Please be careful with too many merge requests

+35 votes
356 views
This comes from personal experience with a new member, and I would like to share.   Many of us come across a totally duplicate family branch and quickly start proposing merges.   Do you realize when you do this, that all the involved profile managers get an email for each and every merge you propose?   It is easy to overwhelm a new person with all of those emails and easy to "anger" a seasoned member.   While one of the profile managers may be new and did not understand the issue, we should remember that the "other" profile manager may be experienced and just had not seen all the duplicates.    

I would like to suggest that we propose no more than 6 merges in a family line and then let the profile managers know that there are more profiles to be merged.   Put the issue on your scratch pad and come back to it in a week.   If no action has been taken, then propose more merges.   Let's give people an opportunity to "fix" their own issues before flooding their email box.
in WikiTree Help by Robin Lee G2G6 Pilot (852k points)
Robin, I'm wondering how this can be conciliated with some of the data doctors challenges. A recent challenge was about improving marriages and among the suggestions were "marriage to a duplicate person" and "multiple marriage on the same day". These suggestions are evidently tools to find duplicates and the correction is a merge.

I'm wondering how it would be possible to conciliate the need for speed and making numerous contributions - obviously the goal of at least part of the participants in a challenge? Exclude this type of suggestions from challenge lists? Give a recommendation to only handle a few of these errors and then focus on another one? These suggestions should not lead to quick fixes anyway.

5 Answers

+23 votes
This is a great idea Robin. Thank you for providing this perspective!

Also, it may be a better strategy to propose a few merges for the earliest ancestors of a duplicated branch and then wait till they are sorted out before looking at the next generation.
by Isabelle Martin G2G6 Pilot (560k points)
I agree with this completely! Most seasoned members will continue to clean up duplicates and new members would be alerted to the problem!
+13 votes
Robin I agree with the great suggestion and will put a system in place to manage my proposals.

I work the same Suggestions Reports every week and I do feel sorry for the newcomers that are overwhelmed by my merge requests.

Even though the duplicates from GEDCOM uploads have reduced there is still a lot of other duplicates that are created manually.

What I have noticed is that a profile manager only has to reject one match in a whole family line and then after that they will be able to create a whole new family of duplicates.

Is there perhaps another way to warn profile managers that they keep creating duplicates?
by Esmé van der Westhuizen G2G6 Pilot (148k points)
I have now implemented a system that informs profile a managers of a whole line that needs to be merged. I have proposed only the oldest profiles of the lines and will check next week on the progress.

What I have noticed this week is that some merges have been proposed by other members in the middle of duplicate family lines and I am not sure if the profile managers have been informed that they have to look at all the profiles.

What concerns me is that if these merges are then completed they might be disconnected from their ancestors.

Is there a way that we can avoid this from happening?
+10 votes
I think limiting the number of merge requests within a single family group should have a daily limit. I recently was on the receiving end of a number of requests from someone with about 6 months WT experience but with 30K+ contributions. That wasn't the real problem. All the duplicates had been created within the last 2 weeks or so by the same PM (not the merge proposer), who had less than 200 contributions. The really inexperienced PM was obviously creating new profiles with no regard to the notice about existing profiles. I don't know if it's a case of a non-collaborative "I want my own private tree" individual, or someone who just needs some guidance. I'm not an "angered" seasoned member, just a little annoyed. A trusted list request is so much easier to deal with.
by Bob Keniston G2G6 Pilot (260k points)
+7 votes
Robin, I agree with everyone else that this is a great idea (and I would even go as low as 2-3 suggested merges to start with).

I just want to pick up an extra point about "giving people an opportunity to "fix" their own issues"

Some of us can go in and do the whole merge ourselves, and although it is tempting to do that, particularly if it involves duplicate profiles we know well, I think the benefits of a new person learning how WikiTree works means we should restrain ourselves, and give them time to fix it themselves.
by John Atkinson G2G6 Pilot (609k points)

My new mantra on Wikitree is 

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

That's what the 30 days is for, is it not? You can try to talk to the PMs about the merges but if they have not made a move after 30 days, then it's perfectly acceptable to finish it, surely?
Leaders have the means of expediting merges, this is probably what John is referring to.

I check the "pending merges initiated by me"  page almost everyday and I admit I pounce on all those ready to be completed. The majority are default-approved.
+6 votes
I completely agree with you and I do my best not to propose merges of an entire line while also messaging the PM.  However, having said that, when I step back to give the PM a breather, time and time again someone else steps in and proposes those I left lying for later.  I don't think there is a way to let other people know not to propose the remaining merges yet.  If there is an entire line needing merged, it is possible a PM will get merge proposals from multiple people.

On a side note, I would say only about 20% of the merges I propose get completed by the PMs before they go into default and less than half of those clean up the profile afterwards.  So most of the work falls on me in the end anyway.
by Emma MacBeath G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)

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