Technical difficulties?

Noah Tutak
I've mentioned in this thread a few times previously how badly the location field works when creating profiles, and several people have explained (or tried too) how the feature links to Google Maps so it's all Googles fault. Be that as it may the fact is that Geni is linking itself to Google Maps not the other way around, the results continue to be pathetic and worse than useless.

Today i have again been struggling with locations in Finland, typing "Nuasjarvi" into the location field suggests some place in Sweden, fair enough that's a vaguary of Google Maps and i can live with that. Typing "Nuasjarvi, Kajaani" into the location field gives a suggested match of Nuäsjarvi, Finland", BINGO that's what i want so i select the suggestion and the field is filled. Create the profile and what is the location recorded? "_"
Big fat zero! Nothing, nada, nix, nil, zip, zero, zilch!

So between the half correct suggestions, suggestions that don't record as shown and suggestions that just don't record at all i'd say that having the auto-fill is actually a dis-service that reduces the functionality of Geni.

I've been creating profiles all morning using the auto-suggestion to fill the location field but have ended up with a bunch of profiles with no locations recorded against them. Pathetic.

PS: I'm getting really sick of seeing my 6th great grandfather listed as "your first cousin four times removed's wife's second great grandfather." but with no refresh icon on the path to push there's not much i can do about it, foloowing the path itself to "teach" Geni does nothing nor Pinning to the profile.

Probably not the right forum for these gripes but they ya go, you take my money so you have to listen to my moaning! "The customer is always right."

For what it's worth, I agree with Alex. I raised this issue a long time ago and it is very frustrating not to have it fixed.

Thanks Randy,
"Fixed" would be nice but i think that much of the issue is due to the interface with Google, i'd be happy to see the auto-complete function deleted entirely. Provided the programmers can guarentee that what i manually enter will appear in the profile (this currently is not a 100% certainty) then everyone knows the deal up front.
As it is now i wonder how many people use the auto-complete and never realise the profiles are created wrong/lacking.

Just as an aside i'd suggest anyone who doesn't check their Managed Profiles List regularly to check it for Private/Public settings. I just checked mine over the weekend and had to make Public 5 pages of deceased profiles, in some cases dating back to the early 1700s which have all been added to already publuc deceased profiles so goodness knows why they were Private.

Good suggestion Alex. I've created new profiles I am quite sure are deceased & public & wait - they're private, even though it's the late 1700s.
I finally figured out they fall into someone's privacy zone - perhaps even my own - and there isn't a way to change the default that I know of. Nor can i quite figure out the pattern any closer than I just said - someone's family group I guess. It's a slightly creepy feeling actually.

I have 420 tree matches on a profile.The bulk Remove Matches is not working, again!

I also have 400+ on two profiles.

Noah did mention in a discussion that they had plans for doing the same, but they probably stopped it when I told that they could not be so general because it would make young people of today, spouses, even children who died too early into public profiles.

I think the reactions would be hard if someones dead children was forced to be public profiles.

Such an algorithm have to include a test on birth date on the profile or connected profiles, and I think it us already partly implemented already because I have noticed lately that then marking a profile deceased turns it into a public profile, depending on the location in a tree.

People have to get over the completely false idea that there is such a thing as privacy for names and relations. There has NEVER ever been this type of privacy. Never. Just think about how many people know who you are and who your parents are. Many people also know your date and place of birth. (Think about everyone you ever went to school with or worked with.) Anyone who walks into a graveyard can see the name and date of death of countless people. This type of information is NOT private and it is about time that we all stop pretending that it is.

Randy Schoenberg

again some laywyaer thow thingks theat personalitye cirme is only on the MOONNNN-botata... ???

Randy Schoenberg I agree completely.. I hope Noah still has plans for all deceased to be public.

On another note, would you contact me about a Jewish family from Russia.

Randy - in my view this is Geni's problem of Geni's making - Geni promoted itself as a great place to build a family tree for sharing all your family info with family, and that it would be shared just with your family. Having promised that, they should deliver. Especially since they officially do not allow one to delete info.

I agree that Geni's privacy policies could use some work, but I think it would be wrong to ignore the general privacy concerns users and potential users might have.

I would not like to see all deceased profiles made public. I have a brother who died in his 30s, as well as a niece and a great niece who died at birth. When I wear my genealogist's hat I want them to be public as a memorial to their brief lives, but when I take off that hat and become just an ordinary human again I can understand why some of my family do not want their grief made public.

Also, as a genealogist I am content to have my deceased father's profile be public, but there's a risk. Any user can edit his profile. Two random users did just that. It feels very intrusive to have someone who is not a relative arbitrarily decide to change information about my dad. I could easily understand if another user preferred to keep a parent's information private and untouchable on Geni.

The idea that all the information is in the public domain anyway does not persuade me. It's a legal argument, not a human response, and it ignores the differences in privacy laws in different places.

Justin Durand - I agree with you vehemently about this. I assume that in the family group we will still have the ability to keep profiles private. I like very much your distinction between the legal argument and the human response.

In general I have many of my deceased family public, but I can't imagine being forced to make private a relative who died young who should still be living. And having some random person edit that profile would bring back the grief. It's already aggravating when random people edit my long deceased relatives who they know nothing about and who I am the sole manager of!

Hatte - I am thinking you meant "...can't imagine being forced to make public ...." - rather than "... can't imagine being forced to make private ...."

We're getting off topic for this particular discussion, folks, which is oriented to "technical difficulties."

I just created some missing profiles in the world tree born in the 1660s. They defaulted to private. THAT is a "technical difficulty."

Suggestion is that everyone "building tree" be aware of this current functioning and please check that this is your intent as a profile maker.

Correct. Thanks. My fingers got ahead of my brain. I'm thinking about my sister who died less than a year ago and how I would feel if her profile were public today and some random person edited her given name which was unusual. Or even added an alternate spelling for her unusual given name.

When you use a personal test case like this, it sensitizes you to the real human issues. We all would like to see deceased people public because as genealogists it means a better chance of someone finding your family and connecting to it. But that's not true for the most recent generation - siblings, children, and probably parents - where you are not looking for lost relatives who would Google those names. So spare us weak humans who have tender places for our lost and beloved family members.

That being said, I would not have such an issue nowadays with my husband I think, but if I had a deceased child, I would. I made my deceased father public long ago. Again, that's why it has to be a personal choice with very close relatives.

Sorry, you wrote your off topic comment while I was composing another off topic comment. Back to the grindstone.

Totally separate "Technical difficulty" -
If a merge happens with a Primary Profile with blank field for BIRTH LOCATION with a Profile that has value in Birth Location field, the value will be entered in the merged Profile, and Revisions will make NO MENTION of that field being updated – so you have No Idea it was a result of the merge, and not part of the original info entered.

This is probably a bug / technical difficulty, because for many fields it does not work that way. If merge Primary Profile with blank field for Middle Name, Display Name, Nicknames (term used in Revisions and on Profile; in Edit it is called “Also Known As”), Birth Surname, and/or About Me with Profile that has value in that field, the value will be entered in the merged Profile, and Revisions will state that field was updated (listing before merge listed).

Lois - can you post a link where this happened? My experience is, it is very difficult to recreate the issue without Geni having an example to see.

Hatte - :(

Digressions are good! Just don't want to lose anyone following the discussion ...

is it slow or what?
it's the endless spinner again...

damn it. that google api no longer works. restarted the computer but it still doesn't work. same happened yesterday.

Erica - if Mike (or another Geni Programmer) wants links to examples, I am willing and able to provide them; they can make the request here, or PM me, and I will PM them. [As I have done in the past, for other problems, when Mike asked for them!!]

Sure. The advantage of a public posting / public profile is for someone else to confirm the behavior & "me too" (or not).

I was thinking about this a little. If there is no data on one profile, and data on another, I would expect in a merge for the data to be filled in, and use "facts / compare" from the overview tab to see what the "first added to the tree" had for values. I'm not sure it would present in the revision story from the revision tab (nor would I expect it to in the way you're thinking?)

Bah this is why I need links.

Erica - what "facts / compare" from the overview tab?? Is this something Curators have access to, that the rest of us don't, or ??

Revision Tab on the Profile is the only place from which I see any of this data/information!.

Anyone should be able to see this. overview (about tab) > history > facts > compare. Revert is possible (use with care AFTER checking the compare table)

Here's a public profile with many revisions as a show & tell

Richard Wentworth

Erica - Thank you. I had always used History there just for history of 'About Me'. However -- You get this same sort of Grid if you go to the Revisions Tab and then click "View" in the line reporting a change.

To see that it is the SAME grid - for your example profile - on Overview Tab, click History -> Facts, click on dates for 10/20/2011 and 8/24/2011 - click "compare" --
and compare this to what you get if you go to Revisions Tab, go down to report of Oct 20, 2011 change to nicknames - ie where it says: "Richard Wentworth's profile was updated by Carole (Erickson) Pomeroy, Vol. Curator. nicknames
Oct 20, 2011 at 9:07 PM · view" , and click "View" there.

You get the exact same grids, if you do either of the above. (That as far as I can see,in that example, it is not showing any change at all is annoying, and I am not sure why it is listed as change when apparently is not - do you? But - the Grids are the same!)

The big advantage I see of Overview->History->Facts is that there, for the line / date where the Profile was added, it has date in black, author, and says "added onto" followed by list of the Fields that were filled in, and lets you see those, whereas in "Revisions" it just says 'so-and-so' was added to the Tree by so-and-so. Very glad to discover how to see what was in the profile when originally added - Again, THANK YOU! - think it should be that way under Revisions as well. Aside from that, I prefer the Revisions Tab -- but may be just that that is what I am used to.

In any case, using your method - Checking the Profiles I was talking about - Can clearly see what fields the Profile started out with -- and that it did NOT have Birth Location; and can see in the History of Facts no listing anywhere for "Birth Location" -- BUT "Birth Location" is filled in on the Profile. (in some cases - "Birth" is listed in History - but when check, see that was, in these cases, just date - and there is no additional listing of "Birth" where the Birth Location was added.)

I think it would probably be easier if one of the Programmers checked each Field to make sure it was reported when Filled in from a Merge, than for me to keep looking for which are mentioned, which are not. There definitely is a bug here!!

Lois

The "revision story" for "revision events" is just that - a story. Not all data is presented although it's captured in server logs.

It is NOT trivial to "translate" those server logs into something coherent and understandable by application users. The Geni team is to be commended for the brilliant job they've done on that. Most apps I'm familiar with have an entire "black box" for that.

Let me ask you a question. Is your question about "what was the original value" answered through studying the grid?

And maybe I'm missing another part of your question. Is it that you'd like a "update" notification on a profile you manage that there has been a change, and you didn't get it for "data changed from blank to a value?".

Personally I'd go nuts with that kind of extra notification.:). I "see" when a profile I manage is "updated" through "newsfeed.". That's plenty for me.