Are unmerged matches a help or a hindrance?

Question

As of this afternnon there are approximately 15,000 unmerged matches listed on Wikitree.  Of these, more than 3,800 show last activity in 2011 or 2012 and all but 1,400 have no activity this month.

From my limited experience, "unmerged matches" serve little or no value.  An unmerged match seems to mean "hands off" except to the person who so categorized the match.  I do not see any value added in so categorizing a proposed match.  Why not just leave it as "proposed"?  

Obviously, the instructions that limit unmerged matches to a brief period are being ignored.

My recommendation is to eliminate this category or, at lest, to have any unmerged match older than one month revert back to proposed.

Comments

Another point to consider:  When searching for potential matches, if one is definitely not a match OK, but if one seems a good possibility with more work it makes an unmerged match not just useful, but in my humble opinion, a must!

I would be very reluctant to list a possible match as a rejected match if many of the items on both individuals is a match.

Answer 1

Hi Bob,

I just happen to move a proposed merge to unmerged just a few hours ago, so I would recomend keeping this capability.

I sometimes do this when I get alerted to a merge request, but when I look at the profiles, I see discrepencies that I can't resolve at the time. Rather than leaving it pending, I prefere to move it to unmerged and post a message with an explanation. I do this to discourage someone else from completing the merge without resolving the discrepencies.

I'm not saying that the problem of too many unmerged matches doesn't exist, I'm just saying that removing that capability is not the answer as that would remove a useful tool to some of us.

 

Roland

Answer 2

I agree with Roland, there is a need for the category, but putting a time limit on it as Bob suggests seems like a good idea.   I do know that there are people who "abuse" the category, ie, every match I have ever suggested ends up as an unmerged match.   A quick reminder of the honor code usually stops the practice, but, I am sure a lot of the ones out there are more like "I don't want to merge" than "I need time to research".

Comments

Thank you , Robin and Ronald,  exactly my sentiments too, on unmerged matches. Even without a time limit  - somehow , sometime , someone will come along and have the research done to complete these umerged matches.

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When someone sets up an unmerged match, is there a way for me as the merge proposer and manager of one of the profiles to see whatever comment/discrepancy is attached to the unmerged match?  I have not found it if there is

Wouldn't it be better to approve the merge and attach a comment to the profile for all to see?  Something like ... the date of death is in doubt; XX died in either 1588 or 1602

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I agree with Bob.  There should be a reason box for an unmerged match.

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I definitely don't want unmerged matches to go away. I use them, if not frequently, enough that I'd miss them if they were gone.

We have been asking for a reason box for unmerged matches for a LONG time. Obviously it must not be an easy fix.

In the meantime, we could post our reasons to the profile with the most managers in hopes that someone will see it and resolve the issue behind the decision to make it an unmerged match. 

What we could do is better promote the "find unmerged matches" section of Find Matches for awhile. Perhaps have a "campaign" and award badges or some other thing to the person who completes the most unmerged matches in a given month.

 

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I think promoting unmerged matches is a good idea.  I just checked to see if any are awaiting action from me but I haven't been checking daily the way I do merges waiting on me.  Now I will.

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I like Jillaine's idea of pushing the pending unmerged matches. I don't have a single pending merge waiting on me, but I do have 9 unmerged matches on my Watchlist, sitting there, taunting me. They're very intimidating. :)

Almost always, they have different parents; if it were just a discrepancy in dates, I'd merge them and leave a note about the uncertainty. But doing that when there are different parents seems riskier to me. They really need to be researched.

Answer 3

Unmerged match is an absolute must, especially when parents do not match.

If you have an alternative to handle more efficiently such cases, I would be happy to hear about it.

Some people try to force merging, leading to a loss of time for those involved.

Comments

First of all, I do not understand how someone other than the person who asked the question can select an answer as the "best answer."

I fail to see how designating an "unmerged match" has an advantage over leaving a "pending merge" and annotating that the discrepant parents need to be resolved.  

If I know which parents are correct, should I have gone into both sides of the match and changed them before I requested the merge?  Doesn't that infringe on the managers of the match?

And what is to happen with the thousands of "unmerged matches" that lanquish for months and years?

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Wikitree is a collective work. Others might have a say about what is a good answer.

"Unmerged match" and "Pending merge" correspond to different situations. Why put them together ?

I have seen many cases in which profiles were similar bottom-side (spouse, children) but different up-side (parents). What should I do if I have no information about which parents are the correct ones? Unmerged match is the right answer. Hopefully, somebody will be able to select the right parents.

Having said that, I also would like things to go quicker: there are about 900 merges I proposed that haven't been handled yet. But your answer is not the right one.

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I agree Jacques this is not the correct answer. The unmerged matches & pending merges are totally different situation. They can't or shouldn't be consolidated together.

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pending merges of confused profiles generate a lot of Clutter that is often not cleaned up.   I believe the Unmerged Matches help a lot especially if Parents Names are not resolved due to Complex Names and often Point to an excessive number of Duplicates.  These Unmerged Matches offer the Profile Managers an opportunity to Clean-up the Messes before they happen.  We often know these are Matches and can be Merged.   However the resulting merge simply creates a larger Mess.   I have seen this happen Many times on Wikitree especially  The Unmerged Matches feature is especially useful for informed Profile Managers to  Keep their  Profiles Clean and Useful.

Answer 4

We need to keep the unmerged matches. Eliminating these completely will cause more harm in the long run. Maybe there is a better process in order for some accountability. When I have a family with lots and lots of duplicates I always want to start merging the parents first. I then mark the descendents unmerged matches until the parents are merged. Obviously, I do this when I myself cannot merge the parents. If the descendants are marked unmerged then as I check my unmerged matches a couple times a week  I am limI need to check the status of these.

I'm sure we can all brain storm to come up with a better way to decrease the # of  unmnerged matches. There needs to be a time limit along with a way to give the manager a reminder as well so they can figure out what to do with the unmerged match.

Comments

Do profile managers get notified when someone creates an unmerged match?

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Profiles in your watchlist that are marked an unmerged match  will show in your family activity feed. It's located in the upper right hand corner on your  profile page under my wikitree in the drop down menu.

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I agree that there should be a time limit attached to all unmerged matches in the system. For regular merges, PMs are given a month, then anyone can do the merge. Why not make it 3 to 6 months before anyone can merge unmerged matches? The way the system is currently set up just provides a way of avoiding our Honor Code.

Answer 5

I use the unmerged match a lot.  For instance, when one or both profiles do not have enough information to tell if they match, or when parents conflict.  I even use it when they do match, but I will have to do some searching for the lowest numbered profile of the last name at birth.  It's sort of a place-holder for me.  It means, this is something I cannot solve immediately, but do want to work with it later.  I ALWAYS leave notes in both profiles saying that I made an unmerged match, and why.  In my view, it is not a "hands off" at all, but a hands on ... usually mine, but often another manager, or anyone who finds the missing info, or whatever it is that we need.

This may be true only for me, but when I am working on WikTree, I always seem to be doing five or six things at once.  Then I find another profile that needs whatever, and into the unmerged match basket it goes.  Without it, I would have to pass it by, and I am afraid I might never get back to it.  So I am not sure how I would accomplish that without the unmerged match.

The problem seems to be that people haven't gotten the message to leave notes in the profiles explaining why It always comes down to education, doesn't it?  Also, people forget to go back and check on them later (I admit I am guilty of this.  In fact I am headed to my list now :)  Thanks for the reminder, Bob.

 

Comments

It's too bad there's not an easy way to leave a note on both profiles at once!  (But I suppose copy-and-paste is the next best thing....)