Venting about "edit" collectors

Question

Maybe it's the Clean-a-thon?

Someone just changed the gender on one of my profiles from female to male.  The forename is "Abijah".  

Obvious signs that this was not a reasonable change:

(1) Spouse connected to the profile is called Josiah, married 1738 in New England

(2) Bio states that Abijah was named in her father's will.  On father's linked profile, the will extract clearly calls her his daughter.

I wish we could just ban all of these "edit collection" rewards or whatever they are so these bad apples would spend more time on these things.

Comments

Maybe, if only there was a way, those who do speedy but inaccurate fixes, (that could be avoided by reading the profile) are ineligible for awards.

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100% agree! It is sooooo rude when members bowl on in and change things and destroy the integrity of a profile, or anothers work. First port of call should always be an email to a manager, communication, collaboration, that's the wikitree way, isn't it? These challenges seem to me to be a licence to bypass the communicate and collaborate ethic. There isn't the time! It's all about numbers!

These mad dash challenges can indeed create problems.

Answer 1

Your post is a very good advise for those members working on "Suggestions". "Suggestions" are not mandatory, they may be "False" errors.

There is a "501 Wrong gender" suggestion for the edited profile.

The "Action steps" for suggestion 501 says:

"Correct gender or name or mark this error false. And also add sources that prove the fact."

In the case of the edited profile, there was no need to add any other source, the sources in the profile speak by themselves.

Comments

My point was: it was a mistake.  Pure and simple.  So let's just smile sweetly (and probably mutter under our breath) and move on. Yes?

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I agree, Ros. I'd also add:

"Whoever is without sin, cast the firs stone"

I think this post is a great opportunity to recall the importance of point II of the Honor Code, "We care about accuracy".

 Paying a little bit more of attention would save much time in reworks. 

Answer 2

I'm sure it's the Clean-a-Thon, and I'm sure mistakes will be made.  We are not perfect, after all.  Remember point III of the Honor Code:

1. We know mistakes are inevitable. We don't want to be afraid to make them. We assume that mistakes are unintentional when others make them and ask for the same understanding.

Comments

I agree they are unintentional Ros but it would be nice if the profile bio was consulted before making the change. I've had to reverse some of these as well.

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Mistakes because research is subject to future additional finds? Sure. Mistakes because of careless competitive speed genealogy? Not so much. A Thon doesn’t absolve a participant from observing the guidelines of careful genealogy and Wikitree etiquette.

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Well said, Ellen!

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Yes, well said Ellen!

Answer 3

I understand the benefits of and intentions behind these contests, but when I’ve gone to fix suggested errors during this Clean-A-Thon, if it’s not obvious and easily fixable, I always want more sources and research time than I have before I alter anything. And this has been the case for 9/10 of the problems I’ve seen. So I’ve completed very few suggestions. Good research takes time. Timed tally contests may discourage painstaking work.

Maybe there’s a happy medium?

Comments

It isn't a contest.  It is a concerted effort.  We ALL had weekly opportunities to review the suggestions list for the profiles we manage.  If we had been concerned enough, we would have reviewed our suggestions list, made the corrections ourselves, or marked the suggestion as "false" and it wouldn't be on a list of things that needed to be tended.

Since I failed to correct 42 Find-a-Grave false errors, I fully expect to find some "corrections" that shouldn't have been made.  Those are my fault and I can't complain that someone else tried to help out.

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There is a winner and there are prizes. It’s a contest.

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Not everyone has time during the week for genealogy Kathy, and some people only get time to come here every few months, or just in the winter time, or whatever. The only thing that matters is that when they can be here they are here. And I'm sure our individual suggestions report matter to all of us whether we are here every day, or for one season.

Correcting errors, and making changes on profiles, should only be done after thorough research, thorough familiarity gained about the family, and after looking at as many records relevant to them as possible. Speed and genealogy should never be in the same sentance let alone an encouraged thing on a site of which the entire integrity of it rests upon accuate research.

Maybe it's time to nip speed-genealogy challenges in the bud.

Answer 4

Possibly mistakes, but careless ones that a reading of the biography would have easily prevented. I have already corrected a couple of those to profiles I manage. And the Thon doesn’t mean participants can ignore etiquette themselves, such as failing to contact an active, engaged profile manager before adding a parent on the strength of “a cousin’s family tree.” Yep, that’s the source citation.

Comments

That wasn't something that would have been done as part of the CAT.

Answer 5

I have a Male Ashley, Female Willie, and (I swear its true) a Male Eliza all kids in the same family. I purposely put a note in the Bio that his name really is Eliza Thomas Westmoreland.

Comments

Putting a note in the bio is good, but if you get a suggestion concerning that name, you need to clear it, too. You can mark the suggestion as false. Then it will not be part of the suggestions which others are shown in the weekly reports used for challenges or reports used for clean-a-thons, etc. I've gotten name suggestions regarding myself (unusual name) and ancestors (one of them is named Major which came up as potentially a prefix in the name field) which I've marked as false as soon a I got the suggestion on that particular Tuesday. If all of us would work conscientiously to clear all of our own suggestions, there would be no suggestions for others to correct (sometimes mistakenly) at all ever.

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You are 100% right! I went through yesterday and the day before cleaning my suggestions, as I had just found the page and how to do it.  I keep it open in a tab now so I can check it.

The above names were just added today...  Will they not show on the Suggestion page until Monday if they are going to?

Thank you for the reminder!

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The suggestion report comes out each Tuesday, but, yes, if they're going to trigger a "suggestion" it will not happen until then if you just added them. Hopefully, they won't, but if they do, I'm glad to know you're someone who will be watching for your suggestions and taking the steps to clear them.

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A lot of people don't even know the "suggestions" link exists.  If it needs to become a part of every user's Wikitree regimen, then it should have a more prominent place in the signup process.

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Barry, when I signed up for WikiTree, I received a message confirming me as a new member on my profile page from a greeter, Mary Richardson. Within that message was a link to "New Member How-tos." On that page, How-to #6 told me about the suggestion report. I don't know if every greeter provides that link to new members, but I am grateful to Mary for providing it to me.

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I got some links, but not that one.  It was at least a year before I saw someone mention suggestions on G2G somewhere and went and found the link.  But I've never cleaned them all out because that mostly involves  plowing through a huge pile of mostly unproductive FindAGrave suggestions.  Tedious!

Answer 6

 Ole Grumpy Woman here again I said before and a few times since that letting those Frenzied Marathoners run amok among the profiles was a "bad idea" and I saw in response the same piddle paddle basically "oh, they're harmless and mean well." There's something about roads, and Hades that fits that sort of person. 

The INCENTIVE of points or a brass ring or a gold medal or whatever you are offering needs to be examined ... that's the incentive that incites the frenzy and leaves those cleat marks on some profiles, you know? NOT getting the points doesn't seem to penetrate the frenzy displayed

NOT that I think -- or even believe -- my version of Cassandra (Greek Mythology) will be heeded. 

Comments

You made me laugh, Susan. Yes, I’m doing a bit of cleaning. Do I want points or a gold medal? No! It’s nice seeing my country’s profiles looking accurate. It looks like I might have let my team down by working on an iPad as the points don’t seem to have added. I’m a bit sad, but hey......I’ll just take my time. If I’m not sure I’ll leave well alone and move on to those things I can accurately fix.

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Not every member of the Marathon is a savage laying waste to some well-done profile, for which we can all be thankful. But the very FEW who do such things as an involuntary transgender transformation on a profile ... that sort of mis-something (misfire? mischief?) leaves unhappy PM behind ..

I have not looked at my Suggestions recently. I'm afraid to. I don't expect anything as egregious as a transgender transformation but there are times when my expectations are turned bum over teakettle and I get surprises 

We can laugh when such strange things happen to someone else but when it gets PERSONAL ... fur flies. 

Eh. As Ros says, "grin and bear it". I'd rather send an email coated in flames but tech has not provided that avenue of protest to us. Wisely so. 

However, a laugh provoked is a Good Deed done even if unintentional