Merge Technical Change? This is a Problem

Question

There is a problem with what is being captured as changes with a merge: I noticed that this afternoon the system went from showing a change entry for a merge as:

15:29: xyz-1234 edited the data for John Wood (1773-1864). (Merged Wood-42155 into Wood-42150: (Clear duplicate)

And now the changes line is now this:

16:08: xyz-1234 merged Elizabeth Briggs (-1763) into Elizabeth (Briggs) Woodman (1689-1763). (Clear duplicate.) [Note: this refers to Briggs-1313]

Notice the Edited the Data portion went away, as did the WikiTree IDs being merged from and to. It now appears that there is no way to tell what was changed in the merge. This is a problem! We need to be able to click on the Edited the Data link to see the changes, and to see the WikiTree IDs as part of the changes line. Even if you go to the profile changes log now, it does not have the Edited the Data listed as part of the merge operation. Another example is Woodman-1374

The ID listed below is just an example, but there are others as well.

Edited to add: It also now does not let you go back into the history of the profile that was merged INTO the target to see what the changes were to that profile along the way before it was merged into the current profile. We need to be able to see that also.

Please help!

Comments

I'm also reluctant to merge, and I've asked people to put merges on hold, fearing loss of data. This is sort of urgent.

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It has been put into the work queue along with some other change feed updates, but work hasn't started on it yet.

As stated below, you can still access the old profile's change history by switching out the WikiTree ID. No data is lost, there just isn't a shortcut to get there at the moment.

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=[old wikitree id]

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Hi Jamie, no matter how I do it I still get my own feed. Not the old merged away profile's change history. And even if it did work - it would have been too much to expect of normal WikiTree members to apply it.

Data is most probably not lost globally (I'm sure that you'll find a solution because I do not believe that WikiTree could function properly without a decent working changes tab) but if one does not keep track of research in project (Excel-lists of profiles that has been merged), the data is 'lost' because it is simply not visible.

But I'll get out of you way so that you can get on with the priorities. In the mean time I'll just integrated the data before merging, so that at least I'll be sure to have the data ready to collate after merging.

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Apologies Jamie, I see now that it does work. I've just done a complicated merge and to my surprise ... So I'll leave you to your work. Thanks for your patience.

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I know how to get to the history. My concern is for the future, when members don't remember this time period when the change history did not show a link to the histories of merged-away profiles. I am thinking twice before making LNAB or completing merges that will obscure the history of a profile that has an extensive history. In at least one case I put a link to the pre-merge change history in the Acknowledgments section of the profile.

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The above shortcut only seems to work if the previous LNAB is exactly the same as the target LNAB it was merged into. When there is a difference in spelling, it does not work. Example: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Claassen-590 (Edit I pre-merge entered the data into this bio, then merged; that is why you'll find the collated data)

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Are you sure, Philip? The URL

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Claasen-329

seems to go to the changes on the merged-away profile.

Edited because I got the URL wrong the first time, unfortunately easy to do when you're constructing them manually.

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Your link (and it happens to me to) goes to my own activity (not contributions) feed. Starting with: 1 Sep 2021

08:50: Admin WikiTree added the August 2021 Club 1,000 badge for Philip van der Walt. [Thank Admin for this]

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For some reason Jim's link is linking to Claasen-529 (which doesn't exist, which is why it's defaulting to your own changes), the correct link is 329 https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Claasen-329

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Thanks Jamie. It is a struggle to get it right (and I'm experienced with merging). Once more apologies for keeping you from your priorities.

Answer 1

We did do a technical change to switch those over to the format that the relationship history items are in, since it involves two profiles.

But you are correct, it does make it harder to get to the history of the other profile. Since we have to make a change, there is probably a better way to do it from what we were doing before, as I don't think it was obvious to the average user that to see the changes on the old profile you would click on the WikiTree ID in the comment.

In the meantime: you can see still the WikiTree IDs if you hover over the names of the profiles. To get to the other profile's changes, just use https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=[WikiTree ID].

Comments

Unfortunately hovering is often not possible on tablets and other mobile devices. Perhaps this change could be reversed until a better solution is developed.

Edited to add: In fact in this case a long press on an iPad does show a URL containing the old WikiTree ID. But this is still more cumbersome than the old arrangement where we could click through to see the history of changes on the profile that was merged away.

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Thanks, but how do I see the history on the profile that was merged away even once I have the old ID? I cannot express strongly enough how necessary it is to be able to go back through all the history of a profile, which might encompass multiple merges over many years. So many times there is invaluable information in the old history that we need to retrieve.

Please, if there is any way to return the functionality to see everything that has happened to a profile over time, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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S, the method suggested for the moment seems to be:

1. Hover on or long press the link to the merged away profile in the Change list. In the current case Elizabeth Briggs (-1763) shows

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Briggs-10803

2. Note the ID Briggs-10803.

3. Insert that into the URL Jamie gave, yielding

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Briggs-10803

Going to that link does show the history of the old profile.

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You still cannot see what was entered at profile creation of the merged away profile, because clicking on the  "created" link in Briggs-10803's history now takes you to the profile of Briggs-1313.

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Gillian, that has always been an issue when you get into the Changes log of a merged away profile. I go into one of the earlier entries, other than the created one, and then go to Previous to get back to the Created entry.