Help Grow the Jewish Genealogy Portal

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Seems that one of the most important things we could do is remind those who use Geni to indicate sources and, unless it is absolutely necessary, make trees public. If one takes the trouble to post a tree, why not make it easy for others to connect with you? Those who are deceased won't mind and you can easily keep profiles of living relatives private. Sorry if I may be offending some participants but people who create five and six person trees that only list living relatives and then make all of their profiles private are not really making a contribution.

I agree Vivian!

Vivian - Geni currently requires all living to be Private Profiles, so not sure why or what you are objecting to there. Even if the folks wanted to make them Public, they could not do so currently.

As to folks who create five or six person trees - if you mean a tree with just five or six folks on it - and NOT lots of such trees, but just the one with themselves and a few living relatives -- perhaps they are pausing to assess Geni, how they like it, do they see other relatives on it, etc. I would think you would see this as wise, not offensive.

If I totally misunderstood what you were talking about, my apologies.

I definitely agree it is good to indicate sources. Wish more folks did it.

Is that really so? I thought that Geni allowed users to decide -- although profiles of living people are private by default, I thought this could be changed at will. Another point worth making is that many profiles of dead people are currently private also. I agree with Vivian: Geni is a social networking site, and there's really not much point having your tree here if you don't want other people to be able to see it and get as much information as possible from it. We all want to learn more in order to extend and amend our trees, surely?

Andrew Michael Colman

All profiles of living people are private and this cannot be manipulated by users - only some Master Profiles of living people are viewable by all (aka public).

However, if one is within the "family" circle of within 4th cousin of a living person than one can see those profiles of living people even if private.

I have to respectively disagree with most of you on this. Although Geni.com has been pushing collaboration and growing the Big Tree (and many of us support this attitude), I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with folks using this site to post their private tree - no matter how small or large. Even if these folks have no wish to grow their tree, Geni.com is still a very valuable way for them to show their tree to their own family members.

If you look back at various discussions over the years, you may find that this question had come up again and again.

I don't want to open up old wounds, but I feel I need to say something here, or else I would be tacitly agreeing with what everyone else is expressing.

Enjoy Geni.com, and make the use of it you wish, but please respect the desires of others - otherwise i fear that we may drive them out of Geni.com, and they have as much right to use this site as any of us.

Mark Harold Melmed

While it may not be in-line with the overall collaborative nature of Geni there is no reason someone cannot post their own private tree and simply remove any matches they receive to other profiles. While many of us prefer to collaborate and find family members, etc. that is a valid way to use the interface. There is no real right or wrong here. I think the issues arise when such a person gets outside their "privacy" zone and then doesn't understand that they can't keep those profiles private... this is where people get mad, but that's also the foundation of the interface, no?

Up to 226 collaborators on the project. Keep inviting more people to join so we can improve the reach of our Jewish genealogy discussions. By way of comparison, at http://www.geni.com/projects/Geni-Top-10-Lists/11937 are some of the other top collaboration projects on Geni:

Most Project Collaborators

Portaal voor Nederlandstaligen (2,306)
Estonian activists in Geni (2,198)
International Dutch Portal (988)
Badrbagh (904)
The Sulaimani Jamat (903)
Collaboration Pool (430)
Irish Portal (429)
Croatian Portal (426)
Italian Portal (378)
Jewish Genealogy Portal (209)

The question "do you want this Profile to be public or private" could well be made more prominent on the screen as one is entering new data on a deceased person.

What Vivian Kahn and others have said is really crucial: "...remind those who use Geni to indicate sources." When one has just uploaded an image, for example, boxes appear for tagging the relevant individuals and for labeling that image: it takes only seconds to type in the source and Image Number. True collaboration is when a person who finds info that another will care about -- perhaps an unknown "other" on the far side of the world -- makes that info fully accessible from the start. Then everyone can spend more time entering new Profiles / Trees on Geni, and less time re-finding key sources that they need to be able to see in full.

@Wendi Rachel Newman:

"I think the issues arise when such a person gets outside their "privacy" zone and then doesn't understand that they can't keep those profiles private".

I am not sure if you are referring to living or deceased distant relations. I tend to agree with you if the distant relation is deceased, but I don't agree concerning living distant relations. If anything, these distantly related living folks need even more privacy protection since no close relation is around to stand up for their rights.

I am not concerned about folks on Geni.com sharing each other's information, I am more concerned about the ability of non-Geni.com folks having the ability to obtain data via Google and the like. I do not like the idea of a living person's profile I manage being widely accessible simply because they are not closely related to me.

Mark Harold Melmed I agree with you completely. I was referring to profiles of deceased individuals since profiles of living people are always private regardless of whether the profile creator is in his/her privacy zone or not.

I was also referring to profiles of often long deceased individuals. In some cases, folks will keep a profile private even though it is public in other trees! This suggests to me that the person who uploaded the information may not even realize that one doesn't need to keep the entire tree private in order to protect the privacy of living individuals.

Speaking about private profiles. If I have a profile of a living person in my tree and then I accept a merge request, if the manager of the other profile has marked it private I lose my ability to view the profile I added. Is there a way to remedy this?

Bentzion Shlomo Turin As long as you are still a manager of the profile and/or in the privacy circle for that profile you should still be able to view it. I had that happen to me once though.

We are up to 252 collaborators on the Jewish Genealogy Portal. Keep inviting people to join. The more collaborators we have, the better our discussions will be.

272 collaborators and climbing. Please invite your friends to join the Jewish Genealogy Portal.

Is there a place on GENI to go and determine which specific projects one follows AND on which one collaborates ????

We've hit 300 collaborators. Please keep inviting more Jewish genealogists to join the project. The more people join, the more reach the project discussions will have.

Now at 344 and climbing. Keep inviting everyone.

We're at 395 collaborators in the Jewish Genealogy Portal project. Can we get to 400?

We hit 400 collaborators! Now on to 500 . . .

Roberta Bobby Sue Jacobs Spiegel

Howard Arthur Jacobs

Private Jacobs

Private

We're at 453 collaborators. Can we get to 500?

YES we can get to 500.

Lets all help achieve a milestone in this most important project.

WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER !