A Suggestion for Data Doctor Suggestions [closed]

Question

This is actually more of a plea than a suggestion.  Well, first a question ... is a data doctor a live person or some kind of "bot"?  The suggestions report I received several days ago for profiles I manage included 200 profiles or more, and the great majority represent conflicts with FAG memorials; and quite a few of those say the memorial is not for the person whose profile it is.  The thing is that those particular suggestions - and the time I spent checking them out and responding - would have been totally unnecessary if the data doctor had read the biographies on those profiles.  See, for example, the 1st paragraph of the biography for Saylor-792.  I've spent nearly half my day for each of the last 4 days reviewing and responding to these FAG "conflicts" and still have a list of 168 suggestions in all (not counting those resolved and hidden either permanently or till next year) ... and 135 of those remaining are FAG conflicts!  I'm taking a break from handling these and expect that most of them will not be done till after Christmas.  Can data doctors please read biographies before suggesting FAG links don't belong on particular profiles?

Comments

Loretta, remember, those suggestions are being generated by a machine. It isn't obvious to a machine when a Find A Grave url is used or the entire citation is used for a person that isn't the profile person. Sometimes the problem could be a digit cut off on the url or changed. In that instance you would want to know that it is wrong. In the future, as Darren said, make sure to include the template with the last parameter set as sameas=no when you are including a grave citation for someone other than the profile person. It is recommended that the entire citation from the bottom of that page is included, in case the url changes, like any other site. The template provides a direct link to the page also.

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Linda, please see my comment in reply to Melanie below.

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DataDoctors are real people -- EditBot is a computer program.

EditBot creates the report. It compares the FAG number to the name on the memorial. It does not read the entire biography.

Simply add "|sameas=no" [the first character is a pipe, a shifted backslash] to the FAG template following the number and it will be skipped by EditBot and thus will not appear on the suggestion report.

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Thank you Walt.  Then my thinking was correct in the first place.  The bot's report only includes profiles that have been identified by data doctors, and data doctors obviously can read biographies and see if possible suggestions are valid or not ... at least in the great majority of biographies that I write.

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No, the EditBot reviews the entire database each week of 20+ million records and creates the suggestions report that you can access for your own managed profiles from the tab on your profile.

The entire report is shown to data doctors only as a chart of the number of errors for each error code. Then viewing each error code we data doctors are show the entire list created for that specific error and can then review each one individually just as you can do.

On your own report, for the FAG errors that you have mentioned, open each via the status button, correct the error by adding the "sameas=no" to the FAG link, save it, and then report the status a corrected. If one of us then happens to open the same profile via the DD report, we will see that action has been taken and then leave the profile.

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Sameas=no should only be added when the profile is for a different person that the grave ID is for.  

Changes should not be made to a wikitree profile to conform to dates and locations on Grave pages, especially when a source is on wikitree that differs from Find A Grave. Those suggestions should be marked as false since Grave is unsourced, but I prefer to send a change to Grave to be updated.  Unfortunately, if the ravestone has a date that differed from sources, they may make a note of it in the biography, but the dates are normally not changed, because their policy is that gravestone dates are to be used.

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Linda, I accidentally deleted the message you sent yesterday (arrived via email) before replying to it.  I want to say that I have used the False Suggestion option for a few suggestions.  Here's one scenario in which I think it entirely appropriate.  I have one profile for a person whose nickname was Mayor and another for someone whose nickname was Sargent.  In both cases, the suggestion said "prefix in nickname field" (or maybe "... middle name field").  Sargent and Mayor both are in fact also last names.  So, not wanting to be told again that I should move nicknames to the prefix field, I chose to say false suggestion.

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Loretta - that is a perfect reason for "False Suggestion".  Just remember to also add a comment when so marking it, so any Data Doctor checking before the database updates will see it was dealt with, and why.

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Thank you for the advice Melanie.  I have already been doing that, for exactly the reason you gave.

Answer 1

An easy way to clear the Suggestions you are getting for the Find a grave for family members is having a look at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Find_A_Grave#Links_to_family_member_memorials_and_other_people and following the suggested way of linking to a FindAGrave profile using a "sameas=no" parameter.

This would tell the Suggestion Bot that generates the suggestion reports to ignore the FinkAGrave link that isn't for that specific person. 

So using your example profile if you enter {{FindAGrave|27393658|sameas=no}} instead of https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27393658/Hannah-Rice : Findagrave Memorial for Hannah (Saylor) Rice   it would not produce a suggestion entry that you or any other person checking the suggestion reports would have to look at. 

Comments

BTW, Darren, I have replaced the link I had with the link you recommended and will remember to do use the same format going forward.

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There is another approach to resolve the suggestion 

572 FindAGrave - Linked grave not matching profile  

You can also add a link to the actual memorial for the person on the profile. I have an algorithm inplace to find the best match in case of multiple links to FindAGrave and in most cases it finds the correct one.

Answer 2

The suggestion report is automatically produced and each profile manager receives a suggestion report weekly.

Data Doctors have access to reports within the area they volunteer to help. They go through the reports, and if the PM has not corrected/commented/marked as false suggestion then they visit the profile and decide what is correct. It requires reading and checking, and sometimes finding new sources to confirm or deny the suggestion. It takes a lot of work and any work individual profile managers do lessens the work of data doctors. So thank you for working on your own suggestion report.

Comments

You're welcome, but I don't relish the many hours I've had to spend explaining what was obvious.

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When doing this, you may wish to mark them as "False suggestion (hide forever)" so that they are removed from future reports. Adding a comment like "Findagrave profile unsourced. There is no headstone or other source, but the headstone in fact says only 1891." is useful, but it does not removed the suggestion from future lists. By removing them from future suggestion lists you also remove the possibility that someone will try to help you and miss a detail in the profile, and make an incorrect change. Yes, it takes time to go through the suggestions this first time, but once you review list you should not have many in the future and Data Doctors will not need to spend time on your carefully managed profiles.

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You're welcome, but I don't relish the many hours I've had to spend explaining what was obvious.

commented by Loretta Layman

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But, explaining to  ?

The suggestions are not generated by any Data Doctor, so telling us we're "not reading biographies" before generating the suggestions is misrepresenting the situation.  As Linda, Marion, and Darren have said - the suggestions are automatically generated; we Data Doctors don't generate them.

Instead of "explaining" the why the suggestions aren't true errors, adding the suggested-in-this-thread "sameas=no" will correct the problem and there should be no need even for a "False Error" click.

Prevention is better than the cure. /adage

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Melanie,The very first answer or comment I received was from Marion Poole who, with all good intention I'm sure, said, "Data Doctors have access to reports within the area they volunteer to help. They go through the reports, and if the PM has not corrected/commented/marked as false suggestion then they visit the profile and decide what is correct. It requires reading and checking, and sometimes finding new sources to confirm or deny the suggestion. It takes a lot of work and any work individual profile managers do lessens the work of data doctors. So thank you for working on your own suggestion report."  I'm only now reading that the suggestions are generated by a bot.

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Did you know that you can submit corrections to the memorial managers on Find a Grave, if their data is incorrect?  Most make the corrections fairly quickly, but almost never respond to you to say they did.

Getting some of the "conflicts" resolved at the source may prevent some of the suggestions from ever appearing in the first place.  (It takes a little time to make the correction suggestion on Find a Grave, but I have found it worth the time.)

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Thank you Melanie.  I've been doing just that as I resolve these data doctor suggestions.  I've been a FAG contributor for 14 years now, and my experience with edit suggestions has been very positive overall.  Only once have I ever had a FAG manager refuse to make an edit, though unfortunately that was in spite of the suggestion being thoroughly sourced and the FAG memorial not.  In any case, I do appreciate you making sure I was aware, and you're right.  I expect far fewer data doctor suggestions going forward.

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Oh, well, I bow to you on that, then, as I am but a neophyte on Find a Grave (less than a year).  I've had mixed experiences with suggested corrections, even if I supply the source information.

If you have any more problems with those pesky "suggestions" that keep popping up, don't hesitate to ask for help.

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Melanie, I agree with Loretta that you should always submit corrections to Find a Grave.  I do it all the time.  If 'our' sources conflict with their information, and sometimes when it is just missing, I will also send along a link to the Family search or whatever source, as well as the Wikitree ID, if there are multiple sources on the profile.

They also now seem to be doing 'automatic' updating after some time period, which also could mean that 'incorrect' changes are being made, if the manager is not active.

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When I suggested that Loretta to do just that, I did not know that she had been a member of Find a Grave for 14 years.

Yes, Find a Grave now has an automatic update - I think it's 30 days - provided the memorial manager doesn't clear or deny it.  (You can resubmit the correction, but how many times are you going to do that?)

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Linda, I have wondered about the auto acceptance of suggested edits at FAG.  Hopefully it's done by some person or persons who actually read what you say and make a judgment based on evidence.