Salem Witch Trials: Colonial America in 1692 Project

Dear Fay
Can you explain exactly what you did that caused you to lose your tree of 200 people.

I have been irritated on merges.....because when I click on a person who has two or three or four copies of his/her info......the program does NOT show me that person. It shows parents, siblings, partners, children.....but does not show the one that I am trying to merge.

Who should I consult on this problem?

Ethel Johanna Myers

Go to duplicates or a flagged profile....it brings up a profile where someone is brother of himself, or sister of herself.....if you REJECT the file with the doupleganger....you chop your OWN tree down.....

In other words...if you REJECT a duplicate or merge that contains people as siblings of themselves.....you get screwed...

And if I sound pissed off...you are RIGHT in that assessment..

BITCH to GENI??? THEY ARE THE ONES THAT CREATED THIS MUCK-UP

Dear Fay

I understand exactly how you feel. It seems as though the geniuses on the technical end of this tree ought to be able to make a smoother way to make corrections without hazarding the rest of the tree.

I am well aware that many of the mistakes are built into some of the internet
programs that have been used for research. With such a massive program,
there will always be typing mistakes, mental glitches, and just plain wrong information.

But the system for correction seems to be flawed , awkward and unclear.
Many times I have tried to merge.....and nothing happens. Then what should be the next step? How many people have to approve a merge before it happens.?? How do we learn to make these changes.

I have been restudying many families, trying to be sure that my information is accurate. But it does no good if I can't pare away the overload of wrong people attached in the wrong places.

If this does not get solved, many people are going to be quitting and leaving the errors and duplications. And, of course, that spoils the whole project.

Ethel Johanna Myers

I checked one example in Fay's tree on her request.

The fact that the focused profile ALSO is listed among the siblings in the CRW (Conflict Resolve Window) now made her think it was a duplicate. It confused me as well the first time, but it is clearly highlighted with a white background. If there are real duplicates siblings it saves you a merge step since you can drop the duplicate on the focus profile as well.

BUT IF YOU SEE IT AS A "DUPLICATE" then beware!...I would rather TAKE THE EXTRA STEP.

Bjorn and Fay

I will try to decipher the placement of the highlighted white background.

I have not been able to deal with the CRW (Conflict Resolve Window)

I hope someone can find an easier, simpler way to work our thee conflicts.

Ethel

http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu41/bpbrox/CRW-Asa.png

I am VERY SORRY for my attitude but I took PRIDE in my trees being quite clean up till the top and having something GOOD to show from VERY long days and MUCH work....it makes me sick to have to RE-enter everything because the system all of a sudden changes and (to STUPID PEOPLE LIKE ME) does NOT mnake sense.

Makes me think I should have just kept everything on paper.

PS...I have not spoken on Salem Witch trials for a long time....but 27 messages from this Forum and another popped up on my in=bucket this AM....

This is another thing I do not understand...

Yesterday I had 74 profiles deleted and when I un-deleted this whole bucket of worms happened....

It rankles!

Well Faye,
We may be forced to keep our regular records and keep it confined to our own family and not part of a world wide record of relationships.

Looking at the whole picture.....there are millions and billions of folks out there.
Certainly, there will be mistakes. I don't see how it will be possible to repair them all. It is a great disappoinment that we did not see when we began adding our information to the project.

It may be simplest to just quit where we are and let it take its course.

These trees have little room to put in warnings about relationships that are wrong or repeated many times. It could be put in the Overview, but seems rather useless.

I agree that I have spent many hours trying to be sure that I had the best information available. In the process, I have been able to correct quite a few mistakes in my own program. Many times it is a typing mistake on dates. Other times I can see that I just got tired and typed something that was not really true.

It is a fascinating subject. I think we may have to accept the fact that the kinks have not been worked out of Geni. Either leave it alone and swallow the fact that we cannot do much about it......or continue to fight the good fight of blotting out the mistakes.

I guess that the ancestors really do not care.

Ethel

Alright, now that I am putting in a comment in here, I guess I will be locked in to the conversation. I honestly do not know why I have been receiving notices regarding this topic as I don't think I have "followed" or commented on this subject before. Confused...multiple messages filling my yahoo box from Geni on this thread. Now of course, several of you are collaborators and perhaps since we are tied in that way or family group, then I am getting these?

Hi Gregory: There is a green Unfollow arrow at the top that allows you to opt out of the conversation. I've used it on a number of forums that I was suddenly receiving notices on as well. Probably will be using it a lot more now that there are more email notices going out (my packrat sensibilities are going into overdrive with all the new emails to squirrel away).

Hi Gregory

You can just delete or ignore those projects that do not relate to your family.

However, sometimes some interesting ideas are attached to other projects.

I have found many good ideas this morning and many people willing to answer my questions and work on the problems of cleaning up the additional mistakes that keep creeping into the mix like Halloween ghosts.

I think there is a link that allows you to detach yourself from any link that
is not needed for your ancestry.

Ethel

Hi Faye.....
That is a strange thing to find 75 profiles deleted.
There must be someone who knows enough to find out what happened.

Ben Angel has said that you can reject the Salem Witch Trials by looking at the top right for the green follow sign.....and click it for unfollow.

Ethel

Faye and Ethel same thing happened to me awhile ago. Around the same amont of philes were deleted. Judy.

I haven't lost anything on the order of 200 files, but I did misplace a favorite profile somewhere (pirate and slave trader John Stone). I think it got cut off from the tree by a collaborator and is floating around as a zombie somewhere. Am still quite saddened about it. I'd probably be irate too if I lost 200 profiles. I'm guessing that someone you collaborated with selected parents different from your profile and so your branch floated off into the same netherworld.

Despite collaboration being the cause of the loss, I'd still advocate for merging. The more your profiles are merged into the tree, the less the chance that your profiles will drift off.

Another wish list item - the ability to recover files like that when they get cut off from the tree. Other than going back in your activity history (which is only a limited duration option anyway), there isn't a way to recover profiles in this sort of situation that I know about.

Private User

Geni is moving towards full wikpedia style recover and revert functionality. My understanding is that It's several months of development down the road however.

What I'm finding is that making Master Profiles -- and loading them to Projects -- is the single best way to protect the integrity of the validated Profile.

So everyone, I urge you to post the LINK (can't find it otherwise!) to a good Profile you'd like to see made into a Master Profile.

Please include good source data in the "about me" field so you've proven yours is the good one. :)

Let me know if it would be helpful to start a separate discussion for this.

Yeah but we're disproving Anita Boynton's ancestry. She might never recover. :)

Usually if you refuse a merge being offered, the other tree is still there, it's just harder to get to...try putting their name in the search box at top to find the profile you are looking for.
if you go to their tree, then click the little + under their window, that will take you straight to the merge pane. If there is more than one profile linked, you will only see the first until you have completed the first.
I've never paid any attention to the background color, so couldn't comment on Bjorn's, but I do know there are one or two who feel it is simpler (and have figured out how to do it) to make sure all of your data is on THEIR copy of the profile, then delete your copy, leaving them as manager, rather than simply merging the way they are supposed to.
Yes, Geni's managers are the ones who caused the mess, but if you don't drop by the forums and bitch at them, they won't know what needs to be unfixed. (you will have to create a separate account unless they have changed it as they were requested eons ago, not a glitch, just far-sightedness on the part of the devs)
The rest of the thread I'll try to read later, I may yet discover I have someone in Salem.

Hi Erica:

With your offer, you do realize that you are about to get buried under a ton of Jacksons, Ellises, Thomases, Badgers, Malotts, Barkers, Hadleys, Davises, Browns, etc., etc., etc., that I want to turn into MPs, right? Just a warning...

Bring them on!

Hi everybody! I agree with all these comments about the flaws in Geni's new followers: IT IS A MAJOR mess, to be sure! I have had 200 relatives disappear in one day too--its awfu!!! Many said that was impossible a couple of months ago when it was happening to my tree. I just got Legacy to try to keep the tons of hours of work protected. It didn't work though...
But, I gotta tell y'all, this thread is disconcerting, since it is under the heading: Salem Witch Trials. 47 rants in my inbox this morning, and not a word about Salem. How about we keep these comments to the thread Anne M started last week about friends vs followers?

You are right Michael... I probably should get back to work on the Nurse/Towne profiles soon, or else it will take millions of years to get them completed... forums are fun, but they are quite distracting...

Let me remind you all about the Terms of Use:

http://www.geni.com/company/terms_of_use

definately unclear & awkward. your fears of people quitting in the middle of the process is absolutely true........that is what i do...just move on knowing of an error but unable to fix it.

fay how did the profiles get removed? that is worrisome.

definite rules and procedures are a must but even with them if people do not open their settings to allow merges & duplicate removal then the tree is doomed.

all of the obvious duplicates could be eliminated if people opened up their settings. i still cannot understand why a 'dead" profile would even be allowed on the tree unless it was public.

You know what is really alarming, is all this talk about removing people from Geni just because they complain.,or do something some one doesn't like. One person, and I don't remember who it was, actually said that he had someone removed. I don't know if this is really happening but it's getting rough out here with people threating the Geni staff and the geni staff wondering if they need a lawyer. This is supposed be both informative and fun and maybe meet people of the same mind to work with..It's getting nasty,don't ya think? Judy

Judith,

It's not geni being nasty, it was one user who went ballistic on *other* users.

Please don't misunderstand. I was personally badly victimized and I was just a bystander who had nothing to do with anything. OK, I said you can't slander someone in public. For that I was spammed repeatedly.

Erica I wasn't blaming you.. I am not blaming geni. I was just responding to all the negative responses, and some them I don't blame them for being upset, and attitudes of many people. They seem to very hostel! The party is getting rough out there! Judy