Please include disclaimer under Research Helps section.

LegacyUser

Pamela Leavens said: I very much appreciate the many record helps provided because of the hard work of indexers and computer programmers. However, I see too many instances where people accept and attach records without evaluating the information. Records are often attached in my tree simply because a name is the same, even when from a different continent and/or many decades or more later or earlier. In almost all cases, a review of the current sources and information would make it clear that it's not the same person. From discussions with others, I feel many believe that these research helps have been 'vetted' by FamilySearch and all they have to do is accept them. I think a brief comment about carefully evaluating the info would help. Thank you!

LegacyUser

Merlin R Kitchen said: I agree complete with these sentiments. Also a great percentage of these "hints" are attached without any comment as to why they are relevant. Please add my vote for some verbiage to the effect that more care must be used, when using these hints.

LegacyUser

ATP said: And, as do I agree with the sentiments of this post. Is there not a way that the system can be programed, especially, when it is so obvious that the source is not relevant, such as child born long after death of the father or childbearing ability of the purposed mother, and other obvious errors and not so obvious errors, that, instead as at the present when you click to attach the record, as currently programed sending the record immediately to the Sources box, it transfers to the Sources box , and from the Sources box the poster continues the attachment process and cannot be attached until certain conditions are met.

In transferring the record to Sources box, before the attachment will attach, the necessary corrections have to be made and until they are made to support the attachment, puts the attacher in the postion of correcting the information, not attaching the information, or forgetting about it altogether depending on the attacher's inclination.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: First, welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

I fully agree that a significant number of users believe that if FamilySearch provided the hint, then the hint must apply to the person. Most of those users do not comprehend the idea that "It is human to err, but it takes a computer to really mess things up."

When it comes to fallible indexes and even original records, then the user must take the time to compare the information in the hint with the existing record. At the present time, the source linker, which is used to attach a historical source to a person's record, is not ideally set up for making a good comparison. While the duplicate (merge) comparison screen is better, it is still lacking in one or more ways.

A disclaimer is a good idea and has been suggested a number of times, especially when the source linker is opened, but how many people take the time to read disclaimers? I would say that most of us do not bother -- after all, we know what we are doing, correct?

Certainly not all the time, so a disclaimer is important

But so are smart comparisons and the hinting mechanism has a lot of flaws, especially when it comes to dates and places.

Now as to what to apply the disclaimer to...

There are a number of different research hints. Some has to do with the possible missing child, the child born after the mother's (typical) child-bearing years, the child born after the death of either or both parents. This is all after-the-fact.

Another research hint is the possible duplicates that have been discovered by the system.

Finally, we come to the hints that a historical record may apply to the person in the record. That is where the disclaimer applies, but it also applies with possible duplicates, and both are still undergoing developmental changes.

Whether those changes will help alleviate the errors in adding historical source documents that do not apply to the person's record or not has not been determined. One can only hope.

LegacyUser

Pamela Leavens said: Perhaps I should add more detail. I'm aware of the different types of hints and that a disclaimer may not perfectly apply to all of them. I'm not suggesting a pop-up or customized message for each of these when the user clicks on a hint on any given FamilySearch page where someone may review/attach a record. I'm speaking of a simple text to be displayed under the heading Research Helps that can say something like 'Possible record matches and other hints shown below have not been evaluated. Please carefully review names, dates and locations.' This is not a difficult or time-consuming programming solution (as a former screen designer and programmer, I have some understanding of the issues involved). Who knows, if a person reads the message on this one FS page, they may also begin to understand that the same cautions apply to other record hints they see on other pages.

True, some people might ignore the message, or may be puzzled because it may not seem to apply to each and every type of hint. But does it follow that we should not make the very small effort to provide a bit of education and direction? I appreciate your humorous comment that most of us think we know what we are doing and therefore, cautions and disclaimers are often ignored. I've certainly added notes, collaboration thoughts, etc. that appear to be completely ignored, but I continue to add them, as do many others, thankfully. I also try to do my part to help people learn and understand by providing detailed notes about why I'm reversing their changes and connections. Consequently, I don't like to think that FS assumes that a message won't do any good.

Of course, it's frustrating to spend a high percentage of my FS time correcting improper merges and record attachments. I know I'm not alone in this. And once people attach incorrect records, they often add to the problem by removing the correct wives/children. Sure, I tell myself it's 'all good' and we're all working toward the same end result, but once again, I don't think that should mean we don't make the effort to help others learn.

Personally, I don't think smarter programming should be considered the only or even the major solution. Who knows? A simple message might enhance understanding so that people will know better what to do with all those developmental changes that are coming.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Pamela

In my experience, these hints, including possible duplicates, are often so bad that I have come to wish to feature would disappear altogether! Hours of my time are wasted by those users who either very stupid or have such complete trust in the suggestions offered they sincerely believe all of them must be acted upon / attached.

If your idea would help in stopping just a fraction of the unbelievable errors that are made by so many users I would think it well worth implementing.

Through my watch list, I am able to spot much of the bad work being made by careless users. However, I shudder to think how much I am still missing relating to changes being made to those individuals I'm not watching. Hopefully, the FamilySearch designers are considering every idea put forward on this subject, so they can help stop the serious damage to the tree that is occurring at present.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Pamela

Spot on.

Brett

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LegacyUser

Pamela Leavens said: Brett... Thank you, thank you! It is nice to feel heard and understood.

LegacyUser

Pamela Leavens said: Paul...As you say, the Watch option is helpful, and I use it too. At best, I hope my efforts will make a difference in keeping records accurate and teaching / motivating others to give more careful attention to what they do. At worst, it is disheartening to spend the majority of my time correcting mistakes that should not have been made. I find little time for active research, and after years of this, my energies are wearing extremely thin. Thank you for your comments.

LegacyUser

Brett said: ☺