Announcing Curators

My dad is a retired university world heritage museum curator so partly because of that I like the idea.

A little reminder to all active mergers:
Our Naming Conventions
http://www.geni.com/discussions/6000000007295742137

(Note: written down by me, but based on what we do, not my ideas only)

Hahahaah, Brox 007.

@shmuel no they arent working on the big tree, they want out of it and think they will get out by unstacking everything. i have had lengthy conversations with them but they wont stop

Strange error

Unable to complete merge: Profile id#6000000001353933085 has been merged into a different profile

Unable to complete merge: Profiles missing

Found in a new loaded merge center - what does this mean,
How can a merge already been done, I have loaded the page only seconds ago
and how can a profile be missing, when the profiles is missing there is no merge issue or!!!

when do you use yes merge these profiles and when request
And why do I end up in my own merge center after having done a merge in another center,
And finally where do the conflicting data go

I'm too one of curators

any wish and help about Carolingians, Estonians, Merovingians, Trojans are welcome.

I spend all my forces to correct and clean those parts (and related)

Henn

A public discussion Curators Needed sounds like a good idea. We need central areas to go for help and if someone posts in the wrong discussion, the post can be forwarded.

I am a curator as well.

Although I am mostly known for my silent, stealth method of swooping in and magically fixing troubled branches overnight while the profile owners sleep, I will chime in here and admit that I am one of the curators as well.

I'm always happy to help wherever I can. The main lines of my research are centered around the Colby, Morril and Morin branches, and hundreds of other lines/names that intersect those. I'm currently trying to sort out the Chase and Stevens branches, which are quite messed up in several places.

Since curators can "Convert historical living profiles to deceased" (both zombies and regular private profiles, I presume), where do I post to get them converted? I run across quite a few messing up the merges.

In other words, do I keep posting them on the "zombies" thread, or do we start a new one? "Private historical profiles" are not the same as zombies (although quite as annoying).

I have the same problem as Günter Kipp:
"Unable to complete merge: Profile id#6000000002909247552 has been merged into a different profile" this is the first of four on my first page of mergeissues and the profile docent disappear from the list.

I do as well but I don't think this is the right thread to report the issue. :)

Hi, everyone! I'm a curator, too, and I look forward to helping get this knotted tree untangled.

I have many historical and geographical areas of interest, but I think I'll focus on the Anglo-Normans for the time being. These are the French families who came to England after 1066. There are many confusing family lineages, not the least of which are the d'Aubigny families (there are actually two unrelated family lines that well-intentioned folks keep trying to merge together), the de Tosny/Toeni/Toni, de Grentmesnil/Grandmesnil, de Taillebois, and so many more. Most of them have French names--please keep the "de" (small d) in the surname category and not in the middle name category.

This area needs a lot of work and will take some time to get cleaned up, but I know a bunch of you are good hard workers and I enjoy collaborating with you.

I would like to see us put source material from medieval historical research materials in the About Me sections of profiles--I use the FMG Medieval Lands database as the arbitrar of disputes in most cases (http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/index.htm).

Hello y'all,
call me Ishmael, or Agent 0013, as I too am a Curator. The primary areas I work on are the Biblical tree (see Adam of Eden ), and other parts of the historical Jewish Tree. I can (and have) gladly help pretty much anywhere, if told what needs doing. Presently I am also the Curators furthest to the East, so I will most likely be first to respond, unless you're in California and I'm sound asleep (as I should be now at 1:30 am).

Erica,
regarding zombies/private profiles, I suggest we all keep on posting those to Noah's zombies thread: http://www.geni.com/discussions/6000000008897331095 some of us follow it already (and have been helping behind scenes), and it's a known point-of-contact.

Yay! Finally, exactly what I requested ~ 2 years ago!

I'm so glad Shmuel is a curator now - he's helped me many times in the past.

Of course, I'd be happy to volunteer as well (historical Jewish tree, but mostly the more "recent" part of it, 1600's+.

Hi Pam,

Congratulations on the curatorship. I'd enjoy helping you in Anglo Norman knights. I did a little de Grentmesnil/Grandmesnil and de Taillebois cleanup / de-tangling, including changing the capital De's to small de's and putting them in the last name field.

I have taken the attitude, "If I change anything I prove it" by adding a source reference to the overview tab, and I'm just sorry I haven't done that with all profiles I created from day one. So eventually I expect to have a reference on everything with my name on it.

Oh...so this is what you were talking about, Jason Scott Wills. I had not seen this thread till just now.

I heard a hint but did not see this thread till now! Great News! Better still when protections can be put into place. Obviously I would be prepared to be a curator as I was in the initial group who made the proposal.

I too am now a curator,(thanks Noah) and will remain in my area of knowledge for the moment i.e. thePlantagenets and their immediate ancestors namely Henry I and William I.(where I'll probably overlap with Anne Marit). The shame is that my holidays are nearly over but with some time we should be able to rearrange this tree into a well known phrase or saying.

Glad to see this finally in Place. Let me know how I can help

Some thoughts from me after being at this for a while

THINGS PEOPLE CAN DO TO HELP

1. Look for and respect the occasional "Work in progress" messages from Curators for some difficult areas - we're doing our best to fix these. They are temporary :-)

2. Avoid using Hot matches to merge - most bad errors seem to be initiated by these

3. Be VERY careful when linking profiles to be merged. The wrong merges and errors happening out there are absolutely incredible ...

4. Always open all the profiles involved in a conflict and read the information BEFORE linking them to be merged (learn to use multiple tabs if you don't already)

5. Open profiles and try to REDUCE stacks, checking carefully if the profiles stacked are really the same. There are a LOT of bad stacks out there with many different people linked to be merged. Unlink and/or ask for help. These "bad stacks" usually lead to a lot more bad linking. (Post the remaining merges to our upcoming "Curators needed" thread - will be up soon.)

6. Tell Curators what areas you are or will be working on to avoid chaos caused by several people involved in the same lines simultaneously. Important for the "busy" lines of the tree only, i.e where there are many managers and errors/issues.

7. Stick to areas that you know very well, and start reading/studying before entering a "new" area - educate yourselves :-)

8. Avoid (and delete) references to private websites and your own private Gedcom-notes as "sources" - use PRIMARY sources and where is exists: scholarly articles. A Rootsweb or LDS page is NOT a "source" - some of these are the cause for some very wrong connections out there.

9. Read and start Public Discussions for profiles where there are questions about connections etc. A lot of the time somebody can help. (Tip: profile names/areas etc in Topic, not just "Who are the parents?" - that way we know what area you are talking about without everyone having to read everything.)

10. Read our Naming Conventions, and leave Name conflicts to Curators/main managers (normally: keep data from Main). If a name looks weird you might want to ask why instead of changing it.

Area needing a dedicated worker:

The Counts of Flanders
http://www.geni.com/discussions/6000000007692863125

I don't think the area itself is particulary difficult, but there might be mix-ups of generations (very common) and NB Judith de Flandre who should be left alone at the moment as there is a parent issue reported to Geni Help.

Anyone up for this challenge?

Marit,

Thank you for your usual clear directions, they are really helpful. A couple of questions.

I am mostly working in "early America" at the moment with dips on back to England (and sometimes fancifully to the Royals). My emphasis is de-tangling and consolidating down the duplicates.

When I'm faced with a conflict, I try and figure out why the manager created the relationships they did. They often back source to rootsweb pages or LDS records (and conflicts with differing interpretations on differing "hobbyist" websites). I can't always *quickly* find a good URL with primary data referred to, so I reference the information seemingly used and put that in the "overview" tab.

To me, this caveats the quality of the data so it can be revisited and enriched later on, but meanwhile I've at least got something in there as a reference, and I can progress on to working on the bigger snarls and more popular historical figures in the line.

Is this OK as a methodology? I should mention I'm a PRO user and use those rights for disinheritances and divorces. :)

My other question is about how to let curators know where we're currently working.

I'm off to read "The Visitations of England and Wales."

How do we know who the Curators are for a particular profile?

Not for specific profiles, but we will come with a short presentation of "The Dirty Dozen, with license to kill and merge" when ready, where we pinpoint which areas we have our main interests.

Some of us will probably also start a separate public discussion for those areas where you can post your merge stacks you need out help for.

To tell where we are currently working is difficult and we discuss how now, but AnneMa have started to rename profiles to "WORK ON PROGRESS" and similar and if you find such a profile please back out and don't try to help ;-)

You may also find "Curators Note" on some profiles in the merge window where we warn about common errors.

Angus,

If I'm following correctly, most are dividing into historical zones (with overlap of course). But they also sort of consider themselves a SWAT team and may swarm an area that needs focus -- or respond to a request for help.

I think the "Curators Needed" thread to come will clarify most of it.

Angus, that system hasn't yet been developed but is in the works. Right now each of us is working in a particular area (and has announced it in this discussion). The main new tool that we do have so far is the ability to insert a Curator's Note that currently shows up on the comparison profile during Merge Pendings. This might be used to say "This person is the daughter of X and not Y" or "Please don't merge this person with Z, who has a similar name and is commonly confused with him." Also, as Anne Marit has mentioned, some people who are working on particularly knotty problems are inserting "WORK IN PROGRESS" or something similar into the profile name to ask people to hold off on merging in those area until the curator reconstructs of cleans up the area.

Hope this helps! Thanks for all your hard work.

Hi Pam,

What does this mean?

2. Avoid using Hot matches to merge - most bad errors seem to be initiated by these

What are "Hot" matches?

- Thanks

Er sorry, that question is for:

Anne