Discussions about the Collaboration Pool

Barbara, you will only get one email per day from each discussion. That's why you aren't getting one for each person. When you get the email, you could send a request to each person up the list until you get to someone that states that either your previous request is pending or that you are already collaborating.

Would one of my collaborators do what they can on this page for me please? I am trying to get John's tree clean,but these merges are holding me back.
Thanks.

http://www.geni.com/search/matches/6000000001356800650?group=requested

@Anita - working on it.

Anita M. Boynton@Anita - done.

Thanks Janet!!!

To one of the several people who have posted lists of subscribers to the collaboration pool....

Would you consider posting directions with your list? This also works better if you can put breaks in your list. I was able to do the "user order" list on page 22 of the collaboration pool discussion in two session using this format...stopping at the break in order. I would think that 30-50 at a time should be able to be handled by most browsers; I did about 100 tabs at one time.

Draft of Directions:

Here is a list of current Geni users who have joined the collaboration pool as of x date. Press and hold your CTRL key on your keyboard as you click each name in the first section. A new tab will open in your browser...you can then go to each tab, choose the Request to Collaborate option under More Items, follow the directions and then close the window. Finish that first section, close the tabs, and start again on the next section. This will save you a lot of back and forth time and help you stay organized in adding users.

Thanks to the Pool I now have enough collaborators to have a list!

In looking at the list, I see there is an option for accepting.... auto accept requests or manually review requests.....what do these mean?

Manually review means you have to look at the profiles and approve the merge requests one by one. Automerge means that those requests generated by "trusted" collaborators go thru with your automated stamp of approval. It's a way of your computer working for you behind the scenes. :)

My general procedure is to start with collaborators on manual review and see how their merge requests are. After a few satisfactory mergers, I often move them to automerge. Other people have different procedures. It's all up to you.

Erica, I think automerge works slightly differently from the way you describe it, and I think we once discussed this.

ANY of your collaborators can merge ALL your public profiles, without reference to you, whether you have any particular collaborator on manual review or auto-merge.

As far as I understand it, the only difference between manual review and auto-merge is slightly different, and best illustrated by an example with hypothetical names.

Suppose:
1. I collaborate with Erica but not with Ann.
2. Erica collaborates with both me and with Ann.
3. Ann wants to merge one of my public profiles with one of hers. Because Ann doesn't collaborate with me, she can't complete the merge herself. But because Erica collaborates with us both, Erica can complete the merge.
4. Therefore:
(a) If I have Erica on auto-merge, Erica can auto-complete the merge.
(b) If I don't have Erica on auto-merge, she can't, and she would have to manually review the merge.

So my decision on whether to put Erica on auto-merge is not based on whether I trust Erica, but rather on whether I trust the collaborators of Erica with whom I do not collaborate myself.

I think David is right. If my collaborators have rights on both sides of a merge and I approve the merge, it will be completed. Sometimes, when I don't have rights to one side, and none of my collaborators have rights, after I approve it, I get a message that it was auto approved by one of my collaborators.

David,
you have 4.b backwards.
Ann can only complete the merge if ERICA has ANN on auto-merge. Erica already has permission from YOU. By putting Ann on auto-merge she is extending that permission to ANN who she trusts.

Thanks for the clarification, guys!

All I know is I love my computer doing the work for me, and I haven't had any problems (knock wood ... my head:) )

Thank you all...that explains who can do what, but prompted more questions!!

What is an auto-merge and how does it differ from a manual merge?
How can I tell when I am creating an auto or a manual merge?
How do I know one of my merges was auto or manual (Brendon, you said you get a message..like an email or on the screen?)?

Shmuel: Thanks for that correction.

Let's try again to see if I got this right. Let's also assume none of these hypothetical people is a curator.

Suppose:
1. I collaborate with Erica and with Jane.
2. Erica collaborates with me but not with Jane.
3. Erica wants to merge one of Jane's public profiles with one of hers. Because Erica doesn't collaborate with Jane, she can't complete the merge herself. But because I collaborate with both Erica and Jane, I can complete the merge.
4. Therefore:
(a) If I have Erica on auto-merge, Erica can auto-complete the merge using the access to my collaborators' public profiles that I have that Erica does not have.
(b) If none of Jane's collaborators has Erica on auto-merge, Erica can't complete the merge, and I or someone else with access to Jane's profiles would have to manually review the merge.

So my decision on whether to put Erica on auto-merge is based on whether I trust Erica in merging the public profiles of my collaborators who aren't also collaborators with Erica.

Is this right?

David, that's correct.

Anita, I'll generally select all the profiles on the page in the merge center, then click "View Selected Merges". One by one, I'll approve the merges or not. When you approve one and you are presented with the next one in the list, a blue box comes up at the top saying that you've approved the merge, that you completed the merge or that the merge was automatically completed by one of your collaborators.

Below is a link I want to share with as many people as possible.

I am working on the Signers of the DOI project, and we ran in to MULTIPLE Benjamin Harrison's. I was having a hard time keeping them straight and finding the correct order while referencing multiple websites with different info.

I found the Family Relationships chart extremely helpful, as I could notate names and dates where I felt they fit, then easily draw my own "tree" lines as I found where they actually fit. And, there is a lot of space to fill in additional info as it helps. Give it a whirl if you are trying to straighten out a branch...it is a lot better than notebook paper (or the back of an envelope!).

http://www.cs.williams.edu/~bailey/genealogy/Relationships.pdf

Some other forms here: http://www.cs.williams.edu/~bailey/genealogy/

she is my 26th great grandmother

HOW DO WE AUTO MERGE?

We don't auto merge. There's just too much chance of getting it wrong.
(there have been scripts for auto merging in the past. They were VERY conservative, but still sometimes did wrong merges.)

Merge by hand.

Jessie Kenaston What you can do is set any of your collaborators merge requests to be automatically accepted by you. This is best done with people you have worked with for a while and who's judgement you trust.

Technically, you set / change that setting on the list of your collaborators:
http://www.geni.com/list/collaborators (that's always your own list)

As you will see, that's also where you can remove collaborators.

Anita M. Boynton LOL! you should see all the scraps of paper on my desk when I'm untangling a tree! Good tip.