Changes: "edited the data" -- well, that's nice, but...

Question

I need education on how to use this information. I usually ignore my WT updates that report one of the profiles I manage has had the data edited. Today, I looked further today for Gideon Todd. There was a note saying that the data had been edited March 5, so I clicked the link, which led me to this page. Then I clicked "edited the data" which led me here. There is no information on what data has been edited. I do not want to open a new window, restore the data to the last change, then compare the two windows trying to find what change has been made. 

 If data has been changed, then the actual change should be shown, not simply a note saying an edit had been made. This seems pretty useless to me. So, what am I missing?

Comments

You seem to have done all that it takes to find out what the change was if there was one ... I'm no authority on the procedure since people so very seldom tinker with my Watch List ... and a change could be anything from subtracting a space in front of a == at the left hand margin (sort of thing that irks Computer and produces an Error message) or it might be a matter of spacing lines or it might be a spelling typo corrected or .... if you saw nothing in the way of new lines of info then it was, if anything occurred, something piddly

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I didn't take the time to find the precise change, but if you look at that persons contributions on that day, they were linking profile relationships, so I presume, a family member was connected to the profile for Gideon.

ETA: taking a closer look, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Todd-8027  was added as a child

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Susan, those would be 'Edited the Biography' message

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Possibly the message in the "Explain what you did" box would be "edited the biography", IF that was what was typed into that box, -- that YOU would do it is commendable -- not all others have such a commendable habit ... LOL 

Apparently there's other ways to provoke that message. 

I will say the Change has been tracked down, and a bug has been spotted, due to some really awesome detective work on the part of a number of people !!! 

Subtle are the ways we could tread /were we given our leave to do so / and I in my own way / have given myself leave to do so 

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 Mystery explained, Gideon is either now a child of another or Gideon now has a child and Mr Parish can rest easy ... perhaps ... if there's proof that this is a viable relationship ... 

Answer 1

Jim, I never ignore changes on my Watchlist, having learned the hard way that major changes to profiles I care about could be made without my otherwise knowing it.

If you check the profile, and see no changes when you view the edit from the Changes list, then I think it was probably a case where someone viewed the profile in edit mode but then didn't make any changes, or did not save them.

For reasons I don't understand, my own profile comes up nearly every day on my activity list, even when I haven't changed it, nor can anyone else.  So I think something triggers the addition to activity reported on my Watchlist, but if there are no actual changes, I don't worry about it.

Edit:  See other answers too.  There can be other reasons.

Comments

hi, Miss Julie

I believe the "changes" on our own profiles reflects the contributions/points earned for g2g activity

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Thanks.  That makes sense.

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also, see how on your profile, there's a number for how many times people look at it? that counts as a "change"

Answer 2

'Edited the Biography' means that the Biography Text was changed or at least the profile was saved.  Sometimes when you start to leave a profile, it says 'do you want to leave without saving?'  I get that frequently, think I saved my last changes, but if I am not sure, I will save it, which could leave that message but nothing seems to have been changed.  Normally it will show the differences.

'Edited the Data',I think, is when something other than the 'text' was changed, ie merges.  I reviewed my contributions to see when I have that notation, other than merges.

I have that notation in my Contributions when I changed the father on a bunch of 'children' profiles from one person to the other.  Each of the children profiles state 'added father's name as father for' the child's records.  Then there is a 2nd item that says I 'edited the data' which is for the 'mother' of those children.  I am 'assuming' that is because when you add the parent's ID at the top of the page, down at the bottom the checkbox is checked to indicate that the parents are married, so the edited the data was to make sure the parents were married.

I found another item that had 'Edited the Data', but it showed the marriage date and location was changed.

Based on what I found, I would check the contributions of the person that 'made the Edited Data' change and see what else was done at the same time as the 'Edited the Data' was shown in the Contributions.  In this case, the person had added the wife of Gideon as the mother for a child, which is the same situation as I saw in my own contributions above.

Answer 3

Hello Jim.

The profile of Gideon's wife shows the same note: "Last modified 5 Mar 2020".

The "modification" to both profiles was the addition of Gideon's wife as the mother of Sarah Todd at 11:22, 5 Mar 2020 (same time/date recorded on the changes log of Sarah's parents).

More information can be found at

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Relationship_Tracking_Bug

Answer 4

Usually an empty change just means somebody saved the page without changing anything.  It's harmless.

However.

In this case, an explanation was logged, but it's not showing in the change log:

"Marked Thankful Ives and Gideon Todd as married while adding Thankful Ives as mother to Sarah Todd"

Evidently this was entered in the new "Change explanation" box on the Add Mother form.

The form has a feature that allows you to create a marriage at the same time as adding a parent.  If you tick the box and the marriage already exists, it has no effect.

How this is supposed to be logged, I have no idea.  The system has a general prejudice against logging connection changes at both ends.

But in this case, the message doesn't seem to be appearing anywhere.

Add "bug" to the tags.

And the form needs a redesign now even more than it did before.