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Protect private profiles against being made public or managed by others

Joachim Mugdan

October 24, 2015 22:30

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I made all the profiles I manage private. Nonetheless, I discovered some time later that a number of these profiles were public. I also found that profiles I created and managed all of a sudden had additional managers, again without my knowledge and consent. Although the issue of strangers appropriating profiles was reported several years ago, nothing has been done about it.

In one case, a user inadvertently (by accepting some suggestion) automatically created lots of duplicates of my profiles, with nn1, nn2 etc. as given names. When I contacted him, he told me that he couldn't correct this. I was able to merge some of his profiles with mine, but now he appears as co-manager, and I can't change that.

I am very concerned that Geni doesn't respect my privacy settings.One consequence of this is that a lot of information that I submitted and made available only to members of my family group now appears in the trees of strangers on Ancestry and elsewhere. On the other hand, it is annoying that I often can't view other people's public profiles without a subscription. There is something seriously wrong with the way Geni treats "private" and "public" profiles and it is high time that "private" profiles are made really private and "public" ones really public.

5 comments

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  Eva Virginius December 20, 2016 11:15

  It is the same for me that my tree was changed with th facts and photoes I had.

  I used to have a completed familytree on both sides but my cousine ar in there on my tree and change.

  I have reported it to Geni but they not make any actions maybe because it is free.

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  Jeff, Geni Curator December 20, 2016 17:46

  Geni is a shared collaborative tree where duplicate branches are merged into a single branch.  If you're looking for a private isolated tree, Geni is not the right website - our parent company MyHeritage does those.  If you need assistance fixing anything or removing duplicates, I'm here to help.

  https://www.geni.com/worldfamilytree/learn-more

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  Joachim Mugdan December 22, 2016 08:26

  Jeff, my problem is not with duplicates - I know how to merge them, I realize that this results in the merged profiles having more than one manager, and I'm happy to co-operate with co-managers who are members of my extended family or qualified researchers. I'm talking about profiles that I created, that I manage alone and that have no duplicates. There, total strangers have changed my privacy settings, modified the profile or added family relationships without being co-managers, or they have made themselves co-managers without my knowledge and consent. This is not a collaborative effort but an extremely annoying interference. In many cases, serious errors are introduced (e.g. incorrect parent-child relationships), which are then often copied to family trees on various other websites. While true collaboration can lead to more and better information, this kind of interference destroys the results of serious research and leads to a proliferation of nonsense that is almost impossible to correct. If Geni really wants the World Family Tree to be a "high-quality [!] collaborative family tree", it must make sure that

  • a user can become co-manager of a profile only with the consent of the present manager(s);
  • only the current manager(s) can change the profile, including the privacy settings and the family relationships.
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  Jeff, Geni Curator December 22, 2016 14:06

  Joachim, If all users were active, that might work, but unfortunately that is not often the case and you'd be left with branches that no one could touch.  Collaboration can sometimes involve finding and correcting myths and starting discussions on profiles with conflicting information.  If you have a profile that has incorrect information or invalid parents, we can fix it and even add notes at the top to prevent future confusion.  Curators have the ability to lock fields, lock profiles, and soon, lock relationships if you have a profile that needs it.  The solution is not a restrictive environment - it's tools to make sure correct data is maintained and the ability to discuss and correct inaccurate data.

  Your argument is a similar one that was made against Wikipedia - that it would never be a high quality encyclopedia if anyone could just edit it.  But studies have shown that not to be the case and it's now the largest encyclopedia in the world and as accurate as those professionally maintained.  Open collaboration can produce high quality results.  Errors will eventually get corrected by observant users and then usually stick - once fixed it's fixed for everyone.  I think Geni is good at combatting the perpetual errors you describe, particularly if users document conflicting information in the about, notes or discussion.

  Privacy settings are something to protect the privacy of living family members.  It is not a method to hide, block, or lock ancestor profiles from other Geni members trying to build out branches on their tree.  There is little reason a person born before 1850 should have a private profile and as a Curator, we make such profiles public if we see a user abusing the privacy settings.  

  In your original message you wrote "it is annoying that I often can't view other people's public profiles without a subscription".  There is no such restriction of viewing public profiles on Geni.  Perhaps you're talking about Tree or Record Matches or Searching?  Those are professional features of Geni, which require a subscription.  You also mentioned that a user created duplicates and was added as a co-manager (often something we like because it adds more than one contact as a point of discussion), but if that manager is outside the familygroup of the profile and that profile is within your family group, you can remove them by going to the manager options.

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  Hercules iraklis kantarelis January 06, 2024 14:31

  what use is geni when all these idiots make deceased profiles private, dont come here , this is for buidling a world tree not a private family tree builder, geni should ban people who make deceased profiles private