WikiTree

I signed up for WikiTree November on Nov. 4,2018. By its own count, I made more than 6,000 contributions & earned dozens of badges. Then, after a spat on their G2G forum, in which I was accused of fraud and spamming for posting links to tartan background images I created, based on the official threadcounts for the Swedish & Norwegian Tartans, I found my replies in my defense hidden; then I was unable to answer questions on the forum, or send Private Messages, or edit my own Profile, or Profiles I'd created for my relatives.

I had a horrible experience with WikiTree and got nowhere in learning about my family. The website is run by people who control your every move. My entries were merged with others' without my permission and some were removed for capricious reasons. I honestly felt harassed. After a couple of years, I gave up completely after receiving a really nasty message from another user. I then tried to delete my account--and they wouldn't let me! Some mystery person who apparently was one of the site controllers/admins kept messaging me about how I'd "made too may contributions" to leave. I was told that the only thing I could do was request anonymization of my data, but I couldn't leave. That completely freaked me out. I was unsuccessful in getting my account deleted. WikiTree is both a cult and a scam; they build their site on the backs of contributors and then refuse to do what the contributors want._____________

Update 5/19/2023: Now that a year and a half has passed since I wrote this, I'd like to make a comment about the five-star reviews that have appeared since. Interesting, isn't it, that they sound like some sort of ads that reassure people that WikiTree is helpful and not abusive and creepy. Also interesting is that two of them were written one week apart in October 2022. Clearly someone is behind a campaign to "rescue" this horrible website from the (very accurate) 1-star reviews. Take that into consideration as you read.