Recurring problem in correcting poorly done indexes
I often find records that are poorly indexed, make corrections, and then, right after I run the command to save the corrections, the record becomes unavailable, uneditable, and is excluded from the search. Here is an example: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4H-Y3T3-1?view=index&action=view&cc=3741255&lang=en&groupId= The image is there, but the indexing "disappeared" as soon as I saved it and now I can no longer edit it. The images before and after it in the same collection are properly indexed. In the respective record, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6VDK-S1XD?lang=en, a padlock appeared saying that access to the record is now restricted and that the record is not yet available, whereas just before I corrected the indexing everything was accessible and editable. FamilySearch has to decide whether or not it wants us, users, to be able to correct these errors. It makes no sense to call on us to collaborate and then prohibit us from doing so, under criteria that are not at all clear.
Answers
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@SerraNola one for you please
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@Rogério669 I have collected several examples of "disappearing indexes" during the editing process. When this occurred for you on image 141, do you remember if you added a person not indexed or just edited an existing persona? I edited image 131 and added the missing father on image 138. In both cases, it worked as designed.
When a new person is added or a new family group created, it automatically runs through the compliance software used by FamilySearch. In the past this sometimes took a week or more to come back, but the "disappearance" was only temporary. Now the process is quick, however sometimes it fails to get the "permissions anyone" in the code and transforms into restricted. I've discussed with engineers the possibility of errors occurring when users edit a persona that has been previously "locked" (no permissions). That might explain the inability to add and save on some records.
I am not a software guru—just the person gathering data. The more information we can give engineers the quicker the issues can be resolved. Thank you for this report and if you can share additional pertinent info about your experience it would be helpful.
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Dear @SerraNola , thank you for your reply. At first, the problem seems to happen for unclear reasons, but in my experience it's more likely to happen when I add or change highlights and/or primary people. It's as if the system doesn't "like" too many changes, when it "thinks" you're overdoing it, it puts the record in a kind of quarantine. I have another example, this time with dates: my grandmother Blandina Faget GJ42-D5K. Her birth record has her name spelled "Brandina", then I mistakenly tried to change it to correct spelling "Blandina" (now I know that we must to index the records as they are written). I dit it on March 28, 2023, and the record has been restricted, so the indexes disappeared too. But the others records at the same image remained unchanged, so the Add Name function remained available. Then I tried, a number of times, to create again the index that had disappeared, without effect. Surprisingly, last month the indexes reappeared, as well as all the additional indexes I created that were invisible, and all of them are currently editable. Now, let's think: if someone had manually released this index, shouldn't they have deleted the redundant indexes I created? And if the system did it, why did it do it? Perhaps an investigation into this record will shed some light on the matter, I hope so. Best regards!
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And there is another stuff, maybe related with these indexes issues. Some Brazilian image collections that were available and indexed were removed, perhaps because of legal issues. The corrections I had made in some records were associated with the images, so they disappeared, and the indexing reverted to its previous incorrect string values. Here is an example: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6VN1-WZBV?lang=pt
You see that my grandmother Blandina is now "Glaudino Jace", what I had already fixed some time ago.
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@Rogério669 This is really good feedback and timely. The effort to restore lost indexing from editing errors two years ago is finally in the works. I will relay your examples to the records team to see if anything can be done to stop the duplication errors. Also, I do not know if they are aware that when images are moved to restricted, indexing edits revert back to the original.
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide this information.
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