Updated Australia Project Maintenance Categories [closed]

Question

The Australia Project has revised and updated our page on Profile Improvement and the use of maintenance categories for Australian profiles.

Updated are the sections on Project priorities for profile improvement, where to find those Australian profiles to work on, and steps to use to improve those profiles.

New guidelines have been added for the usage of Australian maintenance categories, in particular, the Australian "Needs Birth/Death/Marriage Researched" categories.

We thank you for all that you are doing to improve Australian profiles, and ask that you continue to help us by following the new guidelines when considering adding these categories to a profile.

Please contact me if you would like to chat about your past or future usage of these maintenance categories.

Thank you for reading.

Margaret Haining, Project Coordinator, Australia Project.

Comments

Margaret, there is a section containing the statement "The Australia Project does NOT recommend adding the generic categories to Australian profiles." From the way this is phrased, I take it that the Australia Project does not recommend against adding the generic categories to Australian profiles.

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Jim, not sure what you mean, it means what it says, as a Project, the Australia Project does not recommend adding the generic "Needs BDM" categories.

PS. Thanks for reading the page, sometimes I think I should write something really weird to see if anyone notices! 

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What I mean is that from the way it is worded it appears that the project has no objection to the addition of those categories, but it does not specifically recommend them either. That would be fine.

An objection from the project to the addition of categories would need compelling reasons. I use the generic categories Needs Birth Record and Needs Death Notice in cases where a record has not yet reached the time threshold for release, but is expected to do so in the future.

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Hi Jim, I can see where you are going with this clarification.

Why did you add this as a comment rather than an answer to the post?

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What I mean is that from the way it is worded it appears that the project has no objection to the addition of those categories, but it does not specifically recommend them either. That would be fine.

That's exactly what it means. 

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If you read the page, they are saying that they do NOT want the generic categories created. 

Normally a category for Needs Birth Record, etc is added to a profile when there is reasonable expectation that the record should be available.  If it is not available currently, most projects would not expect that category to be used because people would waste time trying to find it now.

The Australia page states the following, which is contradictory to when you are stating you add a category.

• The BDM event is within the available years in public domain registries and indexes

They also state that if Research is done to find the 'missing' record, the information should be stated in Research Notes and then the category removed IF it is an Orphan, or recommend to the PM to remove it.

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Thank you for the confirmation, Margaret. I was a bit afraid the project was recommending not adding generic categories, which would have been different from not recommending adding them :-)

I comment when I don't feel what I'm saying is worth the 100 G2G answer points, that is, when I'm not providing a valuable answer to a question, but rather for example seeking certainty or clarification (as here), making an observation, or repeating something I or someone else has said elsewhere.

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Linda, your comment came in while I was typing mine.

Where does it say they don't want the generic categories? In her comment above yours, Margaret said they had no objection to those categories.

I think it is perfectly sensible to use Needs Birth Record or Needs Death Notice to flag that the record is likely to become available in the future, so that people can eventually check whether it has done so.

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Linda, those guidelines are for the Australia Project managed categories, the " < state > , Needs Birth/Death/ Marriage Researched", not the generic "Needs Birth/Death/Marriage Record" categories which are managed by the Profile Improvement Project, which are the ones Jim is referring to using.

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Thanks Margaret. The Australia Project naturally has conditions on the use of maintenance categories specific to the project. I'm glad the generic ones are available as an alternative for cases like the ones I described.

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The problems with the generic categories come when people add them without consultation to other members' profiles who may then see them as intrusive.

With "Needs Birth Record" having over 28,000 profiles and "Needs Death Notice" having over 38,000 profiles, I find it a waste of time adding them to any of my managed profiles, as the likelihood of them being actioned are very small. I have a personal category for the profiles I manage where the birth record will become available soon.

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You're right Margaret about the size of those categories. But combined with an approximate date they are some use. For example, a WikiTree Plus search of "Needs Birth Record" and "Australia" and born in the 1920s will yield increasingly more resolvable cases (since in many of the Australian states birth records are released after 100 years).

Edited to add: I agree that adding these categories to profiles one manages oneself is a different thing from appearing to suggest a task to some other manager.

Answer 1

Hi,

From what I've seen, many profiles appear to be created initially, and where updates occur, they seem to happen relatively soon after profile creation.

I have been adding "Needs Birth (or death or marriage) Source, the year, and the appropriate State where known)" to profiles where the public source is not yet available.

My reasoning is that if I don't, it is more than likely that the profile won't be accessed in the future time period, and the appropriate source added - unless there is a "trigger" to cause someone to look at the profile.
 

Happy to chat.

kind regards..........Nigel

Comments

Hi Nigel, thanks for answering, I'm planning to send you a private message later today to chat to you about our categories. Regards, Margaret

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Thanks Margaret.

kind regards....Nigel

Answer 2

What Country/State etc Categories are we allowed to use then when there are holes in the sourcing?

If we are not the PM but the profile still needs sources and/or if a date is outside those that are currently available (needs support in the future) and/or If the profile is connected to Australia but ether the PM or a supporter is not and they may not have the knowledge of/or access to what sources are available and for what period etc.

Seems to me, at present that is , some members of the Australia project are spending a lot of time and effort on making Rules and Changing/Removing Categories, which have in the past & were serving a valid purpose. This doesn't appear to be helping with improving profiles nor advancing the Genealogical value of Australian connected profiles on Wikitree.

Comments

Thanks for posting Graeme. I agree totally with what you're saying.

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On the other hand, there are so many Australian profiles that don't exist at all yet, or have sourcing omissions which can be filled right now, that it could instead be argued that spending time categorising profiles managed by other people that will only be able to be sourced well off in the future is not the most urgent or productive task.

I believe that Margaret indicated above that the project has no objection to people using the generic Needs Record categories on profiles they manage themselves.

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Im not asking for others to categorise profiles but spending time now, uncategorising profiles, that still need sources, (even if in the future) is a good use of time and effort?

More than likely someone else will in the future ( if not tomorrow) go and put an Australian needs based category back ( despite the "Rules".). because the profile will still need a source/s and the categories were one way of identifying that need - just because the profiles not mine or that the source isn't available today doesn't make the need for a source go away by removing/or restricting a Category

The Generic needs Categories are really there for when a Country/Region/State etc cant be identified as to where to look for a source ( and as a global grouping of Like categories from around the world) not really for the dumping of profiles that clearly have a Country/State/Region Identified when they don't fit neatly into a "Rule".

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Jim, It does appear to be "Busy Work" as there appears to be some Australian Projects members who are wholesale removing categories without doing anything to find sources or to ensure that the profiles can be found when they are missing sources. No research notes left either for those profiles that can't be sourced yet for privacy reasons. This is both at the country level and the state level.

The thing is that having a specific category for a region or country means it is more likely to have someone from that country be able to find the missing source that someone from another country may not know how to find or know what the restrictions are. Having just the generic categories means that people with the proper skills to find the sources needed won't be able to find the profiles that need the sources easily and thus it will end up with crappy Australian associated profiles which I would think is against what Australia would like their associated profiles to be thought of.

My philosophy is that if I need to do an edit on a profile it should always be an improvement. How is deleting categories that point out something is missing without going to improve a profile?

There is nothing to say that a profile once categorised in a Needs Death category for example needs to be sourced straight away especially if there is a wait until the relevant BDM office releases the details in a couple of years. But removing that category without anything else done just means that there is nothing now to remind people to check up on the profile later on. Thus making things worse not better.

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Neither categorising nor uncategorising for its own sake is particularly worthwhile. What is a good use of time and effort is creating brand new profiles, and adding sources that can be found today to existing profiles that are missing them. It's important to note that in some Australian states, accurate sources for death in particular are often available well before the official registry records are released, for example probate records at Public Record Office Victoria and the Ryerson Index.

But the conditions of use of maintenance categories defined by a project are up to that project, and will naturally depend on the needs of project members. It seems unlikely they would be removing those categories from profiles if there were no issue to be remedied—perhaps a swamping effect which is hiding profiles that can fruitfully be addressed now among ones that can't?

The generic categories can be used for finding Australian profiles needing sources either by eye or via targeted WikiTree Plus searches with location specified.

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Hi Graeme, in order to answer your question, I'll just note some background information that you may (or may not) be familiar with.

Australian BDM records are not centrally administered, as in UK and other countries. Each state has their own state-based registry, most have online search facilities that are freely available, South Australia for example has no online registry and a membership to SA Genealogy is required to find any information than just a name and year.

Our project members work mainly in one or two states and are not necessarily familiar with other state search facilities. They will generally work on profiles for their familiar states. Which is why we have state based teams within the project.

The state-based "Needs BDM Researched" categories were originally intended as "research" categories, where someone needed assistance with a subscription service or help with researching in a particular state. As the categories for states like NSW and VIC had ballooned, the ones in there for the intended purpose were lost. Why we made clearer the guidelines for their use, going forward.

The "Australia, Needs BDM" are really redundant, they were intended to be "container categories" for the state ones, and that should have been clearer from the beginning. These are the ones I have been working on getting organised. The profiles were mainly either members own profiles they were using it to keep track of what they needed (we set up personal categories which are better suited for that purpose, and moved those), orphan profiles (those were moved to our orphan profile improvement category) or added by people to other members profiles. 

The Australia Project encourages members to add as many sources as they are able to find to their profiles, BUT the WikiTree minimum standard is that one valid source is sufficient for a profile to be sourced. Adding a category to another member's profile, saying the profile "Needs" another source when they have satisfied the WikiTree minimum, can be, and certainly have been, seen as intrusive, complaints have been made in the past. Which is why we added the guideline about collaborating with a PM.

Basically, as outlined in the page linked above, the Australia Project sourcing priority is the many unsourced Australian profiles (as well as other areas outlined on that page).Using the function on BioCheck to find profiles that are possibly unsourced but not yet marked, we estimate up to 15,000 unmarked unsourced profiles in NSW alone. These will be a major priority for the Australia Project in the coming year.

What categories could you use on profiles already having one source?

• If your own managed profile, the state-based categories or perhaps a personal category if the BDM is not available yet, (I have one for that purpose as do many other members)
• If an orphan, there is an orphan profile improvement category, that contains nearly 1,000 Australian orphan profiles that can be worked on to add a bio, categories, stickers, sources, without "stepping on the toes" of a PM.
• Another PM's profile that has at least one source? Well, the Australia Project has outlined it's guidelines, the decision of what, if any, maintenance category to add and whether or not to consult with the PM beforehand, is up to each person.

The Australia Project's profile improvement priorities and philosophy can be found on this page, and our profile improvement categories here.

There is also a question to ask ourselves when adding a "Needs BDM" type category to a profile. "Who am I expecting to look for this source? Is it something I could do myself, rather than add a category, asking someone else to look for it" A quick look at the generic "Needs BDM" categories shows a lot more profiles are being added than are being actioned.

Edited: No profiles have been moved at this stage, from the state-based categories, unless they have been moved by members to their own personal category to monitor, or they have removed the category from their own profiles. 

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I should also mention, that the vast majority of the profiles where the "Australia, Needs" category was removed, (not moved to a state category, a personal category or the orphan category), there was no information about the state where the event occurred, or the timing of the BDM event, making it very difficult for anyone to find that particular source. We would rather our members who like to find sources focus their precious WikiTree time on all those as yet unsourced profiles.

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Jim if a profile is already categorised then nothing more needs to be done if a source is not yet available. It could stay in the category with maybe a research note added. It doesn't require anything from a particular project.

Removing a valid category is particularly worthless when the person doing the removing could be finding sources or mentioning why a source can not be found yet. I did a quick look at the edits done on a few profiles from someone who has been doing the removing and found more than half could have a potential source released within a year or two  or had potential sources released since the category was first added onto the profile. None of the edits left a research note or added the generic category. All this has done is removed the opportunity for Australian Project members to help other Wikitreers find sources for their families as they will now not be able to find the profiles as they have lost the categorization.

I also had a look at the generic categories Australian WIkitree+ search options and the profiles on the first page are the same as was there last month. This shows that no one is working on the generic categories for Australian profiles. And those generic categories are predominately Australia associated profiles too.

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Rather than responding further to points Margaret has largely covered, I'll just note that it appears from the G2G post IDs that Margaret's last two comments and Darren's last one were almost simultaneous.

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@Graeme, I should also have mentioned, for you and anyone in or out of Australia, if you have a profile that you want to locate sources in an Australian state, and you need some advice on locating records or what's available, you are more than welcome to contact one of our state teams for assistance.

Or ask in G2G, as many members already do, for assistance from someone with knowledge in that particular state.

Answer 3

So is WT+ going to be the new permanent method of finding Australian "needs maintenance" profiles?

I guess my biggest issue is that the Needs ___ are mid-level categories. I get that there will always be profiles in there, especially if they're missing a location. But before, it was much easier to just peruse those mid-level category for profiles from various states/countries that might be ignored longer than those already in narrower location categories (since many of those have country/state-specific projects). Now, it's flooded with Australian profiles, which makes other locations harder to spot.

Yes, WT+ is an option but it's not user-friendly.