WeRelate:Suggestions/Prevent events out of order (with a threshold)

As of Nov 2021, WeRelate warns if you edit a page with events that are in an unacceptable order (e.g., death before birth), but doesn't prevent you from saving the page. Due to the way the wiki code is structured, the warning message doesn't appear when you create and save a new page without previewing it. Typos (such as using the wrong century) are still occurring on a regular basis. This interferes with the ability to identify errors in the structure of trees (see WeRelate:Suggestions/Tool for checking consistency of data), as it makes it look like there are chronology errors when there are only typos.

This request is to require the contributor to fix events out of order before saving a Person page. The solution must allow discrepancies under a threshold (about 2 years) due to conflicting information in some old sources (e.g., see Person:Roxylania Taylor (1) and Person:Anna Cooper (13). Initial implementation will have a threshold of 9 years (which will catch millennium, century and decade typos). The threshold might be reduced later. (Note: There are currently about 1100 Person pages that will fail this edit with a 9-year threshold and an additional 900 pages that will fail if/when the threshold is changed to 2 years, including pages that conflate 2 or more individuals.)

Details

All "Alt" events (e.g., Alt Birth, Alt Death) will be ignored when doing this check.

The following situations will considered to be "events out of order":

• Any event before birth date.
• If there is no birth date, any event before christening date.
• Any of the following events BEFORE death date:
  • Cause of Death, Obituary, Funeral, Burial, Cremation, Probate, Estate Inventory, Estate Settlement
• Any events OTHER THAN the following types AFTER death date (or after burial date if there is no death date):
  • Cause of Death, Obituary, Funeral, Burial, Cremation, Probate, Estate Inventory, Estate Settlement, DNA, Will¹, Property², Other

¹ Will is allowed because there may be an event related to the will, such as presentation to the court, that is prior to the will being proved
² Property is allowed because this event type might be used to note property disposition (or lack thereof) after death