"Revisions" - sometimes no "View" option for reported update

There is no revision control on marriage details or timeline events. So far as I know these are the last two entities in Geni without this control. This is why changing this data requires formal collaboration - as an added level of protection.

The fact that a marriage change is recorded at all in the history is probably new - I've never seen it before.

Geni is tending towards becoming a standard wiki. These are the remnants of the formal collaboration that used to be required to change any public profile not managed by yourself.

As a long-retired I.T. person, if I look at this from a Geni point of view there is a problem for which I can't see an immediate solution.

These two entities are the only ones within Geni to which you can add an infinite number of profiles. To a christening, for example, I add the godparents. To a marriage, you can add the attendees to the wedding.

If the marriage details change, how would you reflect this? Not just the date and location, but there could be 'About this event' notes as well, which should append in a merge as the 'About Me' in the profile does now.

Then again, it's probably just as well that I'm long retired.

You "really" want to set up some tests to see for yourself. :)

My recollection is that events do not merge or append, but are maintained as separate events. But I haven't looked at marriages enough.

If you merge two profiles, the birth date and location change as you would expect. The other parts of the birth event, including the 'About this Event', the attached documents, the attached photos vanish. You can't be born twice, therefore they are not separate events.

I would expect one 'About This Event" to append to the other in the same way that the 'About Me' on the profile does.

The odd exception is baptisms which were treated in the early days as non-defined events containing the word 'christening' which therefore correctly duplicated.

I don't recall ever losing a document or an image in a public / public profile merge. Can't swear to the text in the timeline tab; certainly the Wikitext overview text appends.

If you attach your photos and documents directly to the profile, as almost all Geni members do, then you won't experience the problem.

If you attach your photos and documents to any of the six defined events, then you will have a problem as a result of a merge. Also, if anyone changes the 'About this Event' there is no history - you'll never know what it was.

This is why I prefer to answer a 'Request to Merge' rather than using the automatic collaboration feature. Unfortunately, the curators can force-merge anyway, although I haven't experienced this yet.

If your merging / matching is up to date there wouldn't be a reason for a curator to even be aware unless called attention / requested, and we do try to raise active managers to resolve for themselves.

I work on abandoned trees / profiles and even more, on the historic tree where there are still many duplicates to be consolidated.

Forgot to mention that if a profile is deleted, it's marriage details can never be recovered/restored. I'm not sure how many other fields are in a similar situation.

Erica - re: "and we do try to raise active managers to resolve for themselves. " - I have no doubt that you are one of many curators that do function that way - but you may have noticed I am on here pretty frequently - and several times Curators have done forcible merges on Profiles I manage without any attempt to contact me - so please do not assure folks that Curators will always try to raise active managers first.

Had one of them contacted me before one merge, I could have explained to him that there was a problem -- basically someone had apparently gone - the parents of 'X" are MMM and YYYY - and look, there's a Census for MMM and YYY, same names, same general area and timeframe, must be same couple - so added the children from the Census to their MMM and YYY. However, their MMM had maiden name, parents they had from their info -- and these differed from the maiden name, parents, etc from the MMM in the Census (which I knew and was shown in "my" profiles because MMM of that Census was MMM of "my" profiles) ie it was not the same couple, just the same names. But now most of the children shown there matched the children in in "my" set. The person urging the Curator to do the merge was not in the Max Extended Family of any of the Profiles to be merged, nor did that person or the Curator contact me first.

And if you - or anyone - know any way to get the Curator disciplined for doing a Merge nor requested by a Family Member, I would love to know it. Or is that just a suggested guideline that Curators are free to ignore? Or is it now not even that?

All Geni issues, including curatorial ones, via ticket on the help platform for Geni CS action.

Personally I'm a volunteer, human, hopefully better than machine, and make errors as anyone / everyone does. I sincerely hope no one is "ever" "disciplined" for making a mistake?

erica and others when I make a mistake I usally don't be defensive about it and appolgize and remember not to keep making the same thing again. But that's just me.. There has been some people that have abused the rules Private User i can't go into details but I can say that if you have a issue sumbit a ticket and if the person did do somthing against the wishes after a investagation well they will be delt with . I do not know the details of lois's issue or who did what.. I make a effort to reach out to all parties and say is this the right merge is this the right person etc etc before hand when i do merges it is a shame others don't do the same...

when ever i've had a problem both sides have worked with me to reach a agreeable compromise

i can only speak for my self and what i have encountered I have not encountered a member that has done anything against my wishes. In the future lois If you have details of stuff that can't be said on here with out painting some one badly I would suggest as erica says go to cs and let them sort it out they are usally good at figuring out how to hand out punishments.. I do not know what it was that got my favorite German helper curator fred b punished and caused him to loose his curatior ship but I have learned it's better not to ask some times.. If some one makes a serious error after the punishment more of a private ask when and what the person did question would be in order between people.. If I made a major blunder I would not like it if i were pubicly dragged into a debate on here kind of thread..

Erica Howton wouldn't you agree with that?

Private I'm not a German Geni user, I am Dutch. I have nothing to hide about the reasons that caused my loose of curatorship, but really I cannot tell because Geni never explicite toldme specifically!

Fred, if I read this correctly, Mike never said you were a German curator. He said his favorite curator who helped him with German connections. could . Like Mike, I never knew what happen either. I was just sorry it happened. Glad to see Fred back in the discussion section of Geni.

The one-time head of Customer Service quoted from Geni's Terms of Service - "Geni reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, block, refuse to post or remove any Content or other posting (including private messages) by you, or to restrict, suspend, or terminate this Agreement or your access to all or any part of the Geni Services at any time, for any or no reason, with or without prior notice, and without liability. "
-- And made it very clear that in his view, at least, that Geni thus has reserved the right to punish whomever they please without any regard to any rules Geni may have stated

-- Given the above, I think I would be putting myself at risk to Open a Ticket to Complain about a Curator if Geni sees the action of the Curator as having been acceptable. ( I have read horror stories of folks claiming to have been punished because they went thru Customer Service - do not want to prove to myself the danger is real)

Will Customer Service now punish Curators for not following certain Rules? And how does one find out which rules those are?

Lois

I'm sorry, but you are asking Geni Customer Service questions of people who are not Geni Customer Service.

They are the "only" people who can answer you.

Michael

To answer you - I'm a "Dr. Spock" baby. :)

The word "punishment" is never, ever used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock

Can you find his tree on Geni?

erica.. good one and yes I can.. I forgot about that!

appolgizes for my majors Freudian slip ups.. Fred is dutch not german. But anyway I miss him and also i shouldn't mention punishment.. Some times I wish geni had a edit button.. appolgies to this guy as well Dr. Sigmund Freud

I will say this.. I do know I have to be very carefull about what i say though.. I wish it were not north korea but that basicly is what the tos says...
I could very well be booted just for saying somthing like I disgaree with you on this merge what info do you have that i dont.. minor stuff when I think it should be for bigger transgressions

I find a lot of things said on here often gets jumped on for whatever reason. Either they don't agree, which is their right, or they simply miss interrupt.

I find a lot of things said on here often gets jumped on for whatever reason. Either they don't agree, which is their right, or they simply miss interrupt.

If Curators are not aware of any special rules (ie rules that have to do with the exercise of their special powers) that they can be / may be punished for not following, then either a) there are no such rules or b) communication has been abysmal.

And if b), that is definitely a problem - Curators, I am sure, do not want to be punished for actions they thought they were allowed to do. Nor do we want to waste our time - and possibly antagonizing Customer Service and/or whoever is contacted about the Complaint - complaining about actions that Geni considers totally acceptable.

I can only render opinion, but my own interactions with Geni CS suggest there is little danger of "antagonizing" by questions they, as do we all, endeavor our best to answer.

We're here to make everyone's Geni experience the best we can. We expect curators to act in good faith toward the same goal, and the curators themselves have published expectations for their conduct that we find agreeable. Yes of course we reserve the right to remove users for whatever reason we deem appropriate, or no reason at all -- that's part and parcel of operating a web site. We will not retaliate against any user who files a complaint against a curator, regardless of the outcome. Any of you are free to send me a private message ("Send Message" on my profile) if you wish to file a complaint.

I'm not even sure what you're saying. We're not going to ban people for good-faith actions and if we did, would you really want to be here anyway? On the flip side, the alternative to that clause would be that we would be legally bound to keep users on Geni against our own better judgement, and that's a terrible way to sustain a web site or any project / business.

true.. It's just when you say no reason I was worried.. anyway I agree it's a tricky slope and you have to find the right balence level.