Did I inadvertently change the privacy level on this profile?

+8 votes
253 views
I happened to notice that the profile of an individual who is my 4C3R was not linked up to our common ancestor.  (This is a family whose name changed in North America, so everyone with this name is related. They have been quite documented and I've been following the research on them since i was a teenager 50 years ago.  I spent most of last summer connecting unconnected family members in WikiTree as my personal 'Canada 150' project, since it was this family's 251st year in what became Canada)

I added some sources and connected him up. I was just going back to him to add the 1901 Census from FamilySearch when i found that his privacy level was changed to yellow and i couldn't edit anything.  I could see the tracked changes hyperlink, but it informed me that i was not allowed to see the changes.

I hope I didn't somehow accidentally change the privacy level on him! Can anyone here tell? Should i leave an apology for the project manager?
WikiTree profile: Wellington Steeves
in WikiTree Help by Shirlea Smith G2G6 Pilot (280k points)
edited by Shirlea Smith

5 Answers

+9 votes
 
Best answer
This has happened to me multiple times. It appears to happen when the person links to a direct family member with a private profile. Then when you edit an otherwise open profile, Wikitree automatically sets privacy to Yellow.      It is not related to whether the person might be living, but typically affects that generation since they may connect to private profiles.
by Paul Gierszewski G2G6 Mach 8 (88.1k points)
selected by Ellen Smith
Thanks!  This is very helpful!  I'm not sure what triggered this in my case, because no-one i connected to could possibly still be living.  I wonder if it is time to ask thru Wiki Tech?
Your best option is to contact the Profile Manager. The manager might want to change the Privacy setting back to Open, or maybe he will add you to the Trusted List so you can make additional improvements.

PS - The change was triggered because the person has living children with private profiles.
+8 votes
He currently has a "yellow" privacy level next to his name. Richard Belcher is the profile manager. Because he appears to have living children, his privacy level may be intended to protect them but you can ask Richard to be on the tested list so you can add to the profile's info.
by Dorothy Coakley G2G6 Pilot (183k points)
edited by Dorothy Coakley
But did I do that, or did someone else while i was working on him? I added 5 sources, then created a profile for his father and grandfather to connect them all to an existing ancestor, and when i came back just minutes later, the privacy level was changed to yellow.  I'm concerned that i clicked something i shouldn't have.  Would i have been able to affect his privacy level?
Can't see the "changes" status. Perhaps someone with higher security can.
Long shot here, but does the father you added have a death date?
I did enter his father's death date: 1926.  

But maybe you are on to something here, because i entered all the data into his father, and then somehow didn't save it,  and after looking all over for him, had to enter it all over again.  Maybe somewhere in that scenario the system was tricked into thinking his father was alive.
+8 votes
I don't think you did. Only the profile manager can change the privacy from open to yellow. (Or in any other way - I have noticed this on profiles where I'm on the trusted list but not a manager).

People used to make open profiles accidentally private by entering a birth date that might mean the person was still living - it used to mean the profile went from white to red. I'm not sure, but guess that with the GDPR changes it would mean the profile went from white to black. I don't think that is what you did.

I just checked on one of the profiles I manage, and changes in privacy level do not show up in the change log of the profile - nor do they show up in my contributions list.

Perhaps ask the manager?
by Eva Ekeblad G2G6 Pilot (565k points)
+10 votes
I have noticed this too. I have been working on connecting people in New Zealand. If I attach someone to their partner or parents, and they were born relatively recently, even if they have a death date, the privacy level changes automatically for some reason. It happened to me a few times which is a pain when I wasn't finished working on the person. I wonder if it is a bug or is it meant to do that?
by Paula Staunton G2G6 Mach 3 (37.7k points)
That is a really good clue.  At least I'm not the only one!

Wellington Steeves passed away in 1955.  Is that recently enough to cause the yellow classification as soon as he is connected up with more family?
I don't think it should happen in general. If the person was made with an open status I see no reason for the privacy to change, unless they are still alive, especially not without someone actually doing it. Maybe tag the question bug and tech and see if someone knows the answer.
+5 votes
I went ahead and changed it to open. I really don't feel very proprietary towards most of my profiles, but I get way too many emails to look at them all.
by Living Belcher G2G6 (7.9k points)
Thanks so much, Richard!  Sounds like it was some kind of glitch that increased the privacy level while i was working on the profile, since you did not do it. Thanks for changing it back!

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