ATTENTION Curators, please assist

Hi and thank you, I did have a password, but I just changed it, and now I am my own manager, haha! thanks, so much

Very weird, though

I have a number of merges where the other manager is not responding to merge requests:
Private User
Private
Private
Private
Private User
Private
Private
Private User
Private
Private
Private
Private
Martha Gelman
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Private
Baila Rubin
Anne Alexander
Frank Rubin
Private
Private User
Private
Private
There are more, but this is a good start.
Thank you for any help you can provide.

When you see the big red message at the bottom telling "These profiles are in different trees." not even curators can help you.

Rachel, I have done a lot of these but some are in a seperate tree as Bjorn points out and some are part of an abandoned tree which you may be able to take over if you can show a close enough relationship to Sam Gelman.
Geni hung mid way through a message detailing this I'm afraid but this should be enough for you to check.

Terry Jackson (Switzer), I am curious about how close of a relationship you would have to be in order to to take over an abandoned profile?

Someone, maybe me, has marriedAnna Victoria Olsen to her cousins husband @Charles Merrill and as usual, it's above my expertise to fix it. I'd appreciate the help though.

Is it correct now, Danny Franklin Drollinger?

Yes it is Dan, Thanks. She has a cousin named the same Anna Victoria Stoddard, that married Charles Merrill. I'll watch that next time.

I just wanted to post this somewhere, if you can think of a more appropriate thread let me know and i'll move it.

2 common complaints:
A) someone mucked up all my hard work
B) the manager never responds

Thinking outside the box:
Disable PRO ability to merge all Public profiles at the same time as doing away with managers for public profiles.
As things stand any PRO (or canny BASIC) can merge most profiles without any regard to the managers wishes, one person can do a lot of damage.
Instead of arbitrary merging rights make all merges a nomination instead which 3(?) or Users must review and approve before the merge goes thru but do not make it neccessary for the original creator of the profile to be involved.

It would curb (A) but improve (B). Merging would be slowed down but hopefully quality of merging would improve, perhaps Curators could be exempted from the rule (because everyone know Curators never make mistakes!) to not restrict their "cleaning" work.

A) is a rare complaint in my "world" so I'm unclear what problem this is solving.

Alex....seems quite extreme...

ITEM 1)If there is a problem, request the aid of a Curator to determine WHO did WHAT...then, depending on the info the perpetrator can be either set straight on being more careful (and the data returned to the prior condition and made MP and fields 'locked' OR the person can be spoken to AND reported (if it warrants such action)...then MP and 'lock'.

ITEM 2) This appears to be ongoing....manager never responds......

The question is 'responds to WHAT?'.....request to merge?, request to add you as manager, request to complete a data conflict resolution? request to collaborate?

Since I am the sole manager of a lot of such items, and I have either the connection or the data.....I don't think that that would help anything....and really dont see what would be gained by any such action...

And disabling Pro ability to merge public profiles is, in my opinion, overkill...supposedly anyone who pays to become a Pro has a vested interest in doing the best job possible....and, while errors are made they usually do not seem to be what could be called malicious interference..

I would, however, agree that sometimes it might help if a learning curve for newbies (Pro and non) was created.....limiting the range of merge capability....until their work could be reviewed and their range expanded. But I dont see how even that could be accomplished.

Private User
de acuerdo con Fay Baldwin
Hay varias razones para que algunos Administradores no lo hahanque no coinciden con los deseos de algunos Curadores
Habrán Ustedes visto que no hay Administradores aquí en las discusiones. La mayoría hace árboles sin mirar siquiera si ya existe o no,
Lo hace en letras minúsculas y ni siquiera pone los dos apellidos,, por eso yo Impido la unión de esos perfiles con los míos que tienen por lo menos fechas, lugares, cumpleaños, uso search abiertamente para tratar de completar los antepasadados y mejorar la información, pero solo por el placer de hacerlo y no en aras de un Árbol Universal. Quizás sea un defecto profesional, como las Auditorías, no me gustan las cosas incompletas
Atentamente
Enrique Angenscheidt

Private User
Un Ejemplo
Alejandro Lussich Patron
Son of Alejandro Lussich Ponce de Leon y Esperanza Patron Merello
Brother of Patricia Lussich Patron
Delia Anaya Altamirano
Ver perfil

Alejandro Lussich Ponce de Leon
Son of Enrique Lussich Marquez y Eloisa Ponce de Leon Terrero
Husband of Esperanza Patron Merello
Father of Alejandro Lussich Patron y Patricia Lussich Patron
Brother of Mariano Eulalio Lussich Ponce de Leon; Daniel Jose Lussich Ponce de Leon; Laura Lussich Ponce de Leon; Enrique Lussich Ponce de Leon y otros 2
Delia Anaya Altamirano
Ver perfil

alejandro lussich
Husband of esperanza patron
Father of alejandro lussich
alejandro lussich
Ver perfil

I dont speak Spanish

Private User
I agree with Fay Baldwin
There are several reasons why some managers do not, do not coincide with the wishes of some Curators
You have seen that there is no Administrators here on the discussions. Most trees do not look even if it already exists or not,
It does so in lowercase and do not even put both names, so I We prevent the union of these profiles with mine that have at least dates, places, birthday, openly use search to try to complete the antepasadados and improve information , but just for the hell of it and not for the sake of a Universal Tree. Maybe it's a professional defect, such as audits, things I do not like incomplete
attentively
Enrique Angenscheidt

Private User
an Example
Alejandro Lussich Patron
Son of Alexander Lussich Ponce de Leon and Hope Patron Merello
Brother of Patricia Lussich Patron
Anaya Delia Altamirano
View profile

Lussich Alejandro Ponce de Leon
Son of Henry and Eloisa Lussich Marquez Ponce de Leon Terrero
Husband of Hope Patron Merello
Father of Alejandro Lussich Patricia Patron and Patron Lussich
Eulalio Lussich Brother of Mariano Ponce de Leon, Jose Lussich Daniel Ponce de Leon, Laura Lussich Ponce de Leon, Enrique Lussich Ponce de Leon and another 2
Anaya Delia Altamirano
View profile

alejandro Lussich
Husband of hope patron
Father of alejandro Lussich
alejandro Lussich
View profile

If I may assist?

I did see a related MP Filip Lukšić
and I see that Jadra the curator ,is currently away (as shown by her profile) and will probably not be able to reply to Enrique for some time.

Enrique is apparently describing three similar profiles but his failure to provide links to the profiles he is referring to is not helpful as I cannot find the profiles.
However from his earlier message it appears that there is a problem with the merging of 'complete' profiles with those that only have rather basic or rudimentary information, without even dates or locations, and sometimes with incomplete surnames (Latin Americans often use both the Paternal as well as the Maternal surnames). As I understood his post, he feels that this "contaminates" the work already done

I leave all but USA profiles pretty much alone...and will forward any profile in my work list (very few) that are NOT in any way within my field of knowledge to a manager of the data in one of the profiles (found on compare).

So, in regards to Enrique I really have no response.....

Thank you Ivo, tho, for trying to make his response available for me.

Merge issues, other than of USA profiles, is obviously a problem elsewhere....

I believe that these issues....1) by malicious people (very few, I believe)....or by newbies who don't understand HOW to work within Geni (whether Pro or non-Pro) is most often the item that is a problem....thus my suggestion for a mentor program.

Older profiles that are 'private' is a problem that I believe a 'zombie script' solves to a great extent...

Non-response to requests and inquiries is an item that does need to be addressed more agressively, I think....and its too bad there wasn't a time limit (but people will say that you can report 'abandoned' files after 6 months...)...but thre are load of other instanceswhere things get backed up because of non-response....

I wish I had better suggestions.

Does everyone know that "resolving data conflicts" gets rid of the less aesthetically pleasing text? That's why a merged and ultimately curated profile can look good despite fragments.

But yes, it would be nice If every manager took the time to fill in a profile more completely.

Enrique mentions the word "Auditorías/audit" which I think matches my concerns, what the issue is really is the Quality of the data on Geni.
If i recall correctly the initial role of the Curators was "cleaning the tree", it is a slow, tedious and thankless task. Also it's never ending because newbies (PRO or BASIC) are always starting out and even old hands make mistakes.

Because the Curators are all volunteers there is also a focus of attention on specific areas, by definition if some areas are being focused on then other areas will lack focus. Erica perhaps your world does not suffer these issues because it is your world and you lavish it with attention, where i lurk there is rarely any sign of curation/auditting. I imagine that Enrique's world has a similiar lack of scrutiny.

Crowd sourcing is the basis (strength?) of Geni but is also a massively flawed concept. Geni has provided it's users with the vehicle to put all this data online but has washed it's hands of any responsibility for the quality of the data. Can you imagine if there wasn't a group of curators willing to wade thru the tree voluntarily (not only working for free but actually paying for membership!) auditting the errors of others? It's fairly easy to imagine that Geni as a business concept would have failled long ago if not for the curators.

Mentoring is a great solution, but how do you ensure that new users get the mentoring they need? Try to mentor everyone the day they start and you will scare a lot of people away, also waste a lot of time mentoring people that may never add more than 10 profiles. The Help pages sometimes contradict themselves and the discussion forums contradict the Help pages and contradict themselves, then there are Project pages with advice which could say anything at all and not even easy for a novice towork out who wrote them!

I don't have any good answers really i just floated an idea out there to see what people thought.
There is a trusim in the building industry "There are three types of build 'fast', 'cheap' and 'quality', on any project you can have two of those options but it is impossible to have all three on the same job."
It seems to me crowd sourcing is fast and cheap and messy.
Turning Geni into a quality site means one of the other factors has to be abandoned 'speed' or 'cost', as the Curators have been auditing for many years now the choice that has been made seems self evident.

Bravo again to those who care enough to audit.

You see Alex, I have a different perspective.

I do believe in the power of the crowd. I have seen this work on Geni, merge by merge, profile by profile, member contribution by member contribution.

You need to have a certain tolerance for error correction and of course a grasp of "how" to correct the errors, but i think working on the Genj platform is as self teaching as learning genealogy itself is.

People have different computer skills; Geni attracts many IT people, so I imagine the interface itself is not so hard to learn (although it is layered, and not everyone uses all the great features to best effect).

Bjørn mentioned on another discussion, for instance, that collaborating is a key issue, and he is 1,000 per cent correct about that. And there's the more informal collaborative power in projects, which can be amazing. Some projects might be slow to take off, others might zoom from the gate, it's all good, and it's all based on working together.

Private User could I trouble you to take a look at the posts from Enrique such as http://www.geni.com/discussions/80793?msg=880118?

Muchas gracias my Ross cousin !

Erica,
I know what you mean but i see a lot of good work done by a few, not the crowd.

If you read Bjorn's comment regarding collaboration i'm sure you also read my response to it.
Projects are great for co-ordinating people efforts but i actually think the discussions are the best method for collaborating, the actual Collaboration feature is a tool created by Geni to bypass the restrictions imposed by Geni. Even just writting that sentence drives home the inconsistancy.

I use the tools "as I find them," I live longer & prosper better that way. :)

And there's also how you see your own contribution to this "noble experiment." I view myself as a "content provider" first & foremost.

I am hearing more and more from serious historically oriented genealogists that this is the best of the online services. So there's that, too.

Back to making trees pretty!

Just my two cents worth:
Geni is not for everyone. If you require absolute control over "your" data, it's not for you. It is vulnerable to vandalism, but so is a lot of stuff on the internet. I have found it to be the best there is for the concept of a big interconnected tree. You do have to rely on the accuracy of others, but as a society we've been doing that since the first books were published.

Since joining Geni, I've added thousands of profiles and documents and I strive for accuracy. I've found my "Holy Grail" of the Mayflower (we all have our reasons for joining). I've been contacted by dozens of members, new and old, who are looking for help, and have done what I could to help. I like knowing that the person who contacted me is my 9th cousin 4 times removed (etc.). I also like NOT having to do ALL the work. GENI fits my own philosophy that we are all one family.

So, "best" is relative to what you desire, but it is the best for me.

Thank you Alex for pointing out that the Curators are 'volunteer'.....too many people seem to think otherwise....and they do a great job.....I rely on their assistance continually.....

Erica also....I agree whole-heartedly.

And Jessica...well said...Geni is NOT for everyone....it involves swallowing some self-pride to work collectively with others on the same people that you may have strived for years to build on....but after a while, with good give and take (I refer to talking things over) the results is usually better than everyone singly could have expected.....and, with notes in the profiles to explain any conflict resolutions and WHY it gives everyone a better place to start to further research...

My reference to a mentor system is really that I generally work DOWN the tree from established profiles...by working the siblings etc....and have often encountered people who are attempting to work UP...but are new.....and whether non-Pro or Pro, are trying to figure out the Geni system and 'how to' do things.....THAT is where the mentoring comes in....and sometimes involves the aid of a Curator.......

So I try to help those coming in....who may KNOW that they are related to "X" person way back when....but not HOW to get there....and often just follow the straight telephone pole trees that are often found on the Web.....(and we all know that THEY are often in error).....so, I've found that they may indeed be connected, but by way of the SIBLING of a well-known person.....so THEY are RIGHT, but wrong in the route they have created....

AND noone seems to tell people coming in to go to the 'profile' view....I swear some have no idea it exists....they just use the 'tree' view and fudge/tweak things to fit until someone (and it could be anyone) tells them otherwise...

The Geni instructions also are not made for 'dummies'....which is, they are given in terms and wordings that arent easy for the beginner to understand.....or the techno non-expert....( like I was)...

So Jessica...you love the Mayflower people and connections.....I work siblings and DOWNfill to the near present (and some associated families)...and I know others have specific areas that they probably have extensive research on/documentation of......where they are the go-to person......so little by little, profile by profile....they 'mess' that WAS is becoming a heck of a lot cleaner now....and the whole area of GOOD stuff is extending further and further out on all sides....

Marsha says she isn't connected to anyone YET...but the more that others work to build out their trees means that she WILL be very soon...by both her own work and others...

Fay Elizabeth Dyer
Well, the Mayflower was one of the initial goals. Now I work more like you do. I'm interested in all my Great Migration ancestors, and I work "down," trying to extend the tree into the present. And, yes, that is where I've done the most good, I think, working with "new" cousins trying to work "up." You know my work, and I know yours, so I think we make a good team, ;)

Jessica....how true....the old spirit of cooperation and 'two heads are better than one'....

Have enjoyed working with you....will look forward to more in the future...

Have mail coming with snippets of data on one of my relatives (great grandmother) from a relative who saw my near-now-time entries.....missing link data I believe...

Catch you later.

Great discussion. I'm amazed at the power of this technology. I find new "cousins" daily, be they from the period of the Great Migration, from Rockbridge County Scotch-Irish settlers, from those who blazed trails in Ohio and Indiana, or from Dutch and Long Island families in Southern New Jersey. Not to mention my cousins from the westmost Gubernias of Lithuania and from Volhynia Gubernia, now in Ukraine. Each adds a bit of information, corrects areas they have researched and are passionate about, and slowly the World Tree grows and improves.

In my view, we are continuing the great collaborative Internet-based efforts that you see on message boards on genealogy, which one of my Petticrew Rockbridge county cousins used to share her deep research. We have a complementary set of tools.

I'm old enough that I know that there is no such thing as perfection and I prefer to see the glass as half full versus half empty and to look for ways to move forward gracefully and with good humor. The Geni users are an inspiration to me and my heroes. And every week I meet several new, wonderful and knowledgeable users. That to me is progress.

And Alex I do hear you about areas of genealogy that are less well populated and tended, but there are great models on Geni for such areas, for instance Croatia and Estonia. Power to the people. It's not something that you should expect from Geni or the volunteer curators. It's something that we, the community of users, with various sub-communities, have to make happen.

So I understand the source of your frustration, but there is no solution like building community and working to make each of the sub communities a model.