How can merges be sped up a bit?

Question

The PM for Carter-38460 has not worked on this profile since April and has not answered an email nor a post on the comments by me four or five days ago. The PM for Carter-373 has never answered me on any profile of theirs I have enquired about. These need merging and I wonder if there could be something done to spead up things. I have the same problem with another ancestor's profile which has the same PM as Carter-373.  I went to their profile and left a message as well as writing an email. It is frustrating that all these profiles get gedcomed up and left for dead then I come along and literally made a good profile out of it but the PM is not around to allow me to merge the two.  Admittedly one of the pages is mine but I did the work on theirs as it was uploaded in 2010 so being the oldest I knew all the information would need to go to it anyway. Maybe I am asking too much but it would be nice if the ability to merge profiles could be a bit more streamlined.  Many thanks for any help.. PS according to their Comments the last merge they did for anyone was 5 months ago.

Comments

Hi Isabella. In case you're not already aware, merges between profiles with Open privacy (like this case) are approved by default after 30 days. From then on any WikiTree Genealogist can complete the merge.

It's a while to wait, but not forever :-)

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The merge was only proposed 4 days ago.  That's barely enough time for anyone to react, certainly not long enough to claim unresponsiveness.

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I know that.  It's just the one PM who has 2 of the profiles in question has never answered me. Not only on these but others in the past. This person is very prolific about putting out profiles but then leaves them. Perhaps there is a good reason for this, I don't know. I don't mind doing the work on them but when I find a clear match I just want to fix it. I know what we're all here for - the best we can give each other for ourselves,  our ancestors and each other. I have another situation where  one of my relatives is joined with a line that can't be hers. She was born in 1743 and her "parents" were born in 1746. Yet, I can't get the PMs to look at this. It's quite frustrating.  But, of course I'm aware 4 days is not enough for an answer. Problem is, I feel I won't get one anyway. Thank you for your thoughts.

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You can always follow the Unresponsive PM process.  That entails leaving 3 messages in three different ways, including requesting to be added to Trusted List of a profile. 

If they don't respond after a week, you would file the Unresponsive PM form after changing the Wikitree ID in the url and reloading the page.  You need to fill in the information, but be sure to indicate whether the ancestors and descendants of a profile are needed or just the one profile.  If you are interested in multiple profiles, then I would recommend including those you have tried to communicate about. 

Admin will try to contact them before orphaning one or more of their profiles.

As Melanie said, I have also had responses from people for merge requests from otherwise inactive PMs.  I work on a lot of Gedcom created profiles from around 2010-2011 and there are a lot with no information and needing a lot of work.

Thanks for any improvement that you give to these profiles.

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But note that the form Linda references says:

Do not use this form if you just want to merge . After 30 days your merge proposal will be approved by default.

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Yes, but if you have an Unresponsive manager that has private profiles or many profiles that have been duplicated because of unsourced or undated profiles, it is not a problem. There are too many Unresponsive and inactive members on wikitree.

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Thanks! Good news then! Will be counting the days. At least it won't be as long as I feared.

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Yes, I would think that makes sense regardless. I can wait 30 days.

Answer 1

it’s fairly easy to miss an email in a cluttered inbox (mine I mean), they may not have spotted it or just too busy at Christmas to get around to it, I know I’ve definitely given myself a month off from my normal level of activity.  

It’s just a case of being patient. There’s nothing stopping you working further on the profile you already have. Then when the full month is up you can merge them. I’ve got a couple coming up this week I will be able to merge after my 30 day wait.

Or sometimes the other profile manager is checking the information, I had a proposed merge earlier this month I was sure was wrong … but I spent a day or two checking and proving to myself it was wrong, only to discover the merge proposal was actually correct. I was glad I’d taken my time else I’d have rejected the merge.

Answer 2

I would like to propose that if someone hasn't contributed in a reasonable time, say 1 year, all of their profiles should be orphaned.  That wouldn't help in this case as the PM in question actually did a merge 3 moths ago, but it would help in some cases.

Comments

I am, as always, totally opposed to such a proposal.  I have had near instant responses from someone "apparently" inactive for upwards of 8 years, and non-responses from otherwise apparently active members.
I have, on occasion, failed to follow through on proposed merges, but I blame rabbits.

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I understand your point, I've experienced the same from time to time, however I can think of one in particular that manages several of my ancestors that hasn't been on in 15 months and I'm tired of waiting a month whenever I see her name come up. I won't mention names here.   Those pesky rabbits are always trouble.

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I think a year is a short time, I have quiet years and busy years depending on what hobby I’m focused on, I would hate to “lose” all my profiles because I was focused elsewhere.

However if someone hasn’t been active for a number of years I could see that it could be useful to have a release date, but I think 5 years of inactivity on Wikitree as a whole, not just on a particular profile would be a better time span.

The profile manager may be going through a difficult time such as a major illness or bereavement  and they don’t feel they have the energy to deal with family tree stuff at that moment in their life.