Mar/Apr 2019 Connectors Challenge

+14 votes
540 views

Hello Connectors!

The Connectors WILL be using the Challenge Tracker. You can use an Answer or the Tracker for your connection, but NOT both. So let's begin another month of connecting the unconnected across WikiTree. We'll get the project page updated soon with last month's tallies, but for now, it's time to start connecting!

Jan/Feb 2018 top connector was Linda Barnett with 129 connections.

Thanks to all of you who participated the Dec 2017/ Jan 2018 Challenge. If you haven't checked out the Connectors Chat page, you should! There is a lot of chatter there about what everyone is working on.

Now on to the Connectors Challenge Rules:

  1. Pick any WikiTree profile which is not connected to the main tree. (In other words, that profile does not have a box at the bottom of the page, showing the degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon and Queen Elizabeth II.) You can look for unconnected profiles using the Unconnected People tool, the Unconnected Profiles category, the Unlinked_Profiles category, or you may run across an unconnected profile in the regular course of your research.
  2. Either add a new profile for a first degree relative (parent, spouse, sibling, or child) of the person on that profile as a link toward a connected profile, or else connect an existing profile on WikiTree to the profile you're working on.
  3. Add a source to the profiles involved in the connection showing the relationship between the two profiles. This could be a census record listing a family, a marriage record, a death record listing the spouse and/or parents, a birth record listing the parents, or any source which demonstrates that the two profiles should be connected to one another. Your source needs to be cited as closely to the style recommended on our Sources help page as possible to count towards your tally.
  4. If you are adding a new profile, add a second, independent source for that profile. (For example, if you add a spouse because of a marriage record, then look for a birth or death record for the spouse you're adding.) (Note: The reason for this rule isn't to discourage you from adding people. But as you have probably already learned, even official documents frequently misspell names, so adding an independent confirmation of the name helps to save other researchers time in trying to find records that don't exist, because the person's real name was not the same as showed up in the linking document.)
  5. Answer this post, creating a numbered list only if you aren’t using the Tracker, and including the two profiles and the kind of source you used to make the connection. (For example: "1. Smith-123 added as spouse of Jones-456, Anytown VR) You only need to reply once. As you make more connections, just edit your post to add your new connections. REMEMBER - The Challenge Tracker WILL be used.
  6. If you connect a profile which completes a connection trail either for an isolated profile or an unconnected tree, please add "Connected!" at the end of the line which made the connection. We count those connecteds towards your tally.
  7. The tally is of branches/unconnected profiles connected to the WikiTree tree, not sources or profiles added. That said, if you can add a number of sources to a profile, all the better, and sometimes a connection will take a number of profiles to get added. Every one is different, and each one makes our tree better. So, in short, we'll count each "connected!" we see.
  8. If either or both profiles you connect did not have good sources before and were already on WikiTree, then you can also count those sources towards the Sourcerers Challenge.
  9. All participants who do not already have a Connectors Project badge, will get one. Winners each month-the person with the most connections made to the tree-will get the Connection Challenge Winner badge, and the Top Connector each month with get a spiffy template to wear on their profile page. Stats will be kept on the Connectors Challenge page, just like we do for the Sourcerers Challenge.      
     

See last month's challenge as an example. Ask questions in the comments section here. Thank you! 

  Follow your standings in the Connector Tracker.

WikiTree profile: Space:Connectors_Challenge

in Requests for Project Volunteers by Bob Keniston G2G6 Pilot (260k points)
edited by Bob Keniston

I have added a new Places to find unconnected profiles page to help people find profiles and branches to connect (and track the various "Can you help connect a...?" threads in G2G).

Apparently connecting governors, scientists, and goodie makers doesn't count towards these challenges.  I keep getting not eligible.
To me, "unconnected" means "unconnected", so connecting anybody who's unconnected should count. (Well, except if you put up that profile yourself.) But I've long had trouble with the tracker when it comes to the Connectors Challenges.

12 Answers

+7 votes
I am in for this month.
by Living Barnett G2G6 Pilot (500k points)
+5 votes
I am in this month.
by Carolyn Adams G2G6 Mach 9 (90.8k points)
+7 votes

Connected!

I scored and early connection! This never happens. I connected Abigail (Herrick) Woodbury to her existing father (source: MA Town & VItal Records) and also her 9 children:

  1. Herrick-366
  2. Woodbery-2
  3. Woodbury-407
  4. Woodberry-23
  5. Woodberry-22
  6. Woodberry-26
  7. Woodberry-24
  8. Woodberry-25
  9. Woodberry-27
  10. Woodberry-28
by Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz G2G6 Pilot (821k points)
+5 votes
I'll see what I can do this month.  Please count me in.

All the best, Janet
by Janet Clifton G2G6 Mach 6 (62.1k points)
+5 votes
by N Gauthier G2G6 Pilot (288k points)
I can never seem to get my connections to register even if it is working.  

on what person do you register the connection for the connection challenge to register on the tracker?

do you have to wait for the next day when they are showing as connected?
If there is an easier way, please let me know, but here is how I do it right now ...

- Go to the person connected and at the top right click on the profile name & number (2nd of 5 options).

- Go to the bottom of the pop up and click on "Suggestions".

- Underneath "Suggestions for relatives", you will see the profile name & number followed by another number. Take that final number and put it on the end of the web address below replacing the xxxxxx and also change the yyyyyy with YOUR user number ...

http://wikitree.sdms.si/function/WTChallenge/Challenge.htm?UserID=yyyyyy&ProfileID=xxxxxx

That will take you to a place where you can add the connection.

You do not have to wait for the daily update. It just takes a few minutes and it will show up on the tracker ... supposedly on the webpage that is not working :)

P.S. Connection Tracker page still NOT working
thanks!
Finally figured out what the problem was for finding the tracker ... they changed the date from the previous 15th of the month to the new 16th of the month.
+4 votes
I'm participating this month, using the tracker.
by Traci Thiessen G2G6 Pilot (293k points)
edited by Traci Thiessen
+5 votes
I'll join this challenge for the first time, as I have a few profiles that need connecting :)
by Raven Manners G2G6 Mach 2 (27.6k points)
+6 votes
I'll have a go.
by Peter Cameron G2G6 Mach 2 (25.1k points)
+6 votes
I'll give this a go!
by Ron Johnson G2G6 Mach 3 (38.0k points)
+6 votes
This is the first month that I have had trouble loading the connectors challenge tracker page ... and I still can not get it to load. So can anyone anyone please tell me what wikitree webpage shows the current tracking page address. Thanks
by N Gauthier G2G6 Pilot (288k points)
+6 votes
Can't do this as I'm still trying to write biographies for all the connections that got me into first place in January and February 2019.  Now every time I pull up and add a profile to an unconnected profile, it says "not eligible."  No sense making more work for myself if the nearly 1,000 connections I made do not count.  Yes, I'm upset.
by Kathy Rabenstein G2G6 Pilot (316k points)

I was frustrated with the tracker for ages, until I finally figured out that I have to make the note on the unconnected end of the path, not on any of the profiles that I added to build the connection, and not on the connected end.

So if it takes adding 200 profiles to make the connection, it counts as 1?  I think there are better uses for my time . . . though I really enjoy making the connections.  My OCD won't let me stop without creating full profiles.  

And how do you know before making the final connection that you have found the penultimate profile?  Once the profile is created and any sources added, you can't use the tracker.

I'm not OCD (at least, I haven't been formally diagnosed), but I still try to do justice to the profiles along the connection path. To me, that's just part of doing a good job.

There has been some debate about how to count connections. For a while there, every profile along the connection path earned a point (which is how I managed to rack up the connection numbers I did), but then it changed to only one point per leaf/twig/branch connected.

I can sort of see the argument both ways:

On the one hand, connecting a huge branch with thousands of people in it to the main tree feels to me like it should count for more than connecting one person. On the other hand, if it takes dozens of links to connect the one person, and only one to link the huge branch, then it would feel unfair to give more points to the person who put in less effort, even if more profiles got connected.

For a while there, I noodled about keeping score several ways:

  • one point for leaf/twig/branch that you connect to the main tree
  • one point for each profile added along the connection path
  • one point for each profile in each leaf/twig/branch that you connect
But I don't even know if it's even possible to build a track that would track all that information.
I'd also love to see some way for people to get some kind of credit for finding additional connections between branches and the rest of the main tree. To me, that is also an improvement, even though there's currently no way to credit people for doing it.
But I guess sometimes we need to content ourselves with doing what we can to improve the tree, even if nobody else ever notices.
Probably true.  Still plowing through over 1,000 bios I need to write for people not related to me, while having completed fewer than 500 of my own line.  I'll finish those unrelated and then ignore the challenges until more of my lines are completed.  Adding my families also improves the tree.
Greg, another possible way to count connections is by the number of people in the unconnected branch.

Sometimes you create say 3 profiles to get only one person connected.

But other times you may create say 3 profiles and you connect up say 100 unconnected people.

This infomation is already available on wikitree+ where you can put any unconnected profile number into the box and it will tell you how many unconnected profiles are in that unconnected branch.

If connections were counted this way it would mean an extra step would need to be added in each day's update.

example: go to
https://wikitree.sdms.si/default.htm

click on "Tree" and in the "WikiTree ID:" box type an unconnected profile number, say Slade-501 and it will tell you that there are 15 unconnected profiles in that branch.
Oh, thanks, N! I didn't know that we could enter a WikiTree ID and get the branch size!
+3 votes
I'm in!  I know it's late in the month, but I was working on a profile for the Bio Builders challenge and was able to make a connection, so I thought I'd officially join this challenge, too.
by Star Kline G2G6 Pilot (715k points)

Related questions

+10 votes
7 answers
+7 votes
8 answers
+17 votes
23 answers
+16 votes
18 answers
+7 votes
4 answers
+9 votes
11 answers
+8 votes
20 answers

WikiTree  ~  About  ~  Help Help  ~  Search Person Search  ~  Surname:

disclaimer - terms - copyright

...