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

Your frustration is felt by many people....

There is a flaw in the system that allows the many to be held at bay by the few....non-responsive people....

You are very right that the system needs to be honed and made into a better way of dealing with the profiles that belong to managers who are either no longer active or have just jumped ship....they cannot stay as they are (unmerged and with no active manager) forever.

There has to be some limit imposed on the availability to the original manager if they have not responded to any requests...

I still do not see why the 'pool' of profiles was abandoned....and a master list of those managers who have not been active seems, to me, still a good idea....claim them by coming out of hiding or lose the right to them...especially profiles over 'x' years time range....

Any other business has a policy for addressing abandoned property. Why not Geni...

Post the names of the managers with date signed up and last date active...as a notice that they should either sign in or claim themselves as active within -x- time frame or the profiles under their sole management will be re-assigned. No e-mail addresses, no physical addresses, no personal data...just the name they used to sign up etc...

When someone has not been online for some time and is reported as abandoned, we look for someone within their family to take over their profiles. If we don't find anyone, then we don't change anything. It is against our policy to hand over profiles from abandoned trees to non-family members. The change we made was to make it easier to know if a profile really is abandoned.

So we know it is abandoned....then what?

You can report the profile as abandoned and we can run a check to see if we can change management.

Michelle Elena Kempner, you say that it against Geni policy to hand over profiles from abandoned trees to non-family members. I know you mean non-family members to the person who created the profile. That remains extremely unfortunate, as there are many cases where the abandones profile is an exact match for a living, active Geni user- a REAL member of the family that the abandoned profile represents.. But they cannot merge with that other version of themself because their double is in an abandoned tree.

Here's an example that I've cited many times before:
http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000001290265954?from%5Fflash=...

If it is Geni policy to assign abandoned profiles to the most closely related family member, then please do so. The person who created the profile is NOT a family member (i.e., the profile is way outside of his max family group), and he has also abandoned his account.

David Lee Kaleita, Mike is already working on a fix for you for that scenario.

Michelle....what happens to all the profiles managed by the 'abandoner"...are they just stored on a list forever?

You say it is against 'our' policy to hand over management to non-family members, but it seems that they are not being handed over to anyone...

Perhaps the policy needs to be reviewed...even the Constitution has a procedure for ammendments. And why should there profiles be stored by Geni on the assumption that someday in time they might happen to come back...there should be a time limit...

Abandoned storage lockers are part of the property of the storage facility and, after notice, and time, they take possession of the items held in that locker...

So run relationship checks on those profiles under abandoned manager's control and assign them...or ADD the closest relative to the management roster...

Genis point is to build this tree by Geni users, not by Geni team and if somebody is feeling the sudden urge to report something he has the chance of doing so but unresponsive users profiles are given to those family members who will some day come and claim them and are not given to just anybody under the system of reporting them abandoned.
And this is the only unchangeable policy that Geni is following.

Michelle Elena Kempner
If a rule was instituted that an active user could claim an "abandoned" profile which matched a profile within their Max Family Group i think that would go a long way to alleviate the issue.
Especially so if in claiming that one profile all of the profiles managed by that no longer active user were also transferred.
Is it too soon to ask for a more detailed explanation?

Alex, that would really be inviting trouble. And trivial to just wedge yourself into any private tree that has even one user who hasn't been on the site in 9 months. I think we owe our users better privacy protection than that.

Just playing devil's advocate, Mike, you can't deny it would reduce the duplicates.
What is the fix you are considering?
Allowing a merge to go ahead between two profiles, one in the Tree and one in an isolated tree where the manager is inactive and no other family members are users would also open up a can of worms i would have thought, hence my curiosity as to the details.

Further from my last post of a moment ago (having just reread David's post from 4 hours ago) if a merge is facilitated between an active user and a duplicate profile of themselves created by an inactive user who isn't even in that profiles max family grouping the result would be that the new merged profile would have a max family group that would be extending into the previously inactive isolated tree. If my brain is grasping the right straws the end result could be that the inactive user might return to Geni to find that they manage profiles in that previously isolated tree which they could no longer view because of the privacy settings of the merged active user.
Or does the inactive (but hypothetically returned) user's status of creator/co-manager over ride the active member's privacy settings?
I bet Lois will have a comment on that though! :)
Like i said, it seems like a real can of worms and it's no wonder finding a resolution has been such an on going struggle.

I guess I'll never understand why people feel the need to infiltrate others' private areas.

If all standalone trees and private profiles were rendered invisible to all searches and trees, the problem would disappear. The owners of those entities would still be able to see the public trees, and could merge when THEY wish.

Ken, I think I can understand why people want to infiltrate private areas. For example, there is an inactive user who is my 2nd cousin once removed. I can see enough to know that he clearly has an extensive tree of his immediate family, but his tree doesn't go very far back.

I talked to his grandfather at a family funeral a few months ago. He told me that they'd love to have a way to access all the "further back people" that I have, but they don't, but except for his grandson none of them "really do computers".

You can guess the rest. I never heard from the user. Maybe grandpa lost my business card. Maybe user grandson got it and has it in a stack of papers on his desk. User probably has notifications turned off. He's long gone from Geni anyway. I could write a letter to grandpa's sister and ask her to help me get in touch. And, someday I might do that. When I do, user might feel like taking the time to figure out his log on and come back long enough to accept my family group invitation. Or he might not.

In the meantime, I want to merge. They almost certainly want to merge. The profiles are technically "private" and in a "standalone tree", but if merged they would fall well within my family group privacy options.

The real problem here is that most of these abandoned profiles aren't held by genealogists jealously guarding a standalone tree. They're managed by average people who think about genealogy once in a blue moon, and would be happy to make a new connection.

"They're managed by average people who think about genealogy once in a blue moon, and would be happy to make a new connection."

That is entirely my experience as well.

Yep, when I was able to finally get hold of the managers of private trees, they were pleased to connect their tree to mine (or whoever's when I was assisting someone else).

I guess you are determined to annoy, frustrate and pester all owners of standalone trees in your endeavours.

I don't think you realize how many standalone trees are trees started by new users who have no idea that there is a Geni World Tree.

I believe that people who have standalone tree intentionally and on principal are in the minority :)

However I agree with you that if we did not see the standalone trees and they were never part of a pending merge, they would not "bother" people so much.

Users are irate that there are pending merges with blue plus signs and duplicate and private profiles that pop up in their branch of the World Tree. It's very messy.

Ken, I think that's a bit harsh. It's important to understand that there are many different opinions. It's probably not possible to accomodate all of them. The users who want to merge have just as much right to a voice in the discussion as those who don't want to merge.

Bravo fay - your quote "will go one step further....how about after 9 months (or 1 year) that non-responders with 'private' profiles PRE-1900 (which is 112 YEARS AGO) be automatically made 'public'...

I do NOT understand why profiles that belong to a non-participant should be afforded what amounts to 'classified information' as tho it qualified as "Top Secret" or some such status...

Perhaps this has all been hashed out before....but something needs to be done about establishing limits on the 'privacy terms'..."

Also I have never understood why in the chagned that started after the august 2011 crash GENI seemed to allow and insituted the stand-alone-trees when it goes agains the grain of their concept or BIG GOAL of having ONLY ONE BIG HUGH WORLD TREE when I first started I was basicall told by reps to accept it or leave and was told that the policy of one BIG HAPPY HUGH WORLD TREE was made clear in the guideline - - I still think some how an over lay for those who want stand-alone-trees could some how be accomplished in the programing end but i could be all wrong or if not a seperate dta base for all those who what standalone trees for their family groups which would be totally in-accessible to all even the curators combineing them with the main database for the one big world tree is that has caused the problems and hard feelings of many and they have given up and vanished from geni either deleting their profiles or locking them out clear into the 1400's

Off my soapbox and back to my corner and start biting my tongue again.... so I keep quite on these boards......

Do not mistake me....I believe that ALL living people should remain private (with the exception of PUBLIC people, such as movie,TV stars, politicians etc...and then ONLY their public info or info pertaining to their PUBLIC work)....

I personally believe that deceased people should be public but concede that parents and grandparents and people horizontally within a certain range of relationship also be 'private'....

But let's be real....as you said JUDI....allowing 'private' profiles further back in time defeats the main purpose of Geni...to create a giant tree....

And it seems to me that logic should be used in determining the INTENT of being public....and 112 years is far enough back for a birth date to allow for privacy....

But the discussion was on ABANDONED profiles....so fine, Geni compiles a list of managers who have not been on-line or active in X months....and they (and others) try to contact those managers (who may indeed have left or changed their e-mails and re-entered)....but what happens to the LIST...it seems to just grow and grow...and nothing done to resolve the problems that the profiles under that person's management causes...the merges that can't be accompiished, the adding of management control, the problem resolutions...that all go NOWHERE...

There is so much space used by Geni to store all the 'pending' material that must cost in computer space...and I'm sure they are sick and tired of hearing all the moaning and groaning by all of us....

I would think that Geni would work to resolve their own policies regarding 'abandoned profiles' by absentee landlord managers....and how it impacts the MAIN GOAL of creating the most comprehensive and complete GENEALOGY out there....

We collaborate with other professional and amateur genealogy buffs (as Geni requests we do)...to promote discussions and resolve errors that have been discovered in almost all other GEDCOM;s, PDF's, and a number of GENEALOGIES......but it seems that the drive to allow a measure of privacy and encourage everyone an opportunity to add their own families within a secure and private forum....interferes with the MAIN GOAL because it is too vague and the parameters too fuzzy....

And the problem of managers who enter data and then jump ship (or have they?) will be a thorn in our sides until Geni decides on a course of action to address those matters for the majorirty of those serious buffs whose goal is to work to BUILD that which Geni asks us to build.

Fay. The reason that much of the tree is Private has nothing to do with privacy, and I wish people would stop pushing this button - it has nothing to do with privacy.

In August 2011 Geni changed the entire game-plan - Pro members could now change any of your public profiles. At the same time, Revisions were introduced on some fields. Revisions have never fully worked - neither has merging. On a merge, the revisions of one side of the merge are going to be lost. Basically, if someone messes up your research - best of luck, you're on your own.

Like many/most other members, I immediately made as much of my tree Private as possible. I would make more Private if Geni would let me.

Fay, the Private areas are there for data protection (as Geni does not provide any) - it has nothing to do with privacy.

Instead of whining about the private areas, your energy would be better spent getting Geni to address the data protection problems.

Ken I believe Geni is addressing it and as a priority. Cray supercomputers don't grow on free family trees. :)

Ken, my experience has been very different. Very few users care enough about recent, distant cousins to go in and start making changes. I'm not worried that some 20th cousin is going to edit my grandparents.

I've successfully had all my deceased family members set to public since the beginning. I've had a few edits here and there by 4th and 5th cousins. Most were good edits, a few turned out to be wrong. The edits that were wrong were easily resolved when I presented my evidence. Not even a hint of vandalism or confrontation.

I think the real difference is not privacy or data protection. It's that some people approach the world in an adversarial way and others don't.

Justin. Your logic escapes me. It seems to run along the lines of 'nothing has happened to me, therefore nothing will happen to anyone else'. I thought you could do better than that. Presumably, no American needs insurance because Justin Swanstrom hasn't been burgled.

Justin. Most of our genealogy was stored in the timeline events, which are now not supported by Geni at all. Over the past year, we have watched as they slowly disappear - hundreds, and probably thousands of them. We have been able to protect the remainder by making the profiles private.

If other geni members can't see our profiles - that's tough.

Ken can you accept that I for one understand your experience, but it is not an experience I share, and I've looked at thousands of profiles - a lot more than a "typical" Geni user does?

Ken...the point is that YOU are 'active' ...and hopefully would respond to requests to make a profile that links one section to another, and allow a particular profile to be made 'puvlic' for that reason...of course, that would bequire the person asking to present their reasons for the request.

I think we were talking about NON-active people who entered profiles and then, for whatever reason, left our gathering...and who can't be contacted or do not respond and have left their profiles just hanging in limbo.

I have had people skim through some of my further profiles (over 3rd grandparents etc) because they are connected and LINK to the family they they are persuing....since they have no specific interest in my entry, they just use it as a stepping-stone.....

The question remains about what to do about those who have not been active for an extended time and whose profiles are shared/but un-merged, with other active users profiles...

I leave actual assignment of those profiles out of the discussion at this time...the fact is that they are a road-block as they stand....

So what is your idea on how to proceed? I am sure that you review those requests to merge and discuss the request with those asking...but you are, at least, assessible....others are not...

Private User Justin Durand
Here is an example of mine http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000008799907139?resolve=6... Both of these people fall in my max family group if I have figured correctly

Ken, why is this " infiltrating" someones private area?

As I understand it If I could complete these merges, no one would loose management of the profiles. Both sides would be managers of the merged profiles So if the manager who has abandoned this tree came back to Geni, she would still have control of her tree

Eldon. Using your logic, you should also force family members to open their Facebook pages to you. You are related after all, so why not? You apparently don't see this as infiltration either.

Eldon. Prior to Geni's insane August 2011 decision to open the tree to everyone, much of a family's records were loaded into Geni. We had diaries, notes, paintings, war records - hundreds of pages per profile. Nearly all of this was personal to the family and not intended to be shared with the world in general.

People like yourself (which covers most people in Geni) who only see Geni as containing boxes with birth and death dates, you won't see the difference. As this information is not protected by Geni anyway, we have watched it slowly disappear with each merge.

Yes Eldon, we have realised that Geni is now only intended for birth and death dates. We are steadily removing all the useful genealogical information from our tree, and will leave the carcase, which is apparently what Geni members insist upon.