PPP Project Protected Profile rule #4

Question

Hi all, I am so confused now about this PPP stuff I don't even know what has been decided.  But I did come across this information and I feel it is worth accentuating:  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project_protecting_and_merging#Four:_They_must_be_controversial_or_duplicated

Short and sweet, it says:

Four: They must be controversial or duplicated

Project protection should be used only when profiles need protection — because they are commonly-shared, frequently-duplicated, subject to confusion, etc.

There must be some sort of controversy or duplication problem.

I know that I have probably protected a few profiles that did not have this element.  My error and I will correct where possible. Please only project protect profiles with this element of controversy.

Also, concerning removing Profile Managers, "It's a good idea to contact Profile Managers if you're removing them and if this might come as a surprise to them. It could easily offend and upset new users who aren't familiar with how WikiTree works. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It just means we need to be sensitive. This can easily be done by posting a public comment. Be sure to give everyone plenty of time to respond; everyone's schedule is different.

This could be an opportunity to invite the additional managers to actively participate in the project and take responsibility for managing a certain group of the profiles in it."

Personally, I would not remove a Profile Manager, though I have posted a bulletin board message indicating that there are too many PMs on this particular profile and please remove yourself if you wish. Let them depart if they like or stay if they like of their own accord. This is much less likely to create hard feelings or unpleasant surprises.

Comments

Thanks for posting this, Kitty. It's a good idea for everyone to brush up on our PPP policy with all the recent changes.

---

Confirming then, that even if the first three conditions apply, we will no longer protect the profile unless there is controversy or we have run into some kind of duplication problem.  

Does just finding a duplicate qualify?

Could someone create a duplicate just to create the conditions for protection?

Answer 1

I certainly don't think profile managers should be removed when a profile becomes PPP. The only case for that I could envision, is where a profile manager had apparently abandoned WikiTree many years ago. In that case, perhaps change them to being on the Trusted List so that if they ever do return, they will still have the profiles on their watchlist.

FWIW, I also think that when a profile is PPP'd initially, it should state somewhere on the profile what project it is related to.

Answer 2

In the feed started by Chris, I made the following comment as well as this one.

I propose that a template be made to take away the confusion after a Project has taken custiodial management of a profile.

To summarize:

PPP'd profiles implies:

• That only the LNAB-field is locked
• That everybody can still collaboratively edit and add info according to the rules and the honour code

When I remove managers (including myself) ...

• They are still on the trusted list
• The Project is the only manager that can make changes to the the LNAB-field (in full correspondence)
• The profile is already protected (to a certain standard the LNAB has been validated)

When a profile has been protected, and the Project has been added to the trusted list but not as active manager, I put a request in the comment box to have the project added as active manager.

Having 5-10 managers on 7500 profiles within this project, it is simplly not feasible to contact every manager. Even now I'm worried that certain managers might have passed on. Many managers do not respond at all.

The plea to "Please only project protect profiles with this element of controversy." is not realistic in this project. We had to deal with tens of thousands of duplicates within the period 1652-1806. Created manually and through GEDCOM. It is not the names that are controversial. It is the reality of 16th, 17th and 18th century variations in spelling that is an issue. This is why we use the standard of baptism images to validate, and if not present other primary documents or as good secondary sources as we can find.

This Angst is totally ungrounded. When a profile is collaboratively owned, it is more inviting to share - the whole point of WikiTree is crowdsourcing ... This is exactly the period where there were / are many duplication of profiles because of phonetic spelling, patronymics, toponyms, various language and cultural backgrounds. And therefore massively merged profiles with loads of active managers who can anyway only do as much as those on the trusted list or anyone else with the right WikiTree certification. What makes profiles important to protect is the variations of LNAB of a certain period in the case of this project, though searching for existing names can be tricky if one is not in the know of the technical intricacies of WikiTree. Profiles are utterly vulnerable even when protected as far as the editing of the contents of the bio etc. goes (because only the LNAB-field gets current protection, and as I understand the parent connections). And believe me, this is a major undertaking ... once again because of the massively merging of masses of duplicates across the spectrum of the past for whatever reason ...

Nobody loses any editing rights. Once a LNAB has been agreed on, the profile gets locked by a leader through request of a project coordinator. All the variations in the surname gets AKA's (per person). See as example: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/N%C3%A9el-502 (it was collaboratively decided that that would have been the closest to the original French speling of the LNAB in the absence of baptism records and only having secondary sources as passenger lists to go on). There are thousands of profiles more such as this one. Everybody is still welcome to edit, though we do request care and we do prefer people more experienced and more closely involved with the project to edit, because we are still mainly collating the "facts" and even the narrated sections as a whole are being collated, not merely narrated without sources, even if it was GEDCOM'd data ...

So please could we have a template made to take away the fears, the confusion and give clarity to what it means to have a profile protected and also have it custodially managed by a Project ... I'd really appreciate it.

Comments

I even removed myself from the profile of my own progenitor and I do not feel threatened because I can still do everything I want edit-wise and adding of info because a) the profile is older than 200 years and open for all to edit b) not that it makes any difference but I'm still on the trusted list, only not personally a manager: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Andriesz-6 - the project is the custodial manager. And we can all lessen the amount of profiles we are managers of, making room for others to work on ... win-win-win ...

---

Hi Philip, I prefer to follow the instructions as written in the Help Index rather than have separate rules for individual projects.  

The instruction is Project Protected Profiles, . . . must be controversial or duplicated.

Project protection should be used only when profiles need protection — because they are commonly-shared, frequently-duplicated, subject to confusion, etc.

There must be some sort of controversy or duplication problem.

And 

 "It's a good idea to contact Profile Managers if you're removing them and if this might come as a surprise to them. It could easily offend and upset new users who aren't familiar with how WikiTree works. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It just means we need to be sensitive. This can easily be done by posting a public comment. Be sure to give everyone plenty of time to respond; everyone's schedule is different.

This could be an opportunity to invite the additional managers to actively participate in the project and take responsibility for managing a certain group of the profiles in it."

To me this indicates that spelling differences are not reason enough to PPP a profile unless there are actual problems with that profile in the form of duplications or controversy. If there are no duplications or controversies, there are no reasons to PPP a profile, an error I have made myself.  To date, if someone asked me to PPP a profile, I did so.  Now I will ask why the profile needs to be protected.

And, as I said, I have posted a bulletin board message indicating that there are too many PMs on this particular profile and please remove yourself if you wish. This lets the PM depart if they like or stay if they like of their own accord. I believe this is more in line with our "need to be sensitive."  Clearly, you would remove yourself.  I would or wouldn't depending on my interest in the particular profile.  But the choice should be ours, individually.  

---

Philip, the Cape profiles generally fall under the duplication category and can be protected because of that.

---

I think Philip is asking for a template or something easy that could be added to the profiles where there are too many managers, a template that explains ''why, what ,how '' so why the amount of managers is now minimized , what is the difference between being a manager or on the trusted list (co manager) , what PPP does etc. ?

Only the project profile as manager could work if a profile is quite finished , but for others we would need one or two managers and a leader for things like PPP , adding /removing parents, etc, because we are not supposed to work on profiles as/with the project profile. The project profile if I understand things correct ,and that's how we work for the Dutch Roots Project, is that is is only a tool for projects to be able to watch over our project /PPP profiles, by the project profile feed all project members will stay updated about changes that were made, merges that are proposed and so on.

A template would of course be helpful and would prevent coordinators or leaders having to add many posts if such a template could explain it all at once.

And what happens if people don't respond to the posts or if they all respond saying they would just like to stay on as manager ?

---

Just to add here that the correct spelling has always been a reason to PPP a profile within a project, regardless of whether it has duplicates or any matches with a different spelling.

The *correct* name condition is included in Rule 3.

"Controversial, etc." in Rule 4 can simply mean that there are no duplicates right now, but one could easily appear, or be found later, and so the correct LNAB would be at risk if it is not PPP. That's how I have always approached it, with a preventative PPP.

Kitty, I am not clear on why otherwise you would have ever put a PPP on a profile that was not the correct spelling. Unless to temporarily block a merge. Can you be a bit more clear on what seems different here for you? Or did my statement about "controversial" answer it?

---

Thanks Abby, Bea, Steven for clearing that up. I can now also have less Angst [as if I have been operating out of bounds] and get on with the backlog of work ... :-) I still propose a template (I have a list of profiles already protected by the Project self) be made so that everybody is in the clear.

---

For the Dutch Roots Project we also are PPP ing many of the Pre-1811 profiles and also because of the patronymics of course , we (luckely and hopefully this will never happen ;) ) don't have to deal (yet) with a whole bunch of duplicates (besides the many early emigrants/ immigrants of course) , many online genealogies are adding last names nowadays to all ancestors even to the ones that never used one, so yes we are PPP ing them (patronymics) , and just like Steven says to prevent future problems and to make sure we have a PPP profile already in which possible duplicates can be merged.(more Dutch members will probably also mean more duplicates especially if people are using only these online genealogies as source and don't look at the actual (birth/baptism) records .

---

Thanks all, I seem to have misinterpreted the guidance on Instruction 4.  Use your best judgment on it.