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Proposal: Genealogy & Family History

Why can't the site have more explanation?

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You may be wondering exactly this (as in the title). It could definitely do with some explanation although the organisers are currently limited on how much they can change the layout. I will try and explain a little bit about it for those people who may be unfamiliar with this network.

Basically, a new Genealogy Question & Answer site has been proposed on this StackExchange network. However, it currently needs some support before it is allowed to become a fully functional Q&A site.

'Area 51' is only a "staging area" for newly proposed sites in this network. This means that all proposed sites have to go through a phase where they are assessed for viability before they get launched. This proposed 'Genealogy' site needs 60 followers, and 40 example questions each of which has a score of 10 or more. It already has nearly 120 followers, and 29 questions with a score of 10+. Anyone who registers can then pose 5 example questions, and can also allocate 5 individual votes to others' questions - carefully avoiding ones that already have a score of 10+. When the site get launched, those questions with a score of 10+ are used to seed the site and then real answers can be added to them.

StackExchange sites (such as StackOverflow which software people may know of) are based on up/down-voting of answers, and the resultant 'reputation' points of individuals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Exchange_Network

Most importantly, they are free, run by the users themselves, and not affiliated to any commercial organisation.

This current 'staging area' is definitely a little confusing but Louis Kessler produced some useful instructions at:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/?tab=wX#106257958448273208907/posts/GAYKVrtMWGH

Unfortunately, this phase is a bit of a game so make sure you use your votes wisely - voting for ones already close to the threshold but certainly not above it. If you also pose 5 sample questions, try and pick some really interesting ones in order to encourage others to vote for them.

Tony

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  • Even this Area51 site is somewhat addictable, isn't it Tony? The key will be during Beta if we can reach that critical mass where there are enough people that the people themselves sustain the site and other interested parties will just "find out about it", and we'll no longer need to solicit bloggers to promote it. I think our community - the worldwide genealogy (and family history) community - is easily large enough to achieve this level. This will be an community-based site for genealogists to gather, as FHISO will be a community-based standards organization serving the needs of community.
    – lkessler
    Commented Sep 7, 2012 at 1:21

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