Massively multiuser online genealogy application
From SharedTree Wiki
Massively multiuser online genealogy applications (MMOGA) is a play off of the MMORPG acronym common in role playing games. It is a summary of several new applications that have emerged during the past few years.
Many people are trying to solve this space using a Genealogy Wiki. I do not feel that a wiki is capable of solving the MMOGA problem.
Characteristics of MMOGAs
- all users are free to edit any entry
- any user can add new entries
- realtime editing of data
- one shared database rather than lots of independent sandboxes
- upload or import data from other sources
Cultural Obstacles
Culturally, MMOGAs require a major shift in attitudes of researchers.
The biggest change is giving up ultimate control. Really good genealogists are often perfectionists. They put a lot of effort into getting their family trees "just right." They personally review every change and often find problems with other people's work. The idea of giving up their ultimate control to a community of historians is not only scary but may even be a bad choice not given the proper tools to manage those changes.
Sites like Wikipedia have proven very effective in effectively managing that change. It's true that some articles are written incorrectly or even maliciously altered, most people would agree that it has turned into one of the greatest intellectual resources the world has. Open content sites have learned how to effectively manage the community collaboration to essentially take 99 steps forward and only 1 step back.
Working publically is another obstacle to MMOGAs. Moving the genealogical workspace from your desktop to the Internet requires a certain bold personality. It takes a lot of guts and confidence to write something that may stay on the Internet forever. I call this the too-scare-to-raise-your-hand-in-class syndrome. A similar gene that allows one person to stand up in front of 1000 classmates to ask a potentially stupid question, allows others to post a blog entry that potentially millions might read and even disagree with.
This fear of speaking out on the Internet seems to exist less with people familiar with how it works and should eventually be small enough that the number of public contributors is large enough.
