Did you see today's changes on search/surname pages and invitations?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

A few minutes ago we released a round of significant changes.

First, we improved our search engine: results now appear in a table, instead of a list, so they can be more easily scanned and sorted. You can sort by privacy level and last edit date now, in addition to first name, birth date, or death date. You can reverse the sort order, and add a secondary sort. These search results can include everyone with a surname.

In the past, you needed to use surname pages for this functionality (e.g. SMITH). The user interface on those pages was complex and our back-end methods for maintaining them were becoming unsustainable. Now, these pages are not intended to be used by members for any practical purpose at all. They're intended for:

1. New visitors, to showcase the breadth and depth of what our community has to offer related to a surname that interests them.
2. Google, to help make sure that our most-recently added and edited profiles appear in Google search results. 

Please note that we are planning further design improvements to search results and surname index pages, along with other pages. As many of you know, we are working on a complete website redesign.

Today we also released what we believe are major improvements to how we invite family members to join us on WikiTree. The way to invite someone is to add an email address to their profile. But our privacy policies became more conservative over the years, especially after 2018, and we established a rule that said you should not create a profile for a living person without their permission. So, you were essentially supposed to ask them if you could invite them. That's unnecessarily complex. It discouraged what should be one of the primary usages of WikiTree: sharing family history with our loved ones.

Now, we are again whole-heartedly encouraging you to invite living family members. If they don't accept the invitation, the profile you created will become an anonymous placeholder that helps protect their privacy. To understand this better, see the sample invitation on Help:Invitations.

Today's changes touch a lot of different systems. If you spot what could be a bug, whether or not you think it could be related, please post an answer here. (Comments at the top will be moved or hidden once read.) Thank you!

Onward and upward,

Chris and the WikiTree Team

Answer 1

Living relatives profile changes?

Does this mean that 2 living sisters in law currently black listed who have no intention to participate on WT or do any family history research will be anonymized?

They were asked if they wanted to be included.

Comments

Profiles that were already created aren't going to be anonymized automatically.

But going forward, profiles for living people shouldn't be added unless you plan on inviting them. If they don't respond or decline, their profile will be automatically anonymized.

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Thank-you Jamie!

I can't think of any other family members who are interested in their family history.

Answer 2

I see a lot of people saying they want exact name searches and they get too many variant names in their search results, and that they had used the surname pages to find exact surname results. 

We can already select "no, only exact name matches" in the search page, but maybe this isn't very easy to spot or intuitive for people? 

Check boxes for "exact" would probably be more intuitive for people, like this:

Or like this in the banner (it might be more useful than the "watchlist only" search field that is there now):

Comments

Are you using the browser extension? This is not a feature of the website itself.

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@Michel, I don't have the extension, but the search function on the website does allow you to check one of four options (the first being the default).

yes, include both first & last name variants
include first name variants, only exact last name matches
include last name variants, only exact first name matches
no, only exact name matches

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Michel, it’s not part of the browser extension, I just edited a screenshot to show an example of how I think switching between exact and not exact searches could be more user-friendly.

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Thank you Valerie for the explanation.

Natasha: this is indeed the option. But for me that is hidden after three clicks: one needs to search, click again to get the name search, click options and then we have the list with clean names.

Answer 3

(converting to separate answer, got lost in the shuffle otherwise)

There's a BIG problem with the invitation.  It's all in English.  I invited a young cousin some years ago, she declined due to this fact.  Do I then have to remove all my cousins, whose profiles were created in 2014?

Comments

100% with you, Danielle. As written in my own answer to this post, which has not been commented yet, anyone I can know of in her right mind in France receiving such an unsolicited invitation message in English as it stands will throw it away as spam.

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That's not a new issue though. The invitation has always been in English (with the option of writing a custom message in whatever language you like).

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Indeed. The monolingual-monocultural thought is deeply rooted in WikiTree genotype, and this is only yet another manifestation of it. And it is the major obstacle to adoption of WikiTree by people who don't belong to it, that is roughly 90% of living people.

So you will always have people like Danielle, myself and many others, taking any opportunity to recall the existence of those 90%, who will be forever out of reach of WikiTree unless the said monolingual-monocultural thought is seriously challenged.

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Jamie, while I am not as adamant as Bernard, I do think it remains an issue, no matter how old it may be.  And the ''option to write a custom message'' is all very well, but if a person decides to respond, what language will the sign-up be in?

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I am a purely English speaker, but one who feels it should not just be native speakers of other languages who raise this. Wikitree started off in the English speaking world, but if it is to be global, every change should include consideration of how other languages can be fully integrated as a key piece of functionality rather than as a "nice to have."

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I fully agree with Natasha. We live in a multilingual world. Even in the US, which obviously is the biggest market for WikiTree there are millions of people who feel more comfortable in another language than English. So multilinguism on a website that wants to reach out worldwide should be imperative. WikiTree obviously wants to be a worldwide site, because it states in its mission that it wants a worldwide ancestry tree.

Edit: I slightly changed the last sentence.

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It's important not to put off people whose main language is not English with what may be the very first thing they see from WikiTree. I wonder if a bank of translations of the invitation email text into different languages could be built up by volunteers, perhaps working from automated translations as a base. Ideally these could become live alternatives offered by the software at invite time. But a simple initial approach might be to store them on free-space pages, with an index offered when an invitation was about to be made, so that the member issuing it could paste in the appropriate language text as the custom message Jamie mentioned.

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There is a translate thing already set up that is used for help pages, which could probably be extended to other things (although not all the help pages are translated, and there is only activity for a few languages): https://wikitree.sdms.si/function/WTTranslate/Lang.htm

Even if the UI was completely translated, it would still be difficult for a person to participate fully in the community without knowing some English or knowing how to use a translation program. Official announcement posts/policy discussions are always going to be in English, the weekly newsletter items are always going to be in English, most community-wide challenges would be in English, etc.

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People with English as a second language, and even those without but using in-browser translation, can use WikiTree. The point here is that for their first contact, at invitation time, it is courteous to ask them in their primary language. It would be possible to facilitate this along the lines I suggested above.

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Along the same line, Jim, the "greetings" message on profiles of newcomers, so "cheerfully American", can be totally counter-productive for people used to less exuberant (is that the correct word) mode of communication. I had some removed cousin from Bretagne whom I had convinced to join, who started contributing but stopped completely when such well intentioned comments were put on his profile. I suppose he found them intrusive, he was used to work seriously but alone on his Geneanet tree. I know the ways of those people my cousins, it's difficult to explain, but there is a kind of mix of pride and shyness which can provoke that kind of reaction.

A newcomer from another cultural and linguistic background need to be apprivoisé. I'm not sure there is an exact equivalent of this word in English. Read Le Petit Prince for a cool introduction.

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Indeed, Bernard, good points. "Tamed" would be the usual direct translation, but perhaps what is wanted here is "broken in".

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I indeed check a translation of Le Petit Prince where "apprivoiser" is translated by "tame". But I don't like it. I take "tame" to mean "dompter", like a tiger in a circus, with a force, master/slave relationship. Apprivoiser is something else, to go beyond the initial fear and misunderstanding towards a relationship of mutual trust. In this process both parts are moving towards each other.

But it's exactly the problem we have here, enforcement of a cultural and linguistic model is kind of taming the newcomers and outsiders, when they need to be apprivoisés.

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Interesting simile.  The more correct translation of ''apprivoiser'' would probably be to gentle, gentling.  Bernard is correct that the word tame relates more to the word dompter.  Which has more ''brutal'' connotation, if you'll pardon the expression.  By the same token, ''Broken in'' also gives that connotation.

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Even the verb "gentle" can be problematic. I'm afraid Bernard is right that it's telling there is no single word in English to express apprivoiser in the sense of Saint-Exupéry — or Les Champs-Elysées, where "make friends with" has been suggested. The fox says it means « créer des liens » or "create bonds", which is what is needed here.

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basically, this is the problem encountered with translation in general.  Exact concepts don't necessarily carry over from one language to the other.  Apprivoiser, if you've ever met a feral cat (or gone feral), and slowly enticed it to let you approach it, feed it, pet it, etc, until it trusts you and a bond is created between the two of you, that is the basic concept of the word apprivoiser.  It's a slow process by definition.

Answer 4

Changes to rules around Profiles for Living people.

@Jamie In a reply to M Ross who was concerned two of their profiles may be anonymized automatically, you stated "Profiles that were already created aren't going to be anonymized automatically." (in situations where the consent of the living person cannot be obtained)

Are you intending to give profile managers the option to orphan and anonymize them?

Comments

You can create an anonymous placeholder manually or delete the profile: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Anonymous_Placeholder#How_to_Create_a_Placeholder

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Thanks Jamie. Who manages an Anonymous Placeholder? Can I choose to remain as a PM? Conversely, can I remove myself as PM and render it an "Orphan"?

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Because it's for a living person, you cannot orphan the profile so you remain the manager. If you do not want to manage the placeholder, it would be best to delete it.

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But the choice of whether the anonymous placeholder is kept or deleted is up to the subject of the profile. The manager cannot override that, at least not according to the way

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Invitations#Sample_invitation

is at present formulated.

Wouldn't it be better if managers could orphan the placeholders? They will be orphaned anyway in er ... the fullness of time.

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If as you say, the choice as to whether the anonymous placeholder is kept or deleted is up to the subject of the profile (which makes sense) and the PM cannot send an invitation to the subject of the profile, or the subject of the profile does not consent to Wikitree maintaining a profile on them (whether anonymized or not), then logically the only answer is to delete the profile, which is what I will be doing, as Jamie has recommended. 

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Thanks Susan. That sounds right if you can't send an invitation. But if you have sent one and the subject opts for a placeholder, it seems a burden that you should have to continue to manage it without being able to update it. Perhaps there's a point if you are able to turn it back into an ordinary profile, no longer Unlisted, if and when you learn that the subject has died.

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It took me a while and a few clicks to get to

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Delete

... which comes as a total surprise to me, because I was under the thought that this option had always been a no-no, you can't delete a profile.

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Another thing which came to my mind : suppose I have invited two of three siblings (say, my nephews), because I have no contact with the third one, both have declined. I will have two placeholders for two siblings out of three. How do I know which ones, and distinguish one from the other?

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Thanks Bernard. I was only made aware of this function late September  last year. I don’t know if it was introduced then or earlier.

Answer 5

Suggestion: could the next step be to have user settings for this search/overview page?

For me the number one setting would be to not include all the name variants but guess others would like other settings as well.

Comments

There are no plans to add custom settings.

It was updated so if you search a surname from one of the search boxes on the site, the variants are excluded by default.

If you use the main search form, it will use whatever settings are currently selected in the form.

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Thank you for that update! :)

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WBE Preview has an option to remember the settings.

Answer 6

This search for people named J* * (first name starts with J) born in 31 AD plus or minus 30 years returns 15 results. So far so good.

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:SearchPerson&wpFirst=J*&wpLast=*&wpBirthDate=0031-00-00&date_spread=30&date_include=both&watchlist=any&last_name_match=all&sort=birth&wpSearch=1

But this slightly different search for people named * * (anything at all) born in 31 AD plus or minus 30 years returns no results, as if it had been rejected. Is that a necessary restriction?

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:SearchPerson&wpFirst=*&wpLast=*&wpBirthDate=0031-00-00&date_spread=30&date_include=both&watchlist=any&last_name_match=all&sort=birth&wpSearch=1

The reason for the attempt is that I would like to see all names on very early profiles so as to help think about a question by LeEric Marvin. There are probably better ways of addressing that question, but it seems relevant to be able to use the power of the new search to show what all the existing names from that era are like.

Answer 7

Would it be possible to select the variation surnames I would like to include. For example a search on Hyman would list the variations  HOMAN, HAYMAN, HUMAN, HAMMAN, HAMMON, HAMON, HEYMANS, HAMANN, HEENAN, HEYMAN, HEIMAN, HEYMANN, HOMANN, HEIMANN, HANAN.

I would like to select HOMAN, HEYMANS,  HEYMAN, HEIMAN, HEYMANN, HOMANN, HEIMANN,

from the above list. I realise WT is probably still using an external API to generate these variation suggestions, so it might be inappropriate for me to go and edit that specific list. 

Comments

If I understand what you are asking, that would require a checkbox in front of the variant names.

Checkout this app:

10 Mar 2024 - Preview of a new Tree App: One Name Trees

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1715996/preview-of-a-new-tree-app-one-name-trees

In the surname field, just enter the surnames you want to include as such:  surname1, surname2, surname3, etc.

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I clicked on that one name trees link and waited for about 10-15 minutes for it to load and it was still just showing a waiving tree, as such I don't think it will help to improve this WikiTree search function, but thanks for the suggestion.

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Currently, when you click on the link, you will need to immediately hit the CANCEL button to stop the current data from loading (this will be fixed), then you can proceed to enter your surnames and press the GO button.

I tried it with two surnames and it worked for me.

I tried it again with Heyman, Homan, Hyman and I got 3,165 entries when looking at it in table format.  The total entries is listed at the bottom of the table.

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So what you are saying is that the checklist cannot be added to the WikiTree search function. I will have to use this app, which I assume I will have to bookmark or install as addon to my browser or something like that.

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Hi Louis, you cannot currently select what variants you want to include, but it may be something we add in the future.

We are working on the ability for people to edit the name variants on WikiTree -- right now the data is from WeRelate and it's only updated here occasionally.

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Louis: The One Name Trees app will be in the Tree Apps at some point in the future.  I'm still working on it.  Please contact me directly if you have problems with it.  That would help me to fix it. Thanks a lot.

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Ian, you app guys are doing such great work with all the functionality that you add to WikiTree. Although the apps are great, I believe that they are still running of the WT API as such their data is probably only updated once a week and the other concern is that I can only work with the one PC at a time where the add-on is installed, unless I install it on all the pc's phones etc. It is always better if functionality is added to WikiTree itself. Since WikiTree is busy with a major upgrade, we can only hope.

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The apps have access to all public data which is “live” data.

The apps are not something you install, they are available/accessible from any device.

Answer 8

What will happen to living people who are notables ?

My scenario. A first cousin of my husband  and one of  his sons are both living and both  on wikipedia. Their respective wikipedia articles don't connect them.  A second son died in a well publised air disaster and  also had a  recorded  memorial service organised by a NGO.(we've never met these people although my husband is in facebook contact with mutual family members.)

 I originally created these profiles in order to protect the families  privacy.At the time,  I was concerned  about the possibility of someone  adding profiles of those who died in disaster. A bit of googling would have easily found the connection with his father and brother. The policy on living notables might have enabled their profiles to be made visible.(actually it doesn't as they only appear on wikipedia pages from 2 countries)

I can't delete the deceased family member. If I delete his brother and father, is it possible for them to be recreated by someone else since  they are theoretical notables? If I leave them as anoymous placeholders, the links to their wikipedia articles will I assume be wiped ( would  a notable category would be deleted?)

Answer 9

Thank you Chris and the WikiTree Team for adding the link to any specific surname on your new box-per-name feature.  If I write in Jaycox, it now says Jaycox Home Page for a quick click. And I still have the option of scrolling down the boxes with their detailed info.  Nice solution. 

Answer 10

I am super concerned about the change in policy which will reset any living profile to blank anonymous LNAB placeholders unless the individual joining wikitree, and will require any future living profiles to be join too.

My immediate family are both deeply supportive of my love of family history (including sharing this on collaborative sites) and entirely uninterested in having anything to do with it themselves.

Currently I manage one living profile, that of my Mum. I'll no doubt be able to sit with her and click the relevant buttons to register her as a member (much as she'd prefer not to be), although as lives some distance, it's unlikely to be within the next month.

More concerning is I no longer expect be able to add profiles for my Mum's husband and my siblings spouses as I had planned. It's not technological illiteracy, nor is it lack of the willingness and understanding to give me permission to set up private profiles, it's the enforced requirement to join wikitree which will stop this from happening.

So, this policy change will certainly stunt my contribution and it doesn't seem like I am alone.

There must be more innovative ways of delivering a high standard of personal privacy within a collaborative, dispersed, volunteer environment. I am sure such a wonderful network as ours could help co-create these if the challenge were shared.

Two thoughts I had (to which I am sure others could add).

Could we develop an alternative tickbox form, for people to complete when adding a living profile, which would allow them to manage as a privacy protected living profile as they would their own? It could include eg relationship to self and the need to add a date when this was discussed with the person concerned.

Could we develop a confirmatory email (available in different languages) which would specify that the profile was managed by a named existing member, so the individual was not required to sign up themselves?

In the meantime the more significant risk to living persons privacy is the data contained in their relatives profiles, whether that be in their current or historic biographies. A small example to illustrate. I removed my mother's name from details of my (deceased) father's marriage details which someone had included in his biography, but it's findable in the change history, and if I had not edited the biography, would still be visible. We are missing clear guidance on what should or should not be included on profiles of the recently deceased, particularly those who died at a relatively young age.

Wikitree have announced a major change to policy as a postscript to a major change in functionality. Neither of which was considered important enough to have made WT News yesterday. It's a poor example of the kind of communication approaches that true collaboration requires and totally misses the opportunity to crowd source effective solutions to what are very tricky challenges.

Comments

Natasha, I completely agree with all your points, but reading your answer I'm now really confused. I had not understood that the change in the invitation process meant that you could no more create a profile of a living person without inviting her, and that the rule now applies backward.

I'm afraid I've created along the years a few (more that I thought, actually, I almost never look at my watchlist I'm afraid) profiles of living people who are not exactly family members (although I've never understood who is considered a family member). Examples include parents of friends who provided me with basic information in order to be connected to their ancestors, but are not willing to participate ... and similar situations. I have not necessary an email adress for those people, and will have hard time getting one.

I suppose I'm not the only one in this situation, and I wonder how many profiles of living people will stay pending that way. Will they be deleted by administrative decision?

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Natasha writes:

... the more significant risk to living persons privacy is the data contained in their relatives profiles ... We are missing clear guidance on what should or should not be included on profiles of the recently deceased ...

The clearest guidance available that information about non-notable living people should not be included on profiles of recently deceased relatives or anywhere else on WikiTree is reported in this G2G comment. Chris Whitten has indicated that "I interpret them [the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy] to mean that living people should not be mentioned in any public place, but linking to places where they are mentioned is fine."

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@Bernard, I've been closely reading all the answers to this post relating to the policy change and realise I may have misinterpreted some of the responses made. It's been hard to find clear answers, but I have found it.

I don't know how to link to a specific comment, but in a response to an answer by M Ross a day ago, Jamie Nelson responded "Profiles that were already created aren't going to be anonymized automatically."

My apologies for worrying you unduly.

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Thanks Natasha, I've seen that also, re-reading the thread. Also I understand that if I can't invite the people for any reason, I can anonymize the profile myself?

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@Jim, thank you. That comment was very clear and I am grateful to you for both sourcing it in the first place and reminding wikitreers of it's existence.

But given it's been shared only by way of a comment in a thread, from a personal message received in response to a question, I don't see how it can be in anyway a sufficent response to the risk,

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@Bernard, I don't know. I don't think that has been as clearly answered.

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Natasha, see my above comments to Susan Stopford's answer. It seems that not only yo can anonymise a profile, but you can delete it completely. Just checked on a profile whom I could not contact.

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Thanks. I've only got one living profile (my Mum's) and she's already anonymised. It seems I can continue to manage as usual, so in that sense I shouldn't need to delete, until the point I leave wikitree, and can leave this crucial link in place. I just won't be able to add any more.

Answer 11

Regarding surname pages, you said this:

"Now, these pages are not intended to be used by members for any practical purpose at all. They're intended for:

New visitors, to showcase the breadth and depth of what our community has to offer related to a surname that interests them.

Google, to help make sure that our most-recently added and edited profiles appear in Google search results. "

I don't understand your reasoning about this at all. In the post you linked to, asking the community if they use these surname pages, you got an overwhelming number of people who said that they use the surname pages on a daily basis.

So why change them, making them much harder to use for everyday WT users? There are now more links to click through to get to a usable table again.

How do you know that a "showcase" is actually needed for "new users"? Was there any feedback from new users who couldn't understand the depth and breadth of what WT has available?

But there was a lot of feedback about how useful this tool was to a lot of existing WT users. Now it's been made more difficult for existing WT users to use. 

Comments

I see that the surname page is essentially integrated into the search function. I don't like this at all.

I have links to surname pages in my One Name Studies. These links are to the the surname pages, in table format, ordered by birth year, with the ability to set the number of records to a high amount so I can see the whole table on a single page.

Now I can't do that. The options to expand the length of results don't show up in the URL. They just dynamically change the existing page and reverts to the "Special:SearchPerson" page.

These surname pages should not be a part of the Search page. They are the result of it, but should be their own page. I should be able to dynamically craft a URL to get the same result and not be hidden behind a form. This breaks functionality that I use daily in my One Name Studies.

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Hi Eric. You could try

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:SearchPerson&wpSearch=1&wpLast=Blackburn&sort=birth&limit=500

Jelena and I have asked if 500 can be increased to 5000, as previously available for surname tables.

Answer 12

If I recall correctly, the old search results page included the decade of birth for those listed as "Living X"; the new search results page leaves this blank.

However, if I click on the links to the Livings, one-by-one, I see something like:

"This anonymous profile represents a living person with the surname X born in the 1990s."

Rather than click on every living profile for every decade in order to see whether there is a possible match to the person for whom I am searching, I would like to include the year of birth in my search.

However, this tells me that:

"Birth dates after 1940 can only be searched within the Watchlists of logged-in members."

Clearly, there is some inconsistency as to the privacy of the decade of birth of Unlisted and/or anonymous profiles and/or profiles named "Living".

Could we please have a little more clarity and consistency as to this?

Answer 13

Why can't you select a country in the search list. I'm getting all those suggested profiles from other countries, but they will never match with any profile I'm adding if I'm adding Dutch Profiles.

Comments

Margreet, does putting a country name in the Birth Location and/or Death Location field on the Search page not do what you want?

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The issue is that it's always an extra screen you have to go to and fill in. The amount of suggestions you now get to check if a person already exists is way to large to screen or scroll through. So I don't think people will check them at all. You should find a way to narrow the amount of suggested profiles. If I'm adding a profile in the province Zuid-Holland, I'm getting suggestions of all over the world (and the Netherlands).

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I tend to agree. But it doesn't sound as if you are talking about the main Search page, which is the subject (or one of them) of the current G2G thread. That page does have fields for Birth Location and Death Location on the same screen, not an extra one.

Instead I wonder if you are talking about the list of potential matches presented when you are creating a new profile—a different topic. If so, there already exists a way to narrow the amount of suggested profiles: the WikiTree Browser Extension Suggested Matches Filter options which allow flagging and refining potential matches by location.

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And again, everyone does not use the extensions.  I would assume that the majority of people do not, simply because many don't know anything about them, but plenty of people do not want to use extensions for different reasons.

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You can't select a country from the search list because WikiTree doesn't recognize the location text as standardized locations.

You can filter by birth or death location text on both the main search page and the possible matches page when creating a profile. But it's just text matching -- so if you type "USA" it won't return any profiles that use "United States".

Answer 14

I like the new table format for the search engine. Seeing it like this brought to mind that it would be great to have a column for the spouse. That would really be helpful in quickly identifying who you are searching for. Since similar or same names repeat so often and the DOB or DOD is not always known, seeing the spouse's name would really narrow down the search instead of having to hover over each name to see which one matches.

Hoping this will be  part of your next changes.

Thanks!

Comments

I think we have reached a point in technology where it should be programmed where the members can choose which fields they would like displayed and in what order. This is done on other sites and there is no reason why it can't be done on this site.

Answer 15

Tried to add email of someone living related to me to his profile but it tells me to make another profile of unrelated person. No place to enter his already made WikiTree profile ID after entering his email. I have his profile set to private and will not change that setting because that would be up to him if I could just add his email so he could join.

Comments

Hi Doug, since I don't want to discuss the details of a living person in G2G, can you send an email to jamie [at] wikitree.com with the profile ID and the email you were trying to enter so I can take a look?