Redirected User - Cannot Correct

Question

I have a user that for is attached to no one, so there is no cross reference or redirection visible. I can neither change the last name or merge this person and don't know what else to try.

WT ID follows below

Answer 1

Hello George, I will request to be added to the trusted list accept and if possible give more details as to what you would like done. Merged with? Last name change to ? etc.  Post on the page for Kate-18.

Comments

Will require Chris's HELP,

Let it be for a short while, looks like it did not finish a merge process or some such thing and is temporary locked.

Message on page is:
Kate-18 is a redirected user, which cannot be merged.
when attempting merge or name change.
Profile should be merged with Unknown-156502

Will require Super Super Power to correct.

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Thanks Michael. No rush. I know you don't have to change the birth last name, but I couldn't anyway. Just trying all I could on my end to sync this up. I suspect I may have changed my name to my birthname at some point, done the edit and then reverted my name back. I lost control of a freepage this way.

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Hi George and Michael,

I see what happened. This is more information than either of you will probably want, but here's the edit that did it: http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Kate-18&diff=6137704&oldid=6137702

In the edit before this, Kate-18 had been merged into Unknown-155687. A merge does a variety of steps in the background. One of which is that a REDIRECT command is placed in the page. That way if anyone goes to Kate-18 in the future they'll be redirected to Unknown-155687.

You generally can't edit a profile that's been merged-away because it has an empty Trusted List. But there's a hole: Open profiles can be edited by anyone.

George probably had the edit page for Kate-18 open in one window while he was doing the merge in another window. The REDIRECT command was placed in Kate-18 but then was unintentionally overwritten when George saved Kate-18.

The fix for this, that we're working on, is to make sure that nobody can edit a redirected profile.

We're also implementing a tool that will make it easier to clean up the few legacy problems that were created like this. Rather than fix Kate-18 manually, if you don't mind waiting a few days, I'll fix when this new tool is in place. Should be very soon.

Thanks,

Chris

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Chris, Michael - I don't think I ever was able to merge Kate-18 prior or we wouldn't be having this discussion... although it could be because I've had to import many branches from my large tree independently that I may have tried 2-3 times prior. No longer sure, but thankfully and hopefully everybody is there. I only wish I'd imported the entire tree initially as it would've been far less work overall.

I have to think that if users were given the ability to delete individuals that it would resolve this issue with redirection. Of course this might cause some issues for others, but then WT is all about the honor system anyway. One would merge someone just as readily and screw everything up for the rest anyway.

Also because I've had to do so many merges, the biography sections have grown exponentially. Can we put a filter in place to go through and remove those sections automagically? Similarly, another filter that would break up the middle names after import would be very helpful.

Thanks to all,

Sincerely,

George

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Also when trying to use the filter to search for duplicates, I find the filter goes into a loop and doesn't recover. I've tried to go through the smaller branches name by name to find the problem. Was it these redirected users causing the issue?

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Kate-18 has now been fixed.

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Hello - Per your email dated 5/30, I'm not sure what you are requesting? I assume you have access to my records and wouldn't require that I add you (Chris?) to my trusted list to make alterations. Per the WT results, I noted that you had made changes already?

Per Kate, I have two entries, and require only one. I noted you merged the lower # into the higher unknown-Kate which is a bit confusing given your policy. The lower # one with more details is correct and wish to preserve those (or I can update afterwards).

Perhaps it would be easier if you contacted me directly to my external email account. I did make some comments about WT in general and perhaps this has led to some confusion, I don't know.

Kind Regards,

George

Answer 2

Hello Michael,

Thanks for taking a look at this. I've added you to the trusted list for Kate-18 and Unknown-156502. Both are the same individuals, which I tried to merge to eliminate the duplicate but can't.

I have removed all family ties, notes etc., from Kate-18's profile, but when I attempt to change her maiden name (in an effort to sync the profiles), it tells me the user is redirected and this cannot be changed. If I attempt a merge I get the same error message.

Thank you,

 

George

Comments

I just emailed Chris. It should get taken care of, sorry I could not quickly handled it. Its one of those tough ones. Later Mike