Identifying locked profiles

June - Master Profiles are not necessarily famous or celebrity profiles. Further, they are not necessarily finished profiles. For many of us, they are a means to indicate a profile whose relationships (spouses, children) and data field values have been verified, and where there are errors, they have been corrected. Sometimes I add source links to the About Me at the same time as I research and make the profile the Master Profile. Often I indicate in the About Me the "vital statistics" of the individuals - marriages, children, locations lived, profession. I also give a synopisis in the Curator's Notes - usually parents, spouses, and children - if I have room. This is because when there are merges, my researched relationships and dates can get overridden or confused, so I leave myself a trail to ensure I can correct the profile a second time.

I work somewhat in the manner that Erica works. It is iterative.

I see the Master Profile as the profile that we should all merge into and work collaboratively on. I welcome all and any edits to Master Profiles, but they need to be sourced with reliable sources.

Many of the MPs I have created are early immigrants to Massachusetts and Connecticut and their families, the people who were the founders of the first towns in the United States (before the U.S. existed), such as the founders of Roxbury, Milford, Hartford, Taunton, etc.

"Detangling can be done without MP status and by using Curator notes."

No, they cannot.

"I used to use temporary asterisks etc. when untangling messes - does MP status serve the same purpose?"

Yes, that is more like. But without having to edit yet again to take out the "so called" temporary markers I'm always finding and having to edit out ...

All very valid points. However, the point I was making and which has, I think, been largely missed is that making an MP of a blank profile is as far as I can see serving no purpose! I'm off to bed!

June - you are missing that an MP with an "empty" overview is holding the correct relationship and place in the World Family Tree until an interested Geni member has the opportunity to further detail it out. There are MPs with a dozen managers, none of them added to Geni by me, but MP'd by me as "the best version we know of for now."

That is a valuable tool Geni offers that is a Unique Selling Proposition for this application. Surely everyone understands it as the invitation to merge their data into it? If they don't, my email is always open.

But I'll only answer the email with a link to the profile in question. :)

Jadra interestingly, in the thousands of profiles I have designated MP over the last two years, and except for the ones in September 2010, the queries from you and June are the first I've had. And of course ... still not with any reference links:)

I really appreciate Master Profiles. When I was new to Geni last year, there was nothing to show me that proper research had been done on an given profile - or that at least the name was likely to be accurate.

With the advent of the MPs, I now can see several profiles of the same name in the same generation, and determine which one has the best research - and it becomes the master.

Without the Master designation, even the profile itself is suspect.

I have specifically asked Erica to Master a few of my ancestors profiles because of missing information that Geni user without sources helpfully add in - when there is no relationship.

When everyone is named John, or William, or Peter - the master is invaluable. I think that even MPs without an About Us section are valuable.

Just don't lock them if they are empty !! We need to glean info from all Geni users to fill them out.

I tend to agree with Hatte that locking profiles/fields requires explanation; But if our ultimate aim is to have a fully MPed historical tree it makes a lot of work to explain each one of those too.

That being said, I have started to put an explanatory Discussion note in when I MP, because it appears that by locking too many MPs, Curators have created confusion about the real function of MPs, and whether they are allowed to work on them.

But, I also read on that Curator Discussion that Ashley & Jadra are suggesting a checkbox options for an MP: That would solve the time problem. Mine would be:
a) well documented / best documented so far
b) notable/ important person
c) to protect from mismerge

As a computer professional, I can tell you that any "checkbox" solution will naturally leave things out and not be precise and need to be changed over time.

e.g. if you have a yes/no field of whether someone is - or is not -"notable/important" that immediately begs the question "what is your definition ?"

Item c) can be quantified. But perhaps it should be phrased "to protect from CONTINUED mismerge" is more appropriate because then a curator/manager cannot justify locking a profile suing "POSSIBLE mismerge" as a justification.

In computer solutions, I have found iteration works best. If Curators agree among themselves on a place on the profile where "reason" goes, then we see what people put in that reason, and keep a fluid list of suggestions that curators can use in the Wiki.

That takes the real world into account, is instantly adjustable - just like Geni :)

I'm wondering why someone would lock the birth order of a profile that is amongst at least a half dozen siblings? When I work on a profile, I go into the edit section after I am done, and try to put all the siblings in birth order. Sometimes I encounter one that says "Only child" when that is clearly not true. It seems like a pain to have contact a manager for each time I encounter this problem.

Private User - I have never had to lock the birth order (that I can remember). I assume that if you have a source that is reliable that gives the birth order, you might lock it, in case someone edits one of the siblings and resets it. I do know I hate going to all the trouble to research and document, to have someone else's profiles with perhaps un-researched data override my work. There are a lot of erroneous family trees out on the Internet. Many of us have favorite sources such as NEGHS for old New England families or other widely accepted authorities. I always try to find such a source, but unfortunately sometimes you have to go with the best you have. But I do a scan of what's out there for any family tree I work on, so I have gone to considerable trouble by the time I MP usually (not always).

Another example - I use the names as they appear in documents for my and other's Polish and Lithuanian ancestors. Even if I have not noted sources, the names reflect the transliteration of the name in Yiddish or Polish or Russian or Lithuanian. And I add the variants somewhere - usually in the also known as field. So I make the profile an MP even though there may not be anything much in the About Me because it reflects the best data out there to date.

I wish I could remember who it was that I am referring to. I guess the next time I discover it, I will contact the profile manager. What a pain!

Barbara, I've never locked birth order myself, and would have said that there could be very few confusions (except birth date contradictions) in that field; but, -coincidentally - I was working on the Medieval Scots last night and had a thought that it actually could create confusion if you were listing the birth order of kids according to the number of kids the father had had; or according to the number of kids the mother had had - if the parents had had children with other partners too.

I suppose the obvious answer is to only list birth order relative to the sub set of a group of full blooded siblings; and not relative to the parents at all. But in the old historic lines, like Charlemagne or Ragnvald - where a prominent male is procreating with more than one woman simultaneously, and primogeniture inheritance is at stake, listing it relative to the father would make sense.

I wonder if the locking you have seen is because two users were using different numbering subsets?

Here's another one. Can't add comments to 'about me'

Meyer ben Abraham Oldenburg-Goldschmidt

Rvk contact the curator by mail, the entire profile is locked.

Private User - When the first child of any profile is added to the tree, it is ALWAYS tagged as an only child. When a profile with one child is merged with a profile with one or more children, that first child will still be tagged as "only child" until someone manually goes in to change it by sorting the children into proper birth order.

Similarly, if there are a string of children BUT someone goes back to the parent to add an additional sibling, that additional sibling will be tagged as "only child." The member adding the additional child could have avoided this by adding the new child as a SIBLING of an existing child. Again, that "only child" status remains until manually removed by sorting the children into proper order.

I RARELY field lock - only if vital information is being changed without sources. Field locking does not prevent future bad merges. It only prevents corruption of data. Like Hatte and Erica and several other Curators, I try to note WHY a profile is locked. Usually I put it into the Curator Text box at the top of the profile but sometimes there's not enough characters to explain, so I have to use the Overview. Even when that happens, I try to put in something like "READ OVERVIEW."

Curators should not be allowed to lock any profile unless they put their reasons. It is contrary to the Geni collaborative method.

Given past history, it is amazing that this particular curator has not been told by Geni to stop this obstructive behavior - when no reasons are given and there is no real information in the About Us for this particular profile anyway.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why this unnecessary unexplained locking is continuing ?

There's no easy answer, Annelise. Different curators apply different methods. We were discussing this a few weeks ago. I was very surprised that some of the curators believe it is not necessary to explain locking.

All curators have been invited to add statement about their philosophy to this project, and to add their locked profiles. It's purely voluntary, but a good guide to "collaborativeness".

http://www.geni.com/projects/Locked-profiles/109

Justin, are you saying that some curators think they have no responsibility to explain their actions to the greater Geni community - simply because they have been given curator powers ? Since we don't have access to the curator-list - could you ask this question of those curators to see if that is really what they think ?

Private User

I totally support your concern ! It's crazy that some curators do not feel ANY responsability to communicate about their -hidden?- motivations to do that voluteers 'job'. Also average users do not pay geni to get others to frustrate our contempts to make the big tree nice and complete.

Let me be a little quieter with the words.

As an average Geni user, I just want to know why a profile is locked. Just putting in, "well known person - locked to prevent bad merges" shows me what the curator is doing and why. It is friendly and easy to understand and makes me feel part of the community.

Does this sound reasonable ?

I think the communication issue comes in when it's not self evident?

Example: Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland, "Mayflower" Passenger

I have only 255 characters for the curator box, and I'd rather use them on information for "merge time" (better merging).

The profile is somewhat field locked. There should be more but no one has cleaned up the overview for us yet. I don't know why - there are 243 co managers, you'd think they might want it neater, jump in, help out? <whine>

So - that's a reason, perhaps, some curators lock. They take the trouble to get it right and don't want to have to fix it, again, and again.

I have very few entirely locked profiles and that's because only another curator can then merge & edit. We do have curators who "hand merge" any other duplicate. I'm much too lazy for that. :)

Some lock it when they are single manager

FWIW I concur with Annelise.
It's always the same with 'authorities': when they explain their measures to the public it's better accepted. It's all about communication...

Just a reminder, too, that designating a profile as an MP does not automatically "lock" the profile. That "locking" is a separate option on an MP.

Annelise,

It's just my personal opinion, but I think discussions about locking should be in the public forum, not "behind closed doors" in the curator forum. I would like to see more open dialog between users and curators, because it will help curators find better strategies for helping.

I have field locked single manager profiles, particularly on "notables.". If the facts are not in dispute (that is, the profile facts are accurate) I believe it riskier to see the data degrade or Mis merge. The issue there might be that someone else may not recognize the "notability" of the profile.

I just had a good exchange with a curator who just had never thought that average Geni users would want to know why a profile is locked. He is now going to add the reason as in this profile: Felipe VI Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos of Borbon and Grece, King of Spain

Justin, for curators who WANT "closed door" communication only, we average users have to rely on curators like you to get our concerns known. You say that some curators do not explain the lock in the profile itself. The curator above was willing to listen. Perhaps all are willing to listen - except one. If we can contact them one by one, then we can fix the problem - one curator at a time.

How many curators are there ?