Reflections on our Genealogy Awards

23 May 20108 comments

We appreciate your feedback on our Top 100 Genealogy Sites. The response has been overwhelming and far more intense than we would have expected. Thanks for everything you've sent!

In addition to the positive feedback, we are hearing the critical responses, including questions on how sites were picked and why some cornerstones of the online blogging community were not included.

This was a first-time effort, and we are sorry for what went wrong and the confusion it created. We have learned much

in the process and hope to do things better next time around. The criteria used were subjective. Purposely, we did focus on lesser-known sites and we should probably have named the awards "Top 100 Sites You Should Visit."

Some of you have suggested using award categories, which we will consider next year. Perhaps the entire selection process should be more public, with a community input element in combination with an editorial element. Next time, we'll make sure that all the great genealogy gems – large or small, recognized or lesser-known – will receive the attention they deserve.

We still think the selections we listed are all great sites, but we appreciate that there are many others we left out. Thank you again for your feedback and for allowing us the opportunity to improve on this next year. We do hear your suggestions!

Posted by admin on May 23rd, 2010 - 19:18

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Thomas MacEntee
May 23rd, 2010 - 23:30
I appreciate your transparency during this process and your willingness to accept all feedback - both positive and negative.

The genealogy community is vibrant, creative and yes, very vocal. Next year make sure you include them in the process and I'm sure we'll see a Top 100 list that reflects the community as well as were genealogy is going in the 21st century.
Mario
May 24th, 2010 - 11:01
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for your support, we are looking forward to next years awards already. Guess I'll see you at the Jamboree.
Best
Mario
footnoteMaven
May 24th, 2010 - 17:14
"We still think the selections we listed are all great sites." Well, of course they are!

I'm sure no one ever questioned the credibility of those you included in your list. Rather, members of the GeneaBlogging community have questioned the credibility of your PR Campaign. -fM
Sebastien @ MyHeritage
May 24th, 2010 - 20:16
FM -
Thanks for your continued critique, you're responses have fueled a lot of discussion and plans to implement better methodology and the community in the future!

Please do continue to keep us on our feet.

Regards,
Sebastien
Susan A. Kitchens
May 24th, 2010 - 22:39
How nice that a post goes over follow-ups. Having read this post, I'm curious to review the comments on the original. I clicked through to this page....
http://blog.myheritage.com/myheritage-coms-top-100-genealogy-sites-2010/ ....

The bottom of the post declares that there are 51 comments. Yum, looks like good reading, especially with this follow-up. Alas, only one of those comments is visible.

The "older comments" link leads to 404sVille. A little tweaking of your WordPress templates &/or plugins will make all seem right (problem seems to be the addendum for page 1 is not attached to a blog post permalink). Set your HTML/WP coders on it, stat!

Because the geeks shall inherit the earth,

Susan
Luckie
May 25th, 2010 - 00:01
It's interesting to me My Heritage that after a lengthy private email exchange with myself and several other African-American genealogy contributors, a public dialogue that included even more community feedback and an offering to feature African-American contributors in an "exclusive" feature on MH to in your own words "respond to any shortcoming in this area", there was no mention of the question of diversity that was raised.

You made mention of community feedback that questioned MH's Top Genealogy Blog naming convention and the omission of "cornerstones of the online blogging community". How is it that the question of diversity and fairness towards African-American contributors didn't factor into MH's reflections?

Is it coincidental that MH requested that I remove all personal names from the communications I posted on Our Georgia Roots yet had no issue responding to other genealogy blogs -- addressing the same discussion -- by name?

There are certainly some aspects of the critique that you have heard clearly and some where I still find you greatly lacking.

It seems to me this is exactly where the first communications began and I fail to see what you've learned from it.

Luckie Daniels
Our Georgia Roots
Dae Powell
May 25th, 2010 - 01:07
Genealogy, to me, isn't about races, it is about the Human Race. If, as I believe, we are all related, what does "diversity" matter?

Happy Dae·
GENTREK Chats with Jayne McCormick
Susan A. Kitchens
May 25th, 2010 - 03:39
Okay, here's the link to read all the comments on the original post:
http://blog.myheritage.com/myheritage-coms-top-100-genealogy-sites-2010/comment-page-1/#comments