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Fake Profiles

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Amidala, Beifong, Black, Campbell and 15 others
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Profiles

Purpose

NOTE: This project was formerly known by the name: "Fake and Pretend Profiles on geni.com :)

For the purposes of this project, "fake profiles" are defined as profiles that are fictional characters. Examples are characters from cartoon, movies, books, video games, TV, corporate advertising or other media.

This project also includes profiles created by real users claiming to be fictional characters.

Exclusions from this project:

  1. By design, this project excludes legendary cultural characters including but not limited to Norse, Greek and Roman mythology, Arthurian legend, and Biblical. The reason this project excludes them is that there are other projects that already deal with those subjects.
  2. Because of their popularity, this project also excludes the Simpsons, Harry Potter and Family, and profiles created based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkein because they have their own separate projects.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What happens if I add fake profile to this project?

Nothing happens when adding a profile to this project. Profiles added do not automatically get deleted or modified in any way by Geni customer service. But by adding a fake profile you help identify to other Geni users who collaborate on this project that the profile should be monitored and not be confused with real people. While users are encouraged to NOT add fake profiles their inclusion is not against geni.com policy. Users who create fake profiles may find that their fake profiles are merged with others or possibly deleted especially if other users find them accidentally connected to the "big tree". You can however visit a profile and click on the "Actions" menu to report a profile as "fake". These reported profiles are then examined by geni customer service and if found to be in violation of geni policy will be delted.

How "fake" does a profile need to be to be included in this project?

There are many cases where the historic record is unclear and users should attempt to make a clear distinction between profiles for which the claim is fake and those for which there is real information and relationships but not accepted by historians as genuine. The "Master Profile" Curator notes as well as the "About" sections of profiles should be written to guide users in cases where there are historical disputes.

Why are there fake profiles on geni.com?

With over 100 million profiles and thousands of users, individual profiles and small trees of fictional characters are not uncommon. Geni's main purpose it to document real historic people and their family relationships with the general goal of "a single profile for each person". But the reality is that users have and will continue to use geni to create fake profiles and trees.

So with some fake profiles on geni.com how do I have confidence in the integrity of the tree?

There is enough popular interest in some common groups of fake profiles that current thinking is not to remove them from geni.com but instead to closely watch them to ensure that these "fake" profiles to not contain genealogical links to real people. If possible these profiles should be marked as "private" profiles to prevent them from being merged into geni's "big tree." Ideally they should also contain a descriptive word that appears on the tree that instantly identifies them as belonging to "fake" characters. geni does not have a policy on the naming convention for these fake profiles and what follows is a suggestion that should work well in most cases: Consider adding the text {fake} in the suffix field of the characters name including the curly brackets before and after the word fake. Also please put the equivalents of "This is a fake profile and does not represent a real person" in the "About" section of the fake profile. Again these are only suggestions and not policy but if followed should help track and identify these unusual profiles.

  1. Biblical Tree Profiles of people mentioned in Judeo/Christian Cannon of Scripture.
  2. Harry Potter project Characters from the books by J. K. Rowling. Please use the dedicated "Harry Potter and more" project to include all J. K. Rowling's characters form Harry Potter books and movies. By far these are the most common type of fake profiles found on geni.com and plentiful enough that they have their own project to keep track of them.
  3. Claimed Historic Profiles Profiles of people that are pretending to be someone other than themselves. For example if you find an actual real user named Abraham Lincoln that is masquerading as the US 16th president, or Henry the 8th or Albert Einstein please review the information on the "Claimed Historic Profiles" project and report them.
  4. Fictional Genealogy Project whose purpose is to document and discuss fictional people that have been inserted into genealogical collections, generally as part of an attempt to fill in the blanks, but also to connect cultures and justify claims to an ancient history.
  5. What Remains of Edith Finch Profiles of Characters from the game known as "What Remains of Edith Finch".

How to Participate:

If the fake profile is a public profile then navigate to it and under "More Actions" choose "Add to project"

Under the profile's "Action" menu click on Report>Fake Profile. When reporting a fake profile geni customer service will be notified of the fake profile and will investigate to determine if it falls under their guidelines for possible deletion.

How to Find Fake Profiles:

Use geni's search tools to locate popular movie, cartoon, or video game characters.

Some pre-built query's for common fake profiles are provided as pre-built quick searches:

Deleted Fake Profile List

Note: The following names were tied to specific fake profiles and with geni customer service help they were deleted. There may be newly added pretend profiles that are named the same. Some of these names are very popular to use for pretend profiles and are added periodically by new users.

Big foot, Baby Bop, Big Bird, Boba Fett, Bugs Bunny, Bulwinkle Moose, Burger King Guy, Cat in the Hat, Cinderella, Dennis the Mennace, Donkey Kong, Evil Monkey, Easter Bunny, Fred Flinstone, Frito Bandito, Frodo Baggins, Hagar the Horrible, Hamburgler, Hello Kitty, Herman Munster, Indiana Jones, Kermit the Frog, King Kong, Loch Ness Monster, Herman Munster, Mario Brothers, Megatron, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Miss Piggy, Napoleon Dynamite, Oscar the Grouch, Peter Pan, Piglet, Pillsbury-Dough-Boy, Pumba the Pig, Roger the Rabbit, Ronald McDonald, Santa Clause, Snow White, Sponge Bob Square Pants, Starscream, Stewie Griffin, Thunderkats, Underdog, Voldemort, Wonder Woman, Yoda, Yogi Bear, etc.

Miscellaneous or Possible Placeholder names for real people (or possibly real people

  • KnoxVille Corporate Looks like a company is laying out their corporate reporting structure using geni
  • Dead beat There are several profiles named "deadbeat" and a few "dirt bags". Ouch :(
  • Don't Know
  • Temporary
  • Unknown This is probably the biggest place holder name as a search turned up 372819 people as of 10/29/2010 with the search term unknown on geni.com
  • ???pls-help
  • All Sperm Donors like this Loser Sperm Donor
  • We should not forget all Jerks, like this Dumbass Jerk

Joke Links Between Celebrities:

Please note that these profiles might be added by reenactment/impersonation groups who have invaded Geni, so don't ever try to connect them as they should be deleted completely.

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