Fake Royal Lines as Abuse
Another contributor created a fake line to manufacture descendancy from royalty. I disconnected the royals, but cannot delete the profiles of the fake characters because they are now consider the "start" of the real line. How should I proceed? I have commented on both profiles to alert other researchers, but this is obviously not a perfect resolution. For context, the time range is the 1600's, not the typical "link ancestor" we see to ancient lineages, but a relatively recent and demonstrably fabricated link.
Answers
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You might consider, if these fake personages genuinely didn't exist historically at all (whether associated with your family or not), and you can prove it, merging them into the actual correct ancestors.
Otherwise I suggest you try reporting these profiles as Abuse (bottom right hand corner of Details tab). The bar for abuse is higher than many of us would like, but it's a good start.
In the end, though, if they aren't connected to your part of the tree, and you watch (follow) profiles as necessary in case they get reconnected to it by careless users, that might be the best you can do. There are big problems with the data quality of the Tree in general, this is just one example, all we can really do is keep our corners of it tidy.
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I wonder if there is a case for a quality marker that can be manually applied to any profile with serious issues? The values would be used only in the case of major issues, perhaps something like:
- Profile is the result of merges that are probably incorrect;
- Profile represents a probably non-existent person;
- Profile's relationships are highly suspicious.
It is possible that the ability to set such a marker should be confined to long term contributors, to avoid vandalism.
One of the issues, which is why I have every sympathy with the reluctance of FS Support to get involved, is that the fake profiles may have been created in good faith by the researcher from genealogies compiled by conmen for rich guys desperate for Royal ancestry. As far as I know, nobody has gone round torching these books so they are a potential landmine that can destroy present day trees.
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@Adrian Bruce1 Agreed on all counts, though if there was such a marker it would ideally need to be visible from Solutions Gallery applications as well (at present the APIs can't even see the DQS, a point I have raised several times).
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