Improve-Place-Names Are of interest selector

CraigBanker

Summary:

Improve-place-names could benefit by adding a feature to allow the user to search/specify the region or area.

Problem:

Presently, improve-place-names allows resolution down to a country. The experience is that the user reviews many names for regions unfamiliar and is not encouraged to continue.

Proposed:

Resolution down to a state, region, or search results might present an opportunity to allow those users familiar with placed to locate records that could be corrected. This might improve participation in this feature.

PiperTWilson

@CraigBanker - Thank you for the lovely documented idea.

Edited to add: I like the way @CraigBanker presented the idea, using a summary statement, a problem statement, and a proposed solution. I am not saying anything about the idea itself for two reasons. First, I'm not familiar enough with FamilySearch to have an opinion. Second, I don't think it would be appropriate.

Thanks for listening.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The whole point of the "improve place names" volunteer project is that there is no standardized place associated with the text string. In other words, the computer doesn't know where it is.

The computer algorithms can analyze the text string to come up with a possible country, but often, the result is on the wrong continent. (Sometimes it feels like the only reason it's not on another planet is that we've only populated the one.)

Sometimes the entered text only differs from the standardized place by an extra comma or hyphen, so fixing it is a matter of a few clicks. I suppose the computer could come up with the state and even the county for those, and give you your region-specific task -- but I find those kinds of fixes mind-numbingly boring. I'd rather do some research in a gazetteer or two than go through batch after batch of almost-but-not-quites.

(That said, I'd rather the mind-numbing task than the mess the automated place-choosing routines have made of most of FS's indexes.)

CraigBanker

I understand the limitations of the current approach and that naming problems are often a small deviation from the standardized name. This is not the proposal as these misnames are easy to recognize and fix.

To clarify: Fixing names is not the proposal; finding names to correct is the proposal.

As it stands, the feature (it is wonderful), only requests corrections for names within a large and varied range (i.e. country) where one may "stumble upon" to address and correct. Often these names (and related locations) are unfamiliar and seemingly random to the user who may skip or mis-correct.

Enabling some sort of search on known non-standard-place-names (or persons or areas associated with the record) can enable users to quickly locate and amend records for which they have an interest (and likely local knowledge).

The net effect would be to put more relevant names in front of the people interested in correcting them.