I think either (or both) of those two options would work fine. The
important thing is to have an option. I’m not saying my view of the issue
is the only valid one, only that a website that hopes to attract a wide
variety of users needs to be as malleable as possible, within certain
reasonable limits.
On the other scenario: You’re quite right about the “hide” button there
just as a matter of display preference, but there’s an underlying issue,
too. I’ve been playing around with RootsMagic lately and they have a set of
buttons for each “fact” you might enter, depending on how reliable you
think the source is. The choices (paraphrased) are “proven,”
“possibly/maybe/not necessarily,” and “known to be incorrect but this is
what the source says so here it is for the record.”
The later might be a bad date on a grave marker (compared to the actual
death certificate) because the stonecutter screwed up or the
daughter-in-law who supplied the info simply didn’t know. Everyone who
visits the cemetery is going to see the marker, though, so you can’t just
ignore it. In RootsMagic, you can choose an option in doing simple types of
reports that filters out those known-to-be-wrong facts. You have the info
for your own use but you’re not forced (by the fact that it exists in the
program) to promulgate it to anyone else.
In RootsCity, I can think of a couple of ways to handle “facts” of this
kind. You could color the display box in which it appears to denote “KNOWN
WRONG,” which would happen automatically if you choose that option when you
record the fact. That way, someone else viewing the screen would be aware
of the issue. Or, as you say, you could hide it – though I don’t think I
would favor that one. You want people to know it’s wrong so they won’t
gone on mistakenly repeating it themselves, as with the erroneous grave
marker.
Mike