testing reduction of "frequent saving"

Question

A non-scientific test and more anecdotal than otherwise, I have been testing the ideal Chis W. advanced about NOT saving so frequently BECAUSE it eats up disc space; something in that idea seems awry, so I probably misunderstood it. 

At any rate when I CREATE a profile, holding the profile open (usually) I "do" familysearch archives for anything I can find and when I find it I drop it into the profile (still open and still being "created" since it isn't Saved yet) -- this effort includes the citatations (sources) -- THEN I go back into the profile -- still unsaved as yet -- and adjust the text, add some bling, etc and so forth, and THEN I save it. 

Basically to avoid the sin of Frequent Saving I have to SPEND more time addressing each profile, whether I am creating it or merely adding more material. In that respect, there's less of the SAVE action. Meaning I'm not contribution to the consumption of using up disc space. 

And if I have to go back to the profile to add items & sources, the explanatory commentary is cryptic, since not using up space on the Big Disc seems to be important -- and in any case looking at the Changes Log means anyone can SEE what cryptic translates to 

I figure by the time I get through testing this method, I'll have made it almost habitual ... a time saver it is not, but it DOES mean one does NOT use up disc space ... 

Comments

Honestly, this post should be closed. In the original thread, which Susan you were apart of, Chris clearly mentioned that he was "sorry that I made it sound like disk usage is such a big deal" and "it's something that's been on the to-do list for more than five years. If it were such a big deal it would have made it to the top of the priority list by now."

This thread is really doing nothing more than causing confusion by focusing on a single statement in a post that has already been addressed and negated by Chris himself. If you have questions or comments, it is much easier to remain in the original thread, not create a new question in which information is now segregated from the original post.

Answer 1

The only problem, you'll discover, is that one of these times, your login will unexpectedly expire and then you won't be able to save without re-logging in, but by that time, you'll have lost all your work.

Comments

Wow, I’ve waited days to save and this still hasn’t happened to me. I’ve gotten the failed token message after a long wait, but that’s it. And hitting save again goes ahead and saves the revision.

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I agree with Barry that I get the Failed Token message from doing multiple things.  I either can Save again, if that is possible or I use the browser back button and I can save from that page and the problem disappears.  

Unfortunately, for people that have computer or internet problems, they could lose their data if the computer dies or you can't get back onto the internet and you can't do a copy / paste of the information on the profile and create a new file.  

When you lose your login, you can login and usually go 'back' on the browser window, but all browsers might not be able to do that.

One way to resolve the problem during a create or major revision is to do the work in a separate file where you can save as often as you want.

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Oh, DENNIS, of course it COULD occur.

Is there a frequency rate for this "disaster"? 1 out 10 or closer to 1 out of 100? Or 1 out of 1,000?

If it's 1 out of 10 I'm going to say something impolite and use up disc space thereafter, you betcha. 

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Susan, it depends on how often your login session expires.

Ticking the checkbox to remember your login, helps extend the session for a longer period of time, but eventually, it will expire. (and it always happens when you least expect it)

And clicking "back" on your browser doesn't always work.

Answer 2

Well....... I'm old school on  frequent saving. I remember my first disaster of not saving back about 1985......    We were creating our personal book library on Excel......  A power outage made us lose hours worth of work  (him yelling titles and accompanying data to me from the library, me typing).....  So I'm a frequent saver.

As frequent saving applies to WikiTree..... I realize the  "Changes" log documents  each save....  I try to be respectful of too many "saves".... but I don't create a profile in it's entirety off line and then transfer it to WikiTree.

Comments

Peggy, (which means LOL) -- I was, think I still am at heart, a "frequent saver" although frankly no one has produced a stat or definition of "frequent saving" ... is this something that occurs every one minute of labor? or every two or three minutes of labor? Every 10 minutes? THAT remains UNDEFINED.  

It has so far meant I spend on one profile 10 to 20 minutes of cramming stuff in there when creating a profile, which to be sure, I'm STILL going to have to edit (LOL, another SAVE) and in addition add a cryptic explanatory note -- so I'm testing 

What are the odds of loss of material because I didn't save once every three minutes compared to the odds the house will be struck by an aircraft (helicopters and other flying craft are frequent in our area) ? What's the National Average per day, week, month, year? 

BUT I agree, loss of material is traumatic. But no one has offered a stat on how often THAT occurs, either, like is it twice per 1,000 hours of labor? 

So I know going into my test that I'm not going to let anxiety over frequent saving (consumption of disc space) rule my life. I just wish there was a reliable trustworthy definition of what "frequent saving" was   

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I’ve seen it defined several times in different threads on this proposed policy. Frequent savers save after each new word, or sometimes after each character. And Chris never wrote that people must monitor themselves and save less frequently. He just said that one benefit of the new policy would be that frequent savers may start to do so.

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"He just said that one benefit of the new policy would be that frequent savers may start to do so."

 Nooooo, how is frequent saving going to avoid consumption of disc space? 

I understand that if you have 20 words and you edit to expand it enough so it makes sense to the reader, you end up with 59 words, that this means you consume disc space.  (Just as an example). That is elementary and taught in PC 101. 

The idea came across as frequent saving = consumption of disc space,  mostly because the whole kaboodle was saved again and again ...  that saving something -- versions 1, 2, 3, 4 each in its own space  = consuming disc space ... 

I wondered myself why not just overwrite the original instead of generating multiple versions ... but apparently if you can RESTORE a file to what it was (that's in the Changes Log) then that OLDER version is preserved ... which leads me to think that there are versions 1, 2, 3, 4, ... n 

So that led to the idea that one monitors one's own frequency of saving. If so inclined. How many would be inclined is a whole other question. 

Nope, something is "missing" in all this about disc space. 

take a gander at Saving too often?? - WikiTree G2G

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Frequent saving uses more disk space than otherwise. Who said otherwise? Yes, this is because every save creates saves the old version as a complete copy. Every save corresponds to an old version of the page, so every save uses more disk space.

But Wikitree has plenty of space -- the whole reason Wikitree exists is for people to do work and save it. It's not discouraged. The only reason storage was brought up with regard to the new policy is was because of one side-benefit of the policy -- the people who save after each character would have incentive to be less wasteful. It's like a policy encouraging reusing/recycling in your community, without requiring it.

But I believe the main point of the new suggested policy was making activity feeds a lot easier to read -- that's what I hope to see myself. The incentives to get frequent savers to save after a sentence instead of a single character, say, is just a side benefit.

Answer 3

I developed the habit of making almost none of the changes to my free space profiles online because of time outs causing me to lose data.  So I edit them in Google Spreadsheets and/or Notepad++. Then I copy the entire page onto my Free Space page.  Thus I make only one save.  But considering that I sometimes make over 100 changes to profiles in one day, which I save as I go along, I have no idea how changing my long-term saving habits would work.  If the software forces it on me, then I suppose I'll get used to it. To discourage saving, they could stop counting everything we do and encouraging us to earn badges.

Comments

Ah, well, J.Crook, what you are doing is some different from what I do, which is create and develop profiles of relatives and their in-laws. I don't "do" marathon, nor any Project work, etc. Strictly profiling and editing thereof.

On the other hand I don't think you could be affected by the same concerns, if your work occurs offline or off-site (NOT on the "premises" of WT) -- the "frequent saving"/disc space consumption was for on-site (WT "premises") ... in short if all your Frequent Saving isn't occurring while you are IN WT

The idea of a notepad is a "work-around" for some who do extensive time-consuming activity while on-site; using the notepad and then c&p seemed like a reasonable work-around to avoid this concern of disc consumption that was mentioned  

There's other things that could be done -- or not done -- by WT that could avoid eating up disc space and a number of those ideas were mentioned -- but how effective they'd be -- for instance, all the g2g is saved (large consumption), all the activity feed is saved but that's in the case of maybe 3000 ACTIVE WT at this time, but how that compares in consumption of disc space  ... someone does know these things, probably Ales and his cohort

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I liked your comment, J. So much so that I felt the need to expand on so other members of the community can see how Notepad++ and similar modern text editing applications can help. See: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/936148/editing-profiles-in-a-local-text-editor

Answer 4

Asking users to save less frequently is the wrong approach.

The site needs to be redesigned such that saves are incremental, rather than full copies.

Saving less frequently introduces a greater risk of losing work in progress.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about how often you save. You do what you need to do to preserve your work.

Comments

This has already been addressed: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/930218/saving-too-often

Answer 5

I have something on my home computer that is like notepad, but has more function, while still being a text based program. It autosaves   so I just write up the entire biography, etc. Then I just paste it in - one save! I keep it until the whole family is done since they use some of the same sources, like censuses.