Here are WikiTree's policies on semi-automated editing. This page is important for members who use WikiTree+, the WikiTree Browser Extension, or other apps while editing lots of profiles.
See also:
Semi-Automated Profile Changes
Semi-automated editing is the use of tools or applications to facilitate improving profiles.
Independent developers have created powerful apps, such as WikiTree+, the WikiTree Browser Extension, and the WikiTree Sourcer, that make it much easier for members to improve profiles. These are extremely valuable tools for advanced WikiTreers.
Apps can:
- Find profiles where changes should probably be made.
- Open a profile for editing.
- Make a draft of the changes.
- Add a change explanation to summarize the changes.
Apps cannot save changes. A member must:
- Confirm the changes: No app-recommended or app-drafted change is 100% reliable and correct. If it were, it could probably be fully automated.
- Review the profile: Use the Whole-Profile Editing approach to look for other possible improvements to make at the same time.[1]
- Save the changes: The change becomes one of the member's contributions to WikiTree. It's not the app's contribution. The community will thank the member for it, and hold the member responsible for it if there are problems.
Fully Automated vs. Semi-Automated Editing
WikiTree has developed strategies for handling four types of changes that could be fully or partially or automated.
Fully Automated:
Changes can be fully automated if the community has decided that they should be done on all profiles of a given class and a developer can automate the changes.
- Type 1: Urgent or important changes that can be automated are generally done by EditBot.
- Type 2: Non-urgent and less important automated changes can be handled through a background process that we have developed in the WikiTree core to make changes when a member is editing a profile for another reason, or when EditBot is editing a profile for another reason.
Individual members must never initiate fully automated edits on their own. If there is an operation that you think could and should be fully automated, post in G2G using the tag WT_Apps. See Help:Bots for related information.
Semi-Automated:
Changes cannot be fully automated if they require a member to decide whether or exactly how to implement the change on any given profile. Some of these changes can be partially automated through apps.
- Type 3: Urgent changes can be done in a semi-automated manner without the member needing to use the Whole-Profile Editing approach.
- Type 4: Non-urgent semi-automated changes should be done using the Whole-Profile Editing approach. They should not be rushed.
Type 4 is the most common. Almost all WikiTree+ suggestions, even red-level errors, cannot be fully automated and are usually non-urgent.[2]
See Help:Whole-Profile Editing for more about exceptions to rules, rules of thumb, and red flags regarding semi-automated editing.
- ↑ There is an exception to the Whole-Profile Editing rule if a change is urgent. These are the Type 3 edits described in the Automated vs. Semi-Automated Editing section of this page.
- ↑ Prior to 2021, we held Clean-a-Thons and competitive Data Doctor Challenges to clean-up urgent problems identified by WikiTree+. Thanks to the volunteers who participated in these clean-ups, very few urgent problems remain. Therefore, clean-ups are no longer competitive and members should consider suggestions carefully using the Whole-Profile Editing approach.