Public profiles are now editable by all Pro users.

Private User - but you do have the option of asking curators to MP your profiles. And even to lock profiles that are prone to mis-merging over and over.

Right now we can revert to correct data fields easily. So that is the way to undo bad edits quickly. It is bad merges that are the worse. And there are options to prevent these - (1) use of Display Names to name individuals uniquely; (2) MP and even locking; (3) use of Display Names to add dates to prevent merges of two individuals with the same name.

If the person is in your family group, you control who you allow in the family group and who you collaborate with. I stopped collaborating with people who make bad merges and I don't allow people in the family group except family and if I were to have a family member who made bad merges over and over, I would re-consider.

Also, if you go into your "Tree Matches" or look at Matches on profiles and you Reject all the bad matches, you help prevent bad matches in the future.

I don't do this for very very common names, where there are 150 matches, but I do do it for profiles where there are 1 - 30 matches, for instance.

I'm not concerned about people in my family group.

Fay Elizabeth Dyer - Yes, many Living Profiles are Public Profiles.

Sometimes this was due to person entering them wanting all profiles to be Public, sometimes to Geni's default -- which is based on distance from the entering person, with no interest in generational relationship - i.e. if you enter your 7th great-grandparent or your 7th cousin's grandchild both will default to Public - tho latter is probably younger than you, may well be alive, etc. It is one of the things I have complained about.

Like Obama is alive but public....I get it....

When I enter someone's parents and it defaults to living, I just change it...
what's the big deal....

I just worried about OTHER living people...like us peons, and the subject of many a discussion.....about when to make profiles public.

Enough to just say that private profiles were not OPENED to the public...and then say that there ARE living people (like Pres. Clinton, Mohammad Ali, etc ) that ARE public because of who they are...

No, not just the famous folks -- many peons as well. There are older adults, young adults, even minors all Public, even tho having no claim to fame. Private profiles were not OPENED to the public with this latest change (as far as I know) -- that is true. But, Public Profiles are not (and have never been) restricted to the deceased and/or the famous.

I have seen instances where parent and children are private, then the grandchildren have Public Profiles - I suspect that was either because the person entering the Profile didn't notice or could not change Geni's default. There are also instances where whole branches from my great-grandfather's generation on down thru many living folks have all Public Profiles.

This new change means folks who thought to just put minimal info there in these Public Profiles of living folks now must be super-vigilant if it is important to them to keep others from adding more, possibly revealing info to them.

I thought the default was that profiles are Living and Private? And if you the person is dead you have to manually change that, and if you want the profile to be public, you have to manually change that?

Instead of being super-vigilant to prevent a loss of privacy, wouldn't it be easier to just make the profiles of living people private?

Again, guys - unless I'm horribly mistaken (which does happen :-) - MPing a profile doesn't lock it from editing for everybody. (Unless specific locks are added in afterwards - as Bjorn is pointing to).
It just provides a template people will think twice about before changing.

MP profiles are a good thing for everyone, not an elitist curator exclusionary device. It's a heads-up to the fact that we all think this profile is the best / most complete one so far to merge into and defer to.

Pro members should be on the lookout for profiles they think need to be MPed. This won't stop them being able to edit that profile.

Jennifer, living profiles are by default private.

Jennifer...I don't think that your suggestion can be programmed....since lack of death info for people extends from now to WAY back...there is no way to determine if the lack of info is because they are ALIVE or NOT....

It WOULD, however, probably be possible to put in a program to code anyone born 1800 or earlier as deceased....or anyone the child of someone bor 1780 as deceased......but I'm NOT proficient in programming details....I just know that logic says that if a person was born 1799 that they would be 212 years old and we WOULD have heard of THEM....

Sharon...you are right that MP's CAN be edited...it only, hopefully, makes people STOP and consider......you can also URL the 'wanna be' to the manager of the MP and ask THEM to decide....

There are MP's that are locked but those have been continuously messed and tangled up....give the curators a break.....and you, again, can URL the incoming data to them for consideration....

And people SHOULD present anyone to a curator to be made an MP if that person is a pivot point to any claim THEY have to a famous or noteworthy person....OR, for that matter, anyone that seems to be continuously involved in merge madness.

Sharon...living profiles are NOT necessarily private...look at President Clinton, etc.....only living people IN THE PUBLIC EYE (such as movie stars, recording stars, politicians and other notables ARE PUBLIC....)

But YOUR family...unless they meet the above criteria, are PRIVATE...

Did I get that right...everyone?

Thanks, Sharon and Fay - but I was responding to Private User when she said, "I have seen instances where parent and children are private, then the grandchildren have Public Profiles - I suspect that was either because the person entering the Profile didn't notice or could not change Geni's default. There are also instances where whole branches from my great-grandfather's generation on down thru many living folks have all Public Profiles."

"This new change means folks who thought to just put minimal info there in these Public Profiles of living folks now must be super-vigilant if it is important to them to keep others from adding more, possibly revealing info to them."

The default on Geni is that every profile you enter is considered living - UNTIL CHANGED - and every living profile is private - UNTIL CHANGED. So I don't understand how the circumstances she describes could have come about. My comment was that it seems easier to me to simply change the profiles she's concerned about back to private status rather than to maintain some sort of hyper-vigilance...

Sharon Doubell and Private User and Private User - No, your statements about the living defaulting to Private are not true!! If I add my 3rd cousin's grandchildren, they default to PUBLIC because they are outside my Max Extended Family -- ditto if I add my 4th cousin's children or my 6th cousin or etc. - anyone outside Max Extended Family. Geni does not look to see is this an older or younger generation than the entering person (which I am quite sure they could program in), nor living status, but only how distantly related.

(Re-trying the above, with another version of Tree) .

This is the Public Profile someone entered. He is living, he is, to the best of my knowledge, not famous. He is a minor.
Kevin David Slafsky-ES's

If this works, it will show an example of a tree where youngest generation defaulted to Public, even tho living. They are 3rd cousin twice removed from the person who entered them (whom I know tries to enter folks as Private, did not choose to change them to Public), so they defaulted to Public
http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000008607429945#600000001...

Since these all involve living folks, not sure if I will leave up on Public Discussion or delete shortly, but wanted to illustrate my point.

Private User

Louis please go ahead and remove your previous post that contains the link to public profile of a living person. I've made a note about the links and will contact costumer service so that they can evaluate it. From what I can tell by glancing at it was originally added by a user that no longer is active on geni the current manager has little or no direct connection with this particular profile but inherited it from that other user.

Below is a copy of your original post but with the links removed:

****************************************************************************

"...This is the Public Profile someone entered. He is living, he is, to the best of my knowledge, not famous. He is a minor.
**************

If this works, it will show an example of a tree where youngest generation defaulted to Public, even tho living. They are 3rd cousin twice removed from the person who entered them (whom I know tries to enter folks as Private, did not choose to change them to Public), so they defaulted to Public
http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/***************************************

Since these all involve living folks, not sure if I will leave up on Public Discussion or delete shortly, but wanted to illustrate my point....Lous Lubin [July 3, 2011 11:56AM]"

Louis

I've opened a help desk request to deal with the specific issues you related.

Help ticket #9506 "Public profiles of living people."

Thanks, Randy

Thanks for the additional information, Private User, I had no idea. That seems to be a very real issue with Geni's default settings and Geni needs to look at how the defaults can be changed in order to protect living people, especially minors.

In the meantime, is there a reason the profile manager can't simply change the privacy settings on those profiles, though?

From my experience:

1. When you enter a profile on Geni:
- If it is within your family group (up to 4th cousin) it defaults to private
- If it is outside your family group, it defaults to public

So your long deceased third great grandmother defaults to private, while your live third cousin twice removed defaults to public. Live or dead is irrelevant here.

I am fairly sure of the above.

2. The next question is when you can change an existing profile that you manage from public to private. I THINK the answer to that is that you can do that if the profile is within any Geni user's family group. So if you add your third cousin twice removed and it defaults to public, you can change it to private if it is within someone else's family group (it is just outside yours).

I am less sure about point 2 than point 1.

3. I thought there were more protections for minors, but I don't know for sure.

Private User
2. is not only related to your family group and relationship to this profile but is also related to your relationship to his/her manager.
And still the Great-Great-Great-Grandparents and 4th cousin law will apply.

Lauri, not sure what you mean by that. I think you may be referring to the circumstances in which you may be allowed to edit a profile?

Even if you can edit a profile, you can't necessarily turn it private. That is what I was referring to.

An interesting observation as a non-PRO.

1. If I go to a public profile where I am collaborating with the manager, I can edit the profile directly.

2. If I go to a public profile where I have no connection to the manager, the edit profile link takes me to PRO upgrade.

So far so good. The interesting one is:

3. If I go to a public profile where I have requested collaboration with the manager but that collaboration request has not yet been accepted, then I see no "Edit Profile" option at all. That one is curious. I wonder if it is intended? Fetaure or bug?

Bug! I'll file a report.

Thanks Mike

Private User
"@MichelleKempner - I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that the privacy protections for living profiles have changed. Can you please confirm that, if a living profile was private before the change, it is still private? Thanks!"

All of the pro editing capabilities only relate to public profiles. There are public profiles for living people like celebrities. In those cases, current location is locked by default. No privacy protections have changed.

Michelle Elena Kempner Thanks so much for the confirmation! ;)

Oops. See in my first post of July 3 above, I accidentally tagged Jennifer a second time, when meant to also tag Fay. So will try again for Fay.
Fay Elizabeth Dyer and Michelle Elena Kempner - see my last post above for July 3 (says 1:56 PM as I see info), with links showing examples that living non-famous folks are Public.

Randy Stebbing - in other discussions, including on the Forum, geni-team has made it very clear it was acceptable for living profiles to be public. Have not yet found the specific one I was seeking, but - see, for example: http://forum.geni.com/topic.php?id=67401

Lois said, "Oops. See in my first post of July 3 above, I accidentally tagged Jennifer a second time, when meant to also tag Fay. "

LOL!!! Private User Thanks for explaining, I thought you were just really, really mad at me... /grin

Private User, I see that the profile link to that living minor is still on this discussion. I hope you don't mind, but I've asked for it to be removed - as you originally suggested - for his protection.
Randy has sent your concern to customer services, and reposted your mail without the minor's name.
Thank you for alerting Geni about the problem, though.

Am I correct in my interpretation of what was said about privacy...that it does NOT have so much to do with their date of birth etc but how REMOVED they are from you personally.....in other words, if you build laterally beyond the point of 4 cousins (or whatever) then they LOSE your protective web? and default to public??

If this is correct I believe it is a MAJOR programming BUG.