also think these may have value - not sure I better go look first - be back in a few

Comments

Navarro, Black Sheep Project is about Criminals, the victims of these crimes don't belong in this category at all, they are not Black Sheep, to place them in this category labels them within the higher category as Black Sheep, that's just one issue.  Again, I don't see how reading the violent acts against another human being helps any sxasslt victim work thru their trauma, at least at the age of 55 I've not met one, and I've met plenty.  The details of sxl asslt are not part of necessary genealogy - could it affect a whole line of descendents? yes if the there is a child from the attack, so what does wikitree gain by this posting behavior, the ability to possibly bring to light entire generations that were created thru some violent act? and this is necessary info because???  sorry, I don't think possibly upsetting entire generations about how their families came to be is good or has any good in it.  Should the father b listed, as a perpetrator, yes..but he should be within the black sheep project with the focus on his crime, it does not belong on the page of the person whom the crime was committed

---

can not locate it - and looked for a while now - can you add a link?

---

just edited post with link, it appears this is a Wanted Category within the Black Sheep Category, and has already been requested back in Jan to have this category removed, and it still exists

this is link to first request for removal

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/535269/plea-please-remove-disturbing-categories-black-sheep-project?show=535269#q535269

---

ok well that is what I thought - it is not a real thing so all the hoopla is really about not much

---

lol, Navarro, there is a wanted Catagory and there are profiles of Victims within it, this is not about nothing, this is about stoppin this from Becoming a full blown category of victims of these crimes.  And apparently since this same request about this same issue was brought up back in Jan, and the category still exists there is some kind of intention to try to create this even though there are genealogists in agreement that this doesn't belong in black sheep or on wikitree.  you don't have to agree, that's your choice, but your lack of agreement makes this no less an issue to those of us who do see it as what it does have the potential to become and do within this site.

if it doesn't exist how does one explain this on these profiles, in red sticks out can't miss it

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hayot-27

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Trud-2

btw, i do have good reason to be not so happy.. both of these are actually my 1st cousins, 9xs & 10xs removed.  yes this was a long time ago.. but i went to both pages, and the term Rape Victims in RED is sticking out like a sore thumb, and the topic of the rape is just about the first thing on each bio!  how is that even right?, the rape is listed and the punishment the perpetrator recieved and what actions he took with his family etc is on their profiles.. this just makes no sense to me, their profiles have become a place that displays more about the perpetrator and less about who each of these females was!  shm

---

I just worry about the person who wanted that category - is it or was it a cry for help?

I did not mean to discount your distress - that too is real and I can see why you would be upset Arora

---

Arora, when a category appears in red, that means that it is a category that does not exist, so that's a relief - I'm 100% with you about not wanting that category to be here.

All you have to do is edit any profile where you see it and just delete it.

---

it was requested as a category but never became one, those two that were set to be in that category - the PMs have been contacted so i is all a no go!

---

I'm sorry Gaile, I'm still confused how if the Category doesn't exist how I was able to find it within Categories/Wanted Categories & then find not one but 2 profiles of my own ancestor cousins whom had their profiles labeled with this non-existant category actually linked to the "non existant category". It was thru the non-existant category that i actually got to both of my ancestral cousins profiles. lol.. but thank you for info on removing, but I won't remove what appears to be put in place by a project/category without help from the possible project leaders first, which is what was done today.  both profiles are now clear of the offensive tags

At any rate, the red-category offensive tag has been removed from both profiles, So,  much thank you goes out to Susan McNamee for removing from both profiles.  As for descriptives of crimes, i think basic descriptions ie theft, assault, murder, etc within the "found guilty" persons profile is fine is part of who they were, but the victims of their crimes, should not have to have info about the perpetrator on thier profile pages.  If something must be said of the victims page, then make it short, like " During this point or this yr, the person was a victim of theft, burgulary, assault, etc" but details of the crime itself especially if gory i don't feel needs to be on a genealogical site. This is not a Gruesome Crimes site, and should not just fall into that direction.  there is no reasonable reason by these descriptives can't just be left as links for those who want to read or see more info.  We don't bring in all content from basic places like FHL or Ancestry because of plagerisms or because of possible law suits, why would placing descriptives of gruesome violence be any less restricted?  And if the descriptive are going on the pages then put em where they belong on the pages of the ones that committed the crimes or on some special page but not on the page of the victims. the victims didn't do the crimes it doesnt belong on their pages.

thank you to everyone for the responses today, and those that helped to remove the tags

---

Arora, here's how those red links work:

If you want to put a link in the text area of a profile, you use double brackets to set it off from the rest of the text.  If you want to link to someone's profile (using mine for an example), you would put:

[[Gordon-4080|Gaile Connolly]]

For category links, it is very slightly different.  For example:

[[Category: Chocolate Needed]]

In both cases, though, if the page specified does not exist then the link will be shown in red on the profile, instead of green underlined for links you have not visited and black underlined for links you have recently gone to.

Apparently, someone added it to the Categories Wanted list, but since nobody actually created the category, it simply did not exist so when somebody added the category to the two profiles for your relatives, they were shown in red.

If you go to one of the profiles, you can click the Changes tab and see who made what changes to the profile - the audit trail is maintained all the way back to the profile's creation.  You could also click the Edit tab on these profiles and just delete the category tag (the double brackets and everything between them).  That is apparently what Susan did. 

As a member, it is perfectly OK for you to edit any open profile to improve it.  Usually this takes the form of adding a source or maybe correcting a typo, but removing a category tag from one of your relatives that you find offensive is well within what is reasonable for you to do.  Of course, if the profile is not open then you would have to contact the profile manager and either ask to be added to the trusted list or ask him/her to remove the category tag.

I'm very glad to hear that it has now ended well.

---

Just remember that "Wanted Categories" are not really categories that people "want," per se. They are categories that were not completely set up,so they have no parent category assigned and no information is present in the category edit box. They are not present in the category heirarchy (sometimes called the category tree), so in this respect they are like unlinked profiles.Sometimes they are categories that people have mistakenly created, or categories that were improperly added to a template. The RED is not a "tag" it is a sign that this category needs to be set up.

---

thank you both very much for the detailed understanding on this. I use the categories, and inline referencings etc, so i do understand how some of it works, but now i have a better understanding of whats what, and what i can do if need be in the future.  I just was just thrown for an emotional loop seeing both of my ancestral cousins profiles labeled and linked within this "non existant potential category".  I did try to explain to a pm why i felt the details of the criminal belong on the criminals page and not the victims page, but was basically accused of trying to whitewash history, so I've left a comment of my still continued belief of how this could be appropriately corrected on the victims profile, but at this point believe its fallen on deaf ears. But at least the bigger problems of these potential category issues has been dealt with.  for that I'm very appreciative.  again thank you to each for the help, understanding, actions and responses.

---

You're welcome. Glad that's resolved!

---

I agree some rape victims can benefit by working thru the trauma  so they can move on from it, but this is not the proper place for that..  There are qualified therapists who specialize in that field.  This is wikitree; a genealogy site.  Thats what it is..

---

Joy, please read Natalie Trott's comment below, which answered back in August why it happened

Answer 3

That is MESSED UP!

Comments

It was a "wanted" category that someone added to a profile and was never part of the category system.