Hints - Why showing hints that are already connected?
Most of the hints that are showing up are ones that are already connected to the person. In other words, it seems they are not disappearing once your reviewed them and attached them to the recommended person.
Answers
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I've noticed this quirk. It is not universal. It is a bug and not a feature.
However, as I help others with their historical Records attachments I may see 4 or 5 profiles in the list after the updates and refreshing the browser does not help.
I believe there is a timer running on the Hints section, because it may be up to 15 minutes or so before that part of the list refreshes with names further down the green icon (pending Historical Records) section. Am I incorrect? My "solution" is to hit the "show all" option and scroll down to the end of the list and work back up until the top of the list gets updated. Yes, it eventually does.
"Most of the hints that are showing up are ones that are already connected to the person. In other words, it seems they are not disappearing once your reviewed them and attached them to the recommended person."
Yes, I do see this on occasion as well. It is irritating, because why is it a hint if it is already sourced and linked? Is it a logic bomb?
A possible fix for this is to go to the Hints section (Historical Records) and click on "SHOW ALL" and in the dialogue window, "REVIEW & ATTACH" appears.
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I've tried to broach this topic 2-3 times - but no luck - and no responses. Most of the record hints that are shown in my case - have already been attached to the right records and yet they continue to show. This seems this should be a high priority - given how powerful hints (AI) have to accelerate the work. The problem isn't related to cookies - which we already tested.
Someone previously shared this isn't a forum for bugs - and the idea was "answered" so the issue was dismissed. "Contact us" isn't responsive - so I'm not sure if there is a bug elevation process.
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Where exactly are you seeing this: on a profile, or on your home page, or somewhere else?
Are you certain that the hints are for the same source (same URL), and not for a different indexing of the same event?
I suspect that your previous posts have not gotten attention because other people aren't seeing this behavior, so they leave it for someone else who does recognize it -- but nobody does.
Perhaps links and/or screenshots would help.
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There is a location Bell icon > Discoveries where records may show up about once a month or so and you can arrow to the right or left of the one shown to get to the others - but they do not "go away" after the records have been attached to the profiles. What I do is add all the historical records to the profiles and when they are all completed I put them in the trash so there are no more "Discoveries". They really ought to disappear as they are added to those profiles. One at a time.
But DavidWilden1, yes there are those historical records that have already been attached and the system pretends they are new hints. This has to be as I stated earlier - a bug and not a feature. FamilySearch, has this been addressed?
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Is this the type of thing you are referring to? I am receiving what are, ostensibly, identical hints for the 1848 baptism of Thomas Wrightson's daughter, Ann. However, when I open up each record individually, they all have different URL references, meaning they have been added to the database as separate records. This has happened for one of possibly three reasons:
(1) The same record being indexed multiple times
(2) One record being added to the database multiple times in the post-indexing process
(3) These being records relating to the same event, but having different sources - e.g., one indexed from the original parish register, one from the Bishop's Transcript, the others from printed transcripts of the event.
I have not seen any proven evidence of an identical record / source (i.e., with same URL) being placed as a Record Hint, yet already found in the individual's Sources section. If you feel you found found such an example, please provide screenshots, showing both the record hint and attached source do have identical URL references.
At least three of the record hints I am getting here look completely identical, but are not:
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This FamilySearch Community system has two distinct purposes.
1) As a user discussion group it is a place we users can discuss the website features and functions, share ideas and tips, and complain to each other. Moderators pop in here and there to give suggestions, post links to help center articles, to edit posts if needed, and to remind people to be nice.
2) As the FamilySearch feedback system to report bugs, suggest improvements, and to request new features. We have been assured that all feedback does get passed on to the proper departments and software engineers. However, this is a one-way system and we never, or very rarely, get any reply back. So don't expect to have any response from FamilySearch.
Reported bugs that are critical and break program function can be fixed within hours. High priority bugs may be fixed within days. Low priority bugs may takes months to years. Accepted suggestions for improvements and new features may take years to decades to show up.
Since we have no idea what the priority list looks like for the website, what seems to be a high priority to you could still be way down the list.
Since FamilySearch will not be replying to your post here or asking for any more details, it is important that bug reports give just as much information as possible including what device is being used, what operating system and version is on the device, and what browser and version is being used. Describing the exact workflow you are using that brings out the bug is also important information. You may want to try again and give enough detail for the behavior you are seeing to be evaluated by the software engineers so they can determine if this is a critical bug, a high priority bug, a low priority bug, or simply annoying expected behavior that needs to be rewritten one of these days when there is nothing better to do.
For example, the first place to start in your new, comprehensive bug report is to explain exactly what Hints you are talking about, as Julia suggested. Where are you starting out from?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Here?
Or somewhere in the mobile app?
The FamilySearch website is far too complex to just say, "There is a problem here," without explaining exactly where here is and what you are doing.
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Now let me take a guess, probably wrong, about what I think you might be talking about which is the Hint list on your home page:
If this is where you are seeing the "bug," think for a moment what it takes to generate this list. I would assume that the program starts with you, tracks back on each direct ancestral line a certain number of generations, then follows each descendancy line until a certain number of hints are harvested. Then the program goes on and does this for each of the 13.9 million user accounts (as of 2019) on FamilySearch. According to comments from FamilySearch representatives several years ago when there were a couple of them that would spend some of their free time away from work answering questions on the older comment boards, the only way to make this work without slowing down the website unacceptably or crashing it completely was to have this be a static, not an active, feature of the homepage.
In other words, the choice was to not have it at all or to have it refresh only every couple of weeks. This means that when the same hint is put on your list and on the lists of a few thousand of your cousins, one of your cousins may get to it before you do so that when you come to the list you find it is already attached. When this is the case, just click Ignore to remove it from your list:
I don't know what happens if you completely empty your list of hints. I've never gotten around to trying that. I would wonder if that might trigger a early refresh of your list so that when you return in a couple of days you have a full list of hints again.
If this is what you are running into, this would fall in the category of potentially annoying behavior that is not going to be fixed because otherwise the feature won't work at all. If I am completely off in left field, please explain exactly what you are seeing.
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I'm having a hard time understanding this quite vague report, since it doesn't provide the context for where hints are appearing unexpectedly.
Hints appear in many places: on the home page, on a person's page, on various tree views, and in various campaigns (special pages associated with emails that are sent out).
It sounds perhaps like you are talking about the home page. It's that correct, or something else?
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I trust this is safe and respected environment where we can provide feedback. I know some are nervous about using this forum to share their concerns and desires - and they shouldn't feel that way.
The record hints are extremely powerful. I used to ignore them and focus on the ones in ancestry.com only. However, I have seen how the FamilySearch hints have even been more powerful. They have focused on fairly direct ancestors, in our common pedigree, and I've been able to add countless new records, names, etc., that are more accurate than ever before. Wow! I see the incredible power of AI to help us in family history work.
I'm not aware of a venue to share bugs (e.g., report, vote and see priority, status, etc.) like with other software solutions. Please let me know otherwise. If there isn't, I'll like to know how and to whom I can request that. If there isn't a venue, then this seems to be the only venue to share them.
Please note that I've provided video detailing the specific problems - but there hasn't been follow-up via "contact us". As you know, most organizations have systems to collect needed details, track requests, see status, ensure follow-up, put in place desired SLAs, etc. So, I'm a bit surprised that my request seemed to go into a black hole.
The hints that I'm referring to are on the home page and on a person's page. I haven't tested the email campaigns, and trees.
Robert, I can see the bell icon next to the profile and message icons, but for me they only show "changes to people I follow and completed ordinances." I can't find other bell icons. I suspect I'm being slow here.
Per what you shared, perhaps updates only occur monthly to hints - because of the computing resource requirements. I don't know. I assumed they were dynamic and that there was a code logic problem. I sure wish it was more dynamic. I feel that the incredible progress I (and I'm sure many others) was seeing has been shut down. I'm going back to Ancestry.com for hints - but I miss the power of the common pedigree and hints within that context.
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When you write that you've "provided video", what are you referring to? I don't even see any links or screenshots in any of your posts, never mind videos.
Keep in mind that FS's website is huge and diverse, and you cannot conflate even the closely-related parts, such as your homepage's Record Hints list and a profile detail page's Record Hints list. Yes, they're called the same thing, because the items on each list are the same thing generated by the same hinting algorithm, but the two lists are compiled very differently: the one on your homepage (as Gordon explained) is somewhat static, but the one on a profile is dynamic (although you do need to manually refresh the page for it to update).
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Screenshots possibly, but "videos" would be a first. I'm guessing the protocols for photos applies even in the context of the FamilySearch Forum, correct (a real person looks at a photo and if it meets all the criteria, it is allowed on FamilySearch)?
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Julia,
Right or wrong, I provided the loom video to "contact us" - since I thought this was a bug and not a feature - and that would be the venue for bugs. (Also, since there is private information, I'm not comfortable sharing in the community.) They (folks at contact us) confirmed seeing the same problem on their end - but they wondered if it was based on cookies or just related to my account permissions. It wasn't related to cookies. I'm always refreshing (and tested that) - so that hasn't been it either.
I tried following up with "contact us" but didn't hear back - which is why I resurfaced the issue here.
The record hints problem exists both on same on the home page and the person's page - but it sounds like they are different.
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I help a lot of folks voluntarily as a FamilySearch Helper and I go to their Historical Records in their accounts and whittle those down. Not to worry, they repopulate over time. Probably according to the Gordon link posted earlier by Julia (and I think that link answered my question regarding why I get notified and then see the record attached before I can do it). Believe me, this is nothing short of awesome and miraculous - and I just love it!
I also get the "every few weeks" notification under the Bell, which points me in the direction of "Discoveries" which gets me to one name and then when that pops up with one hint to add (perhaps) to a profile, there are arrows to the left or right that take me to other profiles. Add, rinse, repeat - multiple times (tedious plodding stuff in a way {access} while with the actual hints, I go to the profile page, because there are usually a lot more than one hint per profile). When I am done with the Discoveries, they do not go away, so I have to manually trash the "Discoveries" notification, because those are static and do not refresh, as they do with the Historical Records that DO show up on the "Home Page" of an account and ARE dynamic. I wish the Discoveries were dynamic, but it is a bit disconcerting knowing that I have to go to Discoveries to see any new ones every few weeks instead of them popping up in my account as Historical Records Hints directly.
The other way I found the Historical Records Hints show up sometimes(!) is in the Family Tree chart mode, in Landscape (Horizontal) or Portrait (Vertical) mode. And many times those do NOT show up as Historical Records hints in my (or those I have been helping) home page. But just the fact that there are at least three ways to get to possible Historical Records that can possibly be added to profiles is simply awesome. Sometimes I think the FamilySearch coders like to perk up things a bit with a bit of weird humor and might be saying, "See, I made you look!" as they watch my somewhat dyslexic fingers dance back and forth between sources and profiles. 😘
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@RobertLeighPritchett Note that Discoveries are called Discoveries, not Hints. They are periodic e-mail campaigns directed mainly towards users who don't get into FamilySearch very often to share with them interesting information about their relatives. Most of the time these discoveries are already attached as sources. The few that are not, can be. Often, and there have been complaints about this, heavy users of Family Tree already know all the information presented in the Discovery e-mails and were the users that attached these discoveries as sources in the first place.
The Discoveries are meant to be a fun way to spend some time being reminded about special events in your family.
@David Willden1 This is not a criticism or complaint about the wonderful work that FamilySearch volunteers do, but sometimes the people who answer the Contact Us calls do not seem to actually use Family Tree as much as some of the very experienced users you will find here in Communities and so are not as familiar with some of the complex quirks of Family Tree. And I would assume that the person you talked to passed on your concern to the right people so that if there is a bug it will be addressed. However, I would not expect that you will hear anything back. If you want more information about what is going on with the Hints or want to convince anyone here there is a problem, then please do consider fully illustrating a specific example of what you are seeing including a specific Family Tree profile where you are seeing the problem. If the best way to do this is via video, then find an example where there is no privacy concern, record a video, upload it to your favorite platform (I use YouTube when I do this), then post the link to the video here. Or demonstrate with a series of screen shots. Otherwise I don't think anyone will be able to understand or explain what you are seeing since no one else seems to be having any kind of problem with hints showing that are already connected.
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Gordon Collett;
The Discoveries are "fun" up to a point. Then they get rather annoying after a bit. When they show up, I do them as a priority, because I didn't know they were there "just for fun" and I felt I needed to get them completed (all the various categories under "Discoveries") before I went back to business as usual in helping others. Gordon, Thank you for opening up that bit of knowledge. I may have to do some "unlearning".
I do believe David Willden1 has a valid concern that does not need to be taken lightly. The fact that he attempted in good faith to present his case seems to have fallen on deaf ears, because he "assumed" a video attachment would actually work in this environment. I feel his pain. There is no apparent direct way to talk about possible "bugs/features" except through the Community Forum. There is no feedback loop that "is known of" by "us" from FamilySearch that gives the format of "Problem Found, Solution Provided", because "we" (those who actually use the system every day) don't "need to know". It is a deep hole that needs to be filled. I do like your earlier response in another thread that was attached here in this thread that gave us some insight about this topic.
And yes, I am another person who as experienced what David Willden1 expressed at the top of this thread. Otherwise, I would not be here. So there are at least two of us. This effect seems to have manifested itself ever since the "new" Home page became the baseline. It did not exist to our knowledge, in the older version. It could be resolved with a little program snippet (script);
HINT LOOP SCRIPT
Has the hint been either attached or rejected? (your thoughtful "thank you for feedback" notice appears later)
If Yes. Refresh and remove hint options.
IF No. Allow attachment to profile page. Then do Yes statement above.
Otherwise, move on.
If attached, timestamp for future reference (which would follow the "My Contributions" STATS database format), so others may know they do not have to attempt to also try and attach the hint. Then refresh ALL instances of hint drops (System, you know what they are) for that instance, to clear the hint queue for that instance.
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@RobertLeighPritchett since you are seeing this same problem, could you give a specific, currently existing profile where this is the case so we can see if this really is a bug or a misinterpretation of what is going on that is not:
1) A Discovery e-mail - these are not intended to only show non-attached hints. These are to engage people in their family history by presenting facts about their ancestors. Since I feel I am suitably engaged, I rarely read these but instead take half a second to toss them in the trash.
2) On the home page task list - we have already discussed that this static list is only refreshed periodically and the hints on one person's home page task list are also on the home page task lists of the hundreds of cousins who are also related to the person. Requiring the system to go back and find all the hundreds or thousands of users who got the same hint on their task list and remove it the instant the hint is attached would unacceptably slow the entire system for everyone. These are easily dealt with by manually dismissing them from the task list.
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1) understood. Redundant in some cases. Filter for effect.
2) Why supercomputers were inspired to be created and used for Genealogical purposes to accelerate the work. It's okay to require the system to go back and remove the hints after they have been attached (or rejected). That is an acceptable scenario. We no longer use index cards, typewriters or IBM PCs with floppy drives. And we know how to script applications that can be tweaked to improve system performance.
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2) This would be a new feature that we may see in a few years but it is not a bug. Just the way the system was designed under current hardware constraints.
Again, please provide an example of a problem.
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I would suggest getting "the video" from DavidWillden1.
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Well, given that specific examples have not been provided, perhaps we should try to create one?
If I attach a hint, it's removed from my homepage list. This is true whether I go to the profile and attach from its hints list (my preferred method), or click through from the homepage list to the index detail page and attach from there. Therefore, "duplicate" hints (if they exist) must involve multiple users.
The second hint on my homepage's list is (and has been for a while) the somewhat misindexed but correct death record of my great-grandaunt Julianna Gálffy (https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L8NK-Z7R). If someone would be willing to attach this hint, we could test whether it stays on my homepage or not.
Notes for the attachment: "Belae" is the Latin genitive of her father's name, not her mother's, but Source Linker can be told to attach it to the correct profile despite the incorrect role assigned in the index. I generally don't bother transferring events in Source Linker: the overcorrection caused by the autostandardization mess puts utter nonsense in the place field and I seldom feel motivated to deal with it. (But if whoever volunteers does wish to transfer the burial event, the location is actually Dunaszerdahely, Pozsony, Hungary. It says so on the image.)
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I was thinking that the Discoveries section ought to tap into the same algorithm used to update the Helpful Hints/Historical Records section on the Home page, since usually that does refresh/update as those items are added/rejected within a matter of minutes.
As far as the "the system would get too bogged down" argument regarding checking to see if hints were snapped up and added to profiles or not, the system created the scenario to begin with, so the hints notifications were shotgunned out. It should be able to then see (as it does in the Home Page situation) that the suggestions were looked at and either added or rejected) and send out a null command stating that it has been resolved. The system is robust enough to track every single "Contribution" in individual accounts. So I would humbly suggest that the Discoveries function be more proactive by including the ability to remove items that have been addressed by individual accounts. This would be resolved by turning the Discoveries area into an interactive function between batch mode and real-time modes.
Julia, I'll check on Julianna Gálffy...
Update: Julia, Done. The Hint for Julianna Theresia Gálffy poofed almost immediately after I added it on my end.
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And Julianna Gállfy's hint is gone from my homepage's list.
So there must be something else going on with the persistent (or perceived to be persistent) hints, and we're back to needing actual examples from the people who've actually experienced them.
Robert, thanks for helping to test that. (I switched the attachment from Eszter to Béla where it belongs. These death records never mention mothers, which should've been one of many clues to the indexer. Another one being that Hungary had four kings named Béla...)
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Julia, thanks for the snapshot.
Really, FamilySearch functionality is really miraculous. Considering all the almost infinite variables, is is amazing just how well it does work, considering all the dynamic inputs from us "out here" and the often inspired outputs by the FamilySearch coding team back to us. As much as "we" tend to tweak noses, let me extend my heartfelt, deep thanks for all that the FamilySearchers are doing to keep things moving forward in a positive direction. I continue to pray for your success on a daily basis.
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mod note - two discussions on the same topic were merged here. A reference and link to the old conversation has been removed. Off topic comments have been removed. Multiple uninterrupted comments by the same user were merged into one comment. Please see the code of conduct for more details. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/community-code-of-conduct
@David Willden1 This is the correct place to report a bug. It is best seen when the title contains the words "Report" or "Bug" and it is in the category where the problem is occurring. (https://community.familysearch.org/en/categories/familysearch-help)
Any time a Community user comments on a post, the system counts that as a "Answer" but you choose whether or not that comment answers your question or resolves your concern. (Did this answer the question? Yes No) When you choose Yes, it becomes the "Best Answer".
Moderators try to read every post created in the entire forum, but that is a very huge task. If you want a moderator to see and possibly escalate a concern, please "Flag" the post and ask for help.
Contact Us is completely separate from the Community, so anything you sent there will not be seen here. In order for moderators, engineers, or other users to offer helpful suggestions or for a bug report to be escalated, posts need to be very specific in what the problem is, where it occurs, what you were doing when it happened, etc., preferably with IDs, url links, screenshots or ways to try to reproduce the error. This site is expansive, so we need as many details as possible to understand what the issue is.
If you want us to find a solution, please provide the details here in the Community that you have already sent to Support.
@RobertLeighPritchett We try to close the feedback loop on reported bugs as much as possible. Please keep in mind that some fixes take much longer to be applied.
Thanks @Julia Szent-Györgyi and @RobertLeighPritchett for testing the hints on Julia's relative.
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Nice bit of testing. It's good to see that the Hints list is more dynamic then it was in the past. Also, that made me realize I better get up to date with how the Hints list currently works. I don't really get there that often since I'm busy with other things. And I found something very fascinating that may have some bearing on the original question. If so, this is not a bug but another example of how complex, well done, and powerful the program is.
Here is an entry on my homepage Hints list:
I click Review and do, in fact, find that he is already attached to the correct person in Family Tree:
If I go to his Family Tree page, there are no hints:
So why is this hint still in the Hints list?
Going a step farther, I click on the Review Attachments icon on the historical record, that document with a paper click in the right margin, to jump to the source linker:
Here I discover (guess I haven't been to this part of the tree in a while) that the wife in the source is not linked to the wife in Family Tree and that the wife in Family Tree has a different name and different marriage date. When I check to see who the wife source is attached to and to see if Lambert was married twice in five years, I see this:
The wife in the source is linked to a woman of the right name and the Lambert in Family Tree does not have any other wives. There is a signifiant problem that needs to be sorted out here.
The hint is apparently refusing to disappear from the Hints list because the Hints engine is not happy with how this source is attached because it is looking at the entire family, not just Lambert.
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Here is another example that shows that sometimes you have to pay careful attention to what the Hints list is trying to tell you:
Clicking Review again shows that the hint is already attached to the person:
Or so it seems. Looking very closely, you can see that the two Family Tree individuals of similar names have different ID numbers. Going to the person in the Hints list I see this:
The hint is there. She has no husband or child but does live in the right community.
Going to the person the hint is attached to, I see this:
Just a name. No birth information. No parents. A husband who is there only with his name but a child with birth date and place. Could these two be duplicates? They certainly could be. I need to spend some time in the Swedish archives.
Here again, the Hints list is giving a powerful message to get researching by its going beyond the fact that the hint is attached to a person.
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Looking back at my first example, I see that there, also, the Lambert in the Hints list has a different ID number than the Lambert the hint is attached to. So maybe the common factor is that the Hints list is showing that there may be a possible duplicate that needs to be dealt with and I got a bit carried away with my first theory.
This may mean that hints do not drop off the Hints list until all the Family Tree profiles on which that hint is found or was attached to are evaluated and duplicates merged or all non-duplicate incorrect hints are marked as not a match.
This marking of possible duplicates via Hints in at least these two examples found possible duplicates that the Possible Duplicates routine did not.
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Thank you so much for delving into this. Are these some of the key insights?
- The hints are more dynamic than anticipated
- There are likely duplicate source records
- Ensure the source record is attached to the right person
- Even though the right source could be attached to the right person, it could be that there is a discrepancy in the source record from what is in the tree - and that should be processed
- It could be that hints don't drop off until all of the discrepancies are processed
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Potentially most pertinent to the problem that started this post:
- Hint X may appear on the profile page for Person A, Person B, Person C, and Person D where A and B are duplicates while C and D are different but very similar people.
That is:
- Hint X is correct for Person A.
- Hint X is correct for Person B.
- Hint X is incorrect for Person C.
- Hint X is incorrect for Person D.
Hint X will not drop off the Hints list until:
- Person A and B are merged and the source Hint X is attached to the combined profile.
- Person C is declared "Not A Match"
- Person D is declared "Not a Match."
This is just my current theory. I'd be happy to have someone disprove it or provide a counter example to see if we can discover the actual logic of the problem.
Another possibility is that since the Hints list is a list of my relatives, if I am related to Person B and the hint shows as attached to Person C, removing the incorrect attachment to Person C and attaching it to my relative B may be all it takes for my relative to drop off my Hints list even though the hint still appears in the Research Helps section of the profile pages for duplicate person A and incorrect person D.
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Gordon Collett, you are simply amazing! That is why I tagged your last post as "Awesome". Thank you so much for posting those messages and examples. I do run into similar situations constantly and have determined that doing merges (and unmerges) and properly attaching - and correctly reattaching - sources to correct profiles is a difficult art to master. And it is an acquired taste and a finely-honed skill, but necessary, as I continue to practice both Genealogy-Whack-A-Mole© and Genealogy Repentance© for those I assist as a FamilySearch Helper. I'm still learning and relearning how to add hints correctly. The FamilySearch Webinars have been instrumental in helping me do a better job and I highly recommend the live webinars that occur each week (as needed).
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