Cemeterist Original Content

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: cemeteries

There are many style and policy reasons for our community and the Cemeterist Project to want to present original biographies, images, and content, and not copied data (images, text, relationships, etc.) from other websites such as FindAGrave, BillionGraves, Internment.net, or Cemetery.org. Original content is the type of data and information (e.g. biographies, images, research, etc.) that we create ourselves, using completely original elements. There can be no other original story or third-party oversight.^[1]

"Writing our own content necessitates reviewing the facts, and this gives an opportunity to look for errors and inconsistencies that have not been found before. Copy/pasting material can rob us of the opportunity for an additional review of the facts. Tying back to credibility, when material is copy/pasted en masse, it gives the impression that it has not been checked against other sources, whether it has or not."

- Rob Ton ^[2]

While some may try to compare this initiative to Find A Grave, it is important to understand the key differences of each undertaking. Find A Grave's mission is to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience.^[3] This virtual cemetery experience tends to focus more on the cemeteries themselves, rather than the accuracy of the individual profiles contained within them.

The Cemeterist Project on the other hand takes this a major step forward, by striving to further WikiTree's overall mission to grow an accurate single family tree that connects us all and is freely available to us all, by creating high-quality sourced profiles and rebuilding families and their stories through biographies and relationships. Simply put, Cemeterists highlight the person, not just where they are interred.

Footnotes

1. ↑ "Definition & Meaning 'Original Content'". dictionary.university. 2019.
2. ↑ Rob Ton, “Should wikitree have a policy on copying public domain text?”, WikiTree G2G message board, 11 Oct 2014 [Accessed 28 May 2019]
3. ↑ Find a Grave. n.d. What is Find a Grave?. [online] Available at: <https://www.findagrave.com/about> [Accessed 10 February 2021].