How can a (Red) Privacy-protected profile be edited by someone who is not on the Trusted List? [closed]

Question

A profile created 5 years ago without a birth date, (and since neglected - to my shame), has now been edited and a “Date Guess” inserted. While the addition of a date is appreciated, how can this be done by someone not on the trusted list?

Comments

Have you looked at the changes tab? and double checked that no one is on the trusted list?

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I know who made the change and that identity is confirmed by the changes tab history.

There are 7 or 8 people on the Trusted List, but the person who made the change is not one of them - and never has been.

That is the issue!  

If this person can edit a Private profile of a living person, then anybody can, and Wikitree’s privacy protection is meaningless.

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Anne, on red profiles one can see neither the changes tab nor the trusted list / privacy tab.

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Yes Jillaine but Peter can see the changes tab since he's the manager.

Peter, that definitely should not have happened, I'm recategorizing the question to wiki tech.

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Just as an aside, that same person has, in a continuous period of 8 hours today, made over 400 edits (including new profile creations). There’s a human issue here, not just a technical glitch.

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Sounds like a ranger should be informed and perhaps a temporary block placed until things are figured out.

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Peter send me a private message with the ID of the person who's perpetrating. I'll pass it on or block if the person is still at it.

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Hi Peter,

If the profile was created 5 years ago and there wasn't a birth date then it would have had an Open privacy setting. That would have changed to the Red privacy setting after the person who added the birth date made the edit so there's nothing inappropriate happening here. The person who made the edit does make a lot of contributions to the tree but they're usually great contributions and she's been one of our most active WikiTreers for quite some time.

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I have a feeling I know what may have happened.

The data errors project is making it really easy to make a LOT of contributions, easily, to a large number of profiles in a short amount of time.

One of the errors is data-less/dateless profiles. Error 902 if you're interested. (I requested this one.)

It sounds like the person in question might have been working on 902, or one of the other profiles that show up on one of the other error lists. Came across an open profile with no date; added an estimated date, and if it was under 100 years ago, the profile became private in the process. So it wasn't private when s/he made the edit, but became so after.

That said s/he should have checked for active profile manager status first before making changes.

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Seems like a problem if an Open profile with no confidential info suddenly becomes private when a random user with no confidential info puts in a random date guess.

I think I kind of assumed that the privacy level of a profile was managed by the PM.

Is there a rule that estimated DoBs are required?

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Profiles without dates anywhere are problematic.we can't determine if they might be matches with others of the same name. We can't determine if they might be a family member. We can't determine if they are living and therefore should have their privacy protected.

I guess I would ask, what is the value of having a data-less profile?

You can still change the privacy, RJ. You're the PM of this profile. You can change it to green if the person is still living. You can reopen it if the person has died and you provide a death date.

ADDED: There is now a rule that a profile must have either a birth or death date. New profiles cannot be created without one.

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Guessed dates can be problematic as well, and they don't necessarily solve anything.  If I've got a DoD but no clue about DoB, I often leave it blank rather than leave a wild guess.  But I get the feeling this is now deemed an error.

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It's an error if there is neither a birth or a death date. If you have a death date, please add it.

Estimated dates are risky, yes; hence the {{guestimate}} template. But they do solve some things, as I listed above.

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I meant the Database Errors definition of "error".  Obviously, most of them are accepted by the system.

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Can only speak for errors #901 and 902. It looks for profiles with all empty fields.