What good does it do to be a profile manager?

Question

So having some issues which I don't agree with. This is not the first time that this has happened.

What good does it do to be a profile manager when decisions are taken out of our hands and groups are added without any talk to either manager on the profile? I think it's great that we have all those projects but people need to remember that these are family members of many different people and would like the knowledge of that instead of fitting into a project all the time.

Example: Rockett and Abernathy. These are relatives on my Hoskins side of the family. My mom is a manager on all my profiles that I do but does not actively do anything until she speaks with me to ensure no mistakes since I was the one that did the research. She did not act on a merge the way it was wanted. I had not had a chance to fully look into it. Now I knew the spouse was Middleton Rockett. I thought I had included him and was looking for the missing profile, which came to show that I might not have created it or it got merged without me realizing it. It happens. But now I have a project as a manager on the profile, things were changed without discussing anything and while it looks great, it just doesn't feel right. Like I and my mom was shoved aside.

There was a wrong source on the other profile to be merged and when we mentioned it and that we didn't want that on the profile, we were told to merge anyway. We were trying to work out issues before merging so it was minimal clean up when they merged. Instead, it was merged by a Leader without care to our concerns and the project was added as a manager without speaking with either one of us.

I think this is wrong and like I said, not the first time it has happened. I worked hard on finding them. Hours, Months, Years. I am sure I am not the only one that has come across this and has felt this way.

Please stop misusing power that is given to you. Work with others to make a profile good. Yes, it might be a duplicate. Fix the issues before the merge then merge. Makes things less complicated.

Comments

It does look like you were steamrolled and not given any chance to confer which is something that is not courteous or polite.  Sad moment for WikiTree.

Answer 1

From the wikitree Help:

Does the Profile Manager own the profile?

No. See the page on ownership and control.

Does the Profile Manager get to decide what's true and what isn't?

No. Since all descendants have to share to same ancestor profile the Profile Manager needs to seek consensus. They should see themselves as a leader and try to resolve conflicts through clear communication and careful use of sources.

Do you have to communicate with the Profile Manager before editing?

You don't need permission to edit a profile if you're on the Trusted List or it's an Open profile and you've signed the Honor Code. However, it's often recommended. See Communication Before Editing for guidelines.

Re sorting out issues before or after a merger - probably depends on the issue. Good to sort out the fields before hand, but whether or not a source is retained or deleted would seem to be something that is fine to do in post-merge cleanup.

Comments

Thank you Chase. I do know this already. There was no communication from the person that put the project as a profile manager. It was done without asking or telling us why. It can only be overridden if a Leader is involved and which this Leader did without even leaving a message of why they would have stepped in or asking if there was an issue and help resolve the issue before doing this. The issue was there was a census on the sources that made it look like that it might be a different person that who it was supposed to be. When this was mentioned we were told to ignore the source and merge anyway which neither manager on the profile felt comfortable doing with that source on it. I wanted more information and I was overstepped by a Leader who was involved in the project forth mentioned and it was merged with that very bad source on there. People can make mistakes, even projects. I wanted to ensure that this wasn't going to happen and have to deal with a very nasty clean up later.

Besides that, a Leader should never have done that without finding out first what was going on. That was misuse of privilages.

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So just remove the misleading source post-closing?

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That is why they suggest a unmerged match so you have time to research so you don't have to remove someone else's hard work until it's proven that it's not them. The names matched except for the last name. So we were looking into the source to see if possible if it was just transcribed wrong.

Answer 2

Since it is an open profile, can't you just edit the profile to match what you think it should be?  Of course you would want to leave why you made whatever changes are necessary.  and perhaps even make a message on the profile asking that someone on the project contact you if they have a problem with the changes made.  IOW behaving the way you wish they had.

Answer 3

deleted...

Answer 4

Dodie, it appears to me as a complete outsider to the situation that you were holding up a merge of 2 profiles that clearly represented the same person over a concern about a single source.  To me this is not right.  The profiles needed to be merged and any minor problems cleaned up afterwards.  One of the hardest and most frustrating aspects of WikiTree is the difficulty in completing merges (usually because the Profile Manager is non-existent, not because they care too much).  What is wrong with letting the merge happen and fixing minor problems after?  Perhaps, the communication could have been better, but I think you are being overly sensitive about someone else working on “your” profile.  In fact I see many comments on the page explaining their thinking on the page.

Now a comment about the disputed source:

You left a comment on the page: "I believe the 1850 Census needs to be removed. My mother and I saw the image for the census and it was not mistranscribed. The last name is Boctus not Roctus, Rockett, or anything close to the family's last name."

You are wrong about this.  The census is clearly mis-transcribed.  First of all the chances of finding another Middleton married to a Mahala are exceedingly small.  Second, look at the rest of the census.  Go down a few families and you will find a Baker family with the B formed differently and completely closed.  Next look around this page and the next and you will find a Rachel and a Robert with the R formed exactly like it was when the census taker wrote Roctus.  So in fact the family is spelled Roctus (or something like that), but clearly starting with an R and not a B.  The 1850 census is a good source for this family and should remain.

Comments

Ah, I know about those closed vs open letters.  in the 1790 or 1800 census for my 5ggrandfather  it's indexed as Daniel Evans but one day I started looking at the neighbors and i realized that this Daniel was actually David but with the v looking like a n and the d open and looking like  e and l.  Another example somewhat similar to this one is that someone asked on the "Ropp" board whether anyone was interested in an Mary Anna Pardinger who married Jackson Ropp.  I immediately wrote her to get a copy of the bible pages involved since I knew Jackson Ropp married Mary Anna Dardinger.  When I got the copies I realized the it was no suprise  it was transcribed as a P since it was written with a long descender on the D.

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Joe

I believe you are missing her point.  She wasn't holding up a merge and the comment about the situation is from 1of the profile managers without the consideration of the 2nd profile manager.

This is not an issue of Dodie feeling possessive.  It is an issue of:

1) voicing a concern and asking a review of the source

2) Project leader stepping in and making changes including 'control'

3) then Dodie is told that the concern wasn't important and accusing her of impeding progress

4) all within 24 hour period because someone was impatient and had no time for courtesy.

A second 24 hours, with further communication, would not have made a difference and would have allowed both profile managers a chance to review and understand that the conflict was not an actual conflict.  If you have a responsive manager or two, the least you can do is collaborate which is the real purpose of WikiTree - not possession, not how quick something can get done, and not impoliteness - but working together.  That is the real issue.

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Thank you Kathleen. That is exactly what I was trying to convey. <3

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Thank you Kathleen!