Unnecessary "Sources"

Question

I manage profiles on which some well-meaning person has added (should I say Copied & Pasted) data from another genealogical site viz. adupree.com. It gave no further information and cluttered the profile. It only listed 5 of the 7 children which would imply to casual lookers that these were the only offspring. I have removed it.
I would not expect someone to do this quite unnecessarliy.
Is there a policy on this, please?

Please feel free to add appropriate tags.

Answer 1

Hi Steve, I try to never delete information others have added to a profile.  If it is useful, good.  If it is wrong, I explain why I think so and add my sources.  If it is uninformative, I just leave it.

I do see a large section of baptism information that you apparently deleted from the == Biography == section.  Not sure what I would do with that.  Maybe ask the editor for the primary sources to support the adupree.com source.  

Generally in these situations, I assume they meant to help and just did things a little different than the way I would do it.  That is what WikiTree is all about; sharing profiles and collaborating toward their improvement.

Comments

Kitty,

I agree with you about not deleting others work. In this case it was misleading, implying fewer children than the profile had already shown. I could have highlighted this but felt that would be impolite.

Steve

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I probably would have cut and pasted each baptism record to the appropriate child's profile.  That would clean up the Patrick Blunt profile, but show the info on the child's profile.  There are different ways of handling it.  Clearly, you have considered some of the options. Thanks!

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Cheers Kitty.

Steve

Answer 2

I agree it can be annoying when someone adds useless and/or redundant information to a profile. What I usually do is clean up all the clutter and add a 'See also:' at the bottom of the sources, with their link or citation there.

As for a policy, I think it's just "assume their good intentions" and take the high road. Cheers!

Answer 3

We're really talking secondary sources here as all would agree that primary sources are imperative, where they can be obtained.  My feeling is that all secondary sources should be noted, even if only to show future genealogists that they have been considered.  However, in cases such as you mention, Steve, I would include as an inline citation only (with any necessary note) and not include the cited details within the biography.

Answer 4

There is no official policy. As you can see, some people believe all sources should be retained, no matter how poor or redundant. I think it depends on how well developed/sourced the profile is. Most WT profiles are undersourced and clearly a work in progress. However, well-developed/sourced profiles should be treated like any other kind of research article. Don't get rid of poor quality sources unless and until you have enough good ones. But you don't need 10 sources that say the same thing to support one factual statement. And sources with incorrect information should not be retained unless they are prominent/widely cited, in which case they should be retained merely to discuss why they are wrong.