Important problems to solve - Fix list

Here's my initial proposal for you to chew on:
Problems:
Because historical profiles have so MANY managers, it is:
1) Too easy to delete profiles belonging to multiple managers.
2) Too easy to initiate/complete merges on them, creating messes and destroying previous efforts.
3) Users can decide to block a tree-merge process, half way through, creating complete havoc!
4) Geni Support Staff, will be progressively LESS capable of resolving these issues for a growing user-base, so is forced to categorically refuse to do so.

Solution:
Take the majority of this work, off of Geni's shoulders by incrementally moving towards a Curator system, that will enable us to protect work on historical profiles, and later, help solve/arbitrate similar problems in less public parts of the tree.

Steps:
1) Require multiple manager approval for deleting multiple-manager profiles (if merging is a permissions PITA, make deleting an even bigger PITA!).
2) Enable all users to tag shared profiles as "historically important". This will prevent people from merging with those profiles. This is a TEMPORARY measure to reduce damage to the main lines, until a complete solution is in place.

As you can see, not all the problems I list have steps to solve them. Maybe you can help here, or want to change this list...

Now that sounds well thought out - I will share it with my other family ‘power-line’ :-> to elicit their thoughts, but who is going the feed it back to GENI?

(Okay, that was easier said than done. How do I fwd your messages, Shmuel and Anne, to my collaborators without just cutting and pasting the message (which will break the link to you, I imagine?)

Anne Merit:
I'm a small fish in this big pond. My contributions are small. You have my permission to fix whatever needs to be done. If I can help. tell me what to do.
Thanks, Russ

1). Whenever someone first starts a family tree on geni, the options for him/her should be a) either to create a completly private family tree where no match notifications ever pops up, or b) to be a part of a public "geni domain" with all the wellknown possibilities of merging, collaboration, nettworking etc.; but where som of the current problems and obstacles have hopefully been solved...

2). There should be a warning of some sort popping up whenever people merge into the big tree; something like: "WARNING! You are now connecting your family tree to a large historical family tree," and then some text giving the user some idea of the implications following such a merge, and finally the words "are you sure you want to continue?" There could even be a box that one would have to check out, agreeing to comply to certain rules applying to this particular tree (like not making duplicates of persons already existing in a historical line etc).

Hello Atle:
Yes I agree in my case especially, as my small contribution is completely drowned out and insignificant and should be separated out.
Russ

Problem:
People want to access the wealth of infromation gathered in the Big Tree, but don't want to lose control of their "own" tree/profiles.

Suggested solution:
Give people that are considering to join the Big Tree an option to "overlay" their own tree on top of the "official tree", so they can see how well these trees correspond. Geni would then warn them where differences occured, and suggest possible duplicates. Then if they want to they can replace these sections of their tree with the "official tree". In this manner one would avoid a forest of merge issues awaiting approvals.

Users could even be allowed to keep their own parallell tree on top of the "official tree" with their own profiles, just visible to them.

They would have one version of the profile on which they could remain in complete control, and also have the possibilty of considering the official HP profile. These profiles would be linked, but only you (or possibly a group of people with viewing access) would see your own private versions of the profiles, and it would not disturb the appearance of the Big Tree.

I am still somewhat new to Geni, only been on since Oct. 2009, I have been relinquishing my management to those profiles I manage that have been merged into, especially those that are in the big tree.
I am amazed any one would want to keep control of those that are in the Big Tree. I was unknowlegdeable about what it would be like to add a large GED and I'm sure others regret doing so, I did not ask to be merged in but was drawn in by others requesting to be merged with mine.
I agree that Historical profiles should be managed by curators and if the other managers could relinquish on those it surely would help. But what to do with the rest of the profiles from a GED once one connects to the Big Tree, it would be nice to disconnect mine from the Big Tree and Delete the rest of the line, but how?
I think the curators when having a merge into a start of of historical line should notify the other profile manager about this. This is fine if a person is entering each profile but as what to do when a GED is uploaded and linked and merged into at several areas of the Big Tree is another problem.

Let me clear up a misconception that is too OFTEN repeated.

THERE IS NO "BIG-TREE".
Or rather not in the sense that people mean it. The vast majority of people are connected to the tree of 37,039,751 people (and counting), sideways. That is, through marriage. In this sense merging ANY profile at all, even with another tree that is NOT yet connected to the "big-tree", is only one merge away from the "big-tree".

What I think people actually MEAN when saying "merge into the big tree", is merging into the main-lines of the historical profiles. By which one instantly gains "millions" of cousins. But then again, this too is ALSO just like any other merge. Because you could merge your 5th great-grandfather with somebody else who is also NOT connected, only to have a 3rd person merge that into the "main-lines".

So the ONLY way to have a private tree is NO merges EVER, and thus, never inviting ANY one to your tree. Because as soon as you invite a single person, they can invite someone else, and eventually someone will do that first merge.

Also you can't have it both ways. Inviting someone and then expecting them to not invite or merge anybody else, just doesn't work, and is totally unfair.

@Shmuel, My opinion: The Only way to have a private tree is to keep your tree in a genealogical program on your own computer and not online on programs like Geni or MyHeritage.

@Atle, The people that want your option 1a) should get their own genealogical program, that is the only way to be 100% sure of staying private.

In my opinion those that want to have a 100% completely private tree, not collaborate, or interact with other profileowners on Geni, should stay away from Geni. Geni is not the right genealogical program for them to use.

Now you can flame me for being unsencitive to others opinions :-)

Let's go!

Remi I agree, but some people DO want a "read-only" online tree. They can achieve this by inviting people as "Friends" to view their tree. So giving them this option doesn't "cost" me anything. It's the people who don't understand, or want it both ways, who are the problem.

Private trees and the curators proposal have with other 'wishes' been suggested to the Geni team in the past to no avail so I suspect this discussion will be the same and go nowhere but I guess it's good to get these things off our collective chest. I think an option for a private tree that is not connected to the main Geni site would be a good idea and could even be a money spinner for Geni if they approached it properly. I sometimes think I'd like to have my tree (not the one that's connected to everyone somehow but one that shows say out to 5th cousin ~ Geni's choice of break off point, not mine) in addition to the tree where 'everyone's related' Having had a hard drive crash and lost all my non-paper family history data I now use the online trees like Geni and Genes Reunited to contain my tree. This probably isn't wise but if Geni could offer a 'private tree' holding service where one felt one's tree was safe from other people changing and from accidents like hard disc crashes that may be an attractive package for some people.
The Curator Proposal is also very important to me as I do a lot on the historic tree and what I do is frequently undone which is highly frustrating! Historic and Vulnerable profiles desperately need to be protected or highlighted.
When someone uploads a gedcom it should overlay this with the big tree and if any profiles appear to be duplicated then the gedcom should be pruned until there are none. Similarly if a profile is added manually if there is a profile already in existence a warning should come up 'are these the same? ' If they are the same then the upload is aborted but the person becomes a further manager of the profile. If it is different then it can be uploaded but will be marked as vulnerable and why.
In the 'removing relationships' feature it should be possible to remove just one parental relationship and not always both as frequently it is the case that one parent is correct and the other wrong.

That's all for now.