New Feature: Multilingual Profiles

My profile spontaneously acquired a Greek tab, which I can't figure out how to get rid of. I only want English and Spanish tabs.

Judi: Are you doing this from Tree View?

If you click on the empty "Mother" box above the child that is connected to the existing father of that child, that shouldn't happen (it should get added as mother of the child and wife of the father).

If you click on the Yellow "left" arrow to add a wife to the father, that *will* get added as a new spouse (e.g.: as different from the as-yet-not-existing mother of the child) and NOT automatically assume it is the mother of any existing children. That is the way it is supposed to work.

If a mother does get added as a second wife, and not as the mother of the intended child, you can fix it without adding another profile to merge:

(1) select the tree-view for the father of the child.
That should show all the spouses of that father, even the "empty-Mother" boxes.

(2) On the spouse which is the correct mother of that child (you may have to scroll sideways to find it), select the "Move" option (it may be hidden on a menu under the little word "More", depending on whether you 'flip' profiles in your Tree View Preferences or not).
That should place a 'virtual copy' of that mother in a "floating" box on the page.

(3) Scroll back (if necessary) to the "empty-Mother" slot; click-and-drag the proper mother's profile from that "floating box" and drop it on that "empty-Mother".
Approve that operation, and it should be done.

Harder to write about (& read) than to actually do it!

re: "My profile ... acquired a <other language> tab..."

Even more interesting ... how can one get rid of it? No provision for deleting a language set (language option)?

Phillip . i HAVE HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN TO ME ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS .actually CHANGING MY LANGUAGE TO SOMETHING i CAN NOT READ , SO IT MAKES IT HARD TO FIND THE RIGHT TAB TO FIX IT. sorry , i HIT THE CAP AGAIN. Judy.

Dan I added the father - it tree view and when I go back ther is NO EMPTY box to add the mother - you have to do it by the yellow arrow and it is a PIA and not I am finding that if you make a duplicate profile for the mother under the existing child and it does take it will not merge with the 1st profile made.

You have to go in add the dup profile for the child under the 1st wife then merge the child profiles as one and then the mother will merge as one person and then you have to click and choose between father & Unknown
and/or father & the named mother.

I will do it go through all the process I just thought some one should know that is happening or does happen to some people

I have not tried adding any parents to a profile today as yet -

I have just been working as merges come or request to update a profile and I work on clean-up in he general area while there checking for new data to add also.

dan what would be the reasoning behind deletion of a languge set?

Private User I think the Greek came from your curator suffix, which is a Greek character. Our names migration picked up on it and assumed you had a Greek suffix. You should be able to just erase it and the Greek name will disappear (never to return -- it's a one-time data migration).

Dan Cornett you can remove a language from a profile by just blanking out all the fields associated with that language.

But you need to be able to read the language in order to get it back to where you want it. I only read and speak English, so this can leave me in the dark.

Judy: We're talking about the language of the profile name fields ... not the entire page. It is a different issue if the entire page's language has changed. That is "corrected" by small "language choices" at the very bottom of the page.

re: removing by blanking all fields ... Ahhhh ... didn't come to my mind. (Maybe an "i" icon 'help/hint' next to the 'Add Language' option would be helpful with this info)

Michael mcCann: removing a language from a user's own profile that they did not think appropriate.

There *is* a bit of a subtle point here:
Names are not really "translated". (Unlike an "About" description.)

There are two (primary) situations where it makes sense to have names in other (or multiple languages).

1) The person really did use different names in different languages. This most often happens with immigrants or people who 'move between' different language cultures. I have a friend who is called George by his U.S. friends and Jorge by his Puerto Rican friends.

2) To display the name in a different "alphabet" so that those who read that alphabet can have a sense of how to 'say' that name. This is not a "translation" so much as it is a phonetic rendering, or a 'transliteration' of the name. This can be very helpful where the 'alphabets' are very different, such as English/Roman vs. Hebrew or Arabic or one of the many Japanese/Chinese written forms.

The 2nd case is most often of interest for people who are "famous" (well-known) across language cultures (e.g.: candidates for Master Profiles). It can also be helpful for families where the children or grandchildren fall into the first category (immigrants across language cultures).

yes i see makes perfect sense now.. removing the ability to choose didn't seem like a improvment but under those conditions it's apppicible.

Mike Stangel
when adding family members from profile page "cause of death" and "add more family" are both still displaying in Dutch.

Alex Moes are you sure you have not set your language preferences to "Nederlands"?
We Dutch are very proud and we think that every one should learn Dutch, but this a little too much. At first I thought this a language translation error.
I still think it, but I can't prove it.

I have made some corrections it should be fixed by now.

Alex Moes and Private User we had a translator who was inadvertently providing Dutch translations while viewing the site in the English-UK language. We've taken care of it.

Also related to new features.. I noticed the past history for my requests show up under accepted requests on the notices tab

Mike Stangel - Now that you have worked out how to have multiple versions of the About section for the same profile (for various languages) - what about creating one more that is "Private for the Family" - was picturing the label in whatever language the other Fields are labelled, was picturing just one, not multiple languages for it, and for each profile, having it viewable and editable by the same folks who are able to view and enter items in "Memories".

This way folks could, for example, make Grandma (if deceased) Public, but still have a version of an About section that just the Grandma's family could see and edit (as well as one(s) that everyone could see and edit). [For Private profiles - was picturing would still have that as separate - totally up to the family if they used it or the more general About Section]

Lois - I like this idea. For example research notes that may not be ready for "public" where they could be misconstrued could also be stored there. When theories are more proven they could be made public.

Or - does "family only" discussions accomplish the same thing?

Michael mcCann - that's a small new feature. In the past, if you had made 'Requests', there wasn't any indication when a Request was 'accepted' ... it just "silently" moved into your Request History list.

Now you get a 'notification count' of accepted Requests, similar to the notification of new private messages, discussions, or matches. That way you can go check what has changed on the Request History list (if you are interested).

dan thanks.. It wasn't mentioned on the blog.. and Private User i second your idea to aelly some of the privacy issues that users have.. I have no issue with my grandparents being public at all anyway every thing in life if you look at it is a risk some times even me opening my mouth is risky.. heh heh...

Mike Stangel something isn't quite right.
a couple of times i have noticed the following:
example
Moses Gobes
as you can see Moses seems to have several children by the name of Moses, but this isn't really the case. they all appear to be called Mozes, but that's only their second name in "English". you'll also notice that they all have a "Dutch" name and here the name is spelled correctly.
what's more, when i try to correct the "English" version of the name it won't be saved. only when i delete the "Dutch" version of the name will the first name be saved.

my default language is english
i added a new profile today
Johanna Maria Margaretha de Jong
all of a sudden it also displays her name in 'dutch'.

this multilingo feature is going berserk

Private User I'm sorry but I'm having trouble seeing what you're reporting. I changed my language to Dutch and viewed the profile for Moses Gobes -- the children's names all look right to me.

I also took a look at Johanna Maria Margaretha de Jong and it appears when you added her, you specified a Dutch surname of Gobes. This is what's causing you to see a separate Dutch display name.

like i said before my default language is english and in that language some of these profiles are all called moses. that's my point.
it's only when you view them in the dutch language that they appear ok.
not only that, when you try to add a first name in english it won't accept it. it will only accept it when you first delete the entries in dutch.

regarding the 2nd point: i did NOT specify a dutch surname.
this happened 10-15 times this morning, but after a while it (mysteriously) stopped doing this....

guess you will have a hard time reproducing these errors, yet they did occur...

Thanks to Geni Team, I'm already using the option.

Mihály

Mike Stangel
I think i've noticed a "new" bug with the Multilingual option.

In English (default) putting a blank line between two paragraphs results in a blank line between the paragraphs being displayed making it all nice and neat.

Today i've done an About for a Dutch profile that's in Dutch so i changed the language setting to Dutch (sounds obvious). Now when i save my changes the text displays as one big paragraph with no spacing and when i then open the edit box to check/correct the blank lines have disappeared.

Example profile:
Volkert Maartensz Seylemaecker

A better example is Theodorus Velius, in this case i have done About in both English and Dutch with exactly the same formatting but producing different results.

@moes this is a new bug. I've encountered it too.