MatchBot Monitors Project

Hi everyone! I think that the search parameters are still the same, but I was worried about unfound duplicates proliferating unseen so I asked Chris to reactivate MatchBot's function of seeking/proposing merges. Since we're coming up on the holidays (USA Thanksgiving & winter celebrations of many religions), I also asked that MatchBot be limited to proposing 50 merges a day. Keep an eye out for when he'd reactivated (it wasn't today, I just checked).

Cheers, Liz

I was wondering if the search parameters had been worked on any... judging from this G2G discussion, I'd say they haven't been:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/434323/duplicate-profile-suggestions-working-entering-profiles

Note: Pending review of WikiTree's search parameters, MatchBot will not be proposing merges.

Hi Liz,

Someone asked if I could add it here also so now people can find the G2G from here and find the answers and they also can go from the G2G to here to read everything about the Project ;)

Greets and thanks for explaining !

Bea

Bea - I thought I had posted in that thread about the latest round of search parameter changes. We did indeed make it through the Unknown ones. Then the search parameter was changed to ignore space in LNAB (and apostrophe also, I think) and leveled given name/middle name fields (if I understood correctly, the first & middle names are now compared as equals).

Cheers, Liz

Hi added MatchBot Monitors Project to the last G2G question/concerning the merges that now are proposed by Matchbot:

WikiTree matchbot running blindly around proposing merges ... Jul 11, 2017

It looks like Matchbot is running out of Unknowns and now proposing merges for just about everyone with just one thing in common ... (even if everything else is showing these clearly are no duplicates)

Liz, Bea, and other MatchBot Monitors: We released some improvements to our matching systems last night. More about them separately. One of them is that people with the LNAB "Unknown" will be matched instead of excluded entirely. I'm not sure how this will affect MatchBot. Can you watch for potential problems? It could start suggesting too many matches for Unknowns. Thanks!

part II (ran out of room)

When WikiTree's search capability expanded to surname variables, the number of really bad merges proposed by MatchBot shot through the roof & the MatchBot Monitors Project was born in order to keep an eye on MatchBot's activities & reject those bad merge proposals before they could receive 30-day default OK and be completed. MatchBot MPs provide the human analysis that MatchBot lacks.

(See this G2G post that was the start of the project & this one for additional details.

Cheers, Liz

Hi & Thanks for the thanks :D

MatchBot is an automated feature to find duplicate profiles. When WikiTree search function did not include surname variables in searches, it could be annoying but was tolerable (the annoyance is when it proposes merges for totally different people; it was tolerable because it did not distinguish between current last name - e.g., a married name - and last name at birth). It also is "credited" as the approver of a proposed merge for an open profile after 30 days. With that (much welcome) change to WikiTree - the 30-day default OK for a proposed merge - we did start to see some problems when a MatchBot-proposed merge received 30-day default ok & then was completed when it really shouldn't have been. A merge is about the only thing not easily undone in WikiTree.

What is a MatchBot?

And thank you for your work, Liz!