Life Sketch miss-used to "warn" people
Incoming feed back "Why hide the Life Sketch at the very bottom of the page, we have been trying to get people to use this so that changes are not made to the details of our ancestors."
While some life sketch entries resemble the story of someones life, others are strongly worded warnings about making changes to a person.
Life sketch is a nice concept and fun to read, but has been miss-used to "warn" other patrons. We realize this takes away the "Warning", by moving it from its prominent position. We'd like to preserve life sketch for its real intent.
What new feature could we create that would fill this "Warning" need, but not be too annoying?
How do you feel about Life Sketch replacing the computer generated life summary text on the about page?
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Surely the whole idea of 'warning' is exactly that, it needs to be as prominent as possible - would sidelining it to 'About' achieve the result of making people stop and think before recklessly making changes?
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@Ian H Williamson, thank you for your response.
We are hoping that by moving the life sketch from it's prominent position, users will be encouraged to not use it as a warning and actually write a paragraph that outlines the life of a person. We'd like to move this kind of warning to a more appropriate feature, designed to fulfill this Warning need.
Maybe something like an "Editor Beware" section. Or "Things To Know". Or "Premier Research Notes" section would be more appropriate for these kind of warnings. How prominent should this kind of messaging be? Does this need to be in a popup with flashing red lights? Do users need to close it every time they visit the page? Or is the top section of the right side tool bar enough?
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Hmm - the place previously occupied by Research Hints - that might be possible - I suspect Red Lights may be overkill but certainly in some instances they would be helpful😀
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As someone who didn't like the life sketch being moved to the bottom I can understand that in some instances this has been used inappropriately, however, I still believe that to put it at the bottom is making the life sketch as being seen of little importance when in fact it is the one thing that brings real life to the record of the ancestor. I really believe that this does need to be kept and definitely further up the page so it can be seen.
I understand that there is obviously a need for some form of warning, what about a pop-up when someone wants to make a change in the person page, just something to make people stop and think. Having had so many changes made due to right name but wrong family line, a pop-up before making a change would also stop this from happening.
Your idea of putting the life sketch in place of the computer generated life summery is worth investigating, having read a number of the computer generated ones in my tree I find them cringing and undermine the life of the ancestor that has been gathered and understood. Yes I agree that the computer ones are better than nothing and the computer has to be set to gather certain information. If the life sketch cannot be retained on the main person page where I still believe it should be kept I would like to hear the thoughts of others for it being moved.
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Those are great perspective comments.
I too would love to hear more thoughts from this group.
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Since I found that few people actually have life sketches on them, since the few warnings I have run into have just been annoying, and since I have always felt it wastes space at the top of the page, a couple of years ago I closed the Life Sketch section and haven't looked at it since. I've just never found it useful. I'm happy to see it now at the bottom of the page particularly since we can't close it separately on the new page.
I think that if a life sketch has sufficient details and is well enough written to bring real life to an ancestor's record, it should be entered as a Story were it belongs.
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Thanks @Gordon Collett
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- I really like the Life Sketch section at the top of the page. I wish I had more time to write them! Unfortunately they're a low priority for me because much of my time is spent trying to untangle bad merges. I'd hate to lose the option, though. A teen in my stake loves writing them.
- I don't personally care for the computer-generated life sketches (like those that appear on the About tab). They sound canned and are only as good as the info on the page. The trouble is, they look official--so I suspect some users (especially beginners) will assume they're correct and use them as "proof" for things that are actually incorrect.
- I would definitely like to see an area above the Life Sketch section where users could enter cautions/warnings for other users. I have used the Life Sketch area for warnings, because I'm certain people won't see a warning in Notes or Discussions. A dedicated, clearly visible section would be much better.
- Lyle, to answer your questions above: I'd probably call the section Cautions. If users entered something, the field could perhaps have a light orange background to call attention it. Otherwise, it could remain white.
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I like the life sketch replacing the computer generated info—which can be problematic for some persons with complex relationships.
It would be nice to have the option for a “relationship issue/question” similar to the no Children/No couple relationship fact
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Regarding a Cautions or Warning section, in order to avoid another section that is blank most of the time and just taking up room, how about something like this?
That may be too subtle. It fits the page style better than:
But this second option should attract people's attention for those profiles that people are having a lot of trouble keeping accurate.
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You may need to click on the image to get it full size to see that I have kept the button pink or blue if there are no warnings and turn it yellow only when there are warnings on the page.
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@Gordon Collett , I really like the second option where the warning stands out!
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Just thinking out loud, what if the Life Sketch were moved off the Person/Detail page (the work/input page) and moved to the About page (the presentation page) where IMO it more properly belongs.
That change combined with Gordon Collett’s yellow Warning/Heads-up notice in the banner proposal above might accommodate a few of the differing opinions on the subject or maybe make no one happy?
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Like Gordon, I closed the Life Sketch when the person page was split into tabs and haven't looked at it since, so I have no objection to it being exiled somewhere. It would certainly fit on the fluff page. As people point out, the sort of person who actually looks at that page is likely to believe the machine-generated text to be equivalent to Holy Writ, so having a human-generated alternative might be nice.
However, a new "warnings" section (under any name) would essentially be yet another type of collaboration note, and unless the merge process was concurrently revised, it would not serve the purpose that people (apparently) routinely hijack the Life Sketch for: "do not confuse with..."-type warnings. I'm pretty sure that the placement of the Life Sketch on the Details page is only of minor importance in this usage. It's the placement on the merge screens that's important, and that has not changed.
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The life sketch should be moved back to the top. If Family Search wants people to use it differently, they need to prefill it with suggestions on how to fill it out. You often see greyed out text on forms giving suggestions on what should be typed there. By moving it to the bottom, it will essentially be ignored, never looked at, never used.
We do need to have a boldly colored warning notes field on the front page, near the top. There have been some good suggestions made above. I prefer the Research/Warning notes at the top right column so it is seen right away.
We all have that ancestor that is constantly changed, incorrectly, by individuals who do not know what they are doing based on faulty information found from poorly made online trees. There MUST be a way to warn people before they make wholesale changes. The collaborate tab is easily ignored and has never been used the way it was intended and I wouldn't care if it went away.
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I think you are trying to solve a problem that isn't worth solving. Life sketch at the top is great for setting the context of the record in an easy to see way. Doesn't take up much space. Needs to be there even if people don't "misuse" it. Forces people to see things upfront that are otherwise hidden in the rest of the data, and helps prevent changes from people that don't look carefully at all the data before they make changes.
"Misusing" it for warnings and flags doesn't happen very much, and when it does, is really useful. I would argue it's not really a misuse. However, if you really hate using life sketch for both warnings and sketches, I like the idea of a bright yellow warning box on the main screen that points you to the collaboration section. This will give the people that want/need warnings a clean way to do it without affecting life sketch. But regardless of this, life sketch needs to be at the top. In fact as the tree matures and more people add information to the tree, life sketch will become more and more utilized over time.
One problem with Collaborate is that it is great for long discussions, additional information, pictures etc. but often contains useless legacy info from previous data bases, PAF files and such. It also contains information that is frankly haphazardly updated from relatives that may or may not be relevant to the actual maintenance of the tree. This info is useful, but for other reasons than tree maintenance. So, as I work on more distant cousins, I don't look at it much -- unless there is a reason to do so.
A computer generated life sketch from existing information is great for people that want to become familiar with their ancestors, but doesn't add any new information to help in creating and managing the tree. Doesn't need to be front and center.
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Here are some high level statistics from a quick review of life sketch.
There are 9+ million public life sketch entries.
Roughly 3 million (1/3) entries have less than 100 characters. These tend to be quick research notes like “Stone mason”, “Twin to Ella Elaine”, “Died at age 86”, “https://www.findagrave.com/….”, “MME1 US NAVY WORLD WAR II”, “Cause of Death: Drowned”, ”8 cousin”, ”1920: first names in error”
Roughly 3.7 million (1/3+) have some kind of third person phrasing, adjectives or verbs, that are typical in a life sketch. (Note these may also contain other kinds of words and phrasings)
Roughly 2 million (1/5-) entries have words that discuss the source of information.
52~ thousand have impedance words. (do not merge, contact me, please don’t, READ THIS) All though this is a small amount, compared to the total, those that have these entries probably need something like this to preserve data integrity.
768~ thousand contain URLs
23~ thousand contain email addresses
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So it is fairly equally split between using the life sketch for research notes and using it for stories.
I like the idea someone else posted here of making Life Sketch a tab and adding a section on the detail page titled: Brief Research Notes and Warnings.
Then give intensive education about where to actually put information.
Of your examples of the entries with less than 100 characters:
- “Stone mason” - should be under Other Information as Occupation
- “Twin to Ella Elaine” - should be obvious from the family member's section
- “Died at age 86” - would be nice if back in the banner like it was in the first beta version, otherwise should be note under Death
- “https://www.findagrave.com/….”, - should be in sources
- “MME1 US NAVY WORLD WAR II” - should be in Other Information
- “Cause of Death: Drowned” - should be under Death.
- ”8 cousin” - since totally meaningless in the context of Family Tree and should be deleted.
- ”1920: first names in error” - should be in the reason statement for that census under Other Information.
That is a pretty high percentage of things that should not be in the Life Sketch section. If that percentage holds across the board, there is a huge amount of cleaning up people need to be doing.
Likewise people need to be cleaning up notes and moving the ones that are actually biographical essays somewhere else. An editable by everyone Stories-like section might be good for the notes that are not really notes. This could be for things like the "Note" under my great-grandfather that is a full transcription of his obituary.
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I just wrote a rather LONG message in the feedback box complaining about exactly this. I didn't realize these message boards existed, so I apologize to the person who had to read my tale of frustration. 🙄
I like the idea of the lifesketch being used only for an actual sketch. I also agree it would fit on the 'fluff page'. I also have concern about the machine-generated text & think people won't look deeper, especially when they should.
I have absolutely used the lifesketch to warn people to not make the same erroneous changes over & over. More than once. I can think of more than a few profiles that I have to watch & go back and make the same corrections again & again. This is exactly why the machine-generated text is not a good idea.
My experience is that, if it's a button someone has to click on, even if it seems to say WARNING very loudly, people won't click on it. Especially if they've somehow made it to the Merge screen. It will be completely missed.
I've seen on other sites where people will manually add... "Not to be confused with 'link to person's name'" at the top of the page. Right there. So it's very clear that this is a known issue that we are attempting to prevent.
Even better if we could add several of these. I can think of specific instances where I would need more than one.
Maybe these links could be included on the top of the merge screen? It could say... 'Before you merge, please look at these profiles'?
Also, maybe something right there in the edit box for names, birth & death dates. A red stop sign icon with a notes section? It could simply say... this person's birth date is not xx/xx/xxxx. That belongs to 'link to person'. And this can get translated onto the merge page & show up next to these fields?
The problem also lies in the fact that one small change snowballs. There is no way to sort of 'set in stone' who a person is. Some of these profiles were created back in 2012 with the original import. Then, years later, someone comes along & confuses them with someone else & makes a small change and then the next person comes along and, instead of changing it back, they go into the person's parents & spouses and make changes to them to make them fit who the person has become instead of who they were in the beginning. I've seen people who were created from birth records in England be changed into an entire family who lived their whole lives in North Carolina.
Is there a way to make it obvious what the original information was when the person was first created so that this doesn't happen? I know there is a 'Restore' button in the 'Recent Changes' page, which is actually really great, but I'm pretty sure most people have no idea that exists.
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@lyleblunttoronto1, are there similar rough numbers available for the existing collaboration tab? Does it get used less or more than the Life Sketch?
Ever since I found out (a day or so ago) that the Life Sketch (if non-empty) is shown at the top of the first two merge screens, whereas the entire Collaboration tab just gets invisibly combined in a merge, I've been thinking that we've been concentrating on the wrong area: the location of Collaboration and Life Sketch on the profile is largely immaterial compared to the vast difference between those sections during a merge. One is completely invisible, the other is front and center on two screens out of three.
I think the way to get people to actually use the collaboration section -- and to stop misusing the Life Sketch -- is to give the collaboration tools better visibility. They should never be invisible, especially not during a complicated-to-undo action like a merge. Introducing yet another type of collaboration note is definitely not the answer. That's like buying a new light fixture instead of installing a working lightbulb in the existing fixture.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi I would also be curious to see those numbers.
I agree, adding other types of collaborative tools to try to alert people, but then leaving the Notes & Discussions tab the way it is doesn't makes sense. The collaboration section doesn't seem to be living up to its potential. Making it more visible, especially during a merge, could encourage people to use it & help prevent this same erroneous data from being entered over & over again.
I would have to say, though, that I wouldn't expect just making Notes & Discussions more visible would be enough. There are so many newbies in the tree. And so many other trees on the internet propagating errors that are then copied to this tree. People just seem to want to upload a GEDCOM or jump in & enter what they think they know before they even look around or even understand that there are already sources attached. It's going to take some strong messaging to keep people from reintroducing this faulty data. Something that's really going to interrupt them as they're doing it.
So... maybe make the Notes & Discussions sections really an active & visible part of the page and also the merge, but also incorporate some extra components that we can use when we already know exactly what erroneous data people are going to want to introduce into a page. Or a place to make it clear that there is another person with similar names & dates that often gets convoluted and provide a place to direct people to their page?
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi Making notes and discussions visible during a merge is an excellent idea.
To the group: How else can we make the notes and discussions a more active part of the details page?
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I don't mind life sketch being moved but you need to enhance some other form of collaboration.
I try to make this point over and over: this is a COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT. And here is where I intend to be shouting: A VERY VISIBLE, TOP OF THE PAGE, POD, NOT A LINK IN THE CORNER, NEEDS TO BE THE FIRST THING PEOPLE SEE ON THE NEW PERSON PAGE. FIRST THING. FIRST THING. Think of the "latest changes" pod where the 3 most recent changes are visible and you can click "see all". That kind of display needs to be at the top with the 3 latest discussions and 3 latest notes. NOT a link.
You MUST support collaboration in your design and if you fail to do so by keeping the new person page as it is now, you will double (or worse) the number of finger pointing spats over changes because people can't easily see the discussion on why a change was made. They will react first and maybe never check collaboration or life sketch.
And here is a promise from me: when I have important information to convey, I will probably start putting it in the notes associated with Name in detail view since that is at the top. Likely it will be short and sweet with a "see discussions or notes or see lifesketch", but at least it will be first thing at the top if you don't fix this. Talk about hyjacking, that truly is, but hyjacking of something shouldn't be the concern. Communication should be. Please stop losing focus on the importance of enabling collaboration.
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I would be pleased with revamping the Details, Life Sketch, About and Collaborate areas as follows:
Life Sketch could be moved from the Details section to "The Life Summary of..." area in the About section; and if there is current legitimate Life Sketch verbiage, it could be migrated and appended to the computer generated segment and include a MORE option where the editable pop-up version of the persons life can be displayed (print option for the Life Sketch?) The About section is almost an overkill sketch/summary of a person's life, with the photos, timeline, sources, family and other information, so it appears moving Life Sketch from Details to About would be more than sufficient. Replacing the verbiage "The Life Summary of..." with "Life Sketch of..." would appear to flag and give consistency to the change also.
Collaborate ideas already mentioned have much promise to fulfill the prudent "notes" and "discussions" placed in the misused Life Sketch section. If, upon opening a Person page, the Collaborate side panel suggested would automatically open, especially if there were existing discussion/notes already included, then that could possibly get the attention needed to fulfill it's intended purpose. It may even be prudent to auto-open the Collaborate section in the side panel and require user intervention to close the screen, so the user would be fully aware of it's utility. It would appear renaming would not give the flow from current to new format that is needed, so continuing with Collaborate seems very appropriate, with the "warning" sign in tandem as proposed.
Simplification, familiarity and continuity are key with such a major change as is being proposed, because no one wants to read a users manual....
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Ottley BQ You have a very interesting suggestion. I just looked at the About page, and I wonder why the Life Summary (which can't be edited) shouldn't sit side by side next to the Life Sketch (which CAN be edited)? In other words, move Life Sketch to the top of the About tab. lyleblunttoronto1 That would satisfy so many complaints! However, I still say the notes and discussions need to be displayed at the right side of the Details page, opened up for the first 3 in a pod similar to the Latest Changes pod. And please put in the coding to honor formatting rather than smash it to one text block.
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We are looking into combining life summary and life sketch features together.
We’ll continue to make the formatting work in all notes sections.
I like the idea of showing collaborate automatically. We have to consider how this experience would be for the mobile user. About half of our users are on some kind of mobile device that may not have the screen real-estate.
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lyleblunttoronto1 Combining Life summary and life sketch would make many people happy, if the autogenerated text can be edited. That is how Ancestry does it. Not saying that is the standard, but text is generated which I can add to or remove.
Ah, the mobile user. I thought as much. I wonder how many of them are participating in this forum and giving you feedback? I tried the mobile apps for both FamilySearch and Ancestry. I didn't like either and deleted them both. LOL.
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I’m a mobile user, and I follow this group.
love the mobile apps, but they are more fun on a larger tablet 🙂
On an iPhone 12 I see the Life sketch, timeline just below it—so everything is visible just smaller and maybe arranged differently.
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@lyleblunttoronto1, about your observation that about half of the users are on mobile devices. But the functions those users perform on their respective devices are likely different. I can't image me doing the "genealogy" part of family tree on a mobile device. IMO the capabilities and strengths & weaknesses of desktop vs mobile are far apart. I use two monitors now and wish I had 3 sometimes. I would suggest that maybe balancing the two is a compromise too far.
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