I have a new instance of Omeka Classic, and a large number of fields are being saved as a link to itself without prompting. I can’t seem to find where the issue is coming from. Here is a public item with the issue:
Members of the press visiting the Trinity Site
This is what the Search by Metadata plugin does.
You probably just need to check that you only have the elements you want for that enabled, or remove or deactivate the plugin completely if you don’t want it at all.
Aha! That was the issue. Thanks.