Does the open profile request do enough?

Question

The current process of making an open profile request is easy to use and works well.  Unfortunately the process does not go far enough.  Currently only a request to open the profiles that are direct ancestors or descendants is available.  The request should be expanded to open all profiles more than 200 years old for the unresponsive manger.  The current process forces arborists and others working on duplicates to make multiple requests to have profiles opened for the same inactive manger.  This significantly slows the process of merging duplicates.  If a manger is unresponsive all profiles more than 200 years old should be opened, not just the ones identified by the open request.

Comments

There is a comments section which is little used when requests are forwarded. Comments can be forwarded to the Profile manager and comments/suggestions can be forwarded to myself (as the main person who actions the requests). The comments section can and should be used.

At this time I don't have a simple way of identifying all Open profiles managed by one user (this is being addressed), although it is fairly easy to find end points on a family line (hence the ancestors and descendants).

Considering the volume of requests I process, to seek all the open profiles of someone who has several thousand would mean extensive delays in processing requests.

The Open Profile request form HAS brought back some inactive people. To orphan those profiles without notice is likely to cause quite some ill-feeling amongst profile managers. Expediency is one thing, collaboration is another. Everyone deserves at least one chance to collaborate.

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Paul, you may already be aware of this, but if you use Special:ManagerChanges and select all, it will only work on public and open profiles. That's what I always did, after emailing the unresponsive PM and giving them a week to respond.

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Yes, Lianne. That is what I generally use. I think what was proposed here, though, was a general opening of only Open Privacy level (over 200 years old). Of course, where there has been no action by a profile manager for, say, 2 years, my normal approach would be to open all Open and Public privacy level profiles regardless of the request.

There are some problems though. I find quite a few 200+ year old profiles that are Red (Private) privacy levels. I also find quite a few at the other end which should be private but are green (public) level. So I am cautious about opening what should be Private profiles. The request by family line (ancestors and descendants) is fairly easy to check both ends of. A tree of multiple family lines is much more difficult.

Chris is developing a tool which should enable me to examine more closely the spread of privacy levels to ensure a better response.

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It is nice to get an insight into how the system works. I am sure some people think the week wait is just there to frustrate the requestor but seeing the work you are putting in to do things right makes me, at least, appriciate the service more.

I have seen sometimes just the line opened and somtimes all open and public profiles opened and I could not see wht there was a difference, obviously your overview is better. Once you added me as manager of just the profile to expidite a merge but no others were opened, that was  a returning manager who has since collaborated in several other merges.

As with life lots of things could be better but it works resonably well for me, I will make more use of the comment box to highlight a repeeat request for the same manager in a different line.

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Paul, I sent a couple of requests today, and noticed that the option to select ancestors and descendants is nice, and was previously overlooked by myself. Same for the fact that the process doesn't require that much preparation for profiles older than 200 years.

What is not clear to me, and maybe is to you, is if spouses can be part of the request too. If they're held by the same manager, it seems obvious to me, since they are likely to be merged too, but there is no option for them.

Thanks for all the work that you do here.

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You can add that in the text box for Paul, he will look at it and decide the best course. If there are a lot of requests it slows things down as he looks at each case individually, but if he sees a pattern evolving he can prempt enquires by opening all profiles of the manager. Make haste slowly.

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Well said Rhian.

Of course, if we select all ancestors both parents will be selected.

The general procedure, at least for long time inactive managers, is to establish if they are going to return to the fold. A single Open Profile Request will do that (rather than multiple ones for the same manager). Once we have tried every method to contact them and still received no response the general procedure will be to orphan all their Open and Public profiles (so submitting more requests of that manager is un-necessary).

There are some issues where the manager has many thousands of profiles. This can prevent me from a wholesale orphaning of their profiles. Some have many profiles that should be private and they would be opened along with others (which is not acceptable). At the other end their are some private ones that should be open. These would not be opened by the procedure and I would have to find tham and change them manually. Where there are thousands of profiles under management it could take hours.

I have a new tool created for me which I hope will make it easier to find and change these. I will be testing it today.

Thanks to all those that make use of all the Open Profile request form options. The comments boxes can express special needs, and you can pass on a friendly message to the profile manager if you so desire.

 

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Thanks, Paul, for all you're doing. Much appreciated!

Answer 1

I got confused, because an open profile request sounds weird if profiles are open already. I misinterpreted things because of that, and see that I had to rephrase my reply, because I just realized that profiles are orphaned instead.

For managers like the Anonymous Anonymous who I refer to here, I like to have a procedure to remove them as manager for a whole load of profiles, like say all profiles that are already open anyway.

If such a bulk removal can be done, I will probably adopt a lot of Throckmorton's, and cooperate with an arborist who has some too, to do merges, and see if they're connected to my part of the tree.

Comments

anonmyous anonymous (Kelly-630) is part of my problem, also. Is this the same 'anonymous' ?

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Kelley-630, but only part, just like for you. There is another candidate, who last visited the site on September 30, which is not that long ago. Problem there is that she probably controls so many profiles, that she simply can't keep up with the merge requests.

But as far as I'm concerned, the solution is the same. Remove them as manager from all the profiles that they can't control, so that those can be adopted. Don't bother asking, because the question will probably be lost between the emails too.

I know this sounds harsh, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the only way to prevent a standstill here. And since they signed the honor code, I see no reason why this can't be done.

Answer 2

No, Its not enough. It does slow us down significantly having to make multiple requests.  Keeping track of those requests  makes the process even longer. I agree with you Philip the profiles over 200 years old should be opened. It will help clear out a lot of duplicates.

Comments

Having to Keep track of requests should not be optional. I am already receiving many duplicate requests. I understand that people are trying to assist WikiTree in its' goal of one person one profile, however, sending multiple requests for the same profile only slows down the processing of all requests for all WikiTreers. By keeping a list of profiles that you request access to this can be avoided. A simple text list kept on your computer would suffice. Just open the list and cut and paste the profile ID.

By using the comments section of the request form you can bring to my attention that a request of a certain manager has been dealt with recently to speed things up.

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Since the tools for viewing more past merges are more openly visible there is bound to have been a rise in the number of Open Profile requests as one looks into one's queue and sees unanswered requests for merges.

The process has worked well for me on at least a dozen requests in the past few weeks. I suspect that Paul has developed some heuristics on how to handle Open Profile request (for example if he sees differing multiple requests for a profile manager that appears incommunicado for over a year, I suspect he'd open all profiles.

Sandy

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Paul -Sorry if I didn't explain very well. I in no way think we shouldn't  keep track of the open profile requests we submit. I was simply stating keeping track adds to the whole process of merging with unresponsive profile managers. If the request to expand to open all profiles more than 200 years old for the unresponsive manger was granted yours and arborists job would be much easier. 

Everyone should keep track of their requests until something is in place to prevent duplicate requests. I'm pretty sure you  are getting slammed with requests now that open profile request are in place.

By the way,   You're doing an awesome job!!!!

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Other annoying thing is that one unresponsive manager has a dozen or more bogus profiles of living people that are just polluting the database. The profiles made by this manager are completely redundant, but because she is not inactive enough, I can not start an open profile request for any profile made by her.

Messages have been put on her page by several members, and until now, I have not seen any public reaction by her. She may have a lot of merges and other requests waiting, and she may be sick or tired, but as far as I'm concerned, we have a very unhealthy situation here, because no member should be allowed to block profiles in this way. There are warnings against managing too many profiles all over this site, and it looks like this manager controls way more than she can handle now. And if that really is the case, someone should take action and remove her as a manager right away.

Arborists know who I refer to here, and I'm losing my patience, because this person is clearly breaking rule 1 of the honor code.

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I had posted the following as a separate question (did a search, yet didn't come across this thread till after I posted. I apologize)

I am having a problem with unanswered 'pending mergers,' on some I have sought to open the profiles of the 'ancients' and was told to contact each manager personally through private messages and on the page of the profile in need of attention.

As we know, the system only allows for a person to send 10 private messages per day. I am posting this here because I have reached my '10' and can't respond to the private message from a wiki-helper that told me to send all the private messages to open ancient profiles that are in need of attention.

When I have 50+ neglected  mergers I proposed on ancestors that are over 200 years old, multiple managers (with some managers that haven't contributed in the 60 day time frame proposed by wikitree), AND a limit on private messages, it is tedious and can take a week or more to contact all the managers.

There really has to be a more efficient method for handling this situation.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

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This is a reply to Paul's comment above.

Is it possible (and not too difficult) to program the Open Profile request form to do a check like the Merge Request does and be able to come back with response like:

A request to open Smith-123 was made on [date] and is being processed. Your patience is appreciated.

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Yesterday, I thought of putting a comment on the profile bulletin board so that everyone can see that an open profile request was made. It didn't work at that time, because of sudden spam protection, but I hope it works until a program change is made.

Answer 3

Today, I got even more confused, because Paul told me that I should contact the manager myself first, even though the form does not require that for ancient profiles anymore.

Can anyone from management explain the proper procedure here? I really appreciate all the work done by Paul, and anyone else, but when he tells me that I didn't follow procedures, and he has to do some extra work because of the steps that I skipped, we only create more work for all. And I'm writing about this here, because our email conversation about this may increase his workload even more.

I'm trying to do merges where I can, and when confronted with a form, I tend to follow the procedure implemented in that form, and not read more help texts than absolutely needed. And I guess I'm not the only one working like that.