Suggestion to improve collaboration and document quality of record in Family Tree

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Let me again suggest FamilySearch opt for swapping Life Sketch with Collaboration and replace it with RESEARCH NOTES. Make it a continuing list of user's research notes, explanations, conclusions, etc. and restrict them from deletion, but allow continuing comments and discussion.

Then provide the ability to link the page to multiple members of a family as most research becomes family, rather than individual.

RESEARCH NOTES would then be at the top of the PID page to reflect the importance of a continuing collection of HOW the vital information was found, analyzed, deciphered and decided.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Many of those Notes expand on a particular Vital. The FSFT user interface would look tidier if they could be shifted to be, in some fashion, subsidiary to the Vital in question. This is, of course, a standard way in GEDCOM based software, to encode Notes. That would be additional to Notes held at the Profile level.

Well, I think that it would be tidier. It also doesn't solve Jeff's objection to multi purpose notes ending up in chaos, but at least it might be tidier chaos. Bit late for this guy, though.

One interesting thing - Jeff shows what appears to be an edit war between one guy who thinks we know the exact date of birth and another who appears to be adamant that we can't be that exact. Could the note / collaboration features of FSFT be expanded in some fashion to make it easier to agree to disagree? Just a thought.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Re the edit war - this is where the contention that FSFT is just like Wikipedia falls down - in Wikipedia, that would be resolved by a sentence like "He was born about YYYY in .... although some sources give an exact date of DD MMM YYYY". Again, just thinking out loud.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said:

The FSFT user interface would look tidier if they could be shifted to be, in some fashion, subsidiary to the Vital in question

So here is yet ANOTHER reason that we should have the ability to tag Notes to the vitals in exactly the same way that sources are tagged to vitals. You would simply add the tagged notes to this screen:



This has another added benefit in that when you change the content of a vital and you have documented your derivation logic in a note, When you fill out the inappropriately named "Reason This Information Is Correct" box (it should be called the "Reason this CHANGE is being made" box) you can easily reference the note that the complete derivation logic is located in. This way you don't get the reason for changing the vital mixed up with the Derivation logic or "Proof" for the vital's value. These are two totally different things. Now you won't have to go digging through the change history logs to find the total derivation logic for a given vital. It's attached direct to that vital in the form of a note the same way the the sources which feed the derivation logic are attached. They are all there together and not strewn through the change log in pieces.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Regarding the "Edit war", since neither of them provide any kind of justification or other evidence for the change that they have made (over and over and over), my contention is that NEITHER of them is legitimate. They are both mythology. Even if they were found in a fortune cookie, having that fact documented would be better than EITHER of the changes that were made. That way anyone else in this SHARED tree would at least have a clue of what they are up against.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: A couple of thoughts here... I like the idea of renaming Collaboration as Research (or Research Notes), but only as a tab. Discussions is or should be a true collaborative system that can include research notes, but doesn't necessarily do so.

In a way the way this Feedback (Get Satisfaction) forum is put together is along those lines and would be suitable for a FS discussion thread:

Each discussion thread becomes a FS discussion heading/initial entry and the title (heading) is in bold)
- A reply is equivalent to a FS discussion entry to an existing discussion
- A comment is equivalent to a FS note attached to an entry, or alternately, a initial entry. Comments can be deleted, but not replies or initial entries, except by the user who made the comment or initial entry.

Unlike the GetSat threads, a note could stand by itself and the Research tab would appear like this

Heading and initial entry (deleted only by the user who created it)
* Note entry (deleted by anyone)
* Discussion entry (deleted only by the user who entered it)
** Note entry (deleted by anyone)

Heading and initial entry

Note entry

In addition, the Research tab would contain a count of threads.

On tagging back to entries in the profile, all elements (whether a discussion thread, a discussion entry, or a note entry) can be set up to be tagged. I do not see this as automatic, but something that is like the watch list -- the tag star is empty if not set up but filled if tagging has been enabled for that thread or entry. Once enabled and used, tagging cannot be disabled. If not used, tagging can be disabled by anyone.

Also, tagging can be enabled back to sources.

And as far as sources go, sources that are not tagged back to the profile or research entries, should be marked in some manner.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Could a note have a note attached to it? Yes, but it immediately becomes a discussion thread when that is done and the heading is bolded. At this point, the discussion thread owner becomes the person who added the note entry.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Also, the user who entered the research entry (discussion or note) becomes visible and can be contacted via the same means used with profile entries.

Users whose accounts are no longer available (deceased, for instance, or otherwise cancelled their account) via the message system display an account not active message. Note that accounts that were deleted by FamilySearch would have their entries deleted in the research area.

Notes cannot be modified if included as part of a discussion.

Standalone notes (not part of a discussion) can be modified and the user who last edited the note is now listed as the last user to edit/enter the note.

I think I've covered all the bases....

LegacyUser

joe martel said: These are great considerations.
One of the reasons they moved Notes to Collaboration was because most the Notes were discussion in nature, not really backing up conclusions.

If you find Notes that fit the desire here to tag to a conclusion I'd love to see them - PID and few words of the Note title. If there are lots, we could start a new thread - something like - "Examples of Notes that are good evidence and reasoning" 

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: It would be great to just rename the Collaboration tab as "Notes" (the way the sources list is named as "Sources" and REMOVE the dysfunctional Discussion feature which was neutered right from the start. The current messages mechanism is FAR CLOSER to supporting effective "Discussions" than anything else. It needs to be explored and expanded to provide discussion forum type capabilities that can be attached to person records are vitals (i.e., the way it is now). And they already support a lot of the concepts that Tom is presenting

From where we stand right now, I believe that any kinds of needed "discussions" will be far better served via the messages mechanism. With careful consideration, I believe that it could be evolved into a significantly more powerful feature.

But for all intents and purposes, I feel that Discussions were more of an experiment that never worked out because of the number of application issues that were never considered. E.g., how do you know that a discussion that you started has been responded to? Especially when it has been merged into other (possibly incorrect) PIDs where you might not be able to find them. There is no notification mechanisms for them. At present, the messages feature has most of the in place already. It could just use some refinements.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: A lot of times, those notes that are "discussion in nature" may really just be the beginnings of conclusion proofs. They can be derivation logic that invites others to participate or add to them.

For example I have occasionally created a note to the effect saying "I have not found any sources directly supporting this, but because of X, Y, and Z, it is probable that this person was born about 1889 somewhere around Monroe County, Virginia. So for the time being, I am recording these values until further evidence can be found"

And if they are considered collaborative because they just present concepts that may be discussed, then a lot of other things could be lumped into that same category. For example, since tagging of specific sources to a given vital are things that could be discussed, does that make the edit vital screen (which contains all that information) collaborative.

And even if they were "collaborative", not all of those notes were collaborative. So I still feel that categorizing ALL of the Notes as "collaboration" was not an appropriate choice.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Joe,

On the subject of Notes on a PID, could you gives us any idea of what percentage of the 1.2 Billion "People" in the FSTree actually have NO Notes - or NO Discussions - and/or NO sources.

Now that we see the FS app is able to tell each individual user how many sources, memories and persons they have individually added to the Tree, it would seem that 'gross' info would be easily available????

This might demonstrate what IS, or is NOT, being used. Then one could see where helpful decision might be made.

Collaboration is/was a great idea, but in my experience it appears NOT to be meeting its potential - to assist in making FSTree more reliable and accurate. Collaborative research can likely assist in finding SOURCES for a PID. (the key to verifiable reliability of the information.)

Just for kicks, here's a random family of 25 individuals (two families) 23 had sources (90%), anaverage of 6 ea., 7 had notes (28%) & 2 had memories (8%). The Notes might meet the " fit the desire here to tag to a conclusion" - but are quite 'weak.' eg: 'I find no evidence of this person in this family, etc.'

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Yes, yes, yes, Jeff. Probably the best example is the birth date and place that is recorded for Pieter Claesen 9312-XFX, which is based upon a lot of circumstantial evidence, since no record of his birth survived the 30 years' war in that part of Europe. The birth history (change log for the vital) for the current date and place goes back to March of 2018 when I spent a month studying the record and evidence.

The full text of the reason statement reads

Note that this is the best we can conclude with regard to Pieter's birth and place. Both conclusions are based upon what we know and not upon any established source information.

The exact date is not known, but strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Pieter came from an area/estate called Wykhof located about six miles south of Norden. The standard now provides only the Holy Roman Empire for this time period.

As to his year of birth, he was decidedly an older teenager when he arrived, but not twelve as has been speculated and repeated by many histories. He earned a man's wages and would not have been able to do that if he had been a pre-teenager.

This is one place where an extensive discussion/note needs to be made a source for the birth.

LegacyUser

m said: If NOTES section does not exist of Wikitree & Werelate...why does NOTES section need to exist on Familysearch?

(Vitals section on all 3 sites.
Obvious Vitals section on Wikitree, Werelate, Familysearch.

Source section on all 3 sites.
Obvious Source section on Wikitree, Werelate, Familysearch.

Write-in-section on all 3 sites.
Obvious write-in-section on Wikitree, Werelate, Familysearch.

Collaboration section on all 3 sites:
Wikitree-Comments appear on the same page.
Werelate-Talk section on same page/different tab like Wikipedia & FamilysearchWiki.
Familysearch-Discussion section on same page/different tab.)

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Assuming I'm understanding the references - a NOTES section is standard GEDCOM type data, and will therefore be supported by most software that aims to use the GEDCOM model.

Notes in GEDCOM type data schemes can appear (at least):
- as free-standing Notes that might be linked to individuals (FSFT's closest is Memories?)

- as a part of the individual's data, not sub-ordinate to any event, etc, (FSFT has the collaboration tab with various stuff on it)

- subordinate to an event belonging to individual's (FSFT has a type of Note at this point that has unclear purpose so gets used for all sorts).

Other positions where Notes can be used in GEDCOM type software include (vaguely, roughly) Couples and Sources.

Wikitree & Werelate are, I suggest, the odd ones out.

LegacyUser

m said: Wikitree, Werelate, Familysearch....are not private genealogy programs.

(NOTES section not needed.)

LegacyUser

ATP said: Joe, Looks like there are still some GEDCOM issues out there that have not been resolved.
Person merged 3 Thomas Stewarts into this one using GEDCOM as the reason.
MaleThomas Stewart 1701–1772 • G33V-FKQ​​DetailsTime LineSources 1Collaborate 0Memories 0Ordinances Life SketchVitalsDetail ViewName • 0 Sources • Edit Edit NameThomas StewartLast Changed: September 23, 2019 bySex • 0 Sources • Edit Edit SexMaleLast Changed: September 23, 2019 by Birth • 0 Sources • Edit Edit Birth1701 Reason This Information Is Correct: GEDCOM data Last Changed: May 6, 2020 byChristening AddDeath • 0 Sources • Edit Edit Deathabout 1772 Halifax, Virginia, British Colonial AmericaLast Changed: September 23, 2019 byBurial
Here's the link:​​https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Sorry - I don't follow. Whether or not those three are private genealogy programs or not doesn't matter - they need to be compatible with desktop software that runs on personal computers - FS in particular has an API to enable the exchange of data btw FSFT and PC based programs. Failure to be compatible in both directions is therefore a point of risk. Further, users are effectively encouraged to use FSFT on its own without a PC based program. This would imply that all the facilities provided in a PC based program, including personal notes, should be provided somewhere in FSFT. Otherwise, people are using a product deficient by traditional standards.

Now, where such notes should appear is another matter, but appear they surely should.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: ATP, you may want to move this to a different thread.
But the Gedcom data here comes from a Person that added a couple years ago and subsequently merged, keeping that data. 

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Notes were in PAF, so I'm guessing they exist in Ancestral Quest too.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Tom,

Exactly! Would it not be far better to have one of the Notes in that person's Notes list (which is currently inappropriately listed and thereby hidden under a tab named "Collaboration") with the simple title of "BIRTH" tagged to that very edit Birth window that you gave as an example right next to all of the sources that it is using for its basis?

And now in the "Reason for Making this Change" box (Oops, that is the "Reason This Information is Correct" box who's title really is associated with the value derivation and NOT the justification for the change) you only need to indicate the reason for change which will be saved with the change event. The Reason could say something like "The previous value of XXX is very unlikely. This change was made based on the conclusion documented in the Note 1 "BIRTH" tagged to this vital".

Now the Reason box only contains the reason the the change was made and the BIRTH Note contains ALL of the derivation logic for why the value of the Birth is considered correct.

And when the Reason for change box disappears the next time a change is made, that is totally correct and appropriate, because ANY subsequent change is going to have a totally different reason for why it is done. You don't have to try and retain previously entered data in order to keep the Reason field "complete" (which many people don't do anyway when all they did was change something to a standardized form)

And when someone wants to see the reason a particulate value is in the BIRTH vital, they simply look at the Note titled "BIRTH" that is tagged to the vital instead of scanning who knows how many change history events to try and piece together the total, current reason that the VALUE of the Birth record is "Correct" (i.e., the derivation that the BIRTH conclusion is taken from)

And when you need to transport your derivation logic to any other genealogical software, or transported be GEDCOM, there is no problem because all systems support the us of notes for a given person record.

And when you need to scan through the change history to determine why some strange evolution on a vital occurred, you won't have to go through pages and pages and pages of change history log files due to the Reason fields on each change being so BLOATED with information that is talking about the final value of the vital instead of why the changes were being made.

A change history log is only for recording change events. Things that happen once at a point in time. a Note containing the derivation logic for a vital's value is the result of a summary of many change event reasons. What's more, the Note has it's own change history. The individual change reasons as they are implemented are attributes of the change event--they do NOT have their own change history!

And if you REALLY want to have the full derivation logic associated with the reason each time that you made a change, I suppose that you could always copy paste the note into the reason for change field. But then you run into the problem with the bloated change history files again.

We are deviating too much from the natural basic structure of these entities which is making them more complicated and people find it hard to understand why they are there.

LegacyUser

m said: Why? Why should private notes that exist on people's home computers have to appear on public websites?

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: But they might not be "private" in the sense of only for my eyes - they might be additional narrative.

LegacyUser

m said: If NOTES section does not exist of Wikitree & Werelate...why does NOTES section need to exist on Familysearch?

If these private notes that exist on people's home computers are worthy of a public website, then they are worthy of turning into fully-formed content in one of the above sections found on all 3 websites:
Vitals section
Sources section
Write-in-section
Collaboration section

LegacyUser

joe martel said: There is likely lots of "private" information on a user's private tree/ database. This includes living Persons, relationships, memories, sources, notes, ... Gedcom is a transport mechanism. Notes is information that Gedcom supports - but not necessarily  the programs that import/export Gedcom. This is also true of programs that integrate to FamilySearch FamilyTree data, and Notes are part of the API to allow movement of information between trwo systems. Each has it's own capabilities.

When a user transfers data to/from their private database, it's up to the user to decide what to bring over, assuming the software allows the user to make this choice. The import/export Gedcom features in many programs/websites determines what it bring's over. 

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: m,

The "Write-in-section" that you are referring to in those other tools ARE the notes. They are just far less structured. Essentially they are just one big open space where you put EVERYTHING. It is not very effective at all when you have many different notes on different vitals for a person. And for Collaboration, on the FS site it is the messaging feature. The so called "Discussions" are pretty useless from a discussions standpoint and should be removed because they distract from the more effective messages feature.

Joe,

The Notes ARE in AQ and very extensive with good structuring. But the fact is, every tool out there has a Notes capability (including the old pen and paper techniques of research and genealogical data recording--it's always been there). Some like the werelate.org mechanism are very overly simplistic. When you can have different types of notes, having the ability to tag them to the entities that they are supporting would be very useful.

And when FS ever stops treating the parent-child and couple relationships as though they are not vitals, you won't need the notes and sources silliness on those relationship entities, because they would behave similar to the other vitals with the sources and supporting notes being tagged to them. Yes, I know that they are associative objects, but explicitly implementing them that way just adds a lot of complexity and worst, it hides information and requires the creating of sources cloned from the persons in the relationship (i.e., duplicated data in the system). The only difference between a normal vital (e.g., BIRTH) and a relationship vital for a given person is that the relationship vital is just shared between two records.

The little extra though involved in how to accomplish this (i.e., the shared vital) would buy a lot. All Sources for vitals (including relationships) could all be handled in the same way with the underpinnings invisible to the average user. It would also enable tagging of both sources and Notes to relationships. From a user viewpoint, things would be far more simple.

LegacyUser

m said: I beg to differ.

On Wikipedia, collaboration through the Talk tab seems to work fine--and is public.

On Werelate, collaboration through the Talk tab seems to work fine--and is public.

On Wikitree, collaboration through Comments seems to work fine--and is public.

On Familysearch collaboration through Discussions seems to work fine--and is public.

LegacyUser

m said: Look at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...

43 Notes in the NOTE section. Everyone agrees it is a mess.

Each one of these notes could be converted into content in one of the above sections found on all 3 websites:
Vitals section
Sources section
Write-in-section
Collaboration section

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: "43 Notes in the NOTE section. ...
"Each one of these notes could be converted into content in one of the above sections found on all 3 websites:...
"Collaboration section"

You've lost me. The 43 notes in FSFT are already on the Collaboration tab.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Joe.
Most of those 42 notes appear to meet your criteria of "Notes that fit the desire here to tag to a conclusion I'd love to see them." Mainly excerpts from 'source' documents with historical and biographical info for the individual & family, but not that well sourced. Interesting 'research notes' which could aid others.