Persons who have not been online for a year (Abandoned Trees)

Well, I am going through my list of 5046 requested merges going back to March of last year. Since there is no option to remind the managers, I will cancel the merge requests

Mike, then please help me to understand how, for example, despite being reported as an abandoned tree, Nicholas Ryan Bouchard remains the only manager of this profile: Private

Eldon, won't cancelling all of those make all fo the blue dots disappear in Tree View? How will you find them again?

David Lee Kaleita It probably will make them disappear, but I am so frustrated with what is going on that I don't care. If I get new potential merges, I will act on them and maybe something will happen.

In my opinion, Geni management is pandering to the ones who have abandoned their trees in the hope they will return someday. This is being done at the expense of the loyal Geni users, paying and basic, who are actively working to improve the tree.

My 2 cents worth. YMMV

Eldon, please do not unaccept any merges for which you are not the only one who approved the merge. That would be undoing the work of others.

David, your issue points out an ambiguity in this statement:

"For private profiles within the user’s Family Group, management is transferred to the nearest active relative in their Family Group"

...nearest active relative in WHOSE Family Group? Turns out, the inactive user's. The reason for this is technical (the performance of looking at the family group range for each of potentially tens of thousands of managed profiles) but it's one that we've been meaning to tackle. I'll see what I can do about that.

Thanks Mike. I've got dozens more examples like that- most of them all about the mess that Mr. Bouchard left behind when he abandoned his tree in early 2010.

Regarding the technical performance concern with a fully-automated solution: Humans can help!

Mike Stangel, to get around the technical performance issue that you mentioned, couldn't you instead do the check for total abandonment right at the moment a user tries unsuccesfully to complete the pending merge?

Mike – re: your comment that “Living profiles with no user in their max family group can be flipped public by Customer Service and/or curators, in accordance with the privacy policy linked in the footer: http://www.geni.com/company/privacy”

I recall being assured (closer to the August 2011 date of that revision to the Privacy Policy) that it would still be possible to set living profiles to Private even if outside your Max Extended Family, and that basically the chart was only describing the Default Geni used on creating the Profiles. I was assured that although the chart did not indicate those profiles among the Private Profiles, they still could be, etc. and was given to understand I was incorrectly reading info into it to suggest that was not so. Just as folks could choose to make their Great-Great-Great-Grandparents & Closer Public, even tho chart shows as Private.

I clicked on the footer to see the full privacy policy, and still see no place where it says curators and/or Customer Service can flip living profiles to Public. Not sure what else you might mean by “in accordance with the privacy policy linked in the footer” of the link you provide. Could you copy and paste that part here?

David Lee Kaleita

I disagree. Eldon should cancel the merge request, whether there are others involved or not. It would save the others going through the same painful process as Eldon.

The problem (there seems to be a parallel discussion) is that the profiles will then return to Eldon's Merge Centre as suggested merges. He won't know which ones he has already put in this category, and would probably end up initiating merge requests for them again.

FYI: There are some 'behind the scenes' discussions about ways of separating "merges I can do alone" vs "merges that need cooperation" -- and perhaps even "merges which are not likely to happen". What goes on each such "list" will differ based on your membership level.

This, of course, is in no way meant to imply a commitment to any such thing, but I thought y'all might be encouraged that Geni is listening to the frustrations of dealing with the various varieties and flavors of merges.

Private User I am already seeing that but at least the managers will get notice again.
Another interesting thing, when I look at the merges to cancel or save, about 10% of the public profiles can be merged by me

Kenneth, I remain completely opposed to removing matches or pending merges that are believed to be (or have a reasonable likelihood to be) correct. If the match or pending merge is INCORRECT or WRONG, however, then that's a completely different story. I spend most of my Geni time these days unlinking such bad pairs.

Not being able to complete a GOOD merge is not a good reason, in my opinion, to break/remove that pending merge- even if it makes your tree messy looking in the meantime. This project is not about being pretty in the short term- it's about cleaning up all of the loose ends in the long term.

Dave K.

Now I have three tree matches for my wife's second cousins once removed on my home page. The manager has not been online since Nov 26, 2007

Eldon, this is a good example of a reason to keep on Geni's case. If you just mark these as not a match, you are basically giving up the fight.

I don't want to see Geni get let off that easily.

Marking "not a match" is (in my mind) distinctly different from dismissing a pending (proposed) merge!

When you tell a pending merge (e.g. from a blue cross on the tree) they are different it does NOT seem to also dismiss the possible tree match. Maybe it just takes a while to do so, but I've looked a profiles after dismissing a pending (proposed) merge and the "tree match" still shows up in the now-separated profile (at least one of them...).

Dan, You're right that these two things are not currently connected (but SHOULD be). But that's not my point.

Why would you mark something as not a match if it is indeed a match?
And why would you undo a pending merge if it is indeed a match?

Two reasons for (perhaps temporarily) undoing a pending (proposed) merge:

1) the little "possible matches" is far less intrusive than the big blue "+" on the tree view.

2) Much more importantly: Pending merges block relationship paths, particularly if their parents are not already merged.

So, by leaving them as just "possible matches" (even though 99.99% sure), at least most of the 'calculations of relatives" will be happy. If one *does* get the attention of that other manager, then the merge can be proposed (initiated) and completed without leaving the path disrupted or the annoying big blue plus on the tree view.

I would NOT get rid of the "possible match" that is likely; but, unless a manager has been online recently, I'm not likely to initiate the merge.

That "possible match" is sufficient (for me) to serve as a reminder.

Remember, if the "possible match" is with a private profile I might not have enough info to definitively decide one way or the other until the other manager responds.

Which reminds me: the 3rd reason to decline a proposed merge may be that I compared the profiles, thought they might be a match, but later found out additional information which showed it really wasn't, and so would then 'undo' the (hopefully not yet completed!) premature merge.

... re: 3rd reason: but that's not really what you were asking about, so ignore that "3rd reason" comment.

Private User

Cn anyone tell me when she was last active?

Or her.
Private User

Fay Elizabeth Dyer
You're more likely to get a faster response in the "Curators, please help" thread:
http://www.geni.com/discussions/80793?msg=811733

fay Rulene has not been online since 2010 and when she was online she never completed merges

Stephanie not since 2011

It's a long story about Rulene, - she inherited automatically her son-in-law's(?) profiles when he suddenly closed his account and she probably got choked by them and stopped using Geni.

They cause no problems since Pro users can access all public profiles now, and if you have problems with private profiles within their family group _you_ are actually _the problem_ violating their right to a privacy range and should back out, - probably by deleting your public version of their private profiles.

If you disagree let us take it as a case by case where you post a link and ask for an advice of what can be done. There are other active users in that family group you can ask to help.

Calm down Bjørn, Fay just asked when Rulene was last online, no one mentioned any problems or violations of privacy.

;-) Sorry about that, - I always try to understand WHY people ask about other's login. Technically that is private info that should not be published, so I always try to focus on the reason for asking. Since pro users have access to all public profiles it is usually about some private profiles managed by them and prefer that focus.

The exception is of course when you want to ask them about sources for their profiles, but a login date does not help for that except of giving you a hope that you get an answer.

Fay is pretty conversant with Geni. My guess ( without asking) is its a pending merge on a 19th century profile she needs to know about for her own tree building on her own family lines.

You are probably right with your guess as to her motivation but she may have a completely innocent explanation as you say.
Also the discussion is public and will never be deleted, other people reading your post later today, or years in the future, might not understand your objection or realise that you had good intentions.
Regulars know your reputation but someone new to Geni or the discussion board might view that post as very aggressive.

(I know i am probably guilty of the same thing sometimes, no one is perfect).

Nah, - I try to pinpoint the main cause for any Pro user who ask for help, especially in the attn curators discussion.

It's always about private profiles and in just a few cases Curators really can help by detecting that the criteria for keeping that profile as private is not present and we have some tools to fix that.

In most other cases we should more often turn around the question and ask: Why are you having public profiles of people which falls into someones privacy range which is not within your own privacy range?