How does one determine which project is protecting a profile?

Question

A profile I am manager of is now merged with a project protected profile (Bartley-577). However, there is no indication that I can see that tells what project is protecting that profile. So how are we supposed to contact the project if the project is not identified?

Comments

There are a lot of old "Project" Protected Profiles around that aren't actually part of a project.

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I am beginning to see this. My next question shouldn't have to be asked, but how can a profile be project protected if there is no project protecting it?

The fact that ppps exist for non-projects adds a layer of confusion to Wikitree. Perhaps there should be a default "project" that all non-project ppps could be added to, along with the links for creating new projects. For now, it could also give a generic explanation for how the non-project ppps were created, and encourage people to find a project for that profile.

Just leaving non-project ppps hanging around with no links to anywhere creates a brick wall for many users, such as myself.

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Yes, I totally agree, it's awful and obstructive. Supposedly, projects are going around dealing with it. I think there was a time past when people who were in the leadership circle were allowed to just arbitrarily drop PPPs to protect "their" profiles, and a few of them really, really abused it.

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Ben, what you describe was the exception not the rule. Before wikitree introduced project accounts and co-management of profiles with projects, PPP was used to protect vulnerable profiles from merges in the wrong direction and the attachment of inaccurate parents. Sometimes PPP only needed to be temporary.

We now have a backlog of profiles that were protected under that set of circumstances but are not yet connected to a project or perhaps need to have PPP removed. and Aleš has launched a suggestion code for finding them.

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But there's no responsibility for removing them.  PMs can't do it.  Leaders are all attached to projects, but the profiles concerned don't belong to any project and aren't on anybody's radar.  A Leader can say they don't want the profile, but no Leader can say that no other project wants it, especially because of the large overlaps in territory.

Projects don't know how many profiles they can protect, because there seems to be the prospect of projects running multiple accounts.  The prospect of projects taking over whole territories inspires resistance in some quarters.  But the criteria are very hard to apply, because you never know what sort of internet monster is going to crawl out from under any harmless-looking stone.

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If anyone has a question about an existing profile that is PPP without a project, feel free to post to g2g and it will grab someone's attention.

I've seen several project leaders reaching out to other projects to find out if a given profile needs continued protection. I myself have reached out to a number of other projects. In many cases, the decision has been to remove the PPP.

So, RJ and others, there is a lot of attention being given to this; it's most certainly on project leader radar.  There's just a lot of old PPP profiles that will take some time.

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At 1 thread per profile, it'll be 5,000 threads.  Say 1 per week for 100 years.

Vast amount of time and attention wasted on artificial non-genealogical issues.

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I just looked; it's 990 right now. Not all of them need a g2g thread

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My personal experience is that it's more like the rule. Maybe like 5-10% of the PPPed profiles I've seen actually have some justifiable reason for having it. I agree with RJ, that the most rational course of action is mass removal. It would certainly accelerate the correction of profiles for people with names like Warrior Princess Xena verch Jesus (20-335) which were PPPed to protect high quality research from uninformed interlopers. Especially with pre-1500 profiles, they're already shielded by the pre-1500 policy, so it would absolutely make sense to script the PPPs off of everything in that category.

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5146 921 errors.

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I don't think I mentioned mass removal.  I tend to think PPP on its own should just go back to its original meaning.  Apply further restrictions if there's a project account as PM, but not if there isn't.

Answer 1

Hi David,

Usually the sticker on the profile will let you know which project; but profiles shouldn't be PPP'ed unless there is a project box and a Project Account being the PM.

I have tagged the notables and project leaders to see if this profile needs to be PPP'ed still.

Thanks!

Answer 2

That profile was protected back in 2015, before the current guidance/policy on project protection was in place. I don't see any evidence that it needs project protection. Since he's a governor of Ohio, he could qualify to have the US History project account as a manager on behalf of the Ohio project. Do Ohioans feel like he needs a project account as a manager?

Answer 3

4 years ago when this was PPP'd it was standard practice to PPP profiles that were part of a project. Now, it's less common to do so unless there are specific reasons to have it in place. So unless it's at risk of people changing the LNAB, the parents, or merging, or if there have been recent controversial edits that mean we should escalate the level of protection on a profile.

Otherwise, I'm happy to remove it.

Comments

I'm learning from the various replies that the next time I encounter this, it is likely an old PPP. This profile is at risk of having the last name changed, as I just about did it during the merge. The parents' last name was Barkley, and the children went by the spelling of Bartley. So it probably should be protected. I would just like to know which project it is part of.

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When you have profiles that could be using 2 names in sources, the Birth Name, probably the one that matches the father's spelling, should be in Last Name at Birth and the other 'misspelled' or 'seen in sources' version of the name should be in Other Last Names field to be safe 'for all the children'.  Which ever is put in LNAB, the other one should be in Other Last Names.

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That is good advice, Linda. Change made. I couldn't change the last name to the father's name because the profile is protected by the project that does not exist.

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Since there is no project protecting it, I am removing the PPP.

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Thanks for the update, Scott.

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Mm.  So now the profile is vulnerable to being merged in the wrong direction should a future dupe be created.

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In view of the variant spellings, and potential for errors in merging, I restored the PPP and added the Ohio sub-project of US History as a project manager.

Please note that the PPP only prevents the profile from being merged away. It does not prevent editing by David (or others).

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Ellen, thanks for the PPP to the Ohio History Project. It is better to have a qualified group as a profile manager on profiles where genealogy and history overlap, such as in this case. I foresee that someday Wikitree will be an integral part of history courses in schools. There is really no better way to teach history than to show students how they fit into the grand scheme of things.