G2G Out of Date: Recycling

Question

Back in the internet dark ages, it was fashionable for some hobbyists, having added an ancestor named Drogo to their personal family tree, to also add Mrs. Drogo.  When GEDCOMs were discovered, Mrs. Drogo and her many, many sisters migrated to WikiTree.  We don't know her given name, nor her last name at birth, so she became one of many people named Unknown Unknown -- about whom nothing was known but the name of the person she (may have) married, and likely nothing will ever be known.

I understand current WikiTree policy is that we don't take Mrs. Drogo's LNAB and recycle it for someone completely unrelated.  The explanations on this page make sense.

But there is a whole series of G2G conversations, dated seveeral years before the current policy, on "Recycling Unknowns" -- when to do it, how to do it, etc -- most all of which would appear to violate the current policy.

It would be most helpful if these discussions could be retired, or if that is not advisable, at least have a note appended that the discussions are out of date, with a reference link to the current policy..

NB:  I see that G2G has helpfully illustrated this issue by pulling up, under "Related Questions" below, many of the discussions whose assumptions about recycling are not consistent with current policy.

Comments

Why can’t these “Unknown Unknown” just be removed?

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Sometimes an "Unknown Unknown" is a person about whom we have a good bit of biographical information, but cannot confirm a name.

Answer 1

Maybe an option is to have Stickers for G2G posts similar to Profiles.  Then add stickers to those posts/questions such as Obsolete or Not Recommended, etc...

All kinds of Stickers can then be applied to posts (but not so much as to clutter?).

Stickers:

Awesome!

WikiTree System

Resolved

Comments

This is already possible. For example, any WikiTree member could add something like the following as a comment to the old questions or answers Jack mentions.

Please note that this old post no longer complies with newer WikiTree policy.

I'm sure someone with better aesthetic sense than me can improve the design :-)

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We Moderators already have the capability of "closing" any G2G post and explaining the reason why it is closed. "Out of date and advice not consistent with current policy" is the sort of thing that could be a good reason for closing a post.

Unfortunately, when a post is closed, the act of closing it kicks the thread up to current lists of threads with recent activity, which often results in new comments from people who fail to notice that they are responding to a closed discussion from (say) 2015, followed by responses from members who try to explain that the thread sis no longer relevant, and often other activity.

If the "closure" feature could be modified to avoid that behavior, I would be more enthusiastic about closing old posts that are no longer relevant.