The Genealogy & Family History Social Network

Rootsweb censorship

Just in case any of you are not aware, Rootsweb have banned any discussion of GenealogyWise on their mailing lists. Anyone who has made a post on the subject on the GOONS Forum has been asked to remove it. If you have any problems or suggestions about using this new website to promote your ONS you are however quite free to start a discussion here. The person who started Genealogy Wise is the former CEO of MyFamily, the parent company of Ancestry, which might perhaps explain matters, though mailing lists and social networking sites operate in completely different ways and do not appear to me to be in direct competition. It would be interesting to know what other members think.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sean K on July 17, 2009 at 11:18am

In that case, that's a big plus in GW's favour if Ancestry, the genealogical all-consuming megalith, feels under threat. I was beginning to think GW was very amateurish - particularly with the botched competition - but now I think I'll give them some slack ;o)

Permalink Reply by Sidney Wood on July 18, 2009 at 10:55am

Are you sure it's censorship?
I understood it to mean that such discussion would be a breach of the terms agreed between Rootsweb and the Guild Forum in return for Rootsweb hosting the forum.
GenealogyWise also has terms of service, see the link at the foot of this page.

Permalink Reply by Debbie Kennett on July 19, 2009 at 5:19am

The Rootsweb Acceptable Use Policy can be found here. It does not seem to preclude discussions about free websites. There has never been any problem with discussions relating to other Ancestry competitors such as Find My Past and Family Tree DNA on the GOONS Forum. Those of us who have posted messages on the English Rootsweb mailing lists (including the Guild Forum) about GenealogyWise have been asked to remove them. When I went to remove my posts I found that someone had already decided to remove them for me without my consent. One of the few English lists where the posts haven't been removed so far is the SOG list. Take a look at the SOG Archives here, and read the threads labelled GenealogyWise and Notice to Members.

What is very odd however is that the restrictions only seem to be applied to the English lists. If you look at the Rootsweb Archives here you will see that there have been lots of messages on Rootsweb about Genealogy Wise. (Do searches both on "GenealogyWise" and "Genealogy Wise"). Some of the deleted posts on the English county lists are still showing up in the search results (eg, Hampshire and Devon), but when you click on the link you're redirected to the archives page and the posts have disappeared. No action seems to have been taken on any of the American lists as all those links still work.