What skills are needed to be a moderately qualified wikitree, i.e. to break the steep learning curve into parts?

Question

I am a retired teacher, so I think about things like essential skills to achieve mastery or climb the steep learning curve of Wiki tree.  When I started, a mere 4 months ago, I had an informal sequence in my mind of what I needed to learn. These were based on my background: basic knowledge of sourcing and genealogy, no idea what coding was, fear of trying inline citations.  I would like to find out what you think the skill set is for being an adequate wikitreer.  I would like as many well thought  outresponses as possible, and feel free to sequence them , what needs to be learned before the next skill can be taught,  Thank you in advance for your contributions.

Comments

I'd say the number one skill, which a surprising number of people lack, is how to cite a source. I know I had to learn that in 10th grade English, but a lot of people seem to have forgotten the basic concepts. Knowing how to do that automatically puts someone in the top 10% of wikitree editors.

Answer 1

You might like to wander through the pages of the Orphan Trail of the England Project:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:England_Orphaned_Profiles_Team

Persons who join the England Project and embark on the Orphan Trail work through the centuries on orphaned profiles, learning the basics from how to source, how to format, basic wikicode and more.  Example profiles are provided, and one-to-one review is an integral part of the Trail.

Comments

Wow! I never would have have found this by myself.  Thanks!

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This is the first time I have spotted the Orphan Trail. What an amazing project, Ros. Wouldn’t it be great if all new members had to join a similar project soon after joining?

Answer 2

That's great that you're thinking of technical skills, and those should definitely be listed out.

I would also encourage you to think about soft skills that are also needed on WikiTree.

The ability to communicate with others. So, some writing skills are needed. How to ask questions. (You would be surprised at some of the posts that are on the forum, where you have to decipher what people are trying to ask for, or if it's even a question.)

Collaboration skills are needed too. Understanding the overall goal of WikiTree, and how Profile Management works in real life. How Privacy intersects with Collaboration. Realize that Collaboration skills are inherently dependent on Communication skills.

Others will chime in with other things I might have missed in the Soft Skills area.

Comments

Oh, and of course, I immediately think of another one right away: Curiosity. That is also needed for Collaboration and Communication. Being curious about how somebody did something. Not being afraid to ask questions, and to reach out to someone.

Yes, we do work a lot on our own. (I do that a lot, and I mostly lurk on the forum instead of writing.) But, you'll also need to break out of your shell and collaborate once in a while. We have a community here who are generally very friendly and lots who are happy to help.

Answer 3

Dear Peggy, Thank you for joining WikiTree.com!

I don't think there is an order to learning, really, because there are so many different ways one can contribute to the WikiTree.  In no particular order, here are some ideas.

*  Learn to add sources. This is key to participating in WikiTree.  We need to know your sources for your information.  This can be as simple as copy and pasting the citation from FindAGrave or FamilySearch.org for a bit of information.  Just paste it in the == Sources == section under the <references /> command.  Always look for citations on webpages.  Not all sources list them, but they make life much easier if you can use them.  Example:

== Sources ==
<references />
* Curtis, John. The Big Curtis Book. Chicago, IL: Curtis Publishing, 1914.

When you are ready to take it one step further, you can link your citation to data in the == Biography == section.  This is easiest if you click the little C (for citation) edit button and paste your source between the two commands.  Example:

The Curtis farm was 20 acres.<ref>Curtis, John. The Big Curtis Book. Chicago, IL: Curtis Publishing, 1914. Page 123.</ref>

To add a FindAGrave citation, look at the bottom of the FindAGrave memorial and click Citation.  Copy the citation and paste it in the Sources section.  To keep the link active, delete Find A Grave Memorial no. and paste {{FindAGrave| before the number and |Sameas=yes}}  after the number.  Before and after examples:

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; color: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none; color: #000000; background-color: #d5d5d5} span.s2 {font-kerning: none}p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; background-color: #d5d5d5} span.s1 {font-kerning: none}

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 December 2018), memorial page for Thirza Curtis Smith (23 Apr 1775–24 Nov 1803), Find A Grave Memorial no. 21299119, citing Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA ; Maintained by Anonymous (contributor 46933460) .

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 December 2018), memorial page for Thirza Curtis Smith (23 Apr 1775–24 Nov 1803), {{FindAGrave|21299119|Sameas=yes}}, citing Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA ; Maintained by Anonymous (contributor 46933460) .

* Please always enter a location, however vague, and always list as much as you know about a location. This is world wide family tree, so we need to know the location details. If the location is in Australia, Perth or Sydney is not enough. Please enter the full location. Example:

Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, United States

* Learn the various privacy levels early in your WikiTree experience.  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy  Remember that all profiles of people born over 150 years ago or who died over 100 years ago must be Open.

* Decide what you like to do most, and contribute to that task.  I like to add sources to unsourced Smith profiles.  Others like to write biographies.  Others like to get in the weeds and help others with their research. And the computer people like to help us all with new applications and tips. There is something for everyone here, so start slow, but be bold enough to learn from your mistakes.  We all make them, so don't let it get you down.  Carry on!

Answer 4

Some of this you already have, but:

1. Learn proper genealogical skills:
   1. research skills
   2. know the difference between primary and secondary sources and direct and indirect evidence.
   3. proper source citations
2. learn to navigate Wikitree
   1. where to find help
   2. how to find profiles
   3. read G2G to get a feel for things
   4. read the example profiles given in the help areas
   5. Use Edit to see what things look like in existing profiles.
3. learn basic profile skills
   1. how to add a child/parent/souse
   2. how to create a profile that isn't attached
   3. how to write a biography putting sources in a list at the end (after the <references />)
   4. look a how profiles you like are constructed and that includes looking at the Edit screen
4. expand on profiles and dive into inline references
   1. Improve a few profiles
   2. move some of the non-inline sources you've done into inline format
5. learn to deal with duplicates

I think too many people start by trying to do everything at the same time. If you are good at genealogy, a lot of common mistakes don't come up like people jumping to the conclusion that person X in Michigan must be the same person as person Y in Florida just because they have the same name and similar birth year or my favorite, they have the same names in the same general vicinity so they must be the same person (one a doctor and the other a cobbler). Would the doctor suddenly become a cobbler? They do if you really, really want a Mayflower ancestor.

You also need to be comfortable finding people in order to minimize duplicates. 

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but it is what I think of as the order to learn things.

Comments

Learn to navigate Wikitree - now that took me a while!    I could never get back to where I was before at first - then after getting lost about 40 times I started getting the hang of it