How do I set the Privacy Level for a Profile before I finish its creation?

Question

Recently, I have been creating profiles for relatives who lived in the 20th century. I have just found out that some of them were being created by default as Open profiles, while none of them was born more than 150 years ago or died more than 100 years ago. Is there a WikiTree tool that is capable of checking a Watchlist for profiles that have the Open privacy level when the dates of Birth and Death are inside these limits.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy#Open

Answer 1

It is my understanding that unless a profile is connected to an unlisted profile or a Red level privacy profile then if a profile has a death date then it would automatically be set at open privacy. 

For a profile to be at the Open privacy setting the only requirement is that the profile represents a dead person (by having a death date). Profiles must be Open if born over 150 years ago or Died over 100 years ago. The other side is that a profile is Unlisted if there is no death date, Birth within 100 years and not a member. 

All the other privacy levels are basically for control as they are more likely to be connected to living people and thus have privacy concerns and are justifiably able to be restricted to trusted list only access. However there is no requirement for profiles that were Born less than 150 years ago or Died less than 100 years ago to be privacy locked. They can be any privacy setting including Open that the Profile Managers decide on. 

Personally I prefer to have my profiles as Open Privacy with very few locked at any other privacy level if I can avoid it. I do respect other Profile Managers decisions to have other privacy levels. 

In conclusion the default is usually Open Privacy if the profile is dead. If a Profile Manager wants different privacy levels then they can change it (within the 150 born or 100 dead rule). 

Comments

Thanks Darren, I remain confused and struggle to find a default position that I am happy with. When I started on WikiTree, I couldn’t decide what to do about my parents (both dead). I avoided adding the DoD of my father, to take advantage of the still living rule, but that felt wrong. Also, the further you go back in the Ancestor tree they are all dead, but have other living descendants. Since I am usually the Profile Manager, I get to see a private view of all profiles and don’t often check what others can see. It is especially hard because the default privacy for known non-living persons is open. Even if I don’t know a person’s DoD, I automatically mark them as certainly dead if I know it to be true. There doesn’t seem to be any markup that allows me to create a Biography with precise dates, while someone else can see an abbreviated biography with approximate dates. I asked an explicit question about this, but no one could seem to understand the context of my question and give a satisfactory answer.

---

There is the <!-- and --> options which would hide anything written between the markup tags.

On my personal profile I could write I was born in the 1970's <!-- on day month year --> with of course the exact information but it would only show the exact information on the edit screen and never on the biography.

There isn't anything else that can restrict the information written in the Biography sections other than the current Privacy options where the Biography is shown or not Shown depending on the Privacy level.

---

Good point Darren, I have used the HTML Comment tags for other purposes, but not thought to do that! It isn't really what I want to achieve, as it wouldn't be visible to me until I edit the source. It would then require me to go back and reprocess the source, to make the details visible, when I change the profile to Open!

Answer 2

If you go to the My Wikitree dropdown list and select  Watchlist, the right end column on the watchlist has the lock status. You can click the padlock to reorganise the watchlist, either starting with the most rigorous privacy or with open profiles.

Comments

Unless I am mistaken, you have to create a profile before it appears on your Watchlist and you can change privacy level. After I have created a profile, I can use the Privacy tab to change its level. Number one eyeball is possibly a good/only way of spotting profiles that have the wrong privacy level. What I would like is to set the default privacy level for all my new profiles, that fall within the permitted bounds, to not be Open. In the meantime, I would also like to use an app or tool to check semi-automatically check whether any of the profiles on my Watchlist (e.g. ones I have adopted) need review!

---

Gillian, I reread your reply and realise that sorting by lock will probably do everything I need.

---

It would help if there was some obvious criteria to the secondary sort. Birth order would probably be the most useful  extra sort. I can sort in reverse date order. However, when I click on the lock it takes them out of date order, even at the same lock/privacy level.