Rating Source quality w/ Tags using letter grade to classify each Source. Objective criteria used. E
Comments
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m said: "Authored Narrative"---I don't really know what that means.0
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m said: I'm so surprised no one has commented on this well-thought-out reply.0
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m said: "one assumption seems to be that by having these rankings on sources that patrons will be able to quickly understand things better and will have to do less work. "
Why would you think this?
"Requiring patrons to verify quality rankings for all sources"
Patrons would not be required to Tag Source quality.
"the 'quality' of a source relative to any given genealogical conclusion is not so much determined by the content of the source, as it is how it and other sources apply to the conclusion"
I think the quality of a Source is determined by whether or not it is an original record, whether or not original records are cited and how many, etc. And I think that rating the quality of a Source does not require you to make a genealogical conclusion/proof.
"this is yet another thing to exacerbate the Notes problem. The documentation for the derivation logic of how different conclusions are derived from different sets of sources should be handled in a single fashion. The closest thing to that now is the Notes system"
Tagging Sources based on quality is just that and is not a proof.0 -
m said: I don't really understand why "proofs" / "genealogical conclusions" are being discussed.
DNA project articles are often high quality Sources---this sentence does not require me to come to a "genealogical conclusion."
TAG articles are often high quality Sources----this sentence does not require me to come to a "genealogical conclusion."0 -
Adrian Bruce said: Sorry but everything in me rebels at the idea that it is possible to make some useful generalisation about Death Certificates v Geni.com.0
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m said: You can't make any generalization about Geni.com because each page may or may not cite records and not only that but each page can be updated and remove or add citations of records. You can only rate a single Geni page as it currently is when it is rated.0
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m said: Death Certificates are a tiny part of this system and I see no reason to throw away and entire system because 1 tiny part is harder to put on the scale than some of the other parts.0
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Adrian Bruce said: No but Death Certificates are a classic example of complex source documents. There are plenty of others - census images, for instance contain lots of items of both primary and secondary information and generalisation is fairly pointless, as well as hard. The ranking of such source types is not objective. Any assessment needs to be of an individual source document against the purported fact.0
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m said: Let's say an ancestor has a Geni Source.
The Geni source might be Tagged:
X if it is not related to the ancestor.
! if it mentions a proven fraud such as Anjou.
F if it does not cite a record for that ancestor.
D if it cites something such as a book or article that is outdated say 1940 with disproven info.
C if it cites at least 1 record (birth/marriage/death) for that ancestor.
B if it cites more than 1 record (birth/marriage/death) or quotes text from a record for that ancestor.
(Geni would not get an A rating because A ratings are reserved for Sources that are actual records.)
(And when the Geni source is updated and changed substantially, the rating might need to be updated.)
Tagging source quality system uses objective data. The objective data mainly revolves around use of records. Proven errors on a record/book/article are also taken into account. And the unusual cases of proven fraud and irrelevant Sources are included in the rating system.0 -
m said: Tagging a Source with "Burial" does not:
...mean "patrons will be able to quickly understand things better and will have to do less work"...
...mean "Requiring patrons to verify" burial "for all sources"...
...mean a "genealogical conclusion" has taken place...
..."exacerbate the Notes problem."
Tagging a Source with "Burial" just means that the Source has been categorized and the category selected by the patron is "Burial." The patron signals to other patrons that the Source includes the "Burial." That's it.
Tagging a Source with "X" just means that the Source has been categorized and the category selected by the patron is "X - irrelevant category." The patron signals to other patrons that the Source is irrelevant to that ancestor because it doesn't mention the ancestor or any family members. That's it.0 -
ATP said: Jeff,
Am very much in agreement, especially with the following comments and what you say cannot be emphasized enough.
"I personally would never trust such conclusions and would always ignore them, choosing to get my information directly from the “horse’s mouth” (i.e., the source contents) and draw my own conclusions...
'Therefore, trying to derive genealogical conclusions from ranking conclusions makes no sense and would add a lot of extra work and documentation who’s value is questionable...
'Requiring patrons to verify quality rankings for all sources that they come in contact with is like telling everyone that when they document changes to conclusions along with the associated derivation logic, that they ALSO have to go through and update all of the Life Sketch entries and memories, etc. that anyone has attached that may be in conflict with the newly updated conclusion.
'I certainly won’t be doing this, as none of it is directly related to producing correct conclusions in the genealogical sense. If people want to maintain all of the bells and whistles of their family histories on the site, then that’s wonderful. But there is already far too much work needed in just correcting the core genealogical conclusions on person records so that temple work can be done correctly. I don’t have time verifying and maintaining all kinds of redundant and indirectly related data scattered across a person’s record."
Thanks for sharing your opinion based on the facts of correct professional genealogy standards as recommended by the National Genealogy Society!0 -
m said: I don't really understand why "proofs" / "genealogical conclusions" are being discussed.
DNA project articles are often high quality Sources---this sentence does not require me to come to a "genealogical conclusion."
TAG articles are often high quality Sources----this sentence does not require me to come to a "genealogical conclusion."0 -
m said: Tagging a Source with "Burial" does not mean a "genealogical conclusion"/"proof" has taken place.
It just means the Source is supposed to have something in it related to "Burial."
Tagging a Source with "X-unrelated to individual" does not mean a "genealogical conclusion" has taken place.
It just means very specifically that the person's name does not appear in the Source and neither does any family member's name.0 -
m said: I don't believe I need to know anything about the ancestor whatsoever to rank the quality of a Source using this system.
I think I can look at a Source, let's say someone posts this link as a Source to an ancestor:
https://sites.google.com/site/beyondo...
I look at the Source and I look at the Source Tag Rating System and I see the italics and the bold black text and I see this author happens to be quoting sections of text from original records. Here is a little section of the individual's baptism listing both parents, date, church:
"Bautizado 9 febrero 1559, iglesia de Nuestra Castillo, Fuente Ovejuna, Spain, Juan, hijo de Juan Lopez de Villa Sana y de Isabel Ruiz."
Source: Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Castillo, Fuente Ovejuna, Spain, Bautismos, Libro 2, f. 85v, 9 Feb 1559
What else does it have? There are some more italics and looking at one of them I can see that it is a quote from an Inquisition record in which his wife is named (I see her name matches the name of the attached wife on FS):
"...Catalina de Villanueva, 'muger de Capt. Juan López Olguín,' who provided the same testimony and gave her age as 'close to fifty years' (born circa 1576). Both were described as 'besinos fundadores de Santa Fe' ('founding vecinos of Santa Fe')."
Source: Archivo General de la Nación, Inquisición, tomo 356, f. 303.
So just a glance at this source I see it's got the text of a baptism. And some text from some Inquisition record that has something to do with marriage.
Without looking any further or reading the Source or knowing anything about the ancestor except the name of the person page (and name of his wife's person page), I can use the rating system.
I select B = "high quality" -
cites more than 1 record for a fact such as a birth/marriage/death for this individual OR quotes text of a record of this individual. = B
Because the Source is quoting text of a record and the record is the same name as the name on the person page (and wife has same name as her person page).
Easy as pie.0 -
Juli said: "The person's name does not appear" _IS_ a conclusion. It's based on paleography/character recognition, language, onomastics, and other factors.
For example: say you have a profile for Tükör Örzse, and a baptismal record for Elizabetha Spiegel. How would you answer "does this person's name appear in this record?" (The correct answer is "possibly yes".)
You can't rate sources independently of their association with profiles. It's a useless exercise.0 -
m said: You are saying "the person's name does not appear" is a "genealogical conclusion"/"proof" of some kind?0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Absolutely.
Especially if the reasons that the name is left out has been documented. The reasoning (or derivation logic a.k.a. proof) always produces a conclusion.I don't really understand why "proofs" / "genealogical conclusions" are being discussed
Respectfully, I really don’t understand why this is even being questioned.
- the existence of a person
- the value of that person’s name
- the date and location of his birth
- parents that he has had
- children he has had
- siblings he has had
- dates and places he has lived at
- etc.
These are ALL genealogical conclusions.
Sources and the associated documentation of the reasoning from which all of the conclusions are derived from are the “proofs” (i.e., the collection of evidences supporting the conclusions)
The ENTIRE PURPOSE of the FS website is to obtain, organize and refine genealogical conclusions (eg., vitals) for entire families. This is impossible without the proofs (i.e., the sources and logic) that they are derived from.
IMHO, any suggested improvements to the system that do NOT directly contribute to the support of conclusions and their proofs is tangential to the intent of the entire system.
So again, if we are talking about improvements to the system, I really do not understand why involving the support of genealogical conclusions and their proofs is being questioned.
(Note that some kind of proof/reason for a conclusion WILL ALWAYS EXIST, even if it has not been documented. You will NEVER have a conclusion without a reason. Unfortunately in the FSFT, you will frequently find conclusions documented where the DOCUMENTED reasons or proofs for them do not exist. Conclusions without proofs may be correct, but since there is no evidence for where they came from, they are nearly useless)0 -
m said: Tagging a Source with "Burial" means a "genealogical conclusion"/"proof" has taken place, according to you?0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Almost.
The Burial location and date vitals are the genealogical conclusions. A pertinent source is tagged to the Burial vital because it is part of the proof of that conclusion.
When multiple sources all contribute to the conclusion, you would tag them all to the conclusion since they all contribute to the proof that the conclusion is correct.
If the sources contained different values for the same conclusion, or the conclusion is based on specific assumptions, then additional proof in the form of documentation showing this logic and assumptions whereby the conclusion was derived from the multiple sources would need to be added. This is normally in the form of a Note titled something like "Burial" that is attached to the person record, and (just like the sources) should be tag-gable to the vital as well for the exact same reasons that sources can be tagged to the vitals..
Sources -- Proof/derivation logic -- Conclusion
This chain of relationships ALWAYS exists. If the derivation logic (i.e., proof) is very trivial (i.e., the source itself provides obvious information), then an explicit logic document isn't necessary. But the chain of dependancies never changes even though it's implementation may vary.0 -
m said: Therefore, Tagging a Source with "Burial" means a "genealogical conclusion"/"proof" has NOT taken place, according to you?0
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Jeff Wiseman said: No. The process of tagging a source to a conclusion somewhere (e.g., a Burial) is simply part of the method we use to document where the conclusion was derived from (i.e., the "proof" for the burial is the tag that links it to various sources)0
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m said: Could you rephrase that? I didn't understand it at all. When my blood sugar gets low I get confused, so that might be just too fuzzy to understand it.0
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m said: Let me see if I understand what you are getting at.
You are saying that Tagging a Source as a "Burial" has something to do with what is currently written in the Vital Section---is that correct?0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: Yes (sort of). We may have different terminologies here. You don't actually "Tag a source AS a burial". Instead, you "Tag a source TO a burial". You link (or associate) a given source with a given conclusion (such as the Burial vital). This association or linking of the two together is done with the tagging mechanism.
This is how you document that a given source is "proof" of a given conclusion (i.e., the values assigned to a Death vital). The reverse is also true. This is how you document that a given conclusion has been derived from a set of sources.
You can do this tagging from either end. You can go to a source in a person's source list and by selecting the "Tag" button, you can choose all the conclusions that you want to link that source to. Conversely, you can go to a specific conclusion such as the Burial vital and edit it. From there you can select the "Tag" button and select all of the sources that you want linked to that conclusion/vital.0 -
m said: What? I Tag a Source as a "Burial." I don't Tag a Source TO anything. I may just scan a document for a second or two before Tagging.0
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m said: Example: I uploaded a research paper and Attached to I have no idea how many person pages, say 25? And when I did that I Tagged, but spent only a second or two scanning and Tagging each person page. And that took hours. I can't spend days Tagging 1 Source.0
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gasmodels said: what information is in the source and why did you attached it to all the people. Attaching sources because it is a history of the family or mentions them by name may or may not provide useful information . In my mind items that only are of sideline interest and do not document any specific vital information or relationship information really belong in memories not as a source but others may differ0
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m said: that's why this Source Rating Tag system would be so helpful. there is someone who attaches many Sources without the individual's name in the Source. sort of like if someone were to attach Rev. War history sources to someone born during the first year of the Rev. War but has no involvement in it other than that.
it would allow me to Tag X = "not related to individual" -
no mention of the individual by name of the person it is attached to, or the name of one of his/her family members. = X to those Sources.0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: Let's see if we are talking about the same thing. In order to tag a source to the conclusions for a number of vitals, you do it from the source list. The following Ohio Deaths source has been tagged TO the conclusions for the Burial vital (among others):
In order to tag the conclusions in a vital TO a set of sources, you do it from the vitals editing page:
You can add more sources that show evidence for the Burial conclusions, or you can remove those that do not show evidence for the Burial conclusions by selecting the Tag button:
"Tag Source For Burial" simply means associating (or logically "linking") sources with/to the Burial Vital conclusions0 -
m said: "In order to tag the conclusions in a vital TO a set of sources, you do it from the vitals editing page"
What? I had no idea this was even possible! Wow. I have never done that.0
This discussion has been closed.