A distinctive aspect of the collaborative nature of WikiTree, which has raised some controversy, is that profiles of people who were either born more than 150 years ago or who deceased more than 100 years ago are open for editing by any member in good standing.
Recognizing that in some cases this openness can lead to unwanted and unwarranted additions to the global family tree, the volunteer leaders at WikiTree have created procedures for working with two special categories of ancestor profiles.