New Feature Request: See All Changes Another User Has Made

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: I just finished reversing three rather incomprehensible merges another user had done:

1) Two sisters, Ales born 1865 and Marie born 1867.

2) Three brothers, Erik born 1819 who is the father of Ales and Marie, Sjur born 1821, and Sjur born 1824.

This user manage to avoid leaving any reason statements even though the new merge system requires these and the merges were all done September 5.



I discovered this because Sjur b. 1824 was the father of Haldor, the husband of my wife’s great-aunt and so Haldor is on my wife’s Following list. The merge of the brothers triggered a notification because the merge deleted Haldor’s father.

Now I have to wonder what else this user has done. The only way to know is to go through the change logs of other siblings, parents, and children in a widening circle looking for this user’s name and I have other things I need to do of higher priority for me.

It would be much more efficient, and could bring more accountability to Family Tree, to be able to click on a user’s name in a change log to bring up a list of the last 100 or so changes that user has done in Family Tree to any deceased individual, not just those on my Following list. That way I could see and have the incentive to fix any other incorrect actions this users did recently.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: It would also help tracking down all the changes a user made via a GEDCOM uploaded. I really like this idea and hope that FamilySearch can implement this in the near future (tomorrow maybe?).

There may be privacy issues, but given the terms of use for the site, we should be able to see all the impacted deceased persons the user impacted.

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: I have also had a relative who did some mistakes (un-connecting me from some of my ancestors and their descendants etc.) that he admitted were mistakes. Not sure how he did it without realizing he was messing up everything. Good thing I have roots magic and can easily revert his mistakes without going through the change logs and trying to get every child back in a family etc. I told him how he could go through his changes, but I think he is computer illiterate lol.

I wonder if you merge two people using the FamilySearch API (or through a program like RootsMagic or MyHeritage), if you need to give a reason...

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: Both test people I used in this example had no ordinances and were both created as simple test people. No ordinances were harmed in this process

I can merge two people on RootsMagic without providing a reason statement. This means the API does not require a reason statement, and any other program does not need to provide one either, unless they program it specifically on their end.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: To explain clearly what I would like to see, this is what I would like to have on the card that pops up when we click on any user name in Family Tree:



Clicking on the Changes Made link would jump to a screen like this:



***********************

Since the merging test Jordi did above did not require a reason statement, I assume that merging outside of Family Tree then syncing also does not include the warnings FamilySearch is starting to include while merging so that when this other user, who I did sent a message to, did these merges, he never saw the red text warnings:



Although I'm not sure it would have made any difference since he also ignored the differences in names and birth years.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Um. Virtually never have I winced at one of your suggestions, Gordon, but I'm afraid I did at this one.

If I understand you correctly then you'd like to see the last 100 or so changes that someone has done, regardless of any previously declared connection that you have to the changed profiles in question. I think proponents of privacy (such as it is in an open-edit system) are going to raise an eye-brow at that.

But, there is a sensible requirement here. I'm not about to start looking to see what work Fred Bloggs has done in the system, to check up on him or just be nosy. But it could be a case like I had the other week when I had to reverse a "body-snatching" incident whereby a profile was changed from (say) John Doe to Richard Roe by, we'll say, Fred Bloggs. The only reason I found this was because John Doe was on my "watch-list". In fact, it became quickly apparent that not only had John Doe had his name and vital details changed, but John Does's wife as well.

Now, it was reasonably easy to revert those changes - once you understand that the person's names in their change list have been "corrupted" to their current name, not the name as at the change in question (I hope that's right) - and to create appropriately updated profiles for Richard Roe and his wife.

But I now have a suspicion that the daughter of Mr John Doe and his wife had also been the subject of body-snatching and had all her details, name included, altered. I'd left the updated daughter attached to the new Richard Roe and his wife, whereas that might not have been correct. It was too difficult for me to tell because I've a suspicion that the history of the daughter's profile was both complex and dubious anyway. And besides which, John Doe was on my "watch-list", not his wife or daughter, of whom I knew nothing, so I was rapidly running out of any feeling of helpfulness.

My point is that generating a hit list of what the poor misguided user, aka Fed Bloggs, had done was, as Gordon suggests, complex in the extreme when you're starting from just one profile. It would have been much simpler to have seen all Fred's changes, in order - maybe just on that day? Or do I really want to see all his changes? No, I need to see those changes that (somehow) link to the body-snatched John Doe and his relatives out to .... ?

So if we can somehow target / restrict the visibility of the updates, then I believe that we have a sensible argument for this idea.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. Since all changes a person makes in Family Tree are public, I'm not sure there can by any privacy issues.

Would people be more cautious in editing knowing that anyone can click on their names and see everything they have done recently? Maybe

Would people feel persecuted if every time they come back to Family Tree they find someone has reversed every single edit they made, even if the changes were correct? Almost certainly.

So I do agree with you. There are probably many sensitive issues that would need to be considered before implementing something like this. But if the user I am currently dealing with made nine more merges that were just as bad as the three I stumbled on only because I was watching the son of one of those involved, it would be valuable to have some way to quickly find those other nine even if the family connection is more distance or non-existent for the sake of the health of the Family Tree system.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Re the privacy angle. One aspect that we agreed to agree on at work, was that what was acceptable as a one-off, might not be acceptable in bulk. Specifically, the issue was the privacy of what's on a freight train. The argument was that this couldn't be private because you could just go and stand on a bridge to look at the train. The counter to this was that one train wasn't an issue - but all trains currently en route for a specific operator was different. Similarly here. A group of updates relating to a specific issue is one thing. All updates by Fred Bloggs that day for no other reason is debatable.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Point taken. But if Fred was having a really, really bad day, wouldn't you want to help him? Or collect enough evidence to get him fired? At work you would leave that up to a supervisor since it probably really wasn't your business. It would be great if we could leave such problem users up to the supervisor here on Family Tree. Who is that again?

I would be concerned that such a list as I proposed could be weaponized.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I have to wonder if privacy is an issue if the see all changes by JDoe were limited to a specific date, or to a limited date range...

Example, JDoe created a number of duplicates via GEDCOM between Monday (8 Jun 2020) and Wednesday (10 Jun 2020). I want to see all the changes that JDoe made in that three-day period. This would possibly expand if GEDCOM changes were made from 1 Jun 2020 to 15 Jun 2020 and no more activity was seen.

There have been times when I've seen GEDCOM related changes made by a person that impacted a number of people in the same family. I would want to see all of the impacted people made by the same person during the same session(s).

Since all of these are deceased individuals, it would not violate privacy concerns over living persons, but the question raised would be whether or not there was a hijacking of persons where all the data was changed, including names.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I think the privacy angle can be dealt with if the requestor can demonstrate a legitimate interest, given the use of FS FamilyTree. For instance, "This starts with a potential issue and I need to work out the potential impact of their changes in the most optimal way..."

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I think that access to all of a user's changes over a certain time period is going to be problematic from a privacy angle unless the requestor can demonstrate a need to know (whatever that means...)

Gordon puts forward the argument for a wider check as: "It would be great if we could leave such problem users up to the supervisor here on Family Tree. Who is that again?" Yeah. Quite so.

However, if I put a Privacy Hat on, and ask the question: "Who is that supervisor?" then the answer comes back - "Not us". Access to personal data is fine if a legitimate interest can be demonstrated - it's how the pay-clerk is allowed to enter your data. But if none of us have been assigned any supervisory, refereeing role, then it's difficult to see how we should be given access that would be justified only if we were supervisors / referees / etc.

Yes, I am deliberately being pessimistic over interpretations.

There is, by the way, every likelihood that some users here will object to a feeling that they are being asked to be that supervisor.

LegacyUser

Juli said: WikiTree allows users to look at changes ("contributions") made by any fellow user. I have not heard about any cases of anyone "weaponizing" this capability.