The coding used for "Similar Records" should be rewritten to exclude records already attached
What and why do certain "Similar Records" appear on the Sources page? Take the example below. The 1851 census record has already been attached to this ID. So, why is it appearing here and why can't it be hidden? Other attached records do not appear under the heading - e.g. the 1861 census record, so why this one?
Would the engineers please take a look at how this is working, as both the inconsistency and the apparent inability to dismiss / hide these suggestions are proving rather annoying and unhelpful.
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I agree and would say that the whole concept of similar records showing on the historical records needs to be re-thought. It's fine to show on a record which person it is attached to but to have the sometimes very long list of all similar records showing who those other records are attached to adds a lot of clutter and unnecessarily turns each historical record into an auxiliary Sources page for the individual.
But the major problem I see are the "similar records" that are not for the same person at all but cannot be removed from the list. If they are attached to the correct person you get that listing showing multiple "similar" people with the risk that someone will think they must be duplicates and incorrectly merge them "because their sources say they are the same person." Or if they are not attached to anyone, the risk that someone will attach them to the wrong person because the record page makes it look like they should be attached to that wrong person.
I think all those similar record listings should just be removed. They can be found as Hints on the person's Family Tree page and do not need to take up space on the historical records.
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I find it incredibly helpful to have them there, especially if they are attached to somebody else because it means either it's attached to somebody incorrectly, or it alerts me that two people are similar enough that they may be confused for each other. I also don't see people merging just because a name was attached to a similar source as particularly concerning. Triggering based on a suggested duplicates or because a hinted source is attached to somebody else is definitely more common, but those shouldn't be disabled either. Yes, a few exceptionally bad editors might misinterpret and misuse the system, but this is hardly the only place that's true. I don't want (any more) useful features removed over fear over how bad users misuse them. (Except for GEDCOM import, because those are still just awful.)
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My request was for the progamming (does one call it an algorithm?) that was created to produce "Similar Records" should be "re-coded" so they don't appear on the pages of IDs to whom these records / sources are already attached. What am I supposed to do with these suggestions? They cause clutter (if there are too many of them) and (unlike with Record Hints) there is no way to dismiss them, so they remain sitting there of no purpose, until forever and a day.
Having said that, I admit I would be quite happy if the feature did disappear altogether, as I have yet to find one "Similar Record" that has been (or is, as they never go away) of any use to me - unlike the items that appear under Research Help.
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The confusing thing is that once they are attached they not suggestions and they are not hints. The column just becomes an alternate "source page" of sources that may or may not be for the person to whom the primary source is attached. I'm fine with them staying there if they really are for the same person but am not fond of that fact that ones that are not for the same person stay there as well. I wouldn't mind if the routine that displays them there would check the IDs and suppress any that did not have the same ID as the top record in the list.
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@Gordon Collett Although you make some interesting points, I don't agree with all of them, and one statement you made is certainly incorrect: "I think all those similar record listings should just be removed. They can be found as Hints on the person's Family Tree page and do not need to take up space on the historical records."
It's not at all certain that those similar records can be found as hints for the person. First, they may already be attached, in which case they would not appear as hints. Second, just because a record meets the threshold to be considered a similar record to the first record, there's no reason to assume that similar record meets the (rather high) threshold to become a hint for the person. After all, the record you are looking at may not have even met the threshold to have been a record hint itself.
Personally, I find the list of similar records to be occasionally helpful. When they are not helpful, they are extremely easy to ignore. But on the rare occasion when they are helpful, I have sometimes found useful records I had not yet been aware of. Those successes are far more important to me than the easily-ignored clutter.
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I guess I should have said that they likely would have been hints at some point. It's certainly true that if they were attached they would no longer be listed as hints. Which goes back to Paul's original point of why show them as similar records if they are attached as sources.
Another debate would be, if they are too poor of hints to show on a person's detail page, why have a lower standard on the record page and show them there?
I generally do just ignore them if they are all attached and I rarely go looking for additional sources there so really lukewarm about any changes, but there do seem to have been a lot of questions about them recently here on these boards, in addition to Paul's, about what they are and why they are there.
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Yep, I was replying about similar records attached to other people. Sorry I didn't make that clearer.
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@Gordon Collett Similar records use an entirely different algorithm for matching than person record hints, so it doesn't make sense to expect the same results. A person record hint looks at information about the person and tries to find matching records. A similar records hint looks at information on the record and tries to find matching records. Information on people is structured quite differently from information on records; although there could be some overlap in which records match, it's highly unlikely that it would ever yield the same list of matches.
With that said, the question "if they are too poor of hints to show on a person's detail page, why have a lower standard on the record page and show them there?" really doesn't make sense. They are different matching algorithms applied to different data, so the standards can't be the same or even on the same scale.
I guess I have a different perspective as to the purpose and usefulness of the list of similar records. I think it is perfectly acceptable to show records that are already attached to a person. The attachment data is useful information. When I look at the similar records, I may see records that are attached to the same person I started on, records that are not attached to anyone, or records that are attached to other person(s). Each of those possibilities gives me helpful information:
- Similar records attached to the person I am working on help confirm that this record I am working on is correctly attached.
- Similar records that are not attached to anyone are ripe for attaching. As with any record, they may provide additional color for the person. Or I may discover that the records don't apply to the person I started with, which raises additional questions to be answered.
- Records attached to a different person would certainly give me pause. It may be that there is a duplicate person to be merged, or the record I am working on should not be attached to this person. Certainly I need to do some research.
So I'm not in favor of the changes you or @Paul W are suggesting. The one thing I would like to see changed is to loosen the standards a bit so that I could see more records (but with some sort of numerical limit so that I don't see an outrageously long list); too often I don't see any similar records listed, even when to my thinking there are quite similar records that could be listed.
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