I have a question about the words "orphan" and "adopted" for indicating how a profile is managed.

Question

I recently had a cousin who joined WT and was upset that many of her family members were "orphans."  Of course, they were not children without living parents -- but she was seeing the notice that the profile was an orphan and thinking that it meant that the person was an orphan.  Since "orphan" and "adopt" are genealogical terms that we use in our descriptions of people, it is natural for someone unfamiliar with WT to misunderstand them when they are applied to profiles.  I'm wondering if "unmanaged" is a better option than "orphan"?  My cousin was so turned off, she decided to leave WT.  We don't want that!!  Just a suggestion that I think will clarify for everyone what we mean by these terms.  

Answer 1

Hi Tabor

I agree. I've discussed this on G2G before, and on discord. We say that there is a Profile Manager. When there is no longer a Profile Manager, the profile should be Unmanaged, and not "orphaned". 

The term "orphan" has a specific meaning in genealogy and we shouldn't overload the word with an additional meaning that is specific to WikiTree so that those who are new here don't understand what we are talking about. 

Comments

WIth Adopt and Orphan being genealogical terms, it can be jarring to see it used for those that have experienced being orphaned and /or adopted as well as for those that see it on family member's profiles.   

A few times, I've had this conversation with newer members of WikiTree to explain that WT is not designating the profiled person as "orphaned" but that the profile is.

I agree with Eric that since we use Profile Manager (PM), unmanaged would be a great term to use (UM).  

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Interesting.  I joined in June 2023 and didn’t experience any confusion with the words “orphan” and “adopt”, but I can see that enough confusion exists that it makes sense to change to “unmanaged” and “managed”. Orphaned does provide the additional context of “the profile used to be managed, but is no longer managed”, that the single word “unmanaged” doesn’t convey. However, I suppose that nuance is obvious and at least it won’t inadvertently offend anyone.

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Thanks DC for your perspective.  It's very welcomed because, as you mentioned, you are a new WT member and didn't see any confusion.

Based on my discussions, I believe it is more feelings of angst vs confusion arising for those WT'ers that have adopted (or NPEs) in their family lines.

Answer 2

I agree with Eric. Unmanaged is the way to go.

The first time I encountered an orphaned profile with the message to adopt it took maybe a minute to understand what was being stated but it may not be obvious to others and the terms might be contentious.

Answer 3

I completely agree. I am adopted so it was confusing for me the first time I saw adopt profile. I would like to see Unmanaged instead of orphaned and Manage instead of adopt.

Answer 4

I totally agree - is there some kind of WikiTree team that maybe might hold a poll among the Treefolk? So that one would have a picture of opinion and then - if there was a majority for a change - the terms could be changed? At the moment I can't think of anything that would argue against the use of the words "unmanaged" / "managed"

Comments

I love your term "Treefolk"! I'm going to steal it. 

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You are sooo welcome! :-)

Answer 5

Replacing the profile status Unmanaged instead of Orphaned sounds fine, the act of orphaning button already has "Remove Yourself", but what words would you replace Adopt and with?   Add to Watchlist? Manage?

e.g. Where it currently says "No Profile Manager [adopt this profile]", what word are phrase should we use instead of adopt?

Comments

When you take on management of a profile your contributions list it as - You added You as manager for profile of . . .

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That phrase would be find for the Activity Feed, but I meant the link to adopt a profile currently on an orphaned profile (I've amended my answer to clarify that)

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Well, you said yourself: manage.

So change the text: "No Profile Manager [adopt this profile]"

to this: "No Profile Manager [manage this profile]"