Recommended size of a watchlist?

Question

Curiosity question...

Because I'm wondering whether 2600+ is bad....

Comments

IMO, yes, about 2000 too many, unless you spend a lot of time here.  Do you check all these for errors. like through checking the Suggestions report?  Do you respond quickly to questions and merge requests?  If you can handle it, and are really interested in all those then fine.

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I definitely react quickly to any questions and/or merge requests. I have my email client on my phone and if I'm out (and away from my laptop) then I can read over what has been said and then get back to it (question or merge) within a few hours. The longest waiting time anyone will have for me is 2 days maximum.

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I disagree with the statement that 2,600 is 2000 too many, I have 4,300 profiles on here and manage them fine but then I am on here a few hours every day, more or less. I think it is up to you whether you think you are managing them OK. I organise my watchlist to show the oldest edited at the top and work through them periodically so that nothing has been left more than a year without me having been back to the profile. If you have not got large numbers of unsourced profiles, or profiles that have not been looked at in years, you are coping.

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My unsourced tally is sitting at 2.43% (which with a oversight of what is now 2585 (dropped a number over the course the day, having finished with them)). Which I think is fairly decent. As for the filtering/organising by oldest date edited, I have 8 from 2011 (inherited from another user), 3 from 2015 and the rest of 2016 or more recent.

Answer 1

The number of people you have in your watchlist is a personal choice, but there is a limit set at 5000 to keep them manageable.

Comments

I've been aware that 5k was the limit. I was curious to see what people thought about list sizing. I don't have a problem that mine is sitting on (to be precise; 2647) as I know there are a number of profiles which I currently manage about to have the last additions added to them and then they will be let go

Answer 2

It's only bad if you feel overwhelmed by it.  Because of the projects I'm currently working on, I, too, have thousands.  So what I do is when I'm doing a profile of a person I'm not directly related to, I make sure the dates and locations are correct, the biography has the basics like parents and children and the information is well-sourced with  categories for locations, cemeteries, etc. Then I remove myself so a relative of that person can adopt the profile and add more personal information.

Once a week, I sort my watchlist by date, reversed, and work a few profiles that haven't been updated in a while.  If I'm not directly related to that person and the profile is correct, well-sourced and connected, I release it, too, to make room for new profiles I will no doubt be creating for my projects.  So far, this is keeping my watchlist under control.

Anyone have other ideas for keeping their watchlist under control?

Comments

I wish everybody took that approach.  I was just looking at ones I manage or am related to that were part of massive gedcom imports.  One of the ones that bug me the most was done by a person whose account seems to be gone or hidden.  The other member is still "active" but appears unresponsive (haven't tried myself) and has a massive watchlist.  Just a few of these big ged imports from 2011 and earlier cause a great majority of the problems here, at least of the ones I encounter.

Answer 3

My watchlist is 280, it would have been over 2000 but I never added my whole GEDcom either. I deleted it and decided to add people manually. To me the GEDcom file was to overwhelming for a beginner.

Comments

Very smart move on your part DJ