What Wildbook should this feature be in? ACW
What would you like to see? a warning or confirmation message prior to confirm merge as well as an indication of which individual is being merged into which - i.e. is Titan becoming Johnathan or vice versa
How would this functionality help you? merging individuals doesn’t have an undo option and can be very consequential, particularly with individuals with many encounters assigned eg. 20, 30, 40+. This would help prevent accidental errors in merges.
Would this warning be necessary if the UI clearly laid out who was being merged into whom? It already is a multi-stage process that takes you out of the matching flow. Adding additional checks can be cumbersome, so I want to confirm.
Tanya
Good point - I’ve put this out to our researcher. I’ll let you know what I hear back. thanks!
Okay so the consensus is that yes, it would help if the UI was clearer about who is being merged into whom. In that case, the warning probably isn’t needed. On the note of who’s becoming whom, it would be even better if the user could specify that themselves - sometimes their ID methodology dictates which is the correct name for the individual; for example, sibling/coalition cheetahs usually have sequential # in their ID; wild dogs can have a naming convention specific to their natal pack, etc.
But that’s a nice to have - currently, if the individual that stays is not the one the user wants to keep, they simply go in and change the name back to the individual they wanted to be the new merged one. Hope that makes sense.
thanks!
Maureen