Any way to rid my *account* of uninteresting research hints?

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Can I be provided with a way to delete "record hints" that are posted to my account but are not of interest to me? They are accumulating over time in my account constituting a great deal of "noise" which makes it difficult to suss out which are new ones that have just come along and might have some value to me. I don't want to just "dismiss" a hint in the record itself, in case it might be of some value to someone else.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community-powered feedback 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.

Research hints are what the routines believe are sources that should be attached to a person's profile.

Note, every hint is for a different source and all should be attached to their respective persons' profiles.

It doesn't matter if the hint is of interest to you or not. What is important is that every person in the massive tree needs to have all sources that apply to that person attached to their profile. This may include sources that appear to be the same, but may be of a different filming, another indexed set of the same image(s), or duplicate original records, such as a copy of a record index that exists at the repository for the records.

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Thank you, but I think you are talking about apples, while I am complaining about oranges. Perhaps it is my fault that I couldn't make the distinction clearer in my initial suggestion.

I occasionally get messages in my personal account about research hints about (distant & dead) relatives and possible new sources of new information about such relatives. The messages send me to a personalized linked list of relatives. My complaint is neither with the research hints nor the messages themselves; I don't mind receiving them and even grateful for some of them. My problem is with the clutter in the (linked) list of such messages in the home page for *my account*: I don't have a way get rid of those hints in my linked list that are of no interest to me, or are no longer of interest; even deleting the original message doesn't help. Even those where I've complied by attaching the source given in the research hint remain in the linked list (with the word "attached" replacing the link)!

I understand the value of responding to research hints, but the linked list itself has become less and less usable when it contains dozens of links in it. My suggestion is for a simple "delete" function from my account's list (*not* dismissal from the research hints listed with the relatives' records). Without a "delete" function, the only present alternative is just to ignore the list altogether, which kinda defeats the purpose of having the list in the first place.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Cheops, are you talking about the announcements that accumulate in your general messages area for anything from temple ordinances "complete" messages, to discovery, or a host of other types?

If so, when you click on the square box to the side of the message title, a "Delete" icons should appear at the top of the list of messages. Once you have selected all of the messages that you want to delete, just click on that delete icon.

If you only need to delete a single message, just hover over the message title and a trashcan type icon will appear. Just click on it and the message will be deleted.

Hope this helps, and welcome to the forum!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Okay, you are talking about "Discovery" messages. See my discussion at https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... which has a lot of information about your situation as well as some responses from FamilySearch personnel.

To me, this is an ongoing problem. I don't want to see those discovery messages and you want to get rid of them.

Go into your Messages and Select Discoveries:

When you click on select all, you see this:

Clicking on the trash can gets rid of all of them.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Cheops, sorry if we other users are seeming a little dense at times. The trouble is, there is so much redundancy built into the FamilySearch website to allow us all to work in our own particular style and to be sure that everyone sees important information one way or another, it can be hard to know what feature someone is talking about unless we are sitting in front of the same screen and pointing exactly at the item we are talking about.

Please allow me to give another option of what you may be referring to. If this still isn't it, please try to explain one more time.

You mention your home page. This is what most of us would refer to as "our home page for our account":



I have circled the two area where you will see hints. The upper left has a rotating panel with various informational items or campaigns for various types of records. The campaigns that jump to a list of hints are static and unchanging. You will often find that most if not all of the hints in a campaign are already attached to individuals in Family Tree. These campaigns come and go at random and all you can do is ignore that panel.

On the right hand side is the Recommended Tasks list and this is what I suspect you are actually referring to. This list of hints is semi-static. I don't know how often it is regenerated, but due to computer resource concerns, it is not updated on the fly. It may not even be regenerated if you sign out and sign in the the same day, as far as I know. But it is eventually. That is why you might see a hint there that is already recently attached by someone else.

When you see in this list someone you have no interest in researching to see if the hint is accurate or not, say a twelfth cousin or so, you can indeed, as you desire, remove them from your list without affect the hint for other people.

Do not click on the person's name. This will just bring you to the Family Tree page for him. Instead, click on the blue square which will open to this:



Then click on the downward pointing arrow to the right of the newly visible box. This reveals two choices, Review and Ignore:



Why the programming requires this double click, I have no idea. It seems it would be much better to have this panel open by default after the first click so people will see it.

In any event, if you now click "Ignore" the entry changes to this:



This does not dismiss the hint from the person and it does not affect what anyone else sees. Eventually, when the recommended tasks list refreshes later that day or tomorrow or whenever it does, that hint will drop off your list entirely.

I did just check since I took the screen shots here about three hours ago, long enough to be automatically signed out of FamilySearch, a… [truncated]

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Mr Huber, you are almost there. These "discovery" messages are not the problem, but a predecessor to them (though many times--but not always--I also become aware of them by an alert by email). As I indicated before, my problem is not with the discovery, but with the FSFT page that comes up when I press the "Review Hint" button. I've deleted these messages, but the problem about which I'm complaining persists well after initial message (or alert). For more on that, please see my reply to Mr Collett.

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Mr Wiseman, please see my reply to Mr Huber, who more or less made the same suggestion as you. For the real problem I'm having--after clicking on the "Review Hint"--please read on.

Mr Collett, my problem comes in a webpage for my account where all current and past record hints sent to me for relatives of mine are linked one to another. I've upoaded a screen-shot which shows the linked list of hints:



I can browse the list using the arrow on the left or right. This list is incredibly long (after the passage of time), even if I un-check the box to "Show Attached Records". The list is in no particular order I can discern. Its length and disorder is why I am suggesting a delete function. Otherwise it becomes quite useless unless I pounce on each hint from the moment I am alerted to it.

Even if I attach a record to the deceased relative's Family Tree entry, the hint remains in this list, as shown with the record on the left, apparently forever. Though, I can supress its appearance with the aforementioned check-box, it is still there, but what if I *don't* want to attach the record, as in the case of the hint on the right? My experience has been that it will remain displayed in the list until I act upon it, or someone else does. The latter circumstance is the case, for instance, with the middle hint displayed above. I may choose *not* to attach the record either because the person is too distant a relative about whom I do not know enough to make the proper decision on whether to attach, or I know enough to conclude that the record should *not* be attached. I've not yet seen the latter circumstance so I could comfortably bother dismissing any hint and thereby learn what happens to the list when I do.

So in all events, it would just be better if there was some way to get rid of hints from this list (which after all is one that has been constructed only for me). Such a capability would make the list a valuable one in my online armamentarium but without it, the list is less than worthless.

Have I somehow overlooked a deletion capability? Thanks, everyone, for your time and kind consideration.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Ok, I see now. You haven't overlooked it, it is buried way down in a way that you are forced to look at all the information on that person that is possible before dismissing it as "Not a Match".

For an unattached record in your Record hints list, click on Review Record. That lets you get to the "Review and Attach" button with all the information in the source. Select that Review and Attach, and it brings up the source linker where you are supposed to decide whether the hint is appropriate or not. If the source is not a match for the person it's being hinted on, you can select the "Not a Match" button:



The SECOND way to achieve this identical thing is to select the name of the person that the hint is for. That will take you to the person details page where you will see that same hint up in the top right corner of the window:



This takes you to the flyout where you can examine the data and make the same type of choice to mark it as "Not a Match"



If you select the "Review and Attach", it will again take you to source linker as shown in the first image above.

So when you click on the Not a Match button, that hint or "Help" is "Dismissed" (using FS's terminology). In order to see where FS put it, go to that "Research Help" section on the top Right of the person's Details page (second image above" and select the "Show All" button. Ignore the number total in the black bubble as it is misleading--it does NOT show the total of all "Helps", it only shows the total of un-dismissed helps (i.e., hints) for that person. When you select the Show All link it will take you to the page where you can look at any hints that you or others have dismissed.



Note that when you dismiss a hint/help, it just removes it from the "active" list of hints and puts it into the "Dismissed" list of hints (i.e., hints that won't show up on the Details page). Everyone else will see (or not see) the same thing.

Hope this helps

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: This is NOT what he wants to do. He does not want to dismiss hints that he does not even want to evaluate because they are too distant from him. He just wants to get them off the list he sees in the posted screen shot. I'm pretty sure that is from one of the static campaigns. I don't think you can do anything with that display.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: That might be true. But the crux of the matter is whether or not "Dismissing" a hint that is presented in the list will result in it being removed from the displayed campaign list.

It would be pretty Bizarre if a dismissed hint was not removed from the campaign list, but then we've seen some bizarre campaign software behaviors in the past
:-)

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Mr Collett is correct as to my intentions. On the one hand, I want to do my part, but only if I can reasonably separate the wheat from the chaffe in doing so. On the other hand, I don't want to undermine the "campaign" by arbitrarily dismissing hints which could serve others who have a keener interest in a distant relative. And on still another hand, if there is presently no way to do both, I'd like to suggest a modest change in the functionality to permit a delete function to save the campaign's utility (unless that functionality somehow violates its "static" nature). Is this a place where one makes such a modest suggestion?

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Cheops, yes, you are certainly at the right place. We have been told multiple times that this board is monitored by FamilySearch personnel and suggestions are forwarded to the designers and software engineers.

As I noted in brief, your screen shot is one I have only seen by going into one the the campaigns that we have been told are static once they have been developed. If you search through this board, you will see various complaints about them which in various forms are basically the issues you have brought up.

So to go back to your initial post, no, you cannot at this time from the screen shot you posted ignore hints. I will say that I usually just ignore the campaigns altogether and if I have time to work strictly on attaching hints I use the Recommended Tasks list that I discussed above. If there was an easy way to compare the two, I suspect that sooner or later, all hints you might see in the screen shot you posted will appear in the Recommended Tasks list.

Adding an ignore button to the screen you show is a good idea. I hope they add it.

When those campaigns first came out, if I remember right, they did not have the checkbox to hide the previously attached hints and some people complained that when they went to look at these hints, every single one was already attached. So improvements do come in response to feedback here.

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Mr Collett: Thank you for the advice and encouragement. I'm glad to hear of the possibility of change and as a consequence consider the time spent on this thread to be well spent. I had noticed but not investigated the "recommended tasks" feature. After what was supplied here about that, I will be delving further into it to see how I can leverage my efforts on FSFT.

My appreciation also to Messrs. Wiseman and Huber. It was gratifying as a newbie here to be taken seriously and treated generously, and I learned from their posts.

LegacyUser

Cheops said: Oops! And Mr Bowen, too!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I'm with Gordon Collett -- I ignore the campaigns, since they tend to be static, rather than dynamic and current. While I can appreciate the messages and that they are intended to encourage members to work on their families, they are a major distraction, so I ignore them.

I don't know if I am unusual or not, but I have a step-parent line that has added to my ancestral lines and so many times, the "hints" are for those lines. Until a couple of years ago, I didn't think I had any responsibility toward those step- ancestral lines, but I do.

Adoption is another place where a user can end up with more than just biological ancestral lines and have the option of researching the biological, adopted, or both ancestral lines, leaving them with a lot of ancestral lines to work.

Even retired, I have more than I can easily handle and my children are busy with their spouse's lines and have left my and my wife's lines up to us.

Thank you for clarifying your situation. I'm glad that Gordon could help.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Same here.

I suspect that the campaigns are intended to help get people just get enthused about the records available to them because they provide no help to me at all.

I've been underly impressed since a lot of those hints have already been attached, and I've seen some recent messages for hints that I attached myself over 5 years ago! Also, a lot of them are irrelevant because all of them ASSUME that the relationships currently recorded in the FamilySearch FamilyTree are all correct. I find times when the person being hinted on really is NOT my ancestor at all because of mistakes in the tree between me and that person. FS should not be sending me messages telling me that certain people are my relatives when they are not.

As I work in the tree (frequently just cleaning up other's mistakes and vetting existing data), I frequently see things that I want to look at closer or revisit, and so I put those in my "To-Do" list. So all of my time is spent checking up on changes to relatives I'm watching and items in my To-Do list, I just don't have the time to waste by checking out things from those campaigns. In fact, I never use the task list either because it would have me jumping all over the place.

The To-Do list on the main landing page is far more useful to me. Unfortunately FS has given FAR less attention to its needs than any of their campaign softwares. See:
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

Since FS has shown so little interest in improving their To-Do list (i.e., none in the last 15 months), I've been contemplating switching over to using the research tool built into my Ancestral Quest application on my Mac.