Have you seen the stats from the Clean-a-Thon?

Question

Hi WikiTreers!

Wow, what a great weekend! Huge thanks to all of you who participated in our Clean-a-Thon. As a result of everyone's hard work, in 72 hours we addressed 80,757 errors. I think we can definitely call it a success!

Here are some stats from our event:

Top 5 Teams:

1. A Rose By Any Other Name (Leader: Emma McBeth) - 11,977
2. Massachusetts 600 (Leader: Bob Keniston) - 7,592
3. Merry Moppers (Leader: Lucy Lavelle) - 5,468
4. Virginia Spring Cleaners (Leader: Liz Shifflett) - 5,457
5. Southern Super Sweepers (Leader: Dorothy Barry) - 5,125

Top 5 Participants:

1. Lucy Lavelle - 3,167
2. Emma McBeth - 3,046
3. Charlotte Shockey - 2,763
4. Dorothy Barry - 1,897
5. Anonymous J. Penny - 1,732

Top 5 Errors Addressed:

1. USA too early in birth location - 9,497
2. Birth location in lowercase -  4,737
3. USA too early in death location - 4,272
4. Uncleaned profile after a merge - 4,130
5. Unique names (spelling) - 3,894

Almost every team and 22 participants broke 1,000 which is fantastic!  

WikiTreers rock!  

 

Comments

That is an amazing number.  How many participants were there?

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First errors are already done and I am stunned by the numbers. They are even higher that CAT results. Either people didn't manage to report all corrected errors or they corrected quite a few of them before the weekend, as they were getting to know the DB_Errors project.

603 was corrected 10592 times 

Also other errors are averaging 5-10% reduction.

Again, Congratulations to you all.

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In watching the Wiitree Group on "You Tube"  this past weekend , I was pleased to see some FACES  that I can now put with NAMES...  I would like to thank ALES TRTNIK for all the technical work he did to make the Clean-a-thon work.   I heard him say that he hopes to create a NEW ERRORS LISTING after this cleaning is finished ....I HOPE HE DOES DO THAT.  And that he has it so that it can be sorted by INDIVIDUAL MANAGERS  for each ones use.  

I have been working at my GEDCOM INPUT daily since last December, attempting to clean it.  If I knew where the errors were as opposed to say, a profile that needs to be completed it would be an enormous advantage and really helpful.  I would print that out and start checking them off! (:;>)

Thanks again Ales for all your hard work and input.

Evelyn Murray McKelvey

MERRY MOPPERS

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Error recalculation is done. 

We have

69304 

fewer errors than last week.

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Wow!  Amazing!

I've worked on volunteer projects in the past (my other hobby is music).  My observation:  people will work as volunteers with enthusiasm and dedication.  It's not about the money.

This also bodes well for the future of WikiTree.  Here's to patience, polite treatment of others, and accuracy!

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Fewer errors.

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Well, some errors were addressed without being corrected. And of course new errors had been made since the latest dump.

I wonder how it worked when someone made several changes to the status of the same error? Did it count several times or just once? I know I slipped a couple of times.

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in case of multiple statuses on same error, each user got 1 point, even if 10 comments were added. 

Not corrected - 3.680 (This are comments to the error)

Corrected - 67.493 (This were claimed corrected)

False error & Error - 6.099 (This are to hide error not included in the number above)

Merge proposed - 503 (A lot of merges were only proposed and will complete later)

Comment - 2.982 (This are comments to the error)

With correction of one error, new errors can appear, that weren't  even checked before. (connected grave, entered gender,...)

 

Each week, there is 5K-10K new errors. This week was 2 days longer so more like 10K due to new profiles and partially edit of existing profiles.

 

I will finish errors in 1-2 hours, then I will write full report.

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Thanks for the breakdown of the numbers Aleš :-)

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Question regarding DB ERRORS:

Why is it that I still have errors showing for (511- Unique Names)  that I set the Status as correct.   Is there something I am missing, how do I prove that the name is correct?   Should they not be removed after the Clean-a-thon, or do I have to wait until after next Monday?

Evelyn Murray McKelvey

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Evelyn, if you want to state that something that shows as an error is actually not an error, you should use the "False Error" status. That normally makes the error disappear from the next report(s). Though sometimes it comes back (I'm not sure why, but probably that happens when specific fields of the profile are edited). If you can only use the "Corrected" status if you have fixed the error in such a way that it will not be recognized as an error next time.

An example:

Say there is an error "unique name" because I have called my ancestor Robrte. I change it to Robert -> error corrected, it will disappear from the report. (if it was corrected during the Clean-a-thon, it is off the report now. If it was corrected later, wait until next Monday).

Now for my ancestors named Ursmarine or Avoye, those were really their names and I must use the False error status.

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THANK YOU, for that explanation.  I am learning more about Wikitree everyday.

Evelyn

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Corrected means that you think you corrected the error. In this case error is hidden from online reports until the next dump. At that time, if the error was really corrected, there is no error to show. If it wasn't it is reshawn.

And as Isabelle said, False error should be used if it is not an error. This way error is permanently hidden from all lists.

Answer 1

This is fantastic! Perhaps this should be done twice a year?? :-D

Hope you all got the rest you so well deserved after this.

Comments

Twice a year for a thon? That's a lot of work for the leader folks, but if we did it without the whole prizes/hangouts part, it'd be less work. Having teams is a cool thing though.

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Teams are fun, but I think it would be more competitive if it was individual. How about prices for the top three instead of draws? Just thinking it would yield better results, but perhaps not as fun..?

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Well, if we keep the teams we could decide a weekend and compete within the team? Or a competition between two teams? Perhaps no need of the whole shabang

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I think we will probably try two big a-Thons a year - the Clean-a-Thon in the Spring and the Source-a-Thon in the fall.

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Good idea, Eowyn.

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Love this idea Eowyn!  It's exactly what I was thinking.  Two specials a year is more than enough work for all the leaders and we don't want the Source-A-Thon, Clean-A-Thon to become old hat to anyone.  I loved the teams in the Source-a-Thon and the Clean-A-Thon.

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I think the twice a year A-Thon is a great idea. I enjoy the teams and the hangouts. The every four hours hangouts was good as it gave you more time to nap between if needed BUT the every hour that we did on the Source-a-thon kept me awake and going longer. LOL

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There are some of us who aren't into the competition, but just wish to contribute. I don't have all day to do a wiki marathon, but I'll do some every day. Hope about a non-competitive team, so that we don't feel like we're holding our team back?  I learn more when I do these, and I'll continue to participate.  Paula

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Yes, twice a year sounds good to me, any more than that and the exhaustion would probably finish me off! :-)

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At times, the response time for the Status button was frustratingly slow. I wonder if it was due to the volume on the server created by so many people trying to clean at the same time. I like Maggie's idea for this reason - fewer people working more quickly.

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@Paula -- you can still sign up for a team and join in when you can. We had a lot of people who worked like that. This is why we do the random draws for the prizes/t-shirts so that everyone has a fair chance of winning something.

Like many of you have said, it's more about the camaraderie than the competition. :-)

Answer 2

Awesome work from all! And YAY Mass 600! We also rocked it.

Comments

: ) : )

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This was my first Clean-A-Thon. I didn't do as well as others but I broke 500 and had a blast. Can't wait for the next one!

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Nice job all around. It was a lot of fun, too, and feels like we really accomplished something. Bravo, guys, take a bow.

Answer 3

Over 80 freaking thousand errors corrected!!  That blows my mind!!  I usually wipe a couple hundred DB errors in a week so we accomplished something huge here!  

I'm ready to go again now that I have learned how to better manage my time (and have had a full night's sleep).  Watch out Charlotte and Lucy!

And I definitely think teams and hangouts are the way to go.  The most fun about this whole thing was getting to know new people on a personal level. And COLLABORATION!!  Well, actually, the most fun was watching how wacky Mags was on the hangouts, but that's another story entirely ;-)

Comments

Yes over 80K corrections! My take is how many thank you we are getting,  maybe some of them will look at the error reports now and help fix them.  This may be a good time to reintroduce the error report to the tree.

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Very good advice Kevin!

Answer 4

Teams are definitely important to motivating those of us who are not usual data doctors.

I noticed after the Source-a-thon that there is a monthly sourcing challenge.

What about a monthly Errors Challenge maybe connected with projects.  Like maybe one month could be the German Roots project working on errors in their area. Another the Dutch Roots, and another the Czech Roots, and another Project Quebecois and so on.  

Or maybe a focus on different types of errors for each month's challenge like one month for merge cleanups, another focusing on parents too old or too young for their children, another focusing on marriage errors and so on.

That might keep the interest going without wearing a few people out.

Comments

Great idea!

I mentioned something similar on another post.  I would love to have regular small challenges that are theme based.

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I agree we need to keep the momentum going and we can all learn from each other.  That way we have some experienced folks to guide us and it is easier to work in teams to bounce ideas off of each other.  I like the ideas of having a focused theme for the effort too.

Answer 5

This was definitely great. Folks do a yard clean up in the fall. Let's have a Fall C-A-T in October. Shoot for 100K corrections. I'm in for that, and I'll bet I could reassemble the Massachusetts 600 Team. Bobbie should recover by then.

Comments

Bob, in the fall is the Source-a-thon, still a clean-up, but in a different way. :-)

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Oh, what? Wait... I was sleeping ... :D

We had a great time doing it! And a job well done by all. I'm game for the source-a-thon again, or a clean-up, or whatever you want to propose. We had a great team, lead by a super team-leader.

Thanks for keeping us organized, Bob.

(And I'm proud to say at least 25% of those 633's were mine!)

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You did a great job, Bobbie!

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As did you Natalie, in the end you were ahead! I blinked (went out for groceries) and you just blew right by me :D Our whole group was great, and the folks who are relative newbies (at least to the "challenges") did great, too. I think everyone got a good perspective on how to do things that they hadn't tried before, as well as being able to come to the group for quick advice & ideas. That's the best part, I think, about doing it in teams - a bit of camaraderie and having fun.

Answer 6

Congratulations and a Big Thank You to all who coordinated and participated in the 2017 Spring Clean-A-Thon. A fantastic success all the way around. It was my first venture into correcting our database errors and I learned in the fire, but had a blast along the way, enjoying the collaboration with my Roses teammates and visiting with everyone in many of the hangouts. The internet does not get any better than WikiTree in my opinion. 

Comments

Amen Rod! :)

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Double Amen!

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It was great to "see" you, Rod!!

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Thanks, Julie. Same here. You did a marvelous job as always..

Answer 7

This was an amazing weekend.  The teams, along with the hangouts, are a very good way to collaborate, commiserate, and generally "come up for air" when we're processing ideas from multiple websites for hours at a time.  

Probably most of us made improvements that were not reported, in part because of the server slowdowns, and in part because one change could fix 6 problems, and it took time to report each one.  It was more fun to move on to the next item.

Thank you to the leaders and participants.

Answer 8

Many, many thanks especially to the team leaders for taking on all the organization. Without you it would not have been so successful.

Take a bow, leaders! 

Answer 9

You asked about suggestions in one of the other clean-a thon posts. Rather than multiple clean-a-thons or source-a-thons, there could be smaller scale group efforts. These might be around various projects, maybe led by the project people, as well as the normal leaders. I suggested a cemeteries project which would concentrate on adding cemeteries and adding profiles to cemeteries. Other projects could organize a weekend too that would introduce and highlight the work they do. Maybe instead of chats etc., it could highlight achievements such as 100 cemeteries added to a county or 1000 profiles. The awards could be badges or icons for a level of achievement. There could be an award for finding everyone in a cemetery or adding 200 to a cemetery. That would be attainable by anyone, achievement rather than competition.

Comments

If you check top 3 errors corrected and it feels important to correct error likes this

1. 603 - USA too early in birth location - 9,497
2. 611 - Birth location in lowercase -  4,737
3. 633 - USA too early in death location - 4,272

Then the easy solution must be to stop people from import/save errors

1. Validate when people save/create a profile
2. Validate when doing GEDCOM import