merging

LegacyUser

Dorothy Badger said: i am on Family Search almost every day - today i noticed the change in the merging format/screens - it is VERY confusing they way it has been done

we are used to keeping what's on the left and eliminating what's on the right

now we have to switch our brains to eliminate the left and keep the right......until the very last step - then it goes back to keeping the left

also in step two, we don't have any control over keeping or eliminating children -

is it possible to make this all more visually clear about what we are keeping or eliminating???

and can we please go back to keeping the left and eliminating the right? to go back and forth is not a very good idea

otherwise, thank you for ALL the help that Family Search offers with all the indexed records - it's very useful

dorothy badger

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: I think why they moved it to the right is to have information go from left to right, the same as in source linker. We just have to get accustomed to it. We like what we are used to, so it can be changed.

LegacyUser

Gail Ann Hellings said: It's good for your brain to have to adapt to something new. We will all get used to it.

I have no doubt that as people point out things that need to be fixed, soon will be. FamilySearch is very good at responding to what users explain as problems.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: When the new system was announced (I do not remember by whom -- it may have been Ron Tanner), it was mentioned that the information flow in the new system was set the same as with the source linker. The data/record to be merged is on the left and the surviving record is on the right.

LegacyUser

J. Matthew Saunders said: Nice to see discussion on this matter. I appreciate the work that everyone does and the service Family Search provides. I do have comments regarding the merger change which isn't all bad...

I agree that the information we want to keep should stay on the left, not just because we need to jog our brains, but if you look at all things with documents you start on the left and move right. In other words when we look at the main page of things we want the name of the person and all of their detail on the left part of the page. All alignments start on the left, so on the merger page the left side is where you expect the correct information to lie....In work flow you want to have pages line up similarly just like when you are trying to match up numbers in accounting or anything else.

Since there are now 3 steps as it says, the first page to the last page should look the same to keep flow. On the first page the information you want to be correct should be on the left and the same with the second and the same with the 3rd and final page. All of the correct information would be in the same 'column' as it were....on all 3 pages, I do not agree that the new merger is better work flow....

The source linker is really the same as well, because the information that you are concerned about is on the left and it is formatted very differently.

An additional problem of format and flow from the front page to the merge page is with the Birth and death information. The death comes first and then the birth on the merger page, which is contrary to the main page.

In essence you want that final page in the merger to be somewhat of a reflection of what you will see on the main page.

Both items deal with flow and don't match up from page to page and that's why it doesn't mesh with the brain well. One more item of note is that the merge page shows both columns equal and they should not be...because once information is transferred it should clean up so visually it is much easier to see, I think that matches with others points.

Finally, the idea that it can add all of the information into the newly revised column may be a nice touch, as long as it could be reversed...The new fix is nice, especially if there are exact duplicate parents or children, we don't have to second guess ourselves and review as much information.

Clearly there are always benefits to updates and changes and lets hope that a little refining can be done so that this tool can be best for all of us....

LegacyUser

David Roderick McLean said: I can probably get used to the new merge format fairly quickly, but . . .

It seems to follow totally different page formatting (colors, boxes, etc.) to what we have become accustomed to.

I wonder if this is just the work of a new coder who has not used the site or;
a new standard direction Familysearch is moving.

Time will tell.

I am a fan of having all the web pages follow a standard format (flow). This page certainly does not follow any standards followed in the past on the website.