Challenge of the Week: Clean Up Names (19 Feb 2018)

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

Will you join our Data Doctors Challenge this week?    

Aleš's "WikiTree+" data analysis has uncovered thousands of profiles with special characters or words in name fields that probably don't belong there. There are parentheses that need to be removed, suffixes that need to be moved to the Suffix field, and much more.

Here is the table of likely problems and issues.

Although the changes might be simple and fast, a thoughtful genealogist like you needs to investigate and make the decision.

After you investigate something, set the status [more info]. That will earn you a point. The member with the most points at 11:59pm EDT on Sunday night will get the badge and the bragging rights. But we'll all benefit from a neater, cleaner shared tree.    

If you're participating, please post here to let us know. It's nice to cheer each other on, and it will help us avoid stepping on each others' toes. Also post here if you have any questions about how to participate.    

Thanks for helping!

Real-time tracking results:    
See your stats  alongside other participants here.

Comments

Not sure if I follow you but I will look after supper to see if I can figure it out from your comments.  Thank you for your kind reply.

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Nedra and Janet, Eowyn writes the post ahead of time for each week's challenge and then hides it so no one can see it until it is time for the challenge to start (challenges start on Monday or Tuesday).  This is why it says she wrote it 5 days ago, but it was reshown 1 day ago.  

Those of us who wish to work on the challenge, wait to see Aleš post the weekly Data Doctor post (Monday or Tuesday).  He posts this in the DD Google group as well as on g2g.  Data Doctors are all invited to the Google group when we are given the badge so we all have the same opportunity to see his message about the report.  The report always links to the new challenge for the week.  Because the start of the challenge is based on the weekly report (after the data dump), and doesn't always start at the same time,  Data Doctors wait for the report to tell them when the challenge is ready to start.

Also, above it says: Here is the table of likely problems and issues. Click on the errors link and you have a list of all the possible errors you could work on for this challenge.

P.S. Those who have won this challenge before cannot get the winner's badge again, so even though I am in the top 3 right now, it is because I am challenging Esmé to see how many 721s we can wipe out together. Neither Esmé nor I can win another badge.

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Thank you for clarifying all that, Emma.  I feel much better knowing what you added in the last paragraph.  

One last question... what are 721s?

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I can't join the chat? I don't have something set up right I guess. I don't want to take profiles someone else has already done? Do I pick a color or does someone give me a color?

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Through trial and error I found out you can send a message to the profile manager and ask them to fix the error. Then in the status button you can select emailed owner and it notes that in the activity feed

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One of the problems with that is you're obviously zealous in your efforts, but at the same time, you're quickly taking aways dozens of profiles (the easier ones at that?). When you couple that with the fact there is no way to know if a change has been without going to the profile itself. There are a number of us who feel like we're spinning our wheels in a situation created by the Wiz Kids.

One last bellyache. I've made a LOT more changes than is reflected on the Statuses by User. Perhaps I'm doing them wrong, but how would I ever know. I'm seriously thinking of giving up on this group. I'm feeling like it's a total waste of my time. Like many others of the newbies, I guess I'm not smart enough or can't understand the instructions or whatever, but I think it's time for me say adios to what seems like an exclusive club of insiders.

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Sandy Harris, you are so wrong.  You don't have to participate in the challenge if you don't want to, that is optional.  And when it comes to not understanding, I will be at the top of that list!! I do some of the challenges, but I have also noted that I am not in competition and I feel that Accuracy is much more important that numbers. WikiTree is not an exclusive club of insiders.  All you have to do is ask for help on any problem you have, individuals come out of the wood work lending their assistance. I just had to speak up, and not sit quietly to the side.  This is how you learn, by doing, I have never won anything on WikiTree, and I have worked on every challenge I have a little time for.  Please don't rush to judgment .

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The spreadsheet wasn't designed to help the wiz kids, it was there to help us stop working on the same profiles as each other. I really hate putting alot of work into fixing a profile and you hit save only to get a pop-up message "data has changed". That means someone else did a quick fix while you did a total fix.

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Thank you for asking Questions, Deborah, and this comment section is a great place to ask them.  If you are in the Data Doctor Google group, you can ask anything there as well (more people are available to answer).

Nedra, 721s are Names with separators (punctuation) in them like (Polly) or John? or [Mike].  I have been chipping away at them for the past year and hoping to make them disappear since a majority of them are from old gedcom uploads. The system doesn't allow names to be entered like this anymore.

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Thanks, Deborah Dunn. Nice to know I am so wrong and making such a "rush to judgment." I won't be participating in any more challenges, so it won't be a problem any more. 

Answer 1

Working on 721s 1800-1899.

Answer 2

I am in but I will start tomorrow.

Answer 3

#721 - 1900-1999

Comments

gave you light magenta 2 on the spreadsheet.

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Nice :-)  Let's wipe out those 721s!!

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Thanks Steven

Emma I love working on the 721s. Lets see how far we get in a week :)

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Esmé, I love them too--so much I have been chipping away at them for a year now.  It's a deal!! :-)

Answer 4

Add me to your lists to work on some profiles.

Comments

Reaper I need an error number and time slot to color the cell for you. This helps prevent people from working over each other. You better hurry though because the fire is spreading across the sheet.

Either that or go to the second comment at the top and visit the sheet yourself.

Answer 5

I am still working on trying to find sources for profiles with a single letter last name, so if I run across any I’ll correct them.

If no sources can be found for a given name of Mother or Father, should these be changed to UNKNOWN?

Comments

Yes. Any given name that has mother, father, daughter, or some other variation of unknown should be replaced with Unknown :-)

Answer 6

I'll work on some of these this week.  M.

Comments

Nice to see you Morgan!  Go Roses :-)

Answer 7

trying to join. Just learned about the mini-doctor challenges. Adding things to my watchlist! (and subtracting some really common surnames!)

Comments

https://tinyurl.com/weekchallenge Week Challenge spreadsheet tab can be bookmarked
 

http://prntscr.com/hk72jy instructions

 

Hope to see you in chat.

Answer 8

I want to work on this too

Answer 9

Did most of the 743. Most of them were false errors with a few corrections. I sent a few emails to the protected profiles and did not mess with the pre-1500 or foreign ones where I couldn't tell what it should be. (Guess I need to learn Dutch)

Answer 10

a bit late but I will do some 761

Comments

You can never be late to this party. Thanks for coming :-)

Answer 11

I'm alittle late to the gate but have been out of town with no internet access..(yes, there are still some people out there who don't have wireless, my parents are some of them)    So I'll see what I can do.

Comments

I was one of those who held out as long as I could before finally getting internet a couple of years ago.  Now, when the power goes out, I just sit there not knowing what to do with myself!