New Enhancements: User profiles, Removing relationships, and more!

Geni users are increasingly working together to merge their common ancestors and find new relatives. We've made a couple of changes to make it easier to find and communicate with other users.

First, a user's public activity, such as adding a public document or editing a public profile, will always appear in their recent activity. You will only see private activity, such as uploading a private photo, if you are in the user's Family. This way you can get a better idea of how active the user has been and what they are working on in the public tree. Family News stories are also either public and private, and you can filter your Family News to show only public or private stories.

Second, you can now leave public guestbook comments for users outside your Family group. These comments can be viewed by any users. Look for the Public/Private toggle next to the Leave Message button. Note that you can only leave a Public message in the guestbook of a user outside of your Family group.

For our power users active in merging the big tree, we've made it easier to remove incorrect relationships from profiles. You'll notice checkboxes next to each relationship in the relationship list. Use the checkboxes to remove multiple relationships at one time, without waiting for the page to reload. You can also remove relationships from the relationships tab of the edit profile page, so you no longer have to go to the tree. These changes will make it faster for you to remove incorrect relationships.

Finally, we're testing a new profile layout with some users. If you are one of the randomly selected users, you'll notice that some profile modules have been moved around to make a cleaner profile. Depending on the feedback, we hope to roll out this new profile to all users soon.

Other changes:
1. Use the new change birth order option in the more menu on tree nodes to quickly change the birth order for a profile and all of it siblings.
2. You can now edit the metadata of public documents owned by your collaborators.
3. The immediate family on compare profiles pages are now alpha sorted.
4. The timestamp on individual discussion posts is now a link directly to that post. This makes it easier to share specific posts with others.

Oh, and one more thing. We are getting rid of the "Favorites" module from profiles. You can still view this information in the Favorites tab when you edit a profile, but eventually we will remove the information altogether. If there is any data you would like to keep, please copy it from this page.

Cool! I love watching the evolution of geni.com.
~Dez

Yessss! It appears we finally have the ability to easily remove any errant relationship links. This is excellence slathered in awesomesauce.

Noah, can you take a look at [#GUE-554405] ?

It seems that I'm in the experiment, and there's some weirdness that makes the list of relationships hide behind a white window when I try to access them (both from the tree and from the relations list).

Kudos for making relationship editing available from the profile, and not just from the tree!

Great improvements- It seems I am part of the experiment and I had one feedback.

The summary profile page now does not have the relationships of the profile we are watching. (Yes if we scroll down we can it lower on the page). But somehow I did not like the change. I would really like to see the relationships so that I can all of a sudden recognize the person. I guess this is relevant for people like us who manage many many profiles. But I dont see how it hurts anybody.

"1. Use the new change birth order option in the more menu on tree nodes to quickly change the birth order for a profile and all of it siblings. "

I don't see this option in the more menu in tree view. Is it just me?

Does the profile test include removing the links to the immediate family members in the top module? If so, I don't like it. I prefer having the ability to navigate between immediate family profiles at hand without having to change tabs, despite the fact that it gets cluttered for large families.

Estonians are requesting to put back the "Nicknames" part as it was displayed (at profile page near to other names) ....

I seem to be using the test version of the new UI. It is much cleaner, and the obvious reasons for this are quite clear also.
1. The "head" of the profile page, which is used as the public version of the said profile will not contain any sensitive information like relatationships, etc.
2. All information there was simply searchable. Moving it out of reach will cut off the raw info digging. Privacy settings will gain more importance.
3. Earlier the Nicknames was part of the "head" of the profile, and Estonians have been using this field to enter possible different written versions of the ancestors names (transcribed in Estonian, Russian, German etc) as they exist in different documents (eg Jogan, Juhan, Johhan, Johann). Geni search looks only for exact maches, and this is probably very wise for such a huge database.
Please, just give us the leverage to make searches more comfortable for those who choose to enter the extra information. The nickname probably is not so big a privacy issue?
Please note also that the current test version does not show the contents of the Nickname field in the Personal box on Overview tab, other fields are shown. So currently our extra work has been totally nulled and void.

Another missing feature sticks out while moving from Profile page/ Overview tab/ Immediate Family box/ Edit link
to the page Edit Immediate Family
currently the only editing allowed is Removing some already included profiles.
I would have expected to have also the possibility to Add new members to the immediate family from the same page.

Arne Pajula who would you add, that's not already there? We didn't really intend for that feature to cover a case like adding a cousin to the immediate family, for example...

Mike Stangel - I can comment Arne Pajula. I for example added nearly all my fathers tree using this "Add immediate family" in profile page.
For me it was much easier than to use yellow arrows in tree view...

Lauri Kreen, Ͼ I think you're talking about a different feature.

I see that there are a few more people with the same concerns as mine.
From one of my discussions I learned that you are at the helm of Geni, and would like you to read all my discussions, all from today, because I think they have substance and hold promise.
I would also like you to post some kind of petition to the users NOT to abuse the site for ego trips, because that clatters the site and takes away from its efficiency.
ONLY discussions and ideas for improvements should be entered at this site.

@ Michael A Stranger
I was not about adding cousins.
We had a discussion in Estonian earlier with Lauri where I was describing the new features, and I was pointing out that as much as I can see, the "Add Immediate Family" (or whatever it was exactly called) page is not there any more.
You know the one where you could pick the relationship (mother, father, sister, brother...) enter the names etc.
So that's why I was surprised to find a new feature which contained only REMOVE buttons (this maybe is not new at all, but normally I am just using Geni, not digging into every hidden corner to find out changes).
So, if you can remove already added profiles why not also have a way to ADD new profiles at the same spot?
It would be more balanced, and you already had the UI for this earlier.
So let me put it into one sentence:
Please do add an ADD button to the "Edit Immediate Family" page which will link to the "Add Immediate Family" page.

I understand now, and my apologies to Lauri for doubting him. :-) For those of you in the group where the immediate family is no longer next to the profile photo, the link you're talking about has been moved to the Immediate Family module on the Overview tab. It's labeled "Add Family" and it's just to the left of the "Edit" link where you remove people from that module. I'll certainly suggest to Noah Tutak that we consider putting both Add and Remove on the same page.

@ Michael A Stangel
Sorry for misprinting your name earlier.
The problem is that there is no such link there. There is Edit and left to it is a link to toggle the Photo View/Text View (which is great BTW)
There is no Add Family link anymore, that was the reason we started discussing it. Personally I did not care about it anyway, but Lauri Kreen did.
For me adding profiles through the Tree View feels more comfortable (unfortunately it is not possible to use this feature with Vertical Tree Layout which I would like to use).

Arne - While being aware of your "privacy" concerns, I still dont think removing the relationships from the profile page is a good idea. If the issue is privacy, Geni should work on different versions of profile page for private and public consumption

As it stands now, I cant see relationships for profiles within my family group as well and this is very annoying. Not only does it give you a sense of who is who, it was a great navigation tool.

Arne and Lauri - the rules for when that "add" link should not have changed, and should be consistent between the tree and the profile page. Can you send me the link (here or in a private message from my profile page) to the profile you're looking at? I can find out why the link is missing.

Anchit this layout change has nothing to do with privacy -- the goal of removing the immediate family from the top of the page is to conserve the amount of vertical space used above the tabs, so that the content in the tabs is brought higher up the page. The immediate family is still visible and navigable on the Overview tab (but less convenient, to be sure). We knew there were also disadvantages to removing it, and we appreciate hearing everyone's feedback.

Thanks Michael - For me it makes Geni a lot less convenient. With a sub par search function, this was the only somewhat possible way for me to reach relevant people among the large number of managed profiles. My enthusiasm to add more profiles just went down a few notches.

But I assume it makes sense for a lot of other people and if so, should surely be welcome.

Anchit I apologize for being dense, but how did having the immediate family atop the profile make it easier for you to get to those hard-to-find profiles? Is it that you know how they are related to you, so you would use that top section to quickly navigate through the chain of people that lead you to the person you're looking for? How far away are those people anyway? (the search box should auto-complete names for everyone out to third great grandparents, fourth cousins, etc)

Or am I completely misunderstanding you, and you're talking about something else that has changed (like the "Profiles Managed" row in the Statistics module?)

Yes, I am taking about using the chains to quickly navigate. As I mentioned this is useful for people who are managing large number of public profiles. (not just within family group)

For instance, I am looking for a particular king in a particular dynasty spanning 600 years. The Geni search function usually throws up nothing. So i use the bookmark to get to some king in the dynasty and then use the immediate family tab to quickly get to the person I intent to.

Maybe I am doing something wrong with search but if the search was more effective for me, I would not have the same need for the immediate family section.

Arne Pajula, I am also part of the profile experiment, and from my point of view there is NOTHING positive in the new model.
You are concerned for privacy and so am I.
So far when I searched the public entries of profiles related to my family, it was never easy to find more than the user wanted you to, and in some cases you could learn absolutely nothing, as if those people are hiding from you, which defeats the larger picture of trying to make Geni, if possible, a one large family.

Anchit, if both the old and new profile pages make sense to large portions of people, why not have a switch button that gives you the choice of using the one that suits you the most.

I have to laugh at myself..I just realized that @Michael A Stangel was our 'Mike' in the forum..duhhhhh...lol

I do not like this change, but I was trying to find an explanation for myself why this has been implemented. I have been using those links at the top of the page to quickly navigate inside the large families where the horisontal span in the Tree View covers more than one screen.
We do have the luxury in Estonia to have most of the historical information available free on the Internet, so I do try to drop a comprehensive link of the source on the Profile pages Overview tab (unfortunately there is no way to paste a link to the Sources tab).
So in a family of ten children it is much quicker to do it by entering them first to the tree, and then start from inside of one Profile page to add links jumping directly to the next Profile page.
In a new version it can also be done, but you have to retrain yourself a bit. And I do prefere to switch to the Text View.

OK now you had an update, and the issue with adding a family is solved.
BUT GUYS, why did you also have to change the appearance of the data input window?
Is it your way to tell us to take a hike? Please continue with improvements under the hood, but the game you play with the UI is just irritating.
Another window opens, and BAM! another surprise.
At least do it more gradually, otherwise people are logging in one day and they have to start extra courses to understand how to proceed with the everyday tasks they were so familiar with earlier.
And what's with the version number? It is still the same 909b, but the UI cahnges should at least push it to 909c?

Arne can you be a little more specific? Which data input window are you talking about?

OK It is now Geni 0914a. Yesterday I was entering new profiles, and the window where you add all the information like Birth date, place etc, had a completely new layout. The biggest change is the way you can enter a date now in one field (and the chance to change the format MM.DD.YYYY, DD.MM.YYYY or YYYY.MM.DD or go back to dropdown menues).
The other problem at the time of writing my earlier comment was, that there was one field (the last one) missing at the detailed Birth Place, and Death Place. So I had no clue how to fill in the detailed locations.
The location problem was there also for the Edit Basics window which you can open up from inside the Profile through Edit Profile, and for the Tree View Edit window version
==
I have always wondered why there have to be three (or actually even four, if we consider also the Add Immediate Family window, which I never use) different layouts for basically the same process = entering the data.
This is a job you normally want to keep clear, and as simple as possible, so that everybody could use it without confusion.
So if you need to make changes please get rid of different layouts, dont add another one. It would simplyfy also your task (no need to ask, which data input window).
I would always prefere to use the full version of Edit Profile, which opens up from inside the profile. Probably it is not possible to use all pages of it while first entering somebody to the tree. So it should be at least Edit Basics page. I have not find an option to switch the input windows layout. OOPS sorry there is a box in the First entry window "Show fever fields" so there is even a hidden fifth version of the input window somewhere there.
Just make them two, please, just FULL and SHORT