Should unresponsive profile manager policy be automated?

Question

I'm only thinking of profiles of those over 200 years old. The current policy is: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unresponsive_Profile_Managers  It was updated in Feb. and includes  the statements, "If the person was born more than 200 years ago you do not need to wait. It's polite to give the Profile Manager a week. Then any Supervisor can help with the merge."  Would it be a good idea to make that happen automatically if it's technically possible?

I haven't been here long enough to be an Arborist (takes 3 months) but I've been selecting surnames that are of moderate interest to me and have multiple duplicates. I list them by date of birth and start with the oldest and begin proposing merges that look likely. I rely on the managers to decide if it's appropriate and which data is correct. The result is a bunch of proposed merges that frequently never get completed because they involve at least one manager who is no longer active. Often there are numerous different unresponsives involving any one surname and they are in charge of profiles that I am not actively following. I'm not going to follow up on each one because I'm off proposing other merges, so no one does.

The solution should be that computers do it for us. If the proposed merge list were turned over to the software and the managers who hadn't responded in a couple weeks or so were sent an email, saying in effect, "do something or you lose your control", maybe the Arborists and people acting like they are (me) could make more progress. If they didn't respond or do anything with the proposed merge, then an email would be sent to the proposer and to any manager who had approved the merge informing that the merge could proceed and either of us could complete it.

Currently, getting a manager deemed unresponsive is too cumbersome to do it on a large scale. I have a few that I've noticed keep recurring in names I'm interested in. Those I am currently waiting on time to pass after doing all three suggested steps before reporting them as being unresponsive.

Comments

 

Tom, I'm going to try to restate your suggestion in the way I think we'd implement it. Correct me if this is wrong.

 

The suggestion is to have proposed merges be automatically approved if the two profiles are not merged or set as Unmerged Matches or Rejected Matches within two weeks.

 

This would only apply to Open profiles. If the merge involves one Open profile and one Public or Private profile, only the Open profile would be approved.

 

If the automatic approval means that the merge now has approval on both sides, an e-mail message would be sent to person who proposed the merge and all profile managers letting them know that anyone can complete the merge.

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Yes, after reading over what I actually wrote, that pretty well sums it up, but my intent was to go further with it. I wanted to have those managers that hadn't responded in any way to the emails to be deemed unresponsive, just as they are now in the multi-step process, and to have all their profiles orphaned. For the whole merging process to move much faster than the rate of duplicate creation managers that have left WickiTree need to be replaced faster than one merger at a time.

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As a person who works with many people who are family tree workers of all levels, from "newbies" to professional genealogists and historical writers, we can not discount the usefullness of new information given to us by people who find that hidden treasure in grandma's attic after the funeral. We must leave the platform open to those who have jobs, and families and other callings in life than the obsession that guides us here on this site. People are not going to want to contribute their stuff to this site if we are going to demand their time and attention, lest we take their efforts fruit, and their very family connections away from them! This would, in fact, give this site a horrible reputation!

There should be a method of supervisor-approval in the event that the profile owner does not respond with in (7 days?) a certain amount of time to a merge request, but orphaning the profine does not seem to me, to be the right thing to do... in my opinion.

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Robin, I appreciate your opinion and agree with the value of new members with new information. I am a newbie novice myself, but do you realize that I started this by limiting it to only people born 200+ years ago. These are profiles that have been and will continue to be duplicated. They need to be merged on a regular basis for our collaborative site to function properly.

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Yep, I realize that. I just work with some really touchy people. They act like they are the ONLY descendant their ansectors ever had! Genealogy proves to be a very eye-opening experience for these people. If we upheld a policy of orphaning there profiles if they failed to check in every 30 days or so, they would not use this site. It is as simple as that. They would rather use ancestry.com where all of their documents and pictures are then only available to paying members. I am trying to encourage people to make their pics and docs searchable and free by putting them on the family members profile on wikitree!

We have to balance the necesity of merging with the spirit of collaboration. Collaboration means that we merge profiles that the two parties AGREE are matches. Some people are more particular about wanting to see sources, and discuss particulars before participating in a merge. This must be accomodated because we are not just dealing with bits of information, we are dealing with family.

There are different standards for HSAs and group member profiles. You can ask supervisors for help with merges that are not getting done in a timely manner. This has worked very well for me when working on a historical ansector. There were huge numbers of duplicate children and siblings... it was a mess! I had sent merge requests, and they had fallen un-answered. With the help of SUPERvisors (the were fun and helpful!) we got the profile looking professional-style in a day and a half! Cleaning up this one profile seemed a catalyst to the profiles around it. Managers who had been feeling lost by the large number of siblings and children, now had a historical point of reference!

I guess I'm just saying that too much control over managed profiles will push away people who do not wish to that control exerted over them.

Answer 1

Here is your answer :)

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/14953/should-we-adjust-the-unresponsive-profile-managers-policy

Comments

Not exactly, I believe that was the discussion that led to the Feb revision in the policy. I think it needs to be taken a step further and would like to hear other's opinions on what they think would work the best.

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I'm in agreement with you, Tom.  I'm an arborist. There are 15 pending merges on my personal proposed merge page that have been pending for at least 6 weeks. I'm hoping they will go away, haven't had an excuse to  delve deeper in the problem.  There is also one proposed merge that I have rejected because they are two different  people, perhaps mother/daughter. It won't go away, either.

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Tom

 

Gotcha, I misunderstood. Perhaps if the deletions were automated, this would be a bit easier...

Trib

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Tom B., I'd like to hear you explain more about this: "There is also one proposed merge that I have rejected because they are two different people, perhaps mother/daughter. It won't go away, either."

 

It sounds to me like you're reporting an unrelated bug. It's something we should look into, but I don't see the connection to the discussion here.

 

Actually, the connection I see is a negative one. If we were to set a time limit before proposed merges are automatically approved, rejecting the proposals would be the only alternative for responsible managers who disagree with a match, like you're saying here. If there are any bugs left in the rejection system, we'll need to make sure those are totally resolved first.

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i think once a merge is suggested the system could automate the process of emailing the manager who is unresponsive and further automate it after another set time for either a personal review by someone who would normally recive the email from users or approve the merge on the unresponsive side and leave it up to the active manager to complete it.

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I like those ideas. The automated responses to unresponsive managers would be helpful. As would a unresponsive merge review group.