Stake competitive goals for wards on number of records indexed
Was a letter sent to stake president's to discontinue competitive goals for number of records indexed between wards around 2022.
May stakes have wards compete on which one can index the most records?
Answers
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@Smyth MJ
Regardless, if a letter sent to Stake President's to discontinue competitive goals for number of records Indexed.
Indexing, should NEVER be; and, should NEVER have been, Competitive.
Wards, Branches, Stakes & Districts, should NEVER, set Goals for Indexing.
Any Ward, Branch, Stake & District, that has Goals for Indexing should STOP and REMOVE such Goals, IMMEDIATELY.
Indexing is about QUALITY; Not, Quantity.
Goals for Indexing only leads to POOR Quality Indexing.
Rather than being Competitive, Wards, Branches, Stakes & Districts, should have Busy Bees, to support one another, in QUALITY work.
Please pardon the outburst.
Sore point, for many of us.1 -
@Jenny.B you may really be disappointed with the nifty tidbit on the home screen > FamilyTree > My Contributions > Stats.
Tracking quantity gives a sense of accomplishment and a way to quantify the work we do here on FamilySearch. This, like competition drives motivation. While I empathize with the concern for quality, these things are always going to be a trade off. Think of the collaborative nature of FamilySearch - this drives many people crazy when 'other people' make changes to 'their tree'; but with that collaboration much more actual work gets done and the tree is grown much more due to the mitigation of duplicate work.
So, is competition bad? No. Can it lead to sloppy work? Yes. Overall, is it a benefit to the System? I have to believe most assuredly so. While someone new may put out some rough work product, they get a taste of the hobby and perchance get more comfortable coming back to do more work on their own and actually grow in their experience and knowledge.
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@Jack Hern
Sarcasam, is not appreciate, in regard to your openning sentence.
If, one needs motivation, to do Indexing, then one should Not be doing Indexing.
Indexing, is something that one does, to Help and support Others (and, of course, FamilySearch).
If, one needs validation, for Helping, then one should Not be doing Indexing.
Indexing, is Not about quantity.
Indexing, is about Quality.
Although, not a fan of Statisctics generally, am not adverse to seeing what one has done; but, certainly do not need such for motivation or validation.
If, that is what motivates or drives, one to do Indexing, then that is a very sad state of affairs.
If, one needs, "a sense of accomplishment and a way to quantify the work [they] do here on FamilySearch", then they should Not be doing Indexing.
There should be No trade off, with reagrd to Quality, when it comes to Indexing.
Indexing, is Not about collaboration.
The collaborative nature, of the Global Tree, should Never be compared, to Indexing.
So, is competition Bad, in regard to Indexing, YES.
Can, competition, in Indexing, lead to Poor Quality (ie. sloppy) work, YES.
There, is No benefit, to Competition, in Indexing, that inevitably leads to Poor Quality (ie. sloppy) work.
It is not just New Indexers that may submit Poor Quality (ie. sloppy) work, through inexperience.
But, not so new and Experienced Indexers will undoubtedly submit Poor Quality (ie. sloppy) work, where Competition is involved.
Competition, in Indexing, should be Banned.
Any, Ward, Branch, Stake & District, that promotes Any form of Competition, in Indexing, amongst its Members, should be Removed from Indexing, until such time as such, Ward, Branch, Stake & District, can prove, that they have Stopped and Desist, from such Competition.1 -
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FamilySearched introduced a required certification process where "Reviewers" had to check a box beside each record field certifying the field had been properly reviewed.
There had to be a reason for this.
Has the Church issued a statement related to holding a contest to see which ward in a stake could index the most records?
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Concern over indexing competitions was being expressed well before 2022 so, hopefully, these have now been officially discouraged.
I agree that there was never any positive aspect in these activities: indexing - like all other activities linked to genealogy - should always be based on quality, with no consideration of how long it might take to read the facts accurately: especially when old documents are involved, where it might require a good deal of time to work out the true spelling of the individual's name, and even the event date.
I admit I do refer to the My Contributions section, but the statistics recorded don't necessarily reflect the quality of ones work. For example, user (perhaps me) might read they have added thousands of names to the tree, but a good proportion of those might be hard-to-find duplicates. Quite understandably, there are no figures available for how many conflated profiles one might have unmerged, but this activity is probably of far more importance than having duplicates in the tree.
Sometimes it will take me several days to build up a profile on the tree: on other occasions I can locate parents, a spouse and children and add all the relevant available FS sources in a couple of hours. As with indexing, statistics are meaningless compared to quality of work, so I strongly believe competitiveness should never be encouraged in this field.
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Copied from
Family History Activity Report (FHAR) Update: January 2026Melissa M Knapp✭✭January 26edited January 2667.166.116.124We’ve received several questions regarding access to theFamily History Activity Report (FHAR)inLeader and Clerk Resources (LCR).ThePriesthood Departmenthas clarified that at this time,Temple and Family History ConsultantsandFamilySearch Center Coordinatorsare no longer given access to the FHAR. They recommend the following steps to review FHAR data:TFH Consultantsshould workthrough their Elders Quorum and Relief Society presidencies.FSC Coordinatorsshould workthrough their assigned High Councilor.
The Knowledge Article—“Family History Activity Report (FHAR) Guide”https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/article/family-history-activity-report-fhar-guide#5-accesscurrently states that coordinators have access. However, it will be updated soon to reflect the updated information.0 -
For many years as a ward FH consultant, I had access to the stats by person in every ward in our stake. Gradually that has been reduced to now I only see my own stats.
Looks like Elders Quorum presidency members will have to start reviewing Family History stats.
The importance of indexing is on the rise.
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Competitive Indexing
There were never any hard lines for indexing in stakes and wards. It was always an optional volunteer activity decided by individuals, stakes, or wards. Some stakes or wards chose to have indexing goals between about 2011 and 2016, but it was completely random and not under Church HQ or FamilySearch direction.
Now, direction from Church Headquarters is here: Leadership Resources for Family History, which includes- Focus First on the Savior
- Use Ordinances Ready
- Add What You Know
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