Proposal: One more option for place field status buttons: 'intentionally blank: evidence lacking' (revised)

Question

This proposal comes in response to the new/upcoming Data Doctors suggestions on the birth or death place fields. It is for cases in which the editor cannot be sure even which continent the person was born (or died) in.  We have a few options for the location fields: "certain", "uncertain", "blank for extra privacy" and (for the death place) "intentionally blank because still living".  This proposal is to add one more button, which could be "intentionally blank: evidence lacking", or something similar. This proposal is going with this wording for the label, but feel free to discuss this here. I've been told that adding this status option would be pretty easy to implement but community support is required.

The other part of this proposal is the following proposed change to the final paragraph of the Help page section Almost Any Location_is Better than No Location. (The preceding second-to-last paragraph is unchanged, but is quoted here for context.)

Our community has agreed that almost any location name is better than no location at all. If you do not know the historically-accurate place name in the person's native language it is better to enter an uncertain, estimated, modern, or translated location name than to leave all locations for the person blank.

Birth or death locations should only be left blank when, after research, entering any location at all would be a guess. (See Help:Uncertain for more about the line between uncertain information and guesses.) In this case, choose the status option labelled "intentionally blank: evidence lacking". This option should be used only when research has shown that there is no prospect of establishing and providing a source for a location, even a broad one like a continent (see below). To help other researchers, details of the research should be either mentioned in the main Biography text or added to the Research Notes section of the profile.

When both birth and death locations are blank and the "intentionally blank: evidence lacking" option is not selected, a Data Doctor suggestion (141, 142, or 143) will be given.  

This is a revision of this proposal.  See here for the previous discussion.  

Please upvote the 'support' or 'do not support' answers below.      

Thanks.
 

Comments

Thank you for taking this forward, Ian. It's a good solution. I hope many WikiTreers will see the proposal and consider supporting it.

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Two weeks after discussion ended here, the voting sits at 44 in favour and 9 against.  I think it's time to close the proposal and implement the change.

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One month after asking the Team to close this and implement this proposal... No response.

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Even if the new suggestions planned by Aleš do not go ahead, Ian's proposal with suitable rewording will still be worthwhile, as a way of documenting unusual but significant cases where no location at all can be provided, not even a continent or ocean region, and distinguishing those from accidental omissions of location values which are actually available.

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Hi Ian,

I am sorry that the team has not yet read all the replies, considered all the implications, and composed a reply. We are working on this now.

Chris

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Hi Ian,

The team has reservations about this.

First, we worry that it would open the door to similar status indicators on other data fields. Why wouldn't we have "intentionally blank: evidence lacking" for all names, dates, and family relationships? Why does it make sense for locations but nowhere else?

Some people might also ask for other "intentionally blank" indicators. Right now, we only use them for privacy.

One small objection to all status indicators and the addition of new ones: they add complication. The more of these little things we have, the more complex the UI. It all takes a few more seconds to understand. Seconds add up and discourage new users.

Adding to confusion: Why do we have different approaches for other required fields? We require that one date field be included, and to use "Unknown" for last names. Some like Peggy McMath and Jim have suggested considering "Unknown" for locations instead of the new status indicator. Others have made good arguments against using Unknown for names.

Another important consideration, raised by Regan and others: would the new indicator be understood and used correctly? We are saying it should only have a very, very limited usage. There is a good chance it would be used incorrectly more than it would be used correctly.

Even many of the advanced members commenting on the proposal don't quite agree on the proper usage of the "Uncertain" status indicator. If we add an "Evidence Lacking" indicator, it's likely that a lot of members would use these instead of entering uncertain information. The way we encourage uncertain information has always been controversial. Our rationale for it is subtle. It's something that many genealogists are not comfortable with. If we now offer "Evidence Lacking" as an option, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Finally, this doesn't feel urgent. The team is rushing to push out changes that have been discussed for years before we lock down for the redesign. Even if there were no open questions to consider, it would be months before it could be implemented.

Ian, I am sorry to be a wet blanket here, as I often am.

Chris

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If Aleš's planned new suggestions do go ahead, it will be highly desirable to have a mechanism to forestall them (instead of having retrospectively to mark them false) in cases where no evidence at all about event location is available and a location cannot be guessed.

An alternative to Ian's proposal for achieving this, without the complications Chris has identified, might be to use new categories, for example something like

Category: No Evidence Available for Birth Location
Category: No Evidence Available for Death Location

If such a category were present, it would prevent the corresponding suggestion from being generated, in the same way as Category: Supercentenarians does for DBE 104 and Category: LGBTQPlus for DBE 403.

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That's a good idea. 

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Clever idea, Jim.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend proposing that separately and tagging it so categorization project members and Data Doctors see it. I really have no idea about categorization style.

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Good idea

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Thanks Chris. I've now made a category structure proposal starting with this G2G post.

Answer 1

I support this proposal.  (Upvote this answer to support the proposal.)

Comments

I agree with the idea, but not sure about the language of the button label. I think we'd need something that makes clear that the person is definitely not living.

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I don't think this is a problem, Matthew. Indication of death having occurred is provided by the presence of a date or the status "about/uncertain but non-living" on the death date field. It isn't necessary to indicate the same thing on the death place field as well.

Edited to fix typo.

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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Living_People

As a general rule, you must not create a profile for any living person without their explicit, prior permission.

A person who is still living and who is not a WT member would be unlisted.

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What if they have not entered a Death Date nor selected any of the radio buttons next to it?

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Then I would hope they have a birth date even if it is approximate. Plus looking at information for other family members to provide some idea of dates that would make sense.

If parents or siblings, spouses or children have dates or locations for births, marriages or death it would be useful.

If they have no birth or baptism date, no death date, no marriage information and no locations, and no other family, perhaps the profile should not have been created.

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If the birth date is 100 or more years ago, WikiTree assumes that the person is no longer living.

In any case, the new radio button on the death place field will have no bearing either way on the absence of death date information. If no death date details are given, the situation will be exactly the same as it is now, so the proposal will cause no harm.

Answer 2

I do not support this proposal.  (Upvote this answer to oppose the proposal.)

Comments

I've read the various discussions around the upcoming change, this proposal and the concern it is trying to address. I don't object to addressing it in some way. But it seems that using this option should be very limited and I don't see how just adding a radio button limits it's use.

I understand there are cases where:

• we don't know a city, a county, a state or province or a country
• sources we do have suggest it could be more than one continent
• none of those sources allow us to make any kind of reasonable hypothesis or estimate

I don't see how the average user is supposed to differentiate between the options. Where is the line between "uncertain" and "evidence lacking"? 

I've encountered researchers who firmly believe that one should never use estimates or hypotheses and only add information if you have proof. They would use this option very frequently.

I feel that maybe something closer to "No hypothesis possible—see Research Notes" plus a policy that if a user chooses this option they commit to adding research notes evaluating the sources would make it clearer that this is for very limited cases. Maybe if someone clicks that button there's even a pop up that repeats that.

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"Uncertain" and "evidence lacking" are distinguished by the presence or absence of an entry in the location field. "Uncertain" is for when a location is entered but it is not definitely known to be correct. "Intentionally blank: evidence lacking" will be for when the field is empty because not even a continent or ocean region can be entered without guessing.

As indicated in Ian's proposal, the Help page would be changed to require that when the new radio button is used, details of the research must be provided in the biography, either in the main text or in the Research Notes.

A popup with explanation is a good idea, if it can be technically arranged.

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"Intentionally blank: evidence lacking" will be for when the field is empty because not even a continent or ocean region can be entered without guessing.

Which is what I said I understood the goal to be. Perhaps you were just confirming that you understood me? Though "guessing" is somewhat different from "hypothesis," so maybe that's what you're clarifying.

Which reinforces my point: If well-informed users are having a conversation on the exact subject of what it means and may or may not agree and can't completely tell if they agree, then I  don't see how the average user will differentiate. 

It needs more clarity.

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My point is that there is little danger of confusion, because the two radio buttons "Uncertain" and "Intentionally blank: evidence lacking" are for mutually exclusive situations: the first where there is some text in the location field, and the second where there isn't. It doesn't make sense to mark a blank field as "Uncertain", or a non-blank one as "Intentionally blank". I don't think many WikiTree members will have difficulty with the distinction.

"Guessing" is a specific WikiTree term which is explained in existing Help page text: that part doesn't change with the proposal.

Answer 3

I have a whole bunch of Profiles where the "Blank due to lack of sources" would be great. In a lot of cases, we know where someone is buried, but were did they actually die?

rsl

Answer 4

I personally would rather leave a location blank until I have found something to support a estimated location.  If we are to follow the Honor Code, are we not supposed to complete our profiles as much as possible. I recently adopted orphans and have been working non-stop on correcting all the suggestions I already have.  Adding more on top, I believe will push more new users away.  

I personally love WikiTree but it has a very steep learning curve,  I have watched the G2G and listened to people's opinions, feelings and comments.  I have tried to promote it and have been told people find it too difficult to learn, instructions difficult to find and often they have run ins with not very nice people.  If you want to build the community, then you need to make it less intimidating and less overwhelming.  Adding more suggestions, will not help achieve this goal.

As far as the long-term members, the Project Managers, the Newts that care, etc., they are already trying to clear up those blank fields without being told to.

Train and help new people more so they will just strive to make their profiles as complete as possilbe in the first place and then this will not be an issue.

Also stress when there are challenges and such, that people should not just paste links on profiles but actually complete the source citation, update the biography with related facts and update the basic facts like locations that can be determined by that source.  I cannot tell you how many profiles I have come across or have been told to send a thank you for, where someone who has just plunked a link or a category on to one of my profiles and done nothing else.

Answer 5

Thank you for taking this forward. It truly makes sense. I am in support.