I want to know where my hours of work I did yesterday on the "biography" part of my profile on Maria Denniston went?

+5 votes
247 views
WikiTree profile: Maria Carpenter
in WikiTree Help by Evelyn Carpenter G2G1 (1.2k points)
Please provide a link to Maria's profile.
Did you hit Save when you were done?
Denniston-146
As I recall, on hitting save the bold red warning came onto top of site and alerted me that my biography was not acceptable - - - which I agree, as I was in process in gathering the material and its sources in the "editing" mode.  It was a work in progress, not ready to be judged and found unacceptable!

And then it was gone!

The things that appear in the red warnings are usually things like odd or impossible dates in the database fields at the top of the screen, the creation of new categories, or broken tags in your text - technical errors, in other words.  It's not a judgement of the content of your biography per se and doesn't evaluate the quality of your work.

Ideally, of course, you should pay attention to the message in the warning and fix what the warning is telling you to fix.  If there's no "Save anyway" button, then you won't be able to save your work until the error has been remedied.

You can, if you get a bold red warning with a button labelled "Save anyway," still save your work (but maybe first make a comment in the biography that it's work in progress; then people will know that you're not done yet).  If you don't click that, then the changes you've made won't save.

If you're in a situation where you've done a lot of work on the biography, and you get a warning or error that you don't know how to handle, then as a safety-measure, I would click into the edit window and copy all the contents out of it and paste it into a different piece of software, e.g. Notepad or similar, and save it to my computer.  That way, in case something does go wrong, you still have a backup of your work which you can paste straight back into the edit window later.

Thank you for being interested Herbert!          Evelyn
Thank you Linda, I was very frustrated!  Evelyn
Thank you, Matt - - I was about ready to quit trying to learn the ways of Wikitree at this point!             Evelyn
Thank you C Ryder  - - I suppose I will try again, just so frustrated!  Evelyn

4 Answers

+8 votes
Evelyn, I spotted your Maria Denniston profile and examined the changes made by clicking on the tab "changes". Unfortunately your work was never saved. I feel sure you will find the courage to do it again.

In addition to previous comments, I would suggest clicking the 'save' button regularly, perhaps every time you add something important. After saving, you will need to click on the 'preview' button to see what your published text looks like.

Connie
by C Ryder G2G6 Mach 8 (88.3k points)
+7 votes
Hi Evelyn, Unfortunately it looks as though you have lost your work because you didn't take the save anyway option when you got the red message about potential conflicts. When you reconstruct it try adding the biography a section at a time and save more often so that you get a better understanding of what needs to be checked as you go along. I hope you will recreate the biography and enjoy seeing the full profile.
by Lynda Crackett G2G6 Pilot (671k points)
+4 votes
I went into the profile and added an extra space, just to be able to save and see the red message.

I was able to save (sorry, didn't mean to ;-)
- so whatever the system was dissatisfied with, it wasn't  in the data fields, but something in the bio. As others have pointed out, it would be something of a technical nature. As others have also pointed out, it's a good idea to save often.

Please make another try - and if the red message reappears and you don't understand why, please ask here again.
by Eva Ekeblad G2G6 Pilot (570k points)
Thank you Eva,  I'm beginning to cool off and will try again soon!  Evelyn
+5 votes

Hi Evelyn,

So sorry to hear about your lost work.   I've certainly been there.  (But not on WikiTree.)

Due to horrible past experiences  (including power failures in the middle of my work session),  if the biography is lengthy, I  type it in Word,  which can more easily be retrieved when things don't go well.    I know there's a lot that could still be lost on a WikiTree bio, besides the written bio,  but it might take some of the sting out of the loss.

But I do believe in   Save Often.

by Peggy McReynolds G2G6 Pilot (471k points)
Thank you Peggy, I really needed all these works of encouragement, I was about ready to quit trying to learn Wikitrees ways.  Evelyn

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