Spring-A-Thon cleaning is great but .....

Question

The clean a thon is a great idea overall ...Admins please note:  However, in the last few days I have noticed that some 'cleaners' are going into profiles to 'change' the 'unknown' or 'clear that descriptor' from the profile.  Wiki automatically sets up the 'unknown' if there are no definitive answers for these questions and quite often its appropriate.  If its a robot who created the profile - with no profile manager attached - then the 'unknown' designator may not be appropriate.  But, if its changed without knowing why its designated 'unknown' this causes issues.  This also creates confusion because the actual date of death or location of death may actually BE unknown...or is still not verified ie; Wales or England or Ireland.   Instead of just clearing the 'unknown' designation I think we should be putting actual identifiable info there instead because once its cleared, it cannot be added back into the profile.  Also, some 'cleaners' are copying already posted biographies and pasting them as the 'change' to the profile and thus getting cleaning points.  This is inappropriate and not the point of the clean up in my opinion.

Answer 1

Please don't be too upset with those removing "Unknown" from data fields--they are just following instructions per this page...Data Error 601 - Wrong word in birth location There is a similar page for the death and marriage data fields. All say to remove the word "Unknown" and other such words (like probably) or things like question marks, leave the field blank, and mark the "uncertain" radio button. I don't know the rationale behind this, but it is current WikiTree policy. The uncertainties of these dates can be explained in the biography.

Comments

I totally get what you are saying but at the same time, its actually correct info some of the time so changing it is actually making it erroneous and the point of Wiki is to think about what we are inputting instead of haphazardly going through and making changes.

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If the location is unknown or a date is unknown, then clearing that information is not hurting anything.  If the problem is that 'Probably' or 'Possibly' is being cleared without adding something into the biography, that is something different.  When either of those words are in the location, then that information should be added into the biography.

Without knowing exactly what profile, it is hard to know what was done.