Can we reconsider the wording of the Unsourced template?

Question

Currently the Unsourced Profile template reads:

This profile has been identified as not having Sources. Evidence for all facts in a profile is important for further research and the credibility of WikiTree. Please help to improve this profile by adding sources. Please note that adding a link to another online tree or profile that does not have sources is not adding a source. You may request a review of the profile by adding [[Category:Profile_style_review_requested]] to the profile.

I see several potential problems with this:

1. It's unnecessarily long and takes up a lot of "real estate" on the page. 
2. Related: It may be trying to do too much in one template (train readers in source quality; encourage profile review)
3. it contains technically inaccurate info. (While we may all dislike the over reliance on online family trees, if that is where the data came from, then it IS a source.  May not be a good one but it is a source.)
4. If I were a newbie or even a seasoned wikitreer, I might be more put off (if not worse) than encouraged by it to add sources. 

How about something much tighter such as:

This profile lacks any source information [link to Source help page]. Please help to improve this profile by adding sources that support the facts on it. Thank you. 

Comments

I like your wording much better Jillaine ... and yes (re point 4) it's a lot less off putting 

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Nice one, Jillaine, especially the link to sources help page.

It would only have to be applied to several thousand profiles.

Margaret

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I prefer your wording, too. Regarding point 3, the introduction to WikiTree says,"Please include sources! Primary documentation or information that would allow others to find it is best, but always provide at least some idea of where information came from." Newbies could easily interpret "some idea" as an online family tree.

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Laurie, and they'd be right. The point is to know where the info came from. Even if it's an online tree. Could also be: aunt Bertha said so. A source by definition is neither good nor bad. It's simply the place we got the info.

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Short is good for web usability. It reads pretty much the same as Wikipedia's citation warning. Plus templates can use links to another page to avoid info overload.

Answer 1

Jillaine, Good minds do think alike. Just this morning, I was looking at the template, thinking it was "not perfect." I was thinking something along the lines of "This person has been created from unsourced user submitted family trees. Before using facts should be verified and sources added." But realize it's not quite right either.

It needs to cover the profile with NO sources and the one with "internet tree" sources. Or perhaps we could have two templates.

I like your idea of putting in the link to the sources page.  And your second sentence "Please help to improve this profile by adding sources that support the facts." is way more polite than mine.

Comments

Ann and Jilliane how about

"This profile has been created without sources or from unsourced user submitted family trees. Before using facts should be verified and sources added." and then add the sentence about improving the profile.

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This profile either has no [link to source page embedded in the word sources] sources or has been created from unsourced, user-submitted family trees.  Please help improve this profile, by verifying the facts and adding sources. Thank you.

or combine the two

"This profile has been created without sources or from unsourced user submitted family trees. Please help improve this profile, by verifying the facts and adding sources. Thank you."

 

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Actually, the Unsourced template as currently designed is to be used on profiles without ANY sources.  I'd rather we kept it that way.  If people feel strongly about having a separate template for pages that contain only references to online family trees then I think that's a different  template, perhaps something like: 

This profile currently references only online family trees. Please help improve the quality of this profile by identifying and citing better sources [link to source help page] for the data on this page. Thank you. 

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My opinion is that this messge is going to people who do not know our language and what it means.  And when they look at the bio, they will see the word "sources"and think that there is sources.  And make the message simple.  Also they will want to know who put the message there.  

Maybe something like this:

This profile does not have enough [http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sources sources].  Please help us improve this profile by verifying the facts and adding sources.  Thank you.  WikiTree Team

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As a Newbie, perhaps I am not supposed to be reading this thread but, while it all is a great step in makeing WikiTree better,  it seems all for the "Boards" use to help us improve.

I'd like a template a "Newbie" can to use that lets others know that we know a profile is messed up.  Currently, I use {{Research_pending}} which, although the wording is not what I'd like it to say,  at least gives me and others a warning that something is wrong until I can return and fix it.

I also use this note:  This biography was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import however '''''there are numerous errors as a result of this import'''''.<br> Among them are...<b>XXXXXXXXXXX</br> '''Until these errors can be corrected, please use judgement before connecting and please help with this profile'''. 

Just my thoughts on this thread, Thanks!

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Corinne, glad to have a newbie chime in. If I hadn't meant for it to be public, I wouldn't have put it here to be read by all.

Yes please put all the notes on your profiles that you want, that way eager profile improvers, like me, will leave them alone, unless you want help.

You can create your own "look alike template" to put on your profiles, that have research pending or whatever you want to say.

Use this

{{Profile-box|Put what you want to say in here}} It makes a nice border around your statement.

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I thought WikiTree etiquette was that if a profile manager is active, they should be contacted before changes were made to a profile, notwithstanding that it is an open profile. I had assumed that "eager improvers" would respect that, and a "do not disturb" message would not be necessary.

Do I misunderstand?

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Perhaps I am wrong, but it never occured to me, to ask a manager first if I can edit.

The profiles are open to all for improvement purposes. I've signed the honor code.

If I asked first, everytime I corrected a typo or added a source, or wrote a bio, I would never get anything done. I would spend a week waiting to hear from a manager, and forget that I ever wanted to edit in the first place.

That said, if I find a bio, where there is information, that I think is incorrect, and want to change, I would of course consult through the use of public comments, or perhaps a message to the manager or here in the G2G.

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WikiTree is first and foremost collaborative. It seems to me if substantive changes (not typos) are being made to an actively managed profile that the courtesy requirement of the honor code suggests collaboration in advance, as does general effectiveness. The profile manager may already have the information and more, or different information that needs to be resolved, and without contact an opportunity for synergy would be lost. Speed is not always efficiency, and collaboration requires compromise.

If that kind of collaboration is truly is not the expectation of this community, I have some thinking to do.

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The very nature of a wiki is that we want to work together. That does not preclude asking permission to edit a profile, especially those that are open. If major changes need to happen, absolutely, we should be talking to each other, using the bulletin board and G2G. But to just improve a profile-add more sources, update a biography, add categories and templates, asking first isn't really necessary. Often people are happy to have someone come along and add things. I know I can't get to all of my profiles as much as I'd like, so if someone else who has an interest can, I am happy to oblige. These are *our* profiles, not *my* profiles.

If the profile manager already has information that is not in the profile yet, this just gives them the opportunity to add it, or maybe the other person is going about adding it for them from their own research, and I do not see how that is a bad thing. Using the space to say what you're changing when editing the profile is always nice, too, just the other manager knows what you're doing. And, if something just isn't right, the changes tab records everything, so it is easy to restore previous information. I do not see how that isn't courteous or collaborative.

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So why is it ever appropriate to put a "hands off" note on a profile, as the commenter upstream suggested?

To clarify, I wasn't suggesting asking for permission, merely a heads up -- "I have XYZ information that I will be adding to the profile you manage". -- to start a collaboration. Hardly burdensome, and easier than using the changes tab to restore something if the new information is incorrect, which it could be. I have seen "sourced" family trees on both ancestry and family search (and otherwise published) for my family that are simply incorrect. Citing a marriage certificate is not an improvement if it's someone else's marriage certificate notwitstanding they had the same names.

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Ellen, I wanted "newbie" Corinne to know that it was ok to put notes on the profiles that she is actively working on, researching, etc. They aren't meant as a permanent "hands off" just a temporary hold, while I figure it out.

Several of us, while actively editing a profile or gathering information for that profile will add notes that tell other people we are working on the profile. It's meant as a "come back later, after I've fixed it, because right now it's a total mess." It's especially useful if you know it's going to take you several days.

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I love the idea of breaking these into two templates:

1) Needs SOMETHING/ANYTHING
2) Needs MORE/BETTER

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It is appropriate to put a hands-off on a living person's profile, if you know them and they don't want their info online. I have been trying for months to get someone to remove my living mother's name from wikitree. I had to disown connection to the profile and make a duplicate that is inlisted just to connect to my grandmother. Unfortunately, my mother's name was added before I joined, and the profile manager will not change her name to Private and her privacy to unlisted. Please help me fix this! Mom is very much alive and alert. I don't even know the profile manager and she is non-responsive. I can not share my mom's profile with her.She is a distant cousin by martiage I am guessing, but I don't hear back from her.

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Sharon, Have you tried using the unresponsive manager option (bottom right corner of the profile)? because I agree that living people, who don't choose to be on the internet, should not be where everyone can see them.

Answer 2

While I agree that an online tree IS a source, good Genealogy would shun those for anything other than a clue. A source should prove a fact where online trees, without other verifiable sources, only give you a general direction. So I would leave the template alone and work of finding better sources instead.

 

Comments

This is the disclaimer that Family Search puts on their online trees

 

"Ancestral File is a collection of genealogical information taken from pedigree charts and family group records s ubmitted to the Family History Department since 1978. The information has not been verified against any official records. Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the file to verify its accuracy"

 

Do we really want those records used as a "Source" here?

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But like Jillaine said, even a bad source is still a source. Besides, even many good sources don't prove facts. For example, one of my ancestors appears in a census record, which says that both her parents were born in England. It turns out they were both born in Ontario. Yet censuses are usually considered pretty good sources.

I'm not saying we should be encouraging the use of online trees as sources of information (beyond mere leads). I'm just agreeing with Jillaine's point that the template as it stands is not really accurate.

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While Dale makes a valid point, I do think WikiTree's guidance ought to stop well short of saying that members should not enter any data that is not supported by a source that provides "proof."  Perhaps we need a separate discussion on what constitutes proof.  For example, does a record of a birth or a marriage on Family Search, with no image available, constitute proof of the dates?  Does the inscription on a tombstone provide proof of a date of death if I haven't personally seen the tombstone?  If another researcher claims to have seen a source that provides proof of something, and I trust him or her, may I use that data on a collaborative web site?

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My point is even Family Search recomends caution with those kind of records as "Sources". Also with most of the Records found on Find a Grave or Family Search and others there is information that would allow you to find and examine the original document or Gravestone if you so wished. I have seen too many changes made to profiles here where there is a common name and people link it up with the wrong parents just to make a connection one generation back.  If we do not have accuracy then all we are doing is worthless and a waste of time.  As a side note rvrn census records can be off, even in the 1930 and 1940 census, sometimes and that is when having multiple outside sources makes all of the difference between making a connection or not.

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I think we can push the value of good sources on the Sources help page. It doesn't need to be in the template language.

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I hope I didn't come across as advocating entry of wrong parents or other incorrect data, or using flaky sources.  I'm very much in favor of correct data and good, valid sources, and I do understand that the occasional human error can creep into what are normally valid sources.  But when we are searching for such sources, I claim we will, at some point, make some judgment calls about when to trust a source and whether to enter its data or not.  Admittedly, once or twice I might have opted to use one of those Family Search records rather than drive the 300 miles to the county courthouse to look at the real record.  But as others have suggested, I do always tell you where I got the data, so when you look at the profile, you may decide whether you think it's credible or not.

Also, I agree with Jillaine that all the finger-shaking admonitions about sources should be in the help pages, not on the profiles that are viewed by many non-members and passers-by.

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Reminder: just because a family tree is online does not make it bad. There are well-sourced family trees on ancestry.com (and WorldConnect) and there are badly/unsourced trees on them, too. (mm... same could be said for the profiles on wikitree).

So let's be careful about lumping all online trees into the bad & wrong category. (Because by so doing, we're automatically including all wikitree profiles in the same category... ;-)

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Jillaine, I completely agree!

There is quite a gap between the "extremes" in the use of Ancestry.com (or others) listed as a source -

On one hand you can have the chaos of a profile that came from a GEDCOM upload (especially in the early days) and then that has been subsequently merged with at least one, if not many other profiles.

On the other hand there can be someone who has manually entered the specific Ancestry.com page where they found information and it's deliberate and is currently the "better than nothing" answer to where the information came from.

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I haven't heard any objections, so I'm going to change the language.