Recycle Unknowns - Suggestion list

Question

In the Recycle Unknowns Category there are almost 600 Profiles ready for adoption/recycling. http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Category:Recycle_Unknowns&from=UNKNOWN-118940

I have tried to enter a new person to see if any of these profiles will shown up in to the "Suggested Matches" block, but it does not.

Has WT been programmed to exclude Unknowns as possible matches when adding a new person?   

I am concerned that this list of Recycle Unknowns will just grow and grow and nobody will adopt or reuse them.

Comments

How about adding a big bold banner on the add person page that tells people to check the Recycle Unknowns to see if they can re-use one of them before creating the new profile?  It could even have a link to the Recycle Unknown's page.

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Gaile that would go a long way towards making people aware of these profiles. Who do I contact to see if this is possible?

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Maybe a bit of broadcasting will help.  I am find several new people that do not know about this project.  Maybe the explanation page needs to be broader; for instance:

• I need a Burke -- there are none --  can I just choose one and change LNAB names and date to fit my needs instead of "creating a new one"

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Recycle_Unknowns

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Sandy

You may choose one of the Unknowns in this category, adopt it and change the surname to the name that you need. This serves two purposes, you have created the profile you wish to create and you have removed an unknown from our backlog.

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Thanks Shirley - Yes I knew this - Guess I did not explain correctly.

1.  Newcomers do not necessairly know about this project (even some of the longer time WikiTreers)

2.  Getting the message out via G2G or Display Post - seems like it would be helpful. (See Gail's)

3.  The explanation page, probably needs to be expanded to cover other scenarios.(maybe language like you used).

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If you need a profile, so go and take one of the 'Recycle Unknowns', adopt it, and change the name to the one you want, doesn't the ID stay as something like Unknown-123456? Or does it change to the name you want? (eg Brown-123456)?

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If you adopt Unknown-123456 and change the Last Name at Birth to Brown, it will change to the next Brown ID number that is available.

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Changing the LNAB creates a new profile with the new name and copies everything over, except the Change Log, which is retained and linked.

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RJ the fact that the Change Log is retained after an adoption is a bit problematic to me. For Instance If I adopt http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/UNKNOWN-69129 it will state that : Anonymous (Salmon) Anonymous imported the data for Unknown (UNKNOWN) Unknown from Salmon tree.ged

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about that.

 

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Esmé, why is it problematic? That particular entry would be before you adopted it. You could also edit the profile after you adopt it and add an explanation in the "reason for editing" box for why you adopted it.  Then that would appear in the change log.

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Jillaine, maybe I should not have used the word problematic. It would just look strange if the file was imported on a gedcom in 2011 by a say for instance an American user and I use it for an Afrikaans person.

It would definitely be a must to include the reason in the editing box, that would answer any future questions should they arise.

Thanks for the great suggestion.

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Yay, I cleaned them out again!!!

Answer 1

Esmé, correct. Wikitree excludes Unknowns from its search results unfortunately.

Comments

Maybe we could have an "Adopt an Unknown" day with fanfare, et.al.  It sounds like there's not that many of them considering the total number of profiles in existence.  It could even be a contest.

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Dave, I like the idea of having a contest of some kind and think that would really make a sizable dent in the mountain of Unknowns.  I don't think we want people to "adopt" them, though - that's what you do for a profile that you are going to work on.  The Recycle Unknowns category are profiles that have been determined to be useless litter - they need to go away, not be adopted.

Another big problem area for the Unknowns project is all the profiles that have "Unknown" or some variant as the LNAB.  Unfortunately, the bulk of these profiles are not available for adoption - they have managers already and, in many cases, are not open so nobody else can work on them.  We're working on the ones that are open, trying to find names for them and we're also trying to get the managers to open the others so folks here can work on them.  When we encounter an unresponsive manager, we're trying to get those profiles orphaned and opened, again to be able to work on them.  If we get to a point that there are a lot of Unknowns that are open then a contest would be great for these.

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We did set up a challenge for just this purpose. Unfortunately, did not get very many responses. See I Love a Mystery!

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Shirley and others, be sure to read the concerns Michelle raises here:

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/220657/redirects-unknowns

Looks like many Unknowns are getting flagged as recyclable that shouldn't be.

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Thank you, Jillaine.  Shirley has been reviewing them, and I have been poking around in them as well.

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I was thinking that it might be good to offer more specific guidance to folks about when to use (and not use) the Recycled Unknowns category.  

I have been adopting Unknowns more than categorizing them; I hope I'm doing it right.

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I'm starting to be concerned that the first time I ventured to use the recycle unknowns category, I've done it incorrectly. Can someone take a look at these two profiles and see if this would be recommended again in the future:

Bozun-5
Playters-8

Neither LNAB was available in the unknown category, so I adopted two unknowns, changed the LNAB and connected them to their spouse.

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As far as I can see, you did nothing incorrectly. These two profiles previously had no valid information and could quite well be used for the purpose you used them. If you do use any of the profiles in the Recycle Unknowns category in the future, before you adopt them check the Changes tab to see if any possibly valid data was deleted by mistake.

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Sounds good--thanks Shirley!