Family Tree: Death Event Should Require Sometimes Require a Reason
I wish to suggest a small modification to Family Tree profiles to require the user the make an entry in the "Reason the information is correct" text box when checking the "Deceased" check box (circle, actually) without entering an interpretable date in the Death event of vital information under two circumstances:
1) the date of the Birth event of vital information is blank or uninterpretable; or,
2) the date of the Birth event of vital information indicates that the person would not be more than 110 years old.
The "business case" for this modification is to lessen the chance that a person's profile will be carelessly or thoughtlessly marked "Deceased" when, in fact, the person is still living. By requiring the user to enter something in the "Reason the information is correct" box, the user would either have to give at least some thought why the profile is being marked "Deceased" or actively (and, perhaps, dishonestly) circumvent the system by entering something like a period punctuation mark.
Comments
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When using Source Linker to add people, there are circumstances where an entry in the reason box is required before the profile can be created. They are invariably infuriating. I usually fulfill the requirement with an exclamation mark.
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I recently came across a number of incorrect record additions and merges on one of my families. The user's reason for all that mess? "It's logical."
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Ignoring the pros and cons of reason statements. Ignoring privacy issues. Looking strictly at accuracy of the data: Does anyone have any good ideas for preventing people making up random facts out of thin air such as, "This person is old, must be dead." to help with the recurring problem of living people being marked deceased?
Should anyone less than 110 years old automatically be set Private if there is no death date whether marked living or deceased?
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It is just my own opinion, but I deplore the dishonest use of punctuation marks or immaterial comments in the "Reason the information is correct box". Why do this? That box is there for the benefit of us users. Why misuse it? I don't get it.
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@Rob Elsman, I use an exclamation mark for the "reason I know this person is deceased" when I just finished entering a precise death date, or a birthdate two centuries ago, or similar ridiculousness that Source Linker's Add Person routine fails to recognize. Would you rather I write "because I don't believe in vampires and zombies"?
Given a choice, I leave conclusion reasoning boxes blank more often than not. If the supporting document is right there in Sources, tagged to the conclusion in question, then I see no point in repeating that information in the reason box. I almost never use the box on sources: obviously, I'm attaching the source because I believe it to apply to the person; what's the point in saying so each time? (The only exception is when I attach a marriage record to one of the witnesses; I usually note the person's role in the reason box on those, because it's not as obvious as bride/groom/parent.) Reason boxes for particular actions (i.e. change log explanations), on the other hand, I almost never leave blank: I write precise statements with PIDs for merges, and specific lists of discrepancies for dismissed record hints. In other words, I treat the two conflated types of reason boxes on FS differently: I use change log explanations, but not reasoning details.
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The use of punctuation marks or immaterial comments is not necessarily either dishonest nor misuse. Most of the time a punctuation mark is short hand for "this is so obvious it does not need a reason statement." A situation where this arises is when creating a new person through the source linker requires a reason statement for marking someone deceased when it is obvious they could not be alive.
This is analogous to a situation where I never use a reason statement. If I am attaching a source I have created and given the title "The marriage record for John Smith and Susan Jones," I find it to be a waste of time and effort to put as a reason statement "Because it is the marriage record for John Smith and Susan Jones." If a reason statement was required, I'd probably just put in "See Title."
You may have noticed that with reason statements being required for merges, most just use one of the canned ones whether they fit or not.
So basically, requiring reason statements doesn't really solve the problem of people doing things without a good reason. And requiring reason statements will not keep people from refusing to enter one or just making something up. Just the other day I ran across four brother's all marked as deceased with no death date, no sources, no evidence as to why they were marked deceased, no sign the person was ever planning on coming back and adding death information. But there was a reason statement on all four: "Age." They were all in their 90's but that by itself is no reason to think they were dead.
That is why I'm leaning towards thinking that people less than 110 years old without a death date should stay in our private spaces even if marked deceased. This would prevent these kinds of complaints: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/121296/better-way-to-prevent-people-from-entering-living-people-as-deceased#latest
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While some one today just might possibly know that a punctuation mark is shorthand for "this is so obvious it does not need a reason statement", what about one hundred thousand years from now? Remember, we are making records for eternity. Will it be so obvious then?
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I don't think you need to be concerned. I suspect that those unneeded, somewhat cryptic reason statements entered out of frustration with a programming flaw are generally removed by the next person to run across them and recognize them as meaningless. I remove all sorts of reason statements that add no value or meaning to the data. The most common one I remove is "Standardized." I do, however, check first that the standardization did not degrade or otherwise corrupt the original information. I certainly would remove any blank spaces, periods, exclamation points, "because," or "duplicate" found in a reason statement for a person I am working on.
And, yes, anything that is completely obvious due to being well supported by all attached sources will stay obvious. It will also remain obvious that a person born in 1750 is no longer alive and does not need a reason statement as to why he is marked deceased.
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I doubt current technology and databases will be at all relevant a thousand years from now, nevermind a hundred thousand. When's the last time you needed to look something up in a document from circa 1022 A.D.?
(100,000 years ago, paleolithic humanity was surviving an ice age. Nobody had invented writing yet, so we have no clue whether they kept track of their genealogy. Heck, I'm not sure there's any proof that they had language.)
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