How do you unselect a Birth Date status that has previously been selected?

+4 votes
266 views
How do you unselect a Birth Date status that has previously been selected?
WikiTree profile: Meta Buch
in WikiTree Help by Tommy Buch G2G Astronaut (1.9m points)
I don't believe that you can deselect a status once one has been selected - you can only change the current status by selecting a different status.
This is NOT very smart programming!!!

2 Answers

+6 votes
What do you want to change it to?  Do you have a source?
by Living Kelts G2G6 Pilot (550k points)
I want it to be unselected for now.  I don't want it set to any status for now.  No, I don't have a source other than Find A Grave, which is not a source.  And I am not wanting to go on that rabbit trail looking for one right now.

Find A Grave is not really a good Source, but can be a great hint.  So I went down the rabbit hole.  Take a look at her Profile now.smiley

I used https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?givenname=Meta&surname=Buch&birth_year_from=1881&birth_year_to=1885&death_place=Iowa&death_year_from=1971&death_year_to=1973&count=20

Good Job!

.

.

.

(And, no, I am not channelling Will Smith in Hancock just because I re-re-re-watched it this last week. cheeky)

Thanks L J
Yes, good work, L J.
Why did you set the Find a Grave to 'no'?  It seems to be matching all the dates now and there is a gravestone picture that matches the dates.

Linda, isn’t it based on memorial id, not dates?

Scroll to the bottom of this page for the an explanation on the use of the “sameas” parameter:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Links_to_FindAGrave

okay, as I understand the explanation, it applies to the memorial number and all other fields.

So, it should be yes, because if something changed on Find a Grave or WikiTree, we would certainly want to know about it so the two profiles can be kept the same.

Yes, that's why I am asking why the template is currently set to sameas=no in that profile.  Maybe it was done before sources were found that match the dates. I just Checked the Changes Log and I think it was set to no before the other sources were found, so that part can probably be removed now.

If it matches, you don't need the sameas=yes.
If you have sources that disagree with Find A Grave, then the changes should be sent to them and hopefully they will update. I usually send over the url and info so they can check if they want to.  Changes shouldn't be made to wikitree when there is a difference and you have sources, but Find A Grave doesn't.
When I am done with the profile, it will be an in-line citation. So that one will get corrected and and the parameter deleted.

L J went and gathered some sources for the profile for me.  My intent was not to source the whole profile, but to fix the broken Find a Grave link.

Right now I am working to fix all the broken Find a Grave links on the Buch profiles. It’s a first pass through the profiles.

I am trying to clear up all the errors on the suggestion report for the Buch profiles, but focusing on the Find a Grave errors now.
When a Find a Grave profile doesn’t match my sources or is missing data, I will submit the corrections or additions to Find a Grave using the suggestion feature. The profile manager can accept them or reject them, but after 21 days they are automatically accepted.

The nice thing about WikiTree is the edits become effective immediately for the open profiles.

The bad thing about WikiTree is the time wasted trying to get the “public” profiles corrected for deceased people. Waiting 100 years to make a deceased “public” profile “open” is simply foolish.
I set the FaG template to =no for a few reasons Linda.

If I remember correctly, the data did not jibe and this would have caused a Suggestion.  Not my Profile so I don't like to add something that may cause a problem for the PM or if Orphaned for the Data Doctors to address.

I also find the Suggestion for FaG Sources a bit superfluous.  Birth, Death, Census records are static.  They don't change and won't change as they are part of the Official Record.  Same as those from a historical.genealogical publication.  Except for the place of burial, the data on FaG is dynamic.It can change through the whim of the Manager of that Profile.  Also I do not trust the research that goes into many of their Memorials for the fields other than cemetery...that one is bit hard to mess up. So why should I be held accountable for possible inconsistent data changes.  I try to only use FaG sources on my Profiles as a source for their burial, not birth death data. Since January 1st of last year when I started recording them, I have made over 900 FaG data corrections which is a little less than half of the Profiles I created or updated in that time.  My focus is on making WikiTree data as good as possible, not Find A Grave.  Though I am forced to do so many times to correct erroneous FaG data fields.  But, such is the grand game of genealogical research...LOL
Profiles for deceased people can be made open as soon as someone wants them to be.  The 100 year rule is that they 'have" to be opened at that time.  You can always send info to update a profile to a PM or request to be on Trusted List so you can update it also.
I don’t think that someone who showed up 9 years ago and made 5 contributions is going to energetically show up nine years later and make corrections or add you to a trusted list.  

What I am seeing is errors not getting corrected for deceased individuals after several attempts to leave a comment on the deceased person’s profile page.

At least on Find a Grave, the essential fields will get updated after 21 days regardless of deadbeat profile managers. But 21 days is a long time to wait when you are feverishly researching a family line and trying to correct Find a Grave and connect individuals as you go.

What I see here on WikiTree is much worse when it comes to getting profiles corrected for deceased individuals (with the privacy setting set to public) with deadbeat profile managers. Please correct me if I am wrong.
If a profile is open for editing and you have sources, you can update a profile. That is the Collaboration aspect of wikitree.

  If you are changing relationships, it is nice to ask a PM about it, just to make sure they don't have a differing opinion, but changes can be made especially with sources being included to back up the changes.  When people go in and change parents, spouses, etc and no research notes are added to profiles, no sources are added, that is where some problems come in. Changing dates and locations also with no sources added at the time of changes is also not correct.

 If you leave a message on a profile and don't get a response in a week, check the Unresponsive PM process which requires 3 different types of messages to be left, wait a week, then submit the form.  Admin will try to get a response and if no response, their deceased people profiles are released and you should be notified so you can then adopt them.

I have received Trusted List access in profiles from PM that have not been active for years, but that always surprises me.
+5 votes
I'm surprised that this post hasn't received more attention. Not being able to cancel a  status option except by making another has irked me for years. "Select another status" only works if there is another option you prefer. What about "no middle name"? Once it's clicked, it's clicked. Fortunately, apparently no harm is done in this case... but it's weird. You can still give a middle name to someone who's marked "no middle name". But the status remains...
by Leland McCleary G2G1 (1.5k points)
You can change "no middle name" status to "uncertain" or "certain" any time you edit a profile. The "no middle name" status is not a separate status. I think members believe it is separate because it appears below the data box/field instead of below the other choices.
Nonetheless, there is no way to make the middle name status go back to being completely unselected, as you might want to do for example if you have zero knowledge but you accidentally click one of the three buttons. If you realise in time, all you can do is discard the whole edit; if not, it's too late.

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