I would like to be notified when you release abandoned trees that I have reported. I report them when they are blocking my merges. If you release them and do not tell the reporter we don't know that we can claim the profiles and complete the merges so the merges just sit there.
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Lo Actually, Abandoned Trees aren't actually "released" any more, are they? I believe they stopped releasing them quite a while ago. See current policy/procedure:
http://help.geni.com/entries/20475503-what-is-an-abandoned-tree
Tho I can certainly see it still being worthwhile being notified when the Report is Acted On - and being told if, as a result, Profiles were made Public, if (and to whom) management was turned over (of the Profiles left as Private), if that happened -- and if nothing is going to be done (or nothing will be done to some, ie those in the Manager's Family Group) because there are no close (active?) relatives, being told that as well.
Also - wondering - making Public helped a lot during that brief period Pros could merge any and all Public Profiles - but now, how does that help if it is a separate Tree?
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Lo Occurs to me - in case of changes - link in my message (below) was to info/explanation/description dated Sept. 23, 2011 It says:
A tree is considered abandoned if the profile manager has not logged into their account in a year. In order to help complete merges, users may report these inactive managers as Abandoned Trees.
The following actions are taken when resolving an Abandoned Tree report:
- Deceased profiles outside of the user’s Family Group are made public
- For private profiles within the user’s Family Group, management is transferred to the nearest active relative in their Family Group
- If a close relative cannot be found, then management of these private profiles will not change
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Dan Cornett re: Lo's 1st comment ... I agree; the "abandoned tree" needs to be flagged/marked/connected to the "Big Tree" so they are available.
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Lo I disagree with you Dan. The whole rationale behind not releasing the Tree is that they finally realized folks created a Tree they expected to be able to go back to years or even decades later, perhaps when their young children became adults and indicated an interest, or etc., or when they again had free time, or etc. If no one else is active, it should sit, not be forcibly attached and changed.
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Dan Cornett The issue comes when public profiles are found to match other public profiles ... but if there is no active manager of those public profiles, then how can those EVER be connected? We're not talking about the private "family" profiles -- this is about profiles outside of that manager's family group.
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Eldon Clark (Geni volunteer curator) Lo, I disagree with you. Even if someone goes away for years, they do not loose control of the tree. IF or when they come back, they will still have control and something to show their children but they will likely find a much improved tree.
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Lo Re: "Even if someone goes away for years, they do not loose control of the tree. IF or when they come back, they will still have control and something to show their children but they will likely find a much improved tree." -
Part 1] "Even if someone goes away for years, they do not loose control of the tree. IF or when they come back, they will still have control" --- If the Private Tree is attached to the Big Tree via the Public Profiles, then it is quite possible that what was meant to be a Private, Stand-alone tree will not only now be attached, but may well be merged with that of other relatives -- NOT necessarily desired by the person who created the stand-alone tree -- and then the Abandoned Tree Policy that "For private profiles within the user’s Family Group, management is transferred to the nearest active relative in their Family Group" could quite likely result in the user NOT having control of those profiles when he/she comes back. And/or it will acquire other relatives, which could result in same issue.
Part II] if/when they come back, "... they will likely find a much improved tree." - possibly. But, in my view, at least as likely is the possibility they will find a messed up Tree.
My suggestion - Don't worry so much about Duplicates, especially ones not in the Big Tree. Build the Big Tree, and leave the Stand-alone Trees alone unless they want to Merge.
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Eldon Clark (Geni volunteer curator) LO
Part one, When I joined Geni the aim was one tree, no private ones and I still think it should be that way. I believe that management should not be transferred, but enlarged to include the nearest family group member (multiple managers) and any other person interested in the profile. I hate to see a profile with only one manager except for living persons because of the trouble it causes if the manager quits Geni or dies. I asked Geni to make someone I know co-manager of all my profiles for that very reason and it was done. Now there is someone who will carry on with my work when the time comes ( I am 73, on my second defibrillator and I think a cancer survivor).
Part two, I am sorry you are so pessimistic about changes to the tree. My experiences must be different than yours.
I do not go looking for abandoned trees, I find them when trying to complete merges. If there is no action one way or the other on a request, then I try to determine if the tree is abandoned and if so I report it.
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Will Chapman (Vol. Curator) It would be very helpful IF the Abandoned Tree procedure always worked as outlined in http://help.geni.com/entries/20475503-what-is-an-abandoned-tree. What I find is that many Abandoned Trees - as evidenced by their published Manager not having been active for more than 12 months, don't react to the procedure described. Namely:
Steps to report an abandoned tree:
- Navigate to their profile page
- Click Actions
- Choose Report
- Select "Abandoned Tree" as the reason
For example, when one attempts to follow this procedure on a manager profile that hasn't had any activity for at least a year, there is not always an option 'for 'Abandoned Tree' - what does one do in that circumstance?
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Bjørn P. Brox Checking the activity as a user is not a good qualification to decide that a tree is abandoned. There are several other parameters to decide that as well, where last login which you cannot see probably is the most important. The solution is quite simple: You will not have the "Abandoned Tree" report action if the user does not meet all the criteria to be defined as an abandoned tree, like for example not logged in for a year.
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Will Chapman (Vol. Curator) Thanks for that clarification Bjorn - I have often been frustrated about these differences.This is surely one of the least satisfactory elements of Geni (i.e. not being able to merge because managers are either totally inactive or insufficiently engaged in the true Geni process that they don't bother to respond to collaboration requests, etc). In that light I am surprised that Geni isn't more communicative on the subject. I recently reported a manager who doesn't log in enough to notice a collection of requests from me about profiles of deceased people that he has marked private thereby preventing me from effecting a merge - the response I got from Geni was'Sorry this is a mistake and added a link to a FAQ..Instead of responding as you have done so that I can better understand how to use a service which I am paying good money to us - I finished up spending a couple of hours trying to interpret such a cryptic message.
Surely, instead of making each Action Menu different, it would be easier to keep them consistent and add a 'not available explanation' to those tags that were not applicable? The Help time would be saved, your time would be saved and the customer's time would be saved (and would also be a happier bunny). All for the cost of 30 minutes programming time.
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Bjørn P. Brox My question is always: Why care?
As far as I know there are only two "problems" with abandoned trees:1) Merge issues with an unconnected, abandoned tree. This is actually not a problem at all, it is only annoying. Since it is unconnected it does not cause any problems like parent conflicts and so on. If it is abandoned, and the blue (+) is annoying just cancel the request. If the other tree will be taken action on from Geni it will probably just be completely deleted.
2) Merge issues with private profiles. Technically, the way I see it, it is the public profiles that is the problem. When you have private profiles which is protected by another user's privacy range, abandoned or not, having public profiles of these private profiles are violating that users privacy. The best would just to pull out and delete your public profiles violating this user's privacy range.
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Will Chapman (Vol. Curator) Bjorn
You suggested that Abandoned trees are not a problem saying that
quote: Merge issues with private profiles. Technically, the way I see it, it is the public profiles that is the problem. When you have private profiles which is protected by another user's privacy range, abandoned or not, having public profiles of these private profiles are violating that users privacy. The best would just to pull out and delete your public profiles violating this user's privacy range.end quote
I see partially what you are saying but the problem as I see it is that I can't progress my tree effectively if merges are blocked by someone who has marked a deceased profile as Private and then not visited Geni for over 12 months. If they don't visit. thety don't agree to collaboration requests and join family tree invites and that restricts my progress. It may well be correct that http://www.geni.com/people/private/6000000013403304061 has not abandoned his tree (even though his activity panel suggests he has), however, the fact remains is that by not responding to my requests/messages etc, he is holding up my progress in expensing my tree. And, I might add, his responsibility to help further the long term aims of Geni.
regards
Will Chapman
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Bjørn P. Brox Again: Why should you force merges into other peoples privacy range?
It is their choice to ignore you and protect their privacy range. How would you react if some stranger insisted on merging his profiles into your family range making the profiles public and violating your privacy?
It it is not your own close shared family you should pull out and respect that users privacy.
Yes it is annoying, but sometimes you should just give up and in respect of that user you should probably also delete your profiles which matches the private profiles.
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Bjørn P. Brox The manager you link to is by the way in a standalone and totally isolated tree.
Please explain me how that he are causing problems for your tree?
Secondly he was last active in October, so I would not call that tree abandoned. -
Will Chapman (Vol. Curator) Bjorn
You must be joking!
What I am talking about are profiles of my blood kin that lived in the 17th century. As my great grandparents, their kin are clearly important to the further development of my tree.
Why on earth would anyone join Geni and add profiles that go back several centuries and not want to share the links with other users? If everyone followed that reasoning, what would be the point of Geni?
To quote Wikipedia "Geni’s mission is to create a shared family tree of common ancestors. By combining research into a single tree that users work on together, users can focus on verifying information and on new avenues of research, rather than spending time duplicating research that others have already done." How can we achieve that if profiles of people who lived and died centuries again are inaccessible to other members?
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Bjørn P. Brox But still: Those profiles is not causing any problems for you and your work.
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Will Chapman (Vol. Curator) Bjorn
I don't understand what you mean when when you say that Damion Vozniak is in a 'standalone and totally isolated tree'. If that were the case I could understand your point BUT he is in fact the manger of Sarah Taylor http://www.geni.com/people/Sarah-Taylor/6000000013413388432?through=6000000006270311382, who appears to be wife of Joseph Briggs my 6th great Grandfather (thus my interest in collaborating in some way.
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Dan Cornett Will:
I understand the frustration of not being able to simply 'connect' to what seems to be good information already entered and is public -- that seems to be counter to what makes Geni different from other on-line genealogical web services. Those branches with "No path found to..." are *not* part of the Geni World Tree.
However, the current reality & policies mean that the information in those 'disconnected' branches (which are public) will have to be duplicated to be a part of the World Tree. I think it is unfortunate, particularly because I suspect that MOST people who have such 'disconnected' branches did not intended for them to stay disconnected -- and, indeed, that lack of any easy way (at that time) to "connect" may have contributed to why some managers are no longer active.
Yes, some people are 'vocal' about keeping the information they entered as isolated; others of us are of the opinion that information about deceased persons which are not direct parents of living persons ought to be public -- and part of the 'World Tree'. But that's not the current policy, and so we work with what we have now.
For myself, when I find a 'potential tree match' which seems to be a duplicate of one in the World Tree, the first thing I do is check to see if it is 'disconnected' ("No path found to ..."). If so, I do NOT propose a merge, but just leave the 'potential match' in case that manager later comes along and wishes to join the World Tree. If there is information 'visible' on that match that supplements (adds to) what is on the 'World Tree' profile, then I will add it in. Yes, it is duplication -- but at least it only needs to be done one time! No one else will then need to duplicate that information a 2nd, 3rd, ... time.
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Maven B. Helms Trouble is, these abandoned stand-alone trees are occurring more and more often. The ONLY solution at present is to duplicate the desired profiles onto the connected tree - which can be an INCREDIBLE waste of the user's time as well as frightfully annoying!
And if I have to do that, I will "Remove Match" on all the profiles I had to copy, so that no one else will have to go through that megillah.
Nuch more of this, and the "Request to Merge" feature will become *absolutely useless* and no one will *ever* willingly use it..
Like it or not, that's what this policy of not doing anything about isolated abandoned trees has led to.
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