Agreeing to disagree - as a model

This may already be the case and if so I would like to find out. What I understand about the features of new family search tool is:
1. I will have my own personal account/login
2. I can make changes online to certain areas of the data
3. I can see all ordinance work and family connections the systems has linked to an individual.

Let me create a fictitious case to explain the model that I hope will be available.

Child - John Doe (is linked to)
Parents - Bill Doe and Suzy Queue
(but he is also linked to)
Parents - Fred Doe and Mary Kay

Now as a researcher I have come to a conclusion that his real parents are Fred and Mary and I do not want to see the other parents. But maybe the other hundred researchers interested in John Doe have come to the conclusion that the parents are Bill and Suzy. I want to be able to lock my choice of parents in for my account even though it disagrees with the going opinion of the crowd. I don't want to wade through everyone else's ideas each time I look at my view of the data. I would have to sort through this data over and over ignoring the data I have determined is garbage. I do not ever expect that everyone is going to agree with me (nor I with them). Will it allow me to save this kind of research options to filter out what I have determined is garbage and only show my choices of links?

Other examples could be given only dealing with ordinance work. Where I disagree with the ordinances that it has linked to an individual. Etc.

I agree with your concerns. I have some similar problems with the data in the current IGI. I understand the reasons for the differences. My concern is like yours, getting the data I want to display. I am excited that we will soon a have a way to help reduce the duplication that is so prevalent. My concern is finding ways to teach people how to do the work correctly. To quote Joseph Smith, "Teach them correct principles and they govern themselves."

Charles

New FamilySearch will have an option in Preferences to select to Display your own submissions rather than the Highest ranking record. I do not believe you can do this for each person in the line, but if you select this option you will view just your submissions. There are a few details about this in the instructions to new FamilySearch.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... sguide.pdf

It would surprise me if the architects of the new system did not think of this type of situation and do whatever would make the system work in the best way possible.

In the current beta, when looking at multiple parents, there is a way to specify which set/pair of possible parents you want to see. I might be mistaken, but my impression is that this selection is on a per-user basis, that each user can independently select which alternative he/she wants to see for each case. If nothing else, if one disagreed with the majority view in a particular case, it appears all one would have to do is submit his/her view as a separate contribution and select to see his/her own submissions.

dlongmore wrote:I want to be able to lock my choice of parents in for my account even though it disagrees with the going opinion of the crowd. I don't want to wade through everyone else's ideas each time I look at my view of the data. I would have to sort through this data over and over ignoring the data I have determined is garbage. I do not ever expect that everyone is going to agree with me (nor I with them). Will it allow me to save this kind of research options to filter out what I have determined is garbage and only show my choices of links?

Other examples could be given only dealing with ordinance work. Where I disagree with the ordinances that it has linked to an individual. Etc.

I believe this to be the fundamental challenge to global scale genealogy work. I have given many hours of thought to this problem. Here are some ideas that I have come up with in attempting to approach a solution.

Voting for links/dates/locations. Similar to digging stories on Digg.
Trust metrics to resist vote spamming. Global metric and a separate user friend list based metric.
Personal link/stat overrides, like you mention above.

The UI needs to cleanly present all of this info to the user. Thats the real trick.

The kicker is figuring out how TempleReady would deal with a situation where the whole user base is divided on who an individual's parents were.

Some other time I will talk about the problems cause by linking a child to a marriage rather than to the parents.

I would also like to be able to vote for duplicates. This would not delete any records, just be a vote that a given record refers to the same individual as another record. Possibly giving the option for me to indicate which of the two records is the more correct. Though to keep it simple maybe just a simple vote as duplicate would be enough. All of this governed by trust metrics of course.

Ultimately genealogy is about individuals, our system should accommodate a way to link the various duplicate records about them in a more meaningful and useful way.

Ideally their would be a one to one relationship between an individual and a record, but that is simply not the case in the "real" world.

There are even situations where you have multiple individuals for one record. For example when parents reused a name given to a child that died in infancy.

(I'm in the current round of beta testing, so I have seen what the system is like at present.)

The ideas about trust metrics and such are interesting. It will be interesting to see whether such things end up being necessary over time in an environment where contributor identity is included with any changes and additions and where registration is at least somewhat restricted. If we're lucky, most everyone will get along, agree with the best sources, etc. (Okay, so I'm an idealist.

The merging of duplicates does not delete anything. It combines the information from both/all of the original records. If there are bits that are not correct, users can dispute the bits and add notes explaining their reasons.

From the training materials, I understand the idea or goal is to get as close as possible to the one-to-one relationship between a record and an individual.

The case of parents reusing the name of a child who die in infancy is covered in the training materials. The idea is those records should not be combined but should remain (or be made) separate, with the correct birthdates and such in the correct places. If information about the two individuals have been incorrectly mingled upstream from the new system, it will be up to a contributor to split the record or add a new record and correct the pre-existing one.

Several people have mentioned Voting. I have not see any method for this in the Beta. I am not a beta tester so I have only spent a short amount of time with a beta tester reviewing the program so I have not seen it in as much detail as some of you. It appears to me that if the users were allowed to rank the sources cited, that most of the bad submissions could be pushed to lower priority levels. I noticed that many submissions list sources which are not good sources. I saw sources listed such as: "Downloaded GEDCOM", "Personal Knowlege", "Ancestral File", and "Pedigree Resource File". I do not consider any of those very good sources. With out the ability to rank sources the software might elevate incorrect information to the top. I would like to see some type of ranking allowed so a Death Certificate issued by the State of Utah would be rated as a better source than a download from Ancestral File.

Has anyone in their Beta Testing gone to Preferences and selected the setting to Show you own submissions. When in that mode does it also show all the other records that are linked to the individual from other contribuitors or is that setting just a view of your own information only?

I can only see what I have submitted. No other person or orginization is listed as a contributer.

DataSurfer wrote: The kicker is figuring out how TempleReady would deal with a situation where the whole user base is divided on who an individual's parents were.

Some other time I will talk about the problems cause by linking a child to a marriage rather than to the parents.

It's important to remember that the needs for temple ordinances and the needs for genealogy are not always the same. In the case of split parents, I would imagine that's dealt with the same way several other situations are - anyone willing to do the work can, and later on direction will be given to correct it as necessary (but at least you have an assurance that the ordinance has been taken care of).

In regards to linking children to parents vs marriages, parents are important for genealogy purposes, whereas marriages are important for sealing work. While it is important to understand the genealogy, our purpose at the end of the day is the temple work.