Orphaned Profiles

Question

Hello all, and hope all are having a good weekend.   I was looking over   Orphaned  Profiles,  and instead of just adopting them,   can  we just  go in and edit, and research for  bio  and  sources  or do we have  to adop?

 

ty

 

debbie

tn

Comments

It's generally a good idea to adopt the profile if it is for a more recent individual (born within last 150 years). Sometimes editing open, orphaned profiles will lock them. You can just re-orphan it when you are done editing.

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Why would it lock if you edit it Lindy? That seems a bit strange.

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Lynda, if you enter a birth date less than 100 years ago and there is no death date then when you save, privacy will automatically change to yellow because WikiTree assumes the person might be living.  Also, if you make a type, for example entering a year as 1960 when you meant 1860, that can also invoke the automatic privacy locking.  On the other hand, a typo of 1060 when you meant 1960 will create another problem - it can only be edited by someone who is pre-1500 certified.

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I understand that Gaile, but Lindy seemed to be suggesting it was something to do with adopting orphans which is a different issue.

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At your own peril don't adopt it, edit away.   When it turns yellow and is locked make a comment here so Lindy, Gaile and I can have a good laugh!  :D

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Aww, gee, Vincent, I live in too much of a glass house to laugh - that has happened to me and, I'm embarrassed to say that it's happened more than once - I guess I'm just a slow learner!!!

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Me too, many times.  I remember having to contact Tami to open them for me.  I remember you asking in G2G to open profiles as well.  And actually, it's even worse now because if a profile that has a death date and is an orphan is connected to a profile that is possibly living it will go yellow for no apparent reason (or something like that!).  It's safer to adopt, edit and orphan than to edit, grimace, contact Paul, wait a few days and then not even remember why you were editing that profile when it went locked.  :)

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I still don't really understand whether the issue is just in the type of date situation that Gaile described or whether it is a general problem for orphaned profiles, so I guess I will just have to follow Vincent's advice and not attempt to do any work on orphaned profiles :) Not a problem for me at the moment though as I have enough of my own to work on.

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I guess we won't know unless Lindy replies, but I interpreted her comment to mean the potential for date entries to change privacy to locked before you're done editing, and if you're not on the trusted list you can't get back to finish.

I don't see that this should stop you from working on them - you can follow Lindy's suggestion and adopt, do your work, then orphan again.

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Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, Lynda; I was out of town.

Gaile's comment mentions the most likely scenario for when this inadvertent locking occurs. I was just giving you a heads-up to be aware of this possibility.

It appears to be dependent on the data in the date fields and possibly the certainty levels selected. You want to be careful that those areas do not indicate a living person when the source data indicates a deceased person.

Of course, if the orphaned profile does represent a living person, then you want that profile to lock. So it's probably a safety feature to capture those situations.

It's not about adopting orphaned profiles, per se; but it affects orphaned profiles since those profiles have no manager who can simply reset a profile that inadvertently becomes locked.

You don't have to adopt an open orphaned profile to edit it; just be aware that it may inadvertently lock (requiring the next manager who wants to work on the profile to request that it be opened; I am suggesting that we try to avoid unnecessary work)  if you don't pay close attention to the data!

Answer 1

Thanks Deborah, 

I think you would only have to adopt the profile if you felt the Last Name at Birth (LNAB) was incorrect, otherwise we should be able to add information to any open profile regardless of whether it has no profile managers or 20.

Comments

I regularly edit orphaned profiles without adopting them. You should feel free to do so as well.

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Just be extra careful if you edit the birth or date dates that you don't accidently move it to private status by default. Double check those dates before saving.

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Also, check the dates of the persons the profile is connected to before proceeding. I was trying to be a good samaritan and fix a minor issue (mother/father reversed) and found myself in a quagmire for a mother born in the 1600s, children born in the 1890s, and a father with no dates of his own, but with siblings born in both the 1700s and the 1980s. Sometimes, leaving works of fiction alone (or just notifying an attached PM) is best.