What do you do with a profile manager who micromanages whatever you try to help with?

Question

I understand that this is an entire collaborative work, but I just tried to add some information to a profile but it’s not PPP, but every time I did so, I was bumped back and asked to give an exact explanation for what I was doing. All I was doing was adding a missing child with the source information. Then I went back in to correct a typo. At each step I was prevented from moving forward until I came up with a full explanation. How does everyone else deal with this? I’m here to help other people and have other people help me. We are all in this together.

Comments

The last time I responded to a question like this I spoke in general terms and received two flags for one comment. Now, unless it prevents me from my personal objective, I just shuffle along.

Answer 1

Geoff, good question. Everyone responds a bit differently, but really most members welcome additions. The exceptions can be an energy drain.

You have a few options, but first:

Please first consider: is there a cultural difference in both your ways of communication? Sometimes the wording is different than you would expect, but in fact the intention is not different.

Options as I see them:

1. Move along (sometimes really the best).
2. Consider this a problem with a member and follow that procedure.
3. Be patient and see if this member will learn.

Answer 2

If you limit what you are doing to adding publically available (not behind a paywall) sources, then the sources should speak for themselves. If you have information that is known to you but you don't have and don't want to spend time seeking sources to confirm the information, just leave your information in a comment, explain why you have confidence in the unsourced information and maybe someone else will take interest in it and find the source. Sure, occasionally people can reject obviously true, well sourced info.  But that is rare and I always figure I'll just come back in a few years and fix it then.  No shortage of stuff to work on here.

Comments

I stopped my Ancestry membership last year to cut costs, so I don’t use anything that resides behind a pay wall, using archive.org and familysearch.org, plus the occasional university and state archive websites. I do wish that HeretageQuest were more easily accessible, as you can usually use it remotely through your local library system via Galileo, but not everyone has access to that. They have tens of thousands of books on genealogy, many of which are out of print (and you can print up to 50 pages at a time!) along with the entire US federal census collection, which is more easily searchable than just about anywhere including Ancestry. HeritageQuest and worldcat.org have been my main stays for over 15 years.

Answer 3

I sent the profile manager a private email being very polite, but I did use the word “micromanage.” The sources I was using are some of the most commonly used in the New Netherland Settlers project, so it’s not a question of whether they are good or not. Every time I tried to do anything on the profile, whether it was bio improvement, citing Hoes’ baptismal records of the old Dutch church of Kingston, or just fixing a typo, it backstopped me and asked me to explain further. At every step. I explained that if the person did not want anyone to change the profile then it should be PPP, otherwise the collaboration that we expect on here will never happen. I just want some feedback on what to do next time. Of course I can just let it go, and try not to deal with that profile manager again, but I hate to lose the whole idea of collaboration. People are touchy enough these days online and I don’t wanna step on any toes. We’re all here to have fun and to learn.

Comments

Hi Geoff. A relevant Help page section may be this one:

Does the manager get to decide what is true and what is not?

No.

Since all descendants have to share the same ancestor profile the profile manager needs to seek consensus. They should see themselves as a leader and try to resolve conflicts through clear communication and careful use of sources.

Michel's option 1 of moving on may indeed be the best course, but if you'd like to continue, it may be worth asking the profile manager for a frank and genuine discussion to see if the two of you can come to agreement about what "seek consensus" means here. If they are unwilling to do this reasonably, Problems with Members could indeed be required.

Answer 4

You may have to turn to the Problems with Members process to solve your issue.   Take a look at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Problems_with_Members

Comments

It’s not as if I actually had an online conversation with the profile manager. Maybe there is some stage of control between an open profile and a PPP profile that I don’t know about, but every time I tried to change something it booted me back, requesting clarification even if I checked off the bio improvement box. Maybe there’s something with the code or software that I just don’t understand, but I don’t recall this happening with any other profile.

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I just went back to read about the privacy levels for profiles. It seems that the profile must have been Public rather than Open, but it was from a profile over 150 years ago. I noticed that the guidelines say that any profile that is that old or older must be Open, but is that some thing that is universal?

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The rule for Open privacy is:

• Profiles of people born over 150 years ago or who died over 100 years ago must be Open.

If the profile fulfills this criterion but nonetheless does not have Open privacy, then if you look at the menu on the profile with the WikiTree ID heading (just to the right of My WikiTree), there should be a link "Open Profile Request" which you can click.

Answer 5

Are you sure its the PM who is knocking you back or when you SAVE your work Did you answer EXACTLY why you are making the changes you are making?

Comments

I was doing the same thing I do with every profile, and wasn’t doing anything different. I’ve never had that happen with any other profile I’ve worked on. It almost felt like someone was monitoring in real time what I was inputting. I’ve never had another case where I had to be more precise than bio improvement and that was what I was doing. As with all of us, I make mistakes too, especially when I’m tired, but if it’s a technical one the system lets me know, like putting 2750 instead of 1750, for instance. I’m constantly working on my suggestions list so I think I understand most of what causes warnings.

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Do you think someone else could have been attempting to edit at the same time you were? Rare, but possible.   What is the profile ID?

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Geoff, this does sound like something caused by software not the profile manager. Are you using any browser extensions? Have you tried clearing cookies and the browser cache?