Posts
It seems like FamilySearch.org is only sending out an email with the report of changes to the Family Tree every other week. But, I can still go to the list of changes on the website and see all the accumulated changes since my last blog post. Please note, that I now have 302 people on my watch list. I count 146 changes listed on the FamilySearch.org Changes to People I'm Watching list and 158 on the email so the email list is now likely for two weeks. The total shown on the list from the website included dates that I have already tabulated.
I should mention that since this post is cumulative, there is no real reason to go back to the previous weeks. By the way, tabulating over 100 changes takes a considerable amount of time, not to mention the time it takes to correct any of the changes that have been inappropriately made. Assuming that a person was actively trying to maintain his or her portion of the Family Tree, they would spend a considerable amount of time spent just reviewing and correcting the unsupported changes. It is a pity that FamilySearch can't simply increase the requirements for making changes to include a mandatory source or reason statement. That alone would greatly decrease the number of changes.
Another major issue can be noted from the following report. The majority of the changes are to only a very few individuals. There should also be a warning level that when a certain number of changes are being made to an individual, that further changes are either slowed with more warnings or stopped until the person is examined by someone competent to manage that person.
Here is the latest report that only took a few hours to produce. The most recent changes are now in red.
Out of now 410 consequential changes there have been 356 made without a source or explaining why the change was made. The percentage of changes without supporting sources is holding steady at 87%. This means that if you are watching any number of people on the Family Tree you can expect to have changes made at that rate. Think of the huge waste of time involved.
I agree with every point you make here. My Mayflower lines have so many changes, and it's just silly. I think they should also "freeze" more people, especially well-known, famous ones. I know they do that because I had a relative erroneously listed as married to someone well-known, and when I tried to correct it, I could not. I had to contact Family Search and have them do it, so I know that's possible.
ReplyDeleteThe main issue is that these changes are degrading the overall accuracy of the Family Tree and causing a huge burden of time on those of us who watch our portion of the Family Tree. Obviously, some of these changes are beneficial but that fact does not reduce the time it take us to review all of the changes and correct those that are not beneficial.
DeleteWhat will happen if they lock those profiles? People will simply create duplicate after duplicate after duplicate after duplicate. That's what happens with figures like Brigham Young.
ReplyDeleteThere is no easy solution to this unfortunately. However I do believe that restricting the ability of new users to edit older profiles would be a very, very, very good thing. It would stop much of the constant edit-warring and nonsense addition which occurs with the older profiles. It would encourage people to actually properly start doing their own research, rather than going straight back to Adam (figuratively in many cases and unfortunately literally in far too many cases!).
The restriction should be liftable after passing a simple test, but it should be there for all new accounts. However this is extremely unlikely to occur because it would interfere with the sacred cult of open-edit. The fact that their own system has profiles from before 1500 restricted for exactly this sort of reason doesn't seem to have crossed their minds, and there is no way to easily get the ability to edit those profiles. Similarly with the wiki an approach on bended-knee has to be made to beg for permission to edit the wiki, allegedly due to spammers. The Rubicon has already been crossed and Familysearch refuses to see this. As a result much junk gets added to FSFT and a lot of edit-warring goes on.
WikiTree, while still not perfect, has had better success at screening some of the bad changes with their "trusted lists" and other editorial controls. I get FAR fewer notifcations of changes to profiles I manage there than I do for the ones I watch on the FSFT.
DeleteIn any case, James keeps coming back to an important point (one I've articulated in my own way elsewhere): while everyone has something valuable to offer for the FSFT (particularly for relatives they knew personally), not everyone has the same capacity/potential to contribute quality research to Big Trees. Researchers are most definitely NOT created (or made) equally. If the FSFT is to be anything other than a frustrating mess, its managers have to recognize the need for a system of gate-keeping. I think they don't want this because the tree's importance for religious functions mitigates against instituting any kind of pecking order or exclusivity among its users.
I agree that a moderated wiki will have fewer random changes but the scope of the FamilySearch Family Tree is such that adding a layer of moderation would be expensive and slow. Also, in the context of the FamilySearch Family Tree who would be selected as moderators?
DeleteYes, I don't think there are any easy solutions. Still, it feels like even a few modest steps taken in the direction of quality control (perhaps automatic deletions of unsourced changes within 48 hours, or the establishment of Twitter-style "verified" users with established genealogical skills/credentials who could have greater editing privileges) may help the FSFT. I like this tree and want it to work well, but right now it feels like it's a bit mired in futility.
DeleteOne of the reasons stated for allowing all changes, is that some cultures don't have any "sources" besides oral memory to attach; perhaps auto-deletion of changes without filled-in "reason statements"?
DeleteThere is always a source. An oral history is a source.
DeleteI couldn't agree more. I spend an inordinate amount of time fixing all the irresponsible changes made to Family Tree. Many of them are obviously incorrect, such as children born before their parents, etc. Why does FamilySearch refuse to address this issue? It seems like at a minimum the system could display a warning message when users try to save a change that will generate a red data error.
ReplyDelete