Make your profiles public

I agree with your sentiment. It's frustrating to find yourself blocked by the privacy screen. Very many of the time when profiles are made private (the default setting) it's because the creator of that profile doesn't even notice the little check box in the upper right corner of the edit profiles screen. On some computers it may even be off screen. So being the default setting that's what it ends up being saved as.
Couldn't one change the position of the box, placing it at the very top. Or make the "public" option the default.
Or how about an option for managers (solo or co-managers) to change all of their profiles to public with one click of a button. When one has thousands of profiles to alter, the changeover will not happen on a one by one basis.

Mike Stangel, Customer Service

Not only would you make many of us Geni users Happy (saving us major time) - you would greatly Improve the Quality of Geni & its New users introductory experience.

How ??

1) Just change the Default to Public !!

2) for Users who want Private profiles - make the Option "Easily Visible" - on the screen

I am absolutely in favor of making"public" the default. I have encountered more instances than I care to remember where the person who started some tree in which every profile was private never even responded to a polite message asking to discuss a possible merger.

Geni should also implement a time-based automatic change from "private" to "public", e.g., n years from birth or death, with some algorithm for date ranges estimated by Geni.

Thanks everyone for the unanimous support. Maybe Michelle Elena Kempner will review the policy.

Randy knows from past discussions that I'm opposed to this -- hopefully I get to be included in that personality disordered bunch he's diagnosed! -- but I certainly welcome more input from the community.

To me the problem is the "default" when adding profiles (building the tree out from yourself). I believe we tend to build "up." That's why I find new "living" profiles made in error - they were meant to be deceased and they are clearly positioned in the tree by the geni member as deceased.

When I've sent private mails to members asking - did you mean this person , who seems to have been born in the 1850s, to be "living" - they answer "gosh no! and not private either!"

So it's a "usability" issue to me and I'm supporting Pete Rohel's point 2) -

2) for Users who want Private profiles - make the Option "Easily Visible" - on the screen

I just went through making profiles in someone else's tree public to save them the work and it was not easy. Something has to change. I was collaborating and in the family group... People do enter trees standalone or private without intending it.

Ashley, isn't most of your activity in the older parts of the tree where there are no private profiles? I work mainly in the 19th and 20th century, helping people join Geni and connect to the big tree. In that area, the default to private is an absolute nightmare, as I and the others who have posted can attest.

Also in the Jewish tree, the point of on-line and especially collaborative trees is to connect with our past and with our cousins. The difference is that because of the Holocaust and immigration, we only have the 2 - 5 generations so most of our ancestors are within the family group. I have found tons of Israeli and American cousins and helped build out trees of people who were dispersed, separated from one another for the rest of their lives, or murdered in the the Holocaust. It is both a responsibility and a joy to bring together the different branches but if they are not public, it's not easy.

Oh I forgot the pograms, the forced migration to the steppes of the Ukraine, forced conscription, and so forth.

As an example, look at this merge on Josef Ehrenfeld, born 1798, which I can't complete even though I am a collaborator with the other manager. http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000018076169725?from_flash=1&...

Paul A Doemeny has obviously set the profile to private by accident (the children were public). He even logged in earlier today and accepted my collaboration request, but obviously hasn't figure out how to complete the merge or make the profile public so it will complete automatically. (The solution to the inability of collaborators to actually collaborate, promised before the summer, has never materialized.) I go through this maybe 10+ times per week with users I am trying to link up to the big tree. Endless messages trying to teach them how to open up the profiles and allow the merges to go through. Since Geni has capped my family group members, I have no choice but to do it this way. A complete waste of my time, and at odds with Geni's stated goals of merging duplicates and creating One World Tree.

Randy: No, I'm usually in the 19th C., sometimes 18th. I only go back farther when I have to. With the Bahamian tree, it's almost entirely 19th C. - present. Though yes, I'd absolutely agree that you have more experience with finding and recruiting living people to Geni.

I think the compromise solution is to do what so many others have said in the pats and just make opting to public-as-default an easier thing for people to do. Like, when people first begin working on their branch, have a window come up that asks them to select either/or. It can even have two side-by-side columns explaining the pros and cons of each. And I'd be totally fine with the wording being guiding so that more people lean towards public. But I don't want to go so far as to check it by default. That's my only request.

Ashley, I haven't heard any reasons why yet. Why is it good for Geni to have a default private as opposed to default public? How does it help Geni?

It helps users. Geni's been pretty clear that while they support the big tree, they are increasingly interested in supporting customers who want to have private trees. It makes sense from a business standpoint -- if people want to pay you to have a private tree, then take that money and let them have their private tree. This is also where our past discussions about finding a way to let those people opt out of tree matching (which I believe is in the works?) makes sense.

And if you read what I just proposed, I'm not saying default private -- I'm saying ask everyone upfront, when they first begin their branch, to select default private /or/ public.

This isn't one of those things where I'm interested in going 'round and 'round over it. I just think that a middle-ground arrangement works best on both the individual branch and wider site tree levels. Pick your poison upfront.

I've made searches on several familynames this week and my conclusion is that Geni has to do something about this problem. One cannot sell access to 65 million genealogical profiles when the access maybe is to a fifth or less.

I don't know anything about the inside technique of computers but from the above I understand others do. And it seems to be an extremally easy solved problem: Geni makes one click in the choise of what is the 'default' (the normal case) and that should be "Public" and the users prefering "Private" has to do the job, use their time and not waste others and build their own private tree in a special corner for the server place they are using.

It's not only curators trying to explain this possibility about how to make accidentially closed/private profiles. I do the same. How much time is wasted on this instead of cooperation in the direction of the parade goal the World Tree?

I wonder if there are a lot of pro/plus (ie paying) users who want private or standalone trees? I bet there aren't that many. In any case, I think we all agree that the default to private is a mistake.

There is a definite problem with new users understanding how the system works which is making the issues bigger than need be.

This discussion:
http://www.geni.com/discussions/114054?msg=825098
has been started today by a new user who has already paid for a Pro membership but doesn't seem to understand privacy settings, merging profiles or deleting profiles.
If someone is willing to pay for Pro without understanding these 3 very basic functions how many Basic users create stand alone 100 profile trees without ever having a clue of what else is available on Geni?

Randy, based on past discussions with input from staff, it seems that private, non-merged trees are definitely popular. That's why they were looking at a way to allow people to opt out of tree matching.

It would be interesting to know the breakdown between public vs. private profiles on the site, but I suspect that's not information that staff can give us.

Popular, but I bet they don't pay as much $. Just a hunch.

I do agree with Randy that the 'private' setting is mostly a mistake. Like many zoombies are mistakes when register a whole family with maybe 10-15 profiles.

During the first 14 free of charge-days I belive new users are trying to build in their own family at first. That's hard job and many details to remember, notice and handle. I belive their is not much time for being a smart and strong customer then Alex. After a while though people realize that 65 million profiles are maybe 10 million public profiles. In the beginning for me I thought it was me making wrong. I had hundreds of signs for "You're not aloud to view this tree" and "Setting those parents would split the tree" and many green signs for "Possible matches". I belived, in the beginning, it was like that. It's not.

Alex: That means i am not a stupid person who does not know what I'm buying. Normally people interested in the field genealogy are not. But we can be good att different things. I use Geni because I'm not very good at technical things with computers. Today after more than a year on Geni I doubt if the Geni engenears are.

As another, maybe more interesting quiestion, is if the Geni business is to fool people in this. I can drive a car and buy a car but not build it. I chose a seller who I trust and normally I dont feel fooled. There could be problems with the car, but the seller use to help to solve them depending what the problem is. (His or mine). I belive it will become problematic to him if he sells problem cars only. I think Geni sell one thing and deliver something else. Geni has to report how many af the 65 million profiles that are public and how many that are kept private. And Geni has to be clear about the basic rules. (I belive it's not legal in US to sell never ending problems like this.)

There used to be a 60/40 split deceased / living. We're really talking about making it easier for deceased persons to be public and available. The issue here is not privacy, it is usability. It's simply too difficult for a less experienced user - or computer user - to change that default, even when their INTENT for joining Geni was to connect with unknown relatives and build tree.

So what's being requested here is a change in the application default behaviors to make it simpler. Thats what Geni is about - simplifying the complex. They can figure this out and have due privacy controls in place.

If you add thru Tree View - Geni does NOT default all folks within your Max Extended Family to Private -- so it is making folks Public that many folks wanted as Private and had not realized had been set to Public. Revealing private info on folks, leading to Identity Theft and/or Upset Relatives etc. is major reason to keep Profiles Private.

DO NOT WANT THE DEFAULT CHANGED TO PUBLIC!!!

Agneta,
I wasn't critising that user or their actions, i was presenting it as an example of how complex the entirety of Geni is for a new user to understand straight away.
That lack of understanding at the out set can only be a bad thing.

I have no problem with Geni making it clearer whether a newly created profile is set as Deceased or Living - questioning when the entered or their estimated date of birth is greater than 125 years ago - or some other figure. Also no problem with them making it more obvious if the Profile is being created as Public or Private and asking if that is what you want.

Both of these can benefit those who wanted the Profile Private and those who wanted it Public. So you would think Geni might act on that. Tho stopping someone every time they create a Profile will also bug many folks a lot!! So ??

Part of the problem has to do with HOW you are creating the Profile. It works differently if from Add Family versus from Tree View.

and differently if you use the Add Immediate Family button in Tree view or use the yellow arrows :)

Good Lois, we are at points of agreement - very close to what Pete Rohel was suggesting. Make it much clearer and easier in the "add profile" dialogs (add from tree and add from profile) for the user to decide

1. I want this profile to be deceased
2. I want this profile to be public

And Alex's "training wheels" method too.:)

Randy once again refers to "Geni's stated goals of merging duplicates and creating One World Tree" while disregarding Geni's stated Goal of families sharing Privately with other Family members, scrapbooking all their information, sharing it only with members of their family, etc.

Moreover - I believe Geni never said there was a goal of merging all duplicates - BUT rather that the goal for the World Tree was that eventually, ideally (when completed) - it would not have duplicates. This is not the same as saying there would not be duplicates on other Trees - just (eventually, hopefull) not on the World Tree.

And yes, there are folks here into seeing the matches, merging with relatives, and still keeping the Profiles Private out to the Maximum currently allowed (and please do NOT lessen that!!)

Lois the suggestion on the table is not about changing the Max Family Group so we can take that out of this topic.

Let's stay focused on making it easier on new users to use the application as intended - without the "living undead" by accident, and an intentional and thoughtful use of the public / private option instead of "it's private?really? Fix it for me" we deal with every frigging day.