Need a visual indication that places have been resolved as a Standard Place Name
I noticed that the only way to visually check to see if a place name has been resolved to a Standard Place Name is to open the fact and then look for the place pin icon that indicates a standard place name. In the previous version, this place name pin was located next to each resolved place name listed on the main landing page. Instead of being able to take a quick look to make sure all places have been resolved, we now have to open each fact which is very inefficient. If the intent is for the user community to try to resolve place names, the workflow process needs to provide a better indication of an unresolved place name on the "New Person Page"
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Place names have never needed that pin icon and still do not need to have that icon. Place names do not need to be "resolved" to a standard. They just need to be linked to a suitable standard. Usually what the lack of an icon meant was that another user had a good reason to use a different spelling for the place name, a different language for the place name, or wanted to add additional important information to a place name.
You can tell at a glance if a place name is standardized because if it is not, there is the notice "Non-Standardized Place" in big red letters.
I find that it is quite rare for a place name to be linked to an incorrect standard. There really is no need to check every place name you run across. But if you think there is, the most efficient way to do so is to click Timeline. If all the map pins there are in appropriate locations, then things are fine.
In any event, please do not remove someone else's hard work by removing information from a place name thinking you are improving anything by forcing the place name to look like a standard.
Obvious things that need to be edited, such as old imported data from the days of heavy use of abbreviations such as "S-Lk, S-Lk, UT, USA," are clearly evident on the detail page without any clicking at all. Of course, those should be corrected.
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As Gordon says, there is a clear visual indication that a standard has been linked: lack of a red error message. (This is not actually a change from the old version. People just think it is, because they persistently misunderstood the meaning of that dratted map pin icon.)
Also, you do not need to click anything to see what the chosen standard is. Just hover your pointer over the place, and the associated database value will be shown in a tooltip.
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There is one time when it is good to check through the standards, I will say. Currently I am scanning back through a section of my wife's relatives that we have not checked on for several years. Back when we were working on them, the best standard available were of the form municipality, county, country. So we put them all in as farm, municipality, country, country and linked to the incomplete standard. In the intervening years, a couple of thousand standards have been entered for the area and now there are a lot of standards that do include the farm as part of the place name standard.
I am not changing the place names to match the standard. I am updating the linked standard to be the new improved standard that matches the place name much better.
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Completely disagree that there is still a visual that a place has been resolved to a standard location on the main page as the Map Pin Icon no longer appears. Also, the "Non-standard Place" ONLY appears IF FamilySearch is unable to match what is listed in one of the main facts to a location in the data base. IRT what is listed on a source, you have to remember that those sources have been transrcibed in order to be digitialized so there is inconsistiencies abound. There is nothing wrong with taking a place fact such as [Town Name], [State] and resolving it to [Town Name], [Country], [State], [United States] or whatever other country. Anyway, for those who try to make sure places are correct when reviewing pages, this new format is a very ineffieient workflow.
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There is no "resolving" there is only linking. These conversations about place names conflate two very different issues.
1) There is "standardizing."
This place name is not standardized:
This place name is standardized:
There is a clear indication of the difference.
2) And there is entering place names correctly.
FamilySearch has nothing to do with matching a place name to a location in the database of standards. That is totally up to the users when they work in Family Tree.
Of course there is nothing wrong "with taking a place fact such as [Town Name], [State]" and editing the place name so it is complete, such as " [Town Name], [Country], [State], [United States] or whatever other country." but that has very little to do with standardization. That is just getting a correct place name there. You don't need a map pin to realize the county and country are missing and add them.
There seems to be a common misunderstanding among Family Tree users that only place names with map pins are correct and to be too many users who have made it one of their goals to get a map pin on all places. This makes those of us that want complete, accurate place names very nervous and why we are very happy the map pins are gone.
For my explanation of how place names work in Family Tree and how to take advantage of the great tools we have been given, please watch this video: https://youtu.be/qLa5PC4RPPk
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@Conneting Family Roots wrote: "the 'Non-standard Place' ONLY appears IF FamilySearch is unable to match what is listed ... to a location in the database."
This is incorrect. Thank all that is holy, FS does not apply any of its automated routines to place conclusions in the Family Tree. The error message appears if fellow users of the site have not associated a database entry with the text.
Your comments demonstrate once again that the vast majority of FS's users completely and utterly misunderstand the meaning of that dratted map pin. It is one of FS's best decisions ever to get rid of it.
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Gordon, what you are showing does NOT appear on the New Person page. Also, Julia, I did not say that there is an automated routine in my comment, I indicated that it checks what is in the record and compares against the standard list and then gives an indication that there is not a complete matach (I never said that it automatically corrects). I really dont understand why people are so against keeping a feature that was in the old person veiw that apparently doesnt meant anything to them but helps others quickly review a record and identify potential areas of issue in order to have a more efficient workflow.
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What I showed came directly from the new Person page.
Maybe we are both misunderstanding each other and talking past one another. So here is a chance for you to demonstrate your exact practice in Family Tree. I have set up three people on the beta site:
----- https://beta.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/BMML-QWW
----- https://beta.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/BMML-329
----- https://beta.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/BMMY-TBQ
Here is the first one's old page and new page. All the places are standardized:
And the second one's old page and new page. None of the places are standardized:
Here is the third one. Again all the places are standardized:
There is not a map pin to be seen anywhere.
Please go to these pages, examine them both using the old and new pages, and edit them as you normally do to resolve place names. Then we can discuss the results. This is the beta site so you are not working on actual Family Tree data. Everything on the beta site gets erased about every six months.
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Hopefully this helps visualize it better. You will can see examples where the Map Pin is present becuase the Place Name is standadrized against the master list. In another example, there is a non-standardization (no Map Pin) and then once corrected the Map Pin appears. Also, if you have the Iphone app, one of the activities is to improve place name facts which is another attempt to promote standardization.
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Again, these are two completely different topics: All place names need to be standardized, that is, linked to an appropriate standard. No place name has ever needed a map pin since the map pin has never indicated that a place name was standardized. The map pin only meant that the displayed text coincidentally matched the linked standard letter for letter. Not having a map pin never meant a place name needed to be "corrected."
For a full explanation of what standardization really means and how place names work in Family Tree, please see: https://youtu.be/qLa5PC4RPPk
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@Conneting Family Roots, not a single one of your screenshots shows a non-standardized place. What your example-2 and example-3 actually show is DAMAGE to the family tree in search of that [expletive deleted] map pin.
The entry of "Grayling township (north side), Crawford, Michigan, United States" is not marked in red, so it is fully standardized: it is associated with a database entry. That associated entry is very likely to be the Grayling Township in your Place Name.jpg screenshot, but that entry contains LESS INFORMATION than "Grayling township (north side)". Deleting that extra information for the sake of the map pin is DESTRUCTIVE. Please stop doing it.
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Gordon I read your video and it is inconsistent with the standadize place name function that is availiable in the familysearch app. If what you said was true then there would be no need for FamilySearch to have a standardized place name lookup. For those places without a map pin, that name is NOT standardized against the database. In fact a place like [Eureka, McPherson, South Dakota] would not generate a map pin but not show up in the bold red non-standardized; however, [Eureka, McPherson, South Dakota, United States] would be standardized and generate a map pin. I am only showing a United States location and these are easy to catch without the visual indication; however, it makes the workflow considerably easier when you are working with places outisde the US (especially locations in Europe before 1900).
Julia, I completly disagree that it shows damage. If that was so then why does FamilySearch put emphasis on the resolving on unstandardized names? When something is marked in red, it seems to indicate that FS doesnt even have an idea of where to start to resolve the place location not that those are the only entries that are non-standardized (dictionary definition of standardization is a CONSISTENT application of a methodolgy).
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The standardize place name function is not to force the use of a required place name. The standardize function is to assign a latitude and longitude to the place name the user needs or wants to use.
Family search puts absolutely no emphasis or has any function to "resolve ... unstandardized names" by replacing them with a "standard." Their emphasis is only on assigning or linking a latitude and longitude, as represented by the standard, to all place names so that the program knows what place you are talking about and can use the latitude and longitude in program functions.
Here is the difference between being standardized or not.
As you can see from the time line map, if a place name is not linked to an appropriate standard, the program cannot know what or where that place is. The emphasis on "standardization" is to link a place name to the map. There is no emphasis on using only one name from a very limited set of available "standards" when a much better name can be entered and linked.
When Julia talks about damaging place names, she is referring to the unnecessary and destructive practice of turning:
- Plot 27-C-2, Lone Tree Cemetery, 1000 East Columbia Avenue, Telluride, San Miguel, Colorado, United States
which formerly would not have had a map pin when correctly linked to the standard "Telluride, San Miguel, Colorado, United States."
Into:
- Telluride, San Miguel, Colorado, United States
which formerly would have a map pin.
If you are referring to the section in the App called "Improve Place Names," you must never have noticed that the only thing that routine does is add a linked standard to a place name that does not have one. It never replaces any user entered place names with the standard. In other words, it takes place names missing a standard as in my left hand column above and links a standard so that the place names then looks like my right hand column above without changing the place name seen on the profile page.
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