How can merging one flawed profile to another profile help anyone?

Question

Merging ones correct family profile from a good researcher to a profile created and managed by some one else that has created a profile badly flawed can't help anyone.  Why can't Wiki Tree see this is doing harm to researchers of today and in the future and let everyone make their own family profiles.

I know, WiKi Tree is supposed to be a collaboration effort, but when incorrect data is used and no way to correct it or add comments to a profile to let others know of the problems involved in the profile can't help.

My own families profile is so messed up with birth and death dates, family members that don't even belong and I can't get anything done about it for years.This is not good.

Comments

related question: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/633350/need-help-getting-grandparents-profile-correct-badly-flawed

Answer 1

If the profile is open, and you are a member that has volunteered, you can edit it and add research notes to it as often as you wish.  If something on a profile is incorrect, someone will eventually correct it, with sources to back it up of course.  It sounds like that person who corrects it for Enoch Straw might even be you.  You should consider becoming a member and volunteering!

Answer 2

The benefit is that it reduces duplication, and therefore reduces the overall amount of work necessary to update and maintain.

Its true that it can at times introduce bad data. But the one who merges, and/or the profile managers, should be researching and cleaning all that up (which now should be easier to clean up, since there's only one).

One tree, with sourced, agreed upon and collaborative data is much better than multiple individual trees with differing and inaccurate data.

no way to correct it or add comments to a profile to let others know of the problems involved in the profile

 Not true. All the tools are available to make corrections and notify others of mistakes to be corrected. This is a wiki, which makes it easy to edit and correct.

Answer 3

Hi Anonymous!  We hope you will join WikiTree and add your research and sources to any profiles you wish to improve. 

WikiTree is a one world wide family tree.  You add your family twigs to the WikiTree and try to connect your twigs to surname branches.  Eventually the branches connect to the WikiTree trunk.  The goal is to have one leaf, called a profile, on the WikiTree for everyone that ever lived that can be documented.  If two or more leaves are created for the same person, they must be merged back to the lowest ID number with the correct surname spelling.

Your contributions of your family twigs are gifts to the WikiTree community.  They are donated with the knowledge that others will contribute to your profiles with biographies, sources, pictures, documents and other information to improve each donated profile.  Through collaboration, each of us donating our time and expertise in our areas of interest, we are improving the the 15 million+ profiles on the WikiTree.

So it is not a collection of a bunch of duplicative profiles for the same person.  If there are two profiles for the same individual, they must be merged into the lowest ID number (with the surname spelling the individual used and accumulating the data from both profiles) so there is only one profile on the WikiTree for each person. There are lots of other websites that encourage multiple family trees for the same family.  WikiTree is different in that we are all on one big family tree.  

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Answer 4

Three collaborative answers below, all adding their part in response to your post. I agree with DB: “You should consider becoming a member and volunteering!” That’s a genuine offer to come on board and assist us. We need everyone’s help!