Imagine a major city with no traffic rules, no traffic control devices, and no policemen. This would probably seem to be ideal for an ararchist. So why would you think that a complex wiki program or app would not eventually end up chaotic also? The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is a wiki-based program or app.
A wiki is a form of online hypertext publication, collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. It typically contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base. (quote from Bing Chat)
A moderated wiki is a type of wiki where changes and contributions are reviewed by designated moderators or administrators before they are published. This process helps to ensure that the content aligns with the wiki’s guidelines and standards. The purpose of content moderation is to remove or apply a warning label to problematic content or allow users to block and filter content themselves. Major platforms use a combination of algorithmic tools, user reporting, and human review. Is the FamilySearch Family Tree a "moderated wiki?"
Here are the general guidelines for using the FamilySearch Family Tree:
- Appropriate Content: Content should support appropriate standards of modesty and virtue.
- Relevance: Content should support a family history purpose.
- Heart-turning: Content should support individuals coming to know and love their ancestors.
- Noncommercial: Content should not advertise or promote products.
- Intellectual Property Rights: They should not infringe on intellectual property rights.
- Accuracy: Photos, Documents, and Audio Recordings may not be edited in such a way as to make them inaccurate, false, or misleading.
The glaring failure of the list and therefore the Family Tree is the lack of any sort of external moderation. This lack allows millions of entries to be added with no review or moderation at all. The idea of using a wiki format for the Family Tree was sound and valuable. But allowing the Family Tree to be changed on the whim of a user has lead to wholesale duplication, inaccuracies, and lack of reliability. There are significant numbers of potential users who refuse to use the Family Tree to store their own genealogical information or stop using the Family Tree because there are really no restrictions on the accuracy of the content.
Two very damaging ways that wholesale duplicates and inaccurate information is being added to the Family Tree include projects that add millions of names without providing a minimum of supervision as to duplication or accuracies and the ability of any and all users to upload unsupervised GEDCOM files.
I am not going to take the time in this post to review all of the possible, previously proposed modration suggestions that have been made over the years because to do so would essentially be a waste of time.
Back in the 1960s and onward, FamilySearch or its predecessor the Genealogical Society of Utah, sponsored vast extraction programs where records were add to the existing data bases such as the International Genealogical Index and the Ancestral File with no limits on duplication of entries to an individual person. From my own personal ancestral lines, this allowed the same information about some of my ancestors to be added to the Family Tree hundreds of times. The present situation is no different with some areas of the Family Tree such as ancestors in New England being changed and duplicated sometimes dozens of times a week or even many times every day. This rampant lack of moderation or control results in what I call "revolving door ancestors" and futher results in my abandoning any research or additions to any one of my New England ancestral lines. Many of the bad entries and some of the corrections are being done by unresponsive and in many cases anonymous users. Those who do the research and try to get these people to add sources or even collaborate are frequently ignored. Some of these people are notorious for their disregard for propriety.
The common user solution to the problem is to abandon adding information to the Family Tree and moving to an individually owned family tree either online or in a desktop programs.
The basic motivation seems to be adding the numbers of entries while disregarding any attempts and limiting duplication or inaccuracy. Leaving the process of moderation entirely to the users results in some users spending more time correcting existing entries than actually doing the research needed to add new entries.
If you need a prime example of this lack of control, here are a few individuals to look at with hundreds of changes.
- Dvid Kenyon I KNQL-7VM
- John Kenyon II KNH4-2LX with 14 changes in the last two weeks
- John Kenyon 273D-VZ6 with only four sources and 22 changes in the last two months
- Philip Taber Jr. 945B-5CS with 28 sources but probably more than 200+ changes
- Lydia Masters 9XPZ-KMZ with 13 sources but 9 changes in the last week and possibly hundreds of cumulative changes.
The list could go on and on. The amount of time wasted on these revolving door entries is probably into the millions of hours.
I could also spend a great deal of time explaining exact why and how this situation exists. The problem is that many really good genealogists have quit using the Family Tree or are close to quitting. I have chosen to ignore any entry that shows a tendency to change frequently. I no longer care if those entries are accurate or not. Meanwhile almost entirely ignores these entries and continues to allow wholesale addition of millions of duplicates. I spend a significant time merging duplicates that officially do not exist.
If you have read this far, you probably know exactly what I am writing about. Can the Family Tree continue exist despite this condition? Yes, if it used merely as a dumping gound but it will also continue to lose confidence in its reliability as a place to do real genealogy.
Do I need to list all the times I have written about this subject? By the way, I have been and continue to be an ardent supporter of FamilySearch and the Family Tree. I just wish there were some movement towards controlling the uncontrolled.
Thank you, so much, James! This finally has answered my question of how come famiysearch is so badly designed. Thank you! Thank you! If possible can you explain the difference between the designs of familysearch and ancestry.com? Thank you again for all you do!
ReplyDeleteThis started, what, 12 years ago? My guess (I have no memory of writing it) that you and I wrote about moderation early on. At a minimum, there should be a duplicate check - say after the researcher inputs a birth date, death date, and perhaps a spouse's name - that pops up and says - "hey, this person is already in Family Tree - look here." WikiTree does that to some extent, especially if you upload a GEDCOM file.
ReplyDeleteI recall writing about requiring moderation for specific profiles of famous persons like the Mayflower folks, presidents, royalty, etc. Freeze the profiles so they can be updated only by an appeal to authorities based on sourced research. Also have a list of those persons.
On the other hand, my guess is that about 99% of all profiles don't have the duplicate problem because very few people are researching the specific profiles. I find that if 19th or 20th century profiles have a birth date/place, death date/place, spouse(s)/children and parents/siblings that the profiles are fairly well done and accurate.
We can't throw it all away, but we need to find a way to prevent mass duplication of effort and emphasize source-centric research. Two more pennies in the fountain here.
Maybe a step in the right direction would be partial moderation.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the individuals I see in the FamilySearch tree don't have the problem of excessive changes. Many have not been modified since 2012. Making it difficult to update these individuals would be counter-productive. But as you point out, a lot of energy is wasted on some individuals who have been thorougly researched. Maybe after a certain number of changes, say 100, the individual could be flagged as "controversial" and require moderation.
An important question, though, is who would be the moderators?
Thank you for this post. You describe a worrisome issue that discourages many from using Family Tree especially those that are new to the work. It is a challenge on the part of those of us who assist beginners to explain this problem only to see their look of frustration as to how this can be. I fear that the Family Tree is becoming less and less accurate because so much effort is needed to keep amending the mistakes made by others. If a patron becomes ill or is unable to take the time to correct the records, these records become more and more inaccurate. Your ideas on how these problems should be resolved are worth careful consideration. I hope those in charge will face this squarely on and find a workable solution.
ReplyDelete