I'm shocked that Jefferson Davis is being featured on this site as an example Profile of the Week.

Question

Jefferson Davis is a very controversial historical figure, and a worshiped symbol for white supremacists in America today.  Why choose him to be featured?  

Davis' WikiTree profile is poorly written (exclamation points!) and overly sympathetic.  It conveniently skips over his disastrous presidency of the CSA, jumping straight from him being inaugurated to a lengthy description of his imprisonment after the war.  (There is no historical balance whatsoever--to reiterate, the profile goes into detail on several other events yet skips over the entire Civil War.)  And then there is this line:  "He was the only U.S. Secretary of War not given the due respect and honor of the U.S. Government."  That he was due the same respect or honor as other Secretaries of War after taking up arms against his own country is an opinion, not a fact.

Jefferson Davis owned over a hundred slaves and this is mentioned nowhere on the profile, despite it being very genealogically relevant.

The front page says "on behalf of the US Presidents Project."  Davis was not a US President, and associating him with that title is terrible revisionism.  "US" stands for "United States," which is exactly what the Confederacy opposed and literally fought against in a war.  (Edit:  This has since been changed to "Military and War Project.")

Whatever your opinions on Davis as a historical figure, choosing to feature his profile--when the biography of the profile in question is absolutely not written in a neutral way, and isn't even well-written, and barely even talks about genealogy which should be the entire point of a WikiTree profile...that is why I am shocked.

I'm not interested in sparking a lengthy discussion about the Civil War here, but whoever chose to feature this profile--literally one of the most controversial figures in US History--certainly must be expecting backlash.

Since this is the second time I've been negatively surprised by the EPOW (and let me clear, this one is way worse), I'd like to ask again how these profiles are chosen.  Last time I was told "We use several methods to choose the EPOW."  Who is "we" and what are the methods?

One final note:  I mentioned that Jefferson Davis is beloved by white supremacists.  He isn't just a long-dead historical figure; he is a living symbol for a hate group.  His name is often invoked by those who commit acts of racial hatred against African Americans.  For this reason, seeing his name at the bottom of every page for a week will likely be painful for many African-American WikiTreers.

If there is still time to change the example profile to someone else, I would change it.

Comments

Yes his ancestor is my ancestors brother. Jeff davis is of sarah cave by way of william bledsoe. My ancestor is abraham bledsoe his brother. So your talking about one of my relitives. Isn't that geneaolgy?

By the way I am related to all the presidents but six.

Including jefferson davis. So he is related to them also.
William bledsoe is the line for Arron Bledsoe. First Babtist  preacher in Tennessee. He owned slaves.

George washington. Jefferson. Run his lines for some genealogy. After all genealogy is just history.

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Everyone, lets try and remember the Honor Code.  It is ok to be passionate about a subject but it isn't ok to WikiTree while angry.  If you're hot, please close this window out and come back to it tomorrow when you don't feel upset.  We can all share differences of opinion without resorting to dragging the conversation down to a lower level.

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I am not a racest, but evidentally my family was the root of it. But I cant live their lives for them. I'm to late to shake them out of it.

History is done, and we as americans all paid for our place as americans. That is the story of america!

If your family didnt fight all the wars here. Dont worry mine did that for you..So I cant really say hey! you had slaves, you killed indians for 200 years. Stop it!

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I do want to add, that Jefferson Davis, like all those people coming from colonial  america are actually related in one way or anouther. His line, if true from( Sarah Cave.) She was one of the first women in Tennessee.

So some of these people are George Washington. And some are Benedict Arnold. Who is related by marrage to George Washington. Check his lines.

But they are dead and gone along with their politics. leaving us with ours.

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I posted no dirty story. I will thank you to not equate the howls of pain from a pregnant woman as she is being whipped to pornography. I told the truth about history and  this is a genealogy site. The whole concept is personalized history. My whole point is that slavery was not mere farming. It was and continues to be much more than that.

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I never called you a racist, David I was simply pointing out the atrocities of slavery.  Those are the facts just like extinct dinosaurs.

Slavery in the United States was horrific and barbaric. David, you make it sound like o am supposed to show some gratitude for slavery. I will do no such thing. And it is disappointing to see Jefferson Davis profiles and honored. That is all.

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Terrence is absolutely correct - American chattel slavery was an institution unlike anything seen before in the known history of the world - to claim white supremacy is simply a matter of politics is incredibly, incredibly tone deaf. 

As was the choice to feature a “hero” or “martyr” for the Confederacy, particularly on election week. 

As is the statement, “Not everyone views historical figures with the same sentiment” .

I am so grateful to Sarah for shining a light on this.

And everyone here (but especially “the team”, David, and Joseph) should welcome the opinion and deeply consider the pain expressed by Terrence, whose ancestors were enslaved. 

I am shocked and disgusted by the dismissive replies (“your indignation is silly”, “post your dirty stories somewhere else”). 

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I am never going to dispute the attrocitys of slavery or nazisum. My point is this. If your born in a time of slavery your not gonna change it. No matter what you do you were forced to live that life. Suucide? No.

You live your life as a slave or an indan or a women. All of which have been abused by humanity in that time.

Two slaverys existed. The kings skavery then american slavery. None was good but the pre 1776 slavery was different. The people were family. The slaves actually had rights. My uncle owned his half brother. Abraham the mulatto slave.

He was famous in his own time. He walked everywhere with a gun. He killed an indian chief one day walking from one uncles fort to anouther.

The post 1776 slavery is what it evolved into. The slaves became no one. But the slaves of colonial america were differant. Because anyone could be indentured into slavery.

For any reason. That was not the case later. The buying of your bonds for your freedom was misconstrued into what slavery became. Even worse.

So I am not condoning slavery ,but I am not whipping these poor people who were subugated by it and now blamed by america for something they couldn't control?

Seems unfair they cant defend themselves.

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In some ways I agree with you David, the past is not the present.   I feel strongly that when we write profiles we should include facts which this one apparently did not originally do . I feel we should be careful not to omit  actions that today are considered to be abusive or immoral .We also need to  be aware that attitudes change; hopefully they develop. It  is certainly true that some things we find abhorrent  may  not have been  considered that way in the past or in that place.

 It is undeniable that the wealth of many countries, including my own was founded on the exploitation of  people and resources from other parts of the world.  I don't think we should shove it in a corner and ignore it since that would distort history and if it's not there, how can we learn from it? 

Nevertheless, given that there are so many possible profiles to choose from, I suggest  we should in future  stick to highlighting  only those who are likely to be   uncontroversial .We need to be aware that one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. ( Castro, Che Guevara anyone?)  If the profile was well written and sensitive then it probably wouldn't cause so much controversy but that's very hard to do and to assess. We probably need a group of people from various parts of the world to list candidate profiles, preferably well in advance. (far longer than a month)

 I strongly disagree with your statement that prior to 1776 the enslaved people transported to parts of the British Empire were considered to have rights and am confused as to your mention of "King's Slavery".

 The  Royal African Company originally called the Company of Royal adventurers trading to Africa. It  was founded by King Charles  together with his brother James (later James II )  who was the first Governor. It was  renamed as the Royal African company. From 1672 to 1698 .It  had the British monopoly on the transport of enslaved people from Africa. Some people were branded with DY for Duke of York on their chests others with RAC.  I don't think they were given the right to refuse.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_African_Company

 One only has to look at the conditions upon slave ships to realise that these people were considered as no more than commodities, with no rights from the outset. They were bought with cheaply manufactured items and shipped as inexpensively as possible. Their labour produced a good income for the plantation owners in America and the Caribbean. Produce exported from the plantations  sold  back in Britain  (and the country,  certain cities and individuals boomed as a result.https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/stories/bristol-transatlantic-slave-trade/  

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Im glad we agree the past is unchanging. I dont think hiding the controversy will settle the matter though.

History/dates exploits these profiles, and  dictates them being highlighted instead if hidden.

Maybe by highlighting them as scoundrels, their history is kept true?

Not one person alive is a slave. So they cannot fullly understand either side of the controversy.

 But let me put it like these, issues that divide our country. Like slavery, guns and abortions dictate the events.

But this is our slavery of today. Our own politics divide us to defend the opposing  positions.

At some point the sides will have to go at each other. Any idiot should be able to see that. It causes a civil war in the end. There is no other outcome that can happen.

Common sence dictates populations will force population control. Even if you call it war, it's still  killing the people who oppose your idea.

The confederacy died with the last Confederate. Not the decendents of these people, who keep them alive in their family tree.

I cannot deny my familys involvment with slavery and the conquest of america. But I wont wear their shame for decisions they made to survive in country where 45 years old was your average lifespan.

Answer 1

I agree wholeheartedly with this post. It is a poor choice for profile of the week.  Davis is a "notable" and deserves a profile like anyone else, but he should not be part of the Presidents Project.  I also think that profiles that are featured should be good examples of the things WikiTree tries to achieve. This profile falls short in many of those areas as this post points out.

Answer 2

Hi Sarah,

I agree that this is a controversial choice and more care should have been taken in how we have featured it. The biography needs to be improved. Maybe you and others can help?

Abby Glann always proofs the Profile of the Week on behalf of the team, but she hasn't worked on this one yet. She often does her work on the same day it goes live. We need to coordinate this better in the future.

We should probably be more careful in how we select the Profile of the Week. We have tried a lot of different methods over the years. It was a collaborative and open project for many years, but we never had enough people involved to make it work. Now it's done by the team.

The Profile of the Week is closely connected with the Example Gallery. Those are profiles that the projects select as their featured examples. The Profile of the Week usually comes from there, but not always. We try to select one that has a timely connection (in this case, Davis was elected on 6 Nov) and that is popular, i.e. it gets traffic, or could get a lot of traffic.

Will you coordinate with Abby on improving the bio?

Chris

Comments

I appreciate your response Chris.  I think that I have a fundamental disagreement with what constitutes an exemplar profile to begin with.  When I complained about the choice of John Paul Jones, who had an unsourced wife and son linked to him that were mentioned nowhere in his biography, I was told that he was chosen for having a well-written biography with lots of links and pictures, and no one had noticed the unsourced family (who had been attached to him for years).  This was baffling to me, because the main purpose of this site is family history--why wouldn't information about his family be the first thing you would look for in a WikiTree biography?  There were apparently a lot of people involved in selecting that profile and approving it for EPOW--how did all of them miss the fact that his family was both never mentioned and completely wrong?  To me, this is a sign that family history is not being prioritized.

So many Notable WikiTree biographies are just poorly paraphrased copies of the person's Wikipedia article.  This is absolutely understandable--we are a site of volunteers and quality will always vary--but once the WikiTree Team selects a profile like that to be shown off as an example, it perpetuates the problem.

I would establish specific criteria for Notable profiles to be eligible for Profile of the Week, and the driving principle behind the criteria would be a focus on the person's family history, with only a brief summary of professional accomplishments that can already be found in detail on Wikipedia.  (If you want to expand a particular section--say, detailed accounts of Jones' naval battles--create a free space page and link it to the profile!  The biography should be focused on family history, but a free space page can go into however much extra detail you want--this should be encouraged.)  

If you agree that EPOWs should be more family-history-focused, and that we could use a better selection process (or a better improvement process, to make sure a selected profile is actually good before it goes live), then maybe we could try rebooting the old group project.  WikiTree has grown in the past couple of years, and there might be more volunteers now, to lighten Abby's and the rest of the Team's workload.  I would be happy to join such a project myself.

All of this is aside from the fact that I don't believe Jefferson Davis should be featured at all.  Even if his biography met my criteria perfectly, I would not support featuring him, just as I would not support featuring other very controversial figures.  Maybe you can imagine certain other historical figures whose names and pictures you wouldn't want on the front page, or the bottom of every profile--Davis should be in that category.

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Looking through the example gallery there are a lot of profiles that do not or barely cite any primary sources. Like Sarah mentions, a lot of "famous people" have such profiles. Maybe it might be a good idea to use profiles of non-famous people to set an example? I think it can really show how well you can research every day people using GPS & primary sources, as opposed to just citing some published biography :-)

What I do like about selecting this profile as a profile of the week is that it receives a good cleanup! :D

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I find it ironic, given what I often find to be an extreme bias on this site towards American issues and views, that it was never considered what this profile means to a largely American audience, including the racist overtones of it... especially after the appearance of impropriety (and of racism) created with rather recently with the choice to use a caricature of Thurgood Marshall.

I wholeheartedly agree with Sarah's suggestion here:

If you agree that EPOWs should be more family-history-focused, and that we could use a better selection process (or a better improvement process, to make sure a selected profile is actually good before it goes live), then maybe we could try rebooting the old group project.  WikiTree has grown in the past couple of years, and there might be more volunteers now, to lighten Abby's and the rest of the Team's workload.  I would be happy to join such a project myself.

I would also ask, why should it be a surprise each week which profile is featured is going to be featured? If there's an outlined schedule or series of planned featured profiles, that would allow folks here to volunteer their efforts (whether part of a project or not!) to improve the profile's connections (Hello, Connectors Project!) and the quality of adjacent profiles (which are often little more than stubs) in advance. 

And sure, even if there's a schedule, there could be space to deviate from it: When someone newsworthy dies, and they're already well connected, that is probably good advertising or SEO for WikiTree (much like recent selections focused around cinematic themes).

While the Profile of the Week largely gives members a chance to see how they are related to a "famous" person, I'm okay with some infamous ones too. But that needs to be qualified: let's hold off on the Hitlers, Mussolinis, and confederate presidents of the world. Many of these are too close to home and could be perceived as an endorsement of sorts. Perhaps we could sum it up as a variant of the golden rule: I wouldn't want my grandfather's (or great grandmother's) persecutor to be featured, so I wouldn't choose to feature the persecutor of someone else's family members. So why bother choosing one, when so many other fascinating choices are available?

It may also be wise to address the American bias in the selection. There haven't been nearly as many non-Americans featured as there could be. That isn't the only bias, of course. Perhaps WikiTree should take more of a path like Google has with their Doodles feature: Feature profiles of people who are often overlooked, or who come from underrepresented backgrounds, but who have made significant contributions. As long as the profile is connected and has been polished for quality.

Lastly, let me state that I don't think that this was an intentionally bad choice, but we all have biases, both implicit and explicit. Perhaps it would be good for you and other leaders to consider and explore your implicit biases to help mitigate future instances of embarrassment: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

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Thank you, JN Murphy, for mentioning the caricature drawing of Thurgood Marshall.

I saw that, and I too thought that it had the appearance of impropriety.

I removed it.

We don't need caricatures when there are plenty of real photos available. Caricatures, by definition, are made "in order to create a comic or grotesque effect".

Answer 3

I think it is generally a good idea to create "profiles of the week" for well outlined and documented profiles, and this profile fails to meet these requirements. I have tried adding census records a few days ago to give it a bit more body than the advertising texts it contains about how great a person he was. I think it would be a good idea to review his and other political figures' profiles for such non-neutral texts and onesided viewpoints.

That being said, I think it is a good idea to not have controversial people on the front page. (Bring a European, this persons view points were not well known to me earlier.) I would love to see some more well-created normal people on the front page as well.

Lastly, I agree to remove him from the presidents of the USA project. He was not a president of the USA, after all.

Answer 4

I agree with this post. I find it interesting that there is no mention of him owning 100 slaves, that surely can be found.

Especially when several of my ancestors are documented as having slaves numbering in the single digits. This information is usually in the will. Clearly, more research is needed here for a balanced profile.

Answer 5

Hi Sarah,

Not everyone views historical figures with the same sentiment, and it wasn't our intention to offend anyone. If the Team had known that this choice for EPOW would drum up as much controversy as it has, we would have skipped it.

A note on how our system works, two months in advance, I look over all the top profiles projects send me as well as historical dates of note, birth dates, and death dates, current events, media events, etc (so I look all over the place) and keep notes. I look over those notes to try to plan out EPOWs, as I call them, or example profiles of the week. I try to vary between US-centric, of which there are many more to choose from on WikiTree, and those from other regions. We have to make sure those people have some sort of image we can use, are connected to the Tree, and are someone we can find reasonable research on in order to improve (if necessary) their biography. It's always nice when a project has already done the work for us, but that often has not happened. We also try to choose people a large swatch of members will recognize. That makes it fun.

Once that is done, I post a note on the profile to let managers and others interested know when we'll be featuring that person so they can make improvements, if they choose. We love when others step in to start spiffing up a profile. I add myself to the trusted list so I can see the activity of the profile and avoid crossing lines and stepping on toes while those others interested work on the profile. That exact situation has been the case with the Davis profile-there was a flurry of activity in the last few days as his profile grabbed attention and I didn't want to make edits until it looked like it had subsided a bit. I have been working on his profile all morning, to try to balance the story, make sure facts are correct, remove extra sections that don't seem to fit or make sense, and so on. I am still not completely finished, but it is much better at this point.

We had no intention of making any uncomfortable. History is uncomfortable. Some people will look up to certain figures as heroes and others as villains, and we try to tread that line lightly.

Would it be beneficial to make an announcement of the next month's list of proposed EPOWs each month, in order to get a feel for the response? Would people like a chance to be able to improve these profiles before we go through them and feature them? We do not intentionally keep the process private; it just happens that way because several tools are in use to keep track of things, including a large calendar full of chicken scratches for notes that I cannot easily share here in its entirety :-) But each month is an easy thing to put out there. And we welcome community feedback. I have asked for ideas for EPOWs in the past, and I keep notes of everyone that is brought up. We just can't feature them all at once, so I have to go through and decide the most appropriate according to dates and current events.

Comments

Lucy said it beautifully. If the EPOW is going to be a figure like Jefferson Davis, the profile should be well-written, all sources should be cited, and facts (pleasant and unpleasant) be presented. To do otherwise is to lionize a figure who, frankly, doesn't deserve it. How many Americans are direct descendants of Davis' slaves?? They don't get a mention? On a website devoted to genealogy?

I say this as someone who was born in a hospital named after Jefferson Davis.

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As noted by both Chris and myself, our timetables got crossed and Davis was in the finder before he was finished being edited. It is unfortunate timing considering a controversial figure.

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C Handy, Thank you for saying this.

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I agree with you, Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz.

My two cents is, writing is not an easy task, and writing about History requires vigilance, care, circonspection; still it's not that hard to include in any notable profile what the person is admired for, what they achieved, what they are criticized for, what their failings were.

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We can not change history. It should be used as a learning tool. This man existed and played a part in history whether we like it or not, and that is how I look at it.

 So, now we are to pick only one side to profile sorry but to me that is wrong. I thought Wikitree was about one big tree. There are lots of things that will not be looked on favorably in that context but others that will and we should be able to use all the profiles. Not just one side because after all, it is history.

We have seen profiles of kings who had their wives beheaded and had any woman he wanted when he wanted. There was no outrage about abusing women. It is part of the history of that person. When doing a profile of a famous person no matter who they are I feel the facts should be there for everyone to read and digest on their own.

This is not a political forum, or so I thought, but a place where we learn about our families and what their lives were like and the times they lived in.

If we start censoring these profiles then why do them at all? I enjoy the profiles of the week and learning about the people, the good, the bad and maybe the ugly it is history. Which we are meant to learn from and not to repeat.

We can not exclude the South, the North, the West or the East of America or any place in the world. So, why start now? This should be about everyone good or bad.

 People were ok with the Jessie James profiles, outlaws who killed people for monetary gain, Kings beheading, and killing people, and yes they had slaves, so how is this one any different?

 I thought this was about the ancestry and history of our ancestors. I have not even read the profile yet and I was looking forward to learning about this person. If we can not be fair to all and pick and choose just what suits certain people how are we really being fair at all?

I am sorry but I do not find it an offense to learn about our history the good or the bad. Also, I think we should take it a little easier on people who are writing biographers. I also thought this was about people learning and not everyone on Wikitree are scholars, nor should they be, and the only way to learn is to do things, help them and let up on the criticism which I am finding is becoming rampant on this site.

This site is for all not a few, this site should not show bias and be able to post profiles on all types of people and be factual. Now, I guess I have opened up myself for an onslaught of criticism. But, if so, I will not reply. I am on here to learn about my family the good the or the bad and to learn about the history of the people and the time they lived in and as Wikitree likes to promote itself one big family tree if you can not be inclusive then you are not being one big tree.

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I agree we need to include the good and the bad in the profiles of all the people.

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I agree one hundred percent. History is just that history and we need to know about it and learn from it.

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I agree completely, these profiles are not picked to offend but the part they played in history. We can not control what offends everyone.

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I agree with Nancy Sitzlar. Well said.

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Abby,

I made the discovery that the profile of Jefferson Davis had the US Presidents sticker on it, and I posted that here on the forum a few days ago. At that time, you had a note on there saying that this profile was going to be featured. The post I made here already was controversial. That should have given you some idea of what was coming.

Answer 6

THANK YOU I was concerned about this myself. It's important to find a balance between presenting historical accuracy without glorifying (or even just sweeping under the rug) the terrible things an historical figure did, especially in regards to someone like Davis who is going to be a draw for white supremacists.  I would strongly support changes addressing the concerns and suggestions brought up by the initial poster, particularly the lack of information about him being a slave owner.

Answer 7

Every profile on WT is most likely a relative of someone.  So anytime a profile is unbalanced it is going to cause an issue particularly if that profile is tied to a war or some other highly charged emotional issue.   

I was surprised to see that the Connections showed I was connected to this man at 22 degrees since my family fought for the Union.  Just goes to show you that we often have branches of families that fought on different sides of highly charged wars.  

For me having a profile example should be less about the who and more about the how... what I mean is the profile:

1.  Adheres to the WT recommended guidance including

a.  it is well sourced with all sides of any controversial figure or research being stated  (sometimes there is controversy about who someone is related to which is just as controversial as political or war related controversy)

b.  it is well written and follows style guidelines

2.  If it is a possibly controversial profile say so in the lead in and give an honest view from both points of view.  

I think an example should be just that an example of how to do a profile and an example of how to do a controversial profile is as valid as how to do a more standard one.

Answer 8

Why hasn’t this profile been moved to the Civil War Project yet?

Comments

There was no Civil War.  It was only a police action.

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1861–1865: American Civil War: A major war between the United States (the Union) and eleven Southern states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America.

RJ Horace - Never have I heard that the Civil War was a "Police Action". That is so not true. It was a declared war between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.

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Thanks. After seeing that picture on the home page all week I looked again at the profile. A few changes, but not enough.  

I’m very disappointed.

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Rome was not built in a day 

Hi Ellen, someone has to write the changes.  And when there are many hands at play and a controversial subject, slow is good.

In the meantime, you are more than welcome to write up any changes you want to submit to the bio and offer them for discussion and then addition.  I left the space page open, you can feel free to add a sub-section to the suggested changes section.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Jefferson_Davis_(1808_-_1889)_bio_development

Answer 9

Still not in Civil War category.  Still no substantial changes. The inaction on this badly-written, anachronistic profile says it all. I am only one small voice but I can’t support this site anymore. Who else is ready to take a long vacation?

Comments

Ellen, why would you leave this wonderful website over one issue? There are so many wonderful profiles here and many more continue to be added every day.

The G2G forum is free for open discussions on many fronts. The fact that Jefferson Davis is a controversial person to feature does not mean he should not have been featured; the fact that his profile was not ready has been explained in detail.

I hope you will reconsider leaving completely and calling for others to leave, in my opinion, is uncalled for. I hope you reconsider.

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Thanks Virginia,

My sentiments exactly,  only you've written with more grace.

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It’s a matter of conscience. And as I said last week, the profile is not balanced.  I’ve decided to work on a couple of projects this week as time permits. Obviously this will be an ongoing issue which will come up again.

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Sorry Ellen, but if YOU want to leave, it is your decision. It is a decision I don't understand, because you obviously now take 1 (in words one) profile of nearly 22 million profiles as a stumble block. There are many other profiles that could use your expertise. But if you want to leave the site, it is your decision that you hopefully reconsider at one time.

To call OTHERS to leave the site is a bit too much in my opinion. It is the decision of every user if s/he wants to stay here, improve said profile and many others or if s/he wants to leave maybe only said profile alone and work on their own genealogy or other projects. If YOU can't accept that the profile is unbalanced and not an example as it should be, then it is your opinion, which you have expressed here, and WE would have to accept that you leave the site over this issue. But you also have to accept that OTHERS would like to stay here because they want to work on their genealogical projects.

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Jelena, thank you for your opinion. That one profile symbolizes a world of feelings in many Americans. Those feelings and sentiments are beyond the scope of genealogy. It is a profile that, unlike a hundred others, should have been worked on by a variety of people and then thoughtfully, edited again. Those in the project are well aware of this. I was hoping others would agree that this is important.

   And FWIW I still think it’s in the wrong project.  Thanks again.

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Ellen,

I believe it's important too.   Just the tactics  used here don't seem appropriate for a genealogy site.   The profiles should be edited and improved to present balance and not inspire vitriol but present facts.  The PROCESS to obtain such a profile should also not inspire vitriol and seem to attack the volunteers and staff.     I believe this topic should be  CLOSED by Sarah.  Then you and Sarah can continue to improve the profile with the profile managers.

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Vitriol?  Not my intention.

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Ellen, I think Peggy was referring to the whole topic, not you.

As for the profile, I think we could take a good lesson from Wikipedia.  Davis' profile there has all the pertinent facts - the good and the bad - and to read it doesn't stir nearly as much emotion as we've seen on some of the threads here.

WikiTree is based on volunteers.  If you have a better way to write the profile, write a paragraph and suggest that it be added.  If you aren't a good writer, you'll just have to be content to wait until those of us with two small children, one on the way, a business to run, and 5 WikiTree Projects to lead can get around to it... 

ps, just re-stacking the succession box took more than 3 hours - the pregnant wife was not amused...