Change explanations...I'm old, so...

+9 votes
319 views
Before the "big change" yesterday, I'd add a source/couple of sources related to someone's marriage, add info about the marriage to the bio, write a brief explanation of that in the change field, save, then do something else to the profile, explain, save, and so on. Now, with the "single save" method, I may be doing very many things to a profile--all of the above plus, adding census sources and transcriptions, adding lists of children, adding death information, adding categories, adding stickers, etc. to complete a profile--before I ever do that final "single save."

First of all, the change explanation space is too small to tell ALL the things I may have done. Second of all, being old, after I've worked on a profile for an hour or more, I won't remember ALL the things I may have done. I'm afraid I'm going to be resorting more to the generic change explanation buttons and leaving it up to those interested to see what I did by examining the "mark-up" in the change log.

What about you? What will you be doing? It will be good for a change explanation to be required (for most--I know some most vociferously disagree) but do you think the lack of specificity/detail in the change explanation will be detrimental? Will you be using the generic buttons or try to be more detailed? Let's discuss...civilly, of course.
in Policy and Style by Nelda Spires G2G6 Pilot (554k points)

6 Answers

+7 votes
I'll be saving frequently and mostly i'll be selecting a radio button to explain my edit. I had a stroke a while back and right hand is not as great as it was before.
by Gillian Causier G2G6 Pilot (289k points)
+10 votes

With the new change, it is not required to provide a detailed explanation of every change you make to a profile in one sitting. The only requirement is to provide some type of explanation of what you did so that when the change shows up in a feed, people can easily see the comment and then decide if they want to investigate further.

For example, if you are adding a spouse or marriage information with sources, then you add census information to help cite the locations where the person lived, and then finished off the draft with categories - I would use a series of the pre-loaded suggestions:

Adding sources. Bio improvement. Categorization. 

This comment will show in the feeds in parens. Using a real example from a change I made recently:

07:51: Steven Harris edited the Biography for Grom English Mandelbaum (UNKNOWN) Unknown(Correcting Template error)

While this does not immediately tell you which template I fixed - it does say that I fixed a template.

So in your example, while it does not impart the fact that you added more than one type of source or explain what type of categories you added - the change explanation was never meant to be overly specific in nature. If I wanted to dive into specifics (what categories did you add? or what sources did you add?) I could easily click on the change and see it in a view that is specifically designed to show the detailed changes.

Using my example again, you can see the specific template error that I corrected when clicking on the "edited the Biography" link:

Bio Changes

-{(Unsourced}} +{{Unsourced}}
== Biography == == Biography ==

So to answer the question: "...do you think the lack of specificity/detail in the change explanation will be detrimental?" - my response would be a resounding no!

Edited to add: Everyone really should see Tommy's analogy located here. He explains the same scenario in a much easier to understand way.

by Steven Harris G2G6 Pilot (738k points)
edited by Steven Harris

Now, to answer the question: "Will you be using the generic buttons or try to be more detailed?" - my answer would be "It depends."

It depends on what exactly I am doing. If I have the opportunity to be more specific about a single change, or I think a more specific explanation is warranted (e.g., when making a major change to the profile), then I would do so.

So in the case presented above - fixing a template error - I think a generic option would have sufficed. "Fixing typo", because in reality it was just a typo.

However, if I was changing a birth date and location based on a new source that was recently acquired (e.g., we only had baptism info and estimated information based on that source, but now we have an actual birth notice in parish register), I would be more inclined to say something like "Changing birth date and location to match a recently found parish record detailing the birth" or something along those lines.

It is my opinion that every situation is different, and that as long as everyone tries to use their best judgement, there shouldn't be any issues or concerns.

Specificity/detail will be what I continue to do when I am only making a change or few changes of course. It is mostly in my "start to finish" work which often takes a long time and many additions of sources and information--and often interruptions--where I will have to resort to the generic buttons at the time of a "full save."

I think that is a great plan Nelda! And one that I - as you can tell from above - will be employing myself wink

Although the change explanation field itself is of limited width, there doesn't seem to be a (small) limit on what can be entered in it. So a possible approach if you do want to document fully instead of using the buttons when making multiple changes is this: after each significant change you make during an edit session, scroll sideways to the end of the explanation field, and add a phrase describing the latest change. That way you don't have to remember all the changes and enter explanations for them at the end.
Actually, this is a good idea, Jim, to help with me with remembering to document for others what I did. Then, once I fill up the change explanation block, perhaps do a full save at that time instead of waiting until I've done EVERYTHING I need or want to do before a full save. I'll work it out. This is just a change to how I've always done before as I'm sure it is for everyone. I appreciate everyone's input.
Great, Nelda! Actually I've now found the limit on the explanation field length. There seems to be a maximum of 111 characters; after that you can't add any more. It should be enough for most edits.
Ha, ha, Jim! I've maxed it out before but I never counted the number of characters. Thanks for counting and letting us know!
+9 votes
Thank you for asking, Nelda.

I won't be doing anything different, because I have been explaining my changes for a while.  I sure wish I'd done it from the beginning of my time here on WT.  I can't imagine why it didn't occur to me (other that being new and there was a lot to learn).

The explanations I make are the ones I'd like to see.  It just isn't that hard!  

There are times--and doesn't it happen to us all?--when I discover I've made a mistake on a profile.  And then I want to know why I thought what I did and when I made the edit.  So I go back to change listing.  It is remarkably easier when I've recorded an explanation, even a simple one.
by Living Kelts G2G6 Pilot (545k points)
P.S.  From what I've observed, the vast majority of WT edits are not major biography updates or rewrites.  They are often tiny changes, easily explained, if only people choose to do it.
Julie, I don't if it is so for everyone, but my most common change explanations autofill as I start typing so are not very time-consuming. I didn't do it for a long time, but then I did and it has become habit. My inclination is to continue to do the fuller explanations, just trying to figure out how to do it now that a full save will encompass so many changes at one time.
+7 votes
I'm not a huge fan, as I'm fairly computer literate. So after losing my changes the first couple of times, I've learned to back up my own data or at least not do such a large change that I can't figure out how to do it again. Sure - it can be frustrating to lose what I typed, but often if I do it a second time, it comes out a bit cleaner as my mind has had more times to think about it.

But as far as changes - I'll probably save just a little more frequently, use the radio buttons as much as possible, and when not, I'll be typing a long list of stuff in that tiny box.
by Scott Fulkerson G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
+5 votes

I find it baffling to comprehend how viewing an individual change (found on the Changes Tab), or as we call it in the software industry, a ChangeLog, is that difficult. 

I believe that practically all changes done on WikiTree are self-documenting. Meaning that all changes can be figured out easily enough by looking at the ChangeLog. One can see what lines have been added, what lines have changed, and what lines have been removed. The complexity of all changes (or practically all) do not seem, to me at least, to rise up to the level that a comment is absolutely necessary to explain what was changed.

But, as discussed elsewhere, it seems I'm in the minority on this view. So I am forced to use the new system. Because of that, I will take the shortest path needed to get my work done. Which means using a radio button, as that will be the least number of clicks to save my work. If people need to figure out what changes I've made, that's what the ChangeLog is for. It's really not a difficult tool to use.

by Eric Weddington G2G6 Pilot (514k points)
I look at the change log like a filing cabinet of file folders with tabs.  If I don't write on the tab what is in the file folder, then I have to look in each file folder to see what is in it.

or

I might look at the change log like an email list.  If I don't display the subject line, then I have to open each e-mail to see what the e-mail is about.

-------

The biggest problem I have with Find a Grave when I submit edits is that Find a Grave refuses to tell me what the edit was when they send me an e-mail notification about a processed edit.  All I know is that an update or refusal was done on some person that I submitted an edit on some time ago.  For me to know what piece of information was processed, I have to click on view memorial, then click on the contribute tab, then the suggested edits icon, then the suggestions I've sent tab, then the item accepted or declined, and finally the "sort by processed" menu item and then scroll down to look for the person that the email was about.  Now, how much easier would it have been if Find a Grave would just put that information in the e-mail that they sent me in the first place. I consider this to be very lazy on Find a Grave's part.

-----

Now, getting back to WikiTree. Each day WikiTree sends me an e-mail of the WikiTree Activity for the Tags (i.e., surnames that I follow).  Listed is the name of the person editing the profile, the activity that they did, the profile they did the activity to and then NOTHING (up until September 13th) ... because the person editing the profile didn't feel it was important enough to fill in a change explanation.  So, now, if I want to know what was done to that profile (and all the other profiles that are listed in the e-mail without an explanation) that some person edited, I have to click on the person's name, click on the Changes tab, then click on the edited the Biography link and then start clicking on one or more entries to see what was done. Now, imagine how much more informative the WikiTree e-mail would have been if the person who edited the profile had simply added an appropriate change explanation.  For example, "added a hyperlink to a daughter's name listed in a source" or "corrected a misspelled word" or "corrected a parameter in the 1776 Sticker", etc.

Now, let's suppose that the profile that was edited was a SMITH (currently, 2,511 members follow the SMITH tag). With no change explanation listed, that means that 2,511 Smith tag followers of an edited Smith profile would have to follow the process I listed above to see what the change was, when all that would have had to been done is the person editing the profile to have entered an appropriate change explanation.

The thing to remember is that this is a collaborative website with many moving parts.  There are programs that read the activity logs that can provide valuable information to others, but only if the information is informative and present.
Well said, Tommy. You've given an excellent case for the importance of providing meaningful change explanations. The filing cabinet analogy is very apt.
Actually, you can check changes to names on your watchlist daily, without waiting for the weekly email.  Just click the My WikiTree tab at the top right of your page.
Tommy, this is a great explanation and analogy! Thank you!

Also Tommy, your analogies have now been highlighted at Help:Change Explanations.

Whatever. I know I do things differently than most people here. Even when other people give descriptions, I still look at the actual changes that they make because there many times where there are discrepancies between the comment and the change, or the comment isn't complete with all the changes, or there are further issues in the change itself that needs fixing. Commenting has never been a silver bullet, and if anyone really needs to find out what happened, the ChangeLog is the place to go. I look at all changes.

Why I do this comes from decades of experience working on software and on open source software projects where we run into the same issues. If you really want to find what changed, you look at the diff of the code and you don't rely on comments written by fallible people.

YMMV.
+8 votes
I hardly use the generic buttons because they are too generic.

I enter a general description of what I did.

If I am working a data doctor suggestion, I always start with the number of the suggestion followed by a space, then hyphen, then a space, and then a description of what I did.
by Tommy Buch G2G Astronaut (1.9m points)
Your explanations are great. I'm sure they help the individual pm to understand the edit.  I find explanations like this also help when I'm in ranger duty (individuals making multiple rapid edits; prior to the recent change,  my perception is that you were in the minority.)

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