28 March 2011
BetterGEDCOM DEVELOPERS MEETING
Reports from moderators

HOME Moderator: DearMYRTLE
GEIR:paragraph describing the project. Regarding the list – change it to sentenceformat with input from moderators.

EE& GPS Support Moderator: GeneJ
GeneJ: Need for terminology

• Tamura: Suggests: “We choose to do traditional genealogy (GPS) though we understand scientific genealogy exists.”
• GeneJ: Genealogy methodology takes narrow focus on family unit, family history.
• GeneJ: Looking for relatively full critiques evaluations of genealogy programs and their treatment of sources. Has reviewed 25.
• Tamura: Has been largely ignoring it because helooks at basics such as correct character set, correct header; and he sees no reason to go deeper if they don’t comply with basics.
• Geir: Family Historian GEDCOM compatible as far as “fields” are concerned
• GeneJ: Field names and descriptions in Family Historian are identical from a GEDCOM component standpoint.
• GeneJ: Didn’t panic. Built her own Jack Sprat”database, and asks for more input for data exports to use. There is no sample file with Family Tree Maker for Mac, so no way to test without doing actual data entry. An import of a GEDCOM isn’t valid as data was pre-processed.
• Geir:Bring a lot of data into one field with GEDCOM
• Geir:Re: Mark Tucker’s http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/2009/05/03/better-online-citations-details-part-2-gedcom
• Geir: RootsMagic’s version of //Evidence Explained// (EE), they export maybe one fields thatis standard GEDCOM, the rest are their own custom fields that are EE.
• Geir:Ancestral Quest has 1-1 mapping between fields in program and the fields inGEDCOM.
• Geir:Getting all vendors in a room to agree to EE citation fields.
• GeneJ:to continue with GEDCOM experience pages at the wiki.

LIST OF REVIEWED APPLICATIONS:

• GeneJ:Anywhere in BetterGEDCOM do we have a list of applications that we should be considering? And websites that accept GEDCOM files, or enable GEDCOM downloads.Tamura reminds us of Louis Kessler's work http://www.gensoftreviews.com
• Sandy:Do we care how another program reads the GEDCOM file? If we get an agreement among vendors.
• Tamura:We care if an old program looks at the data differently. Right now vendors are trying to force-fit EE-style into GEDCOM, which wasn't designed for it.
• GeneJ:Do we want to create another section of the wiki to list the various applications/vendorsand evaluate if they interpret…?
• Geir:Isn’t that what we are seeing already? Same conclusion that there are incompatibilities. Five, six or seven of the most used programs should give you a picture of what the problems are. The other thing is the functionality of the program.
• GeneJ:Do we want to have references to them linked in any way? What about updates? An advantage of the list would be for developers to input description about the functionality of their own program, or what they would like to see provided for in BetterGEDCOM.
• Tamura:How much time do you want to spend on examing current GEDCOM citation practice, instead of focusing on BetterGEDCOM?
• Brandy:It gives a starting point.

GOALS: Co-Moderators: gthorud and AdrianB38

• Geir:At the moment, nothing is happening on the wiki. It is URGENT that GeneJ create those new pages (source citation), so that there is a place to do have these discussions.
• Behind the scenes, Adrian and Geir have been exchanging ideas about the newpages, currently about 4 pages, mentioning 10-15 areas of our work including anoverview. In Geir’s view it is close to completion.

GenealogyMethodology Moderator: DearMYRTLE

• DearMYRTLE to create a soft page, with links to existing pages in Requirements Catalog.
• GeneJ:Discussion about what IS genealogy? Researchers need goals, link families.Different data requirements to segregate assertions such as the fact birth,death, spouse.
• GeneJ:The blogger community comes to the wiki, they can find information on it.Provide cohesiveness from
• Tamura: Several people feel a need for background on genealogy research how-to and some kind of GEDCOM compendium full of facts.Both are useful to BetterGEDCOM, and definitely nice to have, but both are projects in their own right.

BACKING UPWIKI

• Geir: Tried to make a backup of the wiki, but it didn’t work There is a description of how to do it under Wiki Management. – protocol to be discussed at today’s organizers’ meeting.

NOT DISCUSSED:

• ComparisonsModerator: unassigned
• Data Models Moderator:unassigned (Mark Tuck unavailable)
• DefinitionsModerator: ttwetmore
• Meetings Moderator:DearMYRTLE
• Sandbox Moderator:unassigned
• Utilities Moderator:unassigned
• FAQ ManagementModerator: DearMYRTLE