Delete/Remove Source Box
Dear Grandma,
First we want you to know that we all love you. However, the poor implementation of your Source Box (i.e. Cookie Jar) is the cause of much frustration and disappointment for all your loved ones.
Our suggestion is the immediate deletion/removal of this function from FamilySearch. This tool is unleashing untold havoc. Additionally, please delete any and all person-to-person cross-links of sources in the FamilySearch database (Not the source itself, just the associated cross-links).
Today, we discovered if you change the title, notes, etc. of a source and the source was added from someone else's source box, the changes apply to everyone else the source is connected to. How could a user possibly know that someone else added the source to multiple individuals from their Source Box?
We are sorry we had to have this intervention, but this situation has gone on for far too long.
Your Family
Comments
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First off, the Source Box is not Grandma's Cookie Jar. It is Grandma's tool shed containing among other things her power saw and nail gun. Accidentally cutting off the tip of your finger or putting a nail through your foot is not the tools' fault. Not taking the time to learn to properly use the tools, including digging through the manufacturer's help centerl as needed, is your fault.
The ability to create a source then attach it to more than one person is a power tool I use all the time. It works great, for example, to create one marriage record source that I can attach to the bride, the groom, and the couple. Even better, if I see after connecting this source that I made a typographical error, I only need to correct it once, not three times.
One thing that is very important in working in Family Tree, a very complex and beautifully crafted structure, is to be observant and curious. For example, looking at the source page I see there are different types of icons against sources:
Why? That is the first thing to figure out before going any farther.
Second, when I click on View Source, I see I have several options:
Why is the first one View? What is there to view that I am not viewing here? Click View to find out:
Fortunately, fixing everything we do in Family Tree is much easier than having Grandma sew your finger back on.
If you made some changes on sources but you are not sure how to get back to those changes, click on My Contributions at the top of nearly any page:
Choose the My Changes tab to see all your recent work.
Find the sources you edited. Go to a person with that source, click through to see the full view as I show above, then click on Show All to see the entire change log for the source so you can reverse all the editing you did.
I will say that it could be nice for these user created sources if there was one more warning label on that nail gun. In the Source Box, we do get a notation of how many people the source is attached to:
It would be nice to have that notice on the source view on a person's source page as well.
If this feature of being able to put a source on more than one person were to be eliminated, just think of the havoc that would cause. Create a source involving twenty people and then have to copy it nineteen times to attach it to the other nineteen people? Then as you attach it to person number 20 you notice you spelled someone's name wrong and have to go back to all twenty people to correct it twenty times? I shudder at the thought.
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I NEED to be able to downvote this.
The Source Box, and specifically the connected citations it makes possible, is one of the _absolute best features_ of FamilySearch's Family Tree.
Really.
No other genealogy site that I know of makes attaching source citations anywhere near as simple as it can be when using one's Source Box.
As Gordon writes, without the Source Box, attaching a nicely-informative (but unindexed) funeral notice to everyone mentioned becomes an exercise in frustration. Have you ever wondered why nobody bothers with non-Ancestry-provided sources on Ancestry trees? Or why basically nothing is sourced on Geni? It's because those sites don't have a source box feature. In order to repeat a citation, you have to re-enter the whole thing, and if you notice a typo in your text, you have to correct each instance individually. Therefore, most people just don't even try. On FamilySearch, in contrast, it's easy, simple, and straightforward -- once you learn how to use the tool properly.
You asked, "How could a user possibly know that someone else added the source to multiple individuals from their Source Box?"
The answer is, by looking at the source: click the title, then click View. In the right-hand column of the resulting page, you'll notice a pane labeled "Attached To". If that pane only lists one profile, then it's a singleton or one-off; corrections to it will not correct anything anywhere else. If it lists more than one profile, then it's one instance of a connected set, and fixing one instance will fix them all.
Which leads me to my own question in turn: what were you doing to the source citation that made learning of its connected nature into such an unpleasant shock? Are you in the habit of hijacking sources, turning one into something totally different?
Now, granted, there are several improvements that FamilySearch could make to its sourcing setup in general and to connected citations in particular. (Better tagging, more visible labeling, and the ability to connect/continue a set are the major ones that come to mind.) But what exists is very, very good, and should not be thrown away. That'd be like throwing away the knife just because you grabbed the wrong end and it cut you.
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Oh, dear - something else I am seemingly not utilising to my benefit!
I am almost ashamed to say I use my source box very rarely - and then (usually) only to add a source to a relevant ID at a later date.
Of course, I add a sources multiple times when using the source linker - well, not really "one" source at all, of course, as each will end-up with a separate URL. I also attach unindexed (why isn't that word in my PC's dictionary?) sources to different IDs, changing the title for each as I do. But, no, I never find I need to use my source box too much - perhaps because I seem to be in a minority of one in considering sources themselves to be over-rated (multiple ones for the same event causing clutter / often being attached by users when they don't relate to the individual in any way except being a "John Smith"/ not always proving any evidence of what they are meant to convey, etc.).
Just proves that Tree_Frog, Gordon, Julia, myself... all use Family Tree to suit our own "needs". And that's not necessarily a bad thing - unless our method of work conflicts with that of other users and causes confusion, as it appears to have done here.
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One of the things that I have always been impressed with is the flexibility FamilySearch has tried to build in to Family Tree, giving people a few different ways to work so that people can find a work flow that works best for them, whether it is with sources (create new one each time vs attach through source box) or searching for people (Find by Name or ID, use Recents, modify URI, use Google, use Ancestors pages) or searching for records (main search pages, location specialty pages, from detail page, from specific collections). Some people seem to only use the pedigree views while other stick to the detail page. Some people exclusively use the mobile app. Some would never consider using anything but the website.
This does mean that we need to accept that these other ways work and may be viewed as vital to other people and not expect parts of the program to be eliminated just because we personally don't use them. Also, it requires us to be willing to learn enough about how all aspects of the program work so we are at least familiar with how other people might be doing things.
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@Tree_Frog, one aspect of the source box that I don’t think has been discussed and may be useful to you is the ability to make a “Copy” of that source. Say I create a source to attach to several PIDs but I what to have a unique source title to a particular person. I click on the source in the source box then click “Copy” then I can modify the Title and attach the modified Title source to my particular PID without changing anything on the original.
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I have a question related to the Source Box discussion - that I think I have seen referenced by you folks - but cannot recall offhand ...
Isn't there a limit to the amount of Sources you can store in Source Box?
So if you attach a Source from Source Box and then delete that from Source Box - does the Source stay attached or is it also deleted? I could play around and figure it out - but since @Gordon Collett or someone in this thread knows - just thought I would ask...
Thank you.
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@genthusiast, source stays attached to the PID even if you delete it from the Source Box
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Yes, the source box is just a temporary storage location. Adding a source to or removing it from the Source Box does not affect who it is attached to. But. based on the original post, I don't think the source box is actually the concern. I think Tree Frog was on someone's source page and edited a source right there, as we all can do, without realizing that the source was attached to a bunch of other people. I don't think he was anywhere near the source box.
It's actually pretty hard to delete sources. They have hidden the link for that pretty well.
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Oh no, I read it as him editing his own source he had attached...
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The original post was talking about someone else's use of the Source Box to create a connected set of sources on various profiles. I don't think the poster has ever much used his/her own Source Box, because obviously s/he has no idea how it works or what it can do. I think this actually describes a majority of FamilySearch's users: people who only ever work with FamilySearch's indexed records seldom have any use for their Source Boxes. Those types of citations are intended to be singleton, disconnected instances. (The Source Box can come in handy if the index missed someone, though.)
So no, the discussion is not actually about the Source Box, or not directly. It is about connected citations. Those are created using either the Attach to Family Tree button on unindexed images, or a user's Source Box.
It is a fact that in the current setup, connected citations are inadequately labeled. You have to know to look for the information. However, I continue to be perplexed as to what exactly the original poster was doing to Grandma's citation group. Why was it such a shock that edits affected other profiles?
(@genthusiast, as Chas says, removing a source from one's Source Box doesn't affect its already-existing uses. The Source Box is meant as a temporary repository and attachment tool; I try to remember to go back to it and remove citations that are already attached to everyone mentioned. This is not due to hitting any sort of limit on the size of my box [although I guess there probably is one], but to keep my thoughts organized. I suppose if I had an often-conflated ancestor with lots of clueless descendants whose mistakes I needed to fix, I'd keep that ancestor's sources in my box semi-permanently, to facilitate restoring profiles after incorrect merges, but I have so far never needed to do that.)
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Is anyone experiencing a "something went wrong" error when trying to access the Source Box?
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