Public/Private

Unfortunately, I'm afraid most of the people I have issues with have no interest in collaboration. You are right that they don't seem to log on often but some have been adding profiles for several years. It takes the fun out of recording family members on GENI when it gets screwed up by uncaring, some-time genealogists.

John, don't get stressed about Private profilles managers. 90% will never respond & are not interested in sharing their trees, even if some of the people have been dead for 400 years.

If you google the profile name - you will get limited relationship info. Otherwise, send a nice custom msg. to the manager to Join your family group & collaborate, merge profiles you can - and ignore the duplicate profiles that can't be merged.

That is what most of us do :)

Private profiles are usually profiles within someones familygroup. If you have public profiles of people they consider as private you should probably turn it around and ask what right you have yourself to have public profiles of their family?

Unless these profiles are within your own family group too you should probably back out instead of complaining that they don't respond.

Most of the time (at least for me) - both parties belong to the same Family group - especially if the names go back 100's of years. Of course, both managers have the Right (Geni rule) - to have their trees the way they want - be it public or private.

Public profile manager is interested in sharing his/her information with others - the private manager is not (for various reasons) - while having the benefit of having access to others public trees !!

That is why I told John - to do his best & ask the managers of private profiles (dead people) - to make them Public OR just put-up with the duplicates for now.

** Perhaps 1 day - profiles of Dead people for 99-120 years - will all be made Public :)

In http://www.geni.com/discussions/87412?msg=811164 Mike Stangel states,
"Living profiles with no user in their max family group can be flipped public by Customer Service and/or curators, in accordance with the privacy policy linked in the footer: http://www.geni.com/company/privacy" - I failed to find where it was stated. Can anyone else find it? Is it there?

http://help.geni.com/entries/487543-who-are-curators-and-why-are-th... under the list of Privileges Curators, it has two about Master Profiles, one that is same privilege as a Pro has for editing and merging Public Profiles on their Tree, PLUS:
Convert historical living profiles to deceased
Convert deceased famous and historical profiles to public (if they don't have any close relatives on Geni)
--- BUT no mention is made of any ability of Curators to flip living Profiles to Public, not in the FAQ nor in the WIKI it links to.

Michelle Elena Kempner - Do Curators and Customer Service have this ability to flip our private living profiles outside our Max Extended Family to Public? And if so,
1) Can you be more explicit than Mike is above as to where it is stated?
2) Are there any restrictions or guidelines they must use?
3) Why have we been led to believe, eg in FAQ linked to above, that it is not so?

As a curator familiar with my rights I can state categorically I cannot flip a private living person profile to public. The FAQ refer to ZOMBIES - a technical error in legacy GEDCOM uploads where ancestral profiles were set to private. We have a tool called "check public" to "lift the veil of the zombie.". If the profile does indeed fall into a current family group we are returned that message. In two years using the tool there has not been one case I know of where an actual living person was mistakenly set to public from it. Hope this eases your concern.

Thanks, Erica. Shocking as it seems for Mike to be in error, I am glad to hear your reassurances that it is not true that "Living profiles with no user in their max family group can be flipped public" by Curators.

On the other hand - you say, "If the profile does indeed fall into a current family group we are returned that message." - BUT - by "current family group" do you mean the Max Extended Family of someone with a Claimed Profile? - and if so - THEN -
what if the Profile does NOT fall into a current family group, but is still actually or likely living (say birthdate 1930 or 1970, or child of someone with one of those birthdates) - these are the ones Mike is referring to above - can they be flipped?

OR does "fall into a current family group" not mean within the Max Extended Family of a claimed profile, but rather living / born in current times?

Lois i cannot provide you with details of the algorithm even if I understood it.:). That's code inspection. All I can tell you is that the rules work in 2 years of unfortunately constant practice.

(the unfortunate refers to the zombie situation)

The privacy policy says: "Minors under 13 are never searchable by anyone outside your tree."

President Obama's youngest has a Master Profile with date of birth, showing her as 11. I have not gotten this profile directly on a Geni Search, but on a google search on " "Sasha Obama" site:geni.com " - it comes right up. Doesn't seem like we are offering much protection here.

I'm standing by my statement as my understanding of Geni's privacy policy. Maybe someone from Customer Service wants to bring clarity.

It's something very wrong with telling the customers "You have more then 60 million profiles" when most of them are kept private = closed. Geni is actually selling something they don't sell.

I avoid living persons/profiles and do most of my genealogy within 1500-1900. How come profiles who lived in 1770:eds are kept private, assuming the one and only manager is the one and only relative/descendant ?

Agneta, Geni tells customers they have 60+ million profiles and they do. Geni don't claim that those profiles are all public or all real people or not duplicates, THAT would be a lie.

It is quite hard to believe that anyone alive in the 1770s would fall within the Family Group of a Geni user so that profile should not be private if it is part of the World Tree.
Posting a link to the profile in question might help resolve the issue better.

Alex - When I geni-search for Malia Obama, her MP Profile is top one - BUT when i geni-search for Sasha Obama, her MP Profile does not come up at all (although several others do, presumably ones without the date of birth entered). Are you really getting Sasha's MP-Profile in your Geni-Search??

the barack obama manager is a closed account that was merged with the master profile

Lois - No i'm not, i'll retract/delete that statement.
The first profile on the search takes me to a private profile which i was assuming was the same profile as the Google search, but having just repeated the process and checked the profile ID numbers they are most definitely not the same profile.
Mystery solved (mine anayway).

Jason-
Barack Obama is unmerged and active, someone has reported it (presumably as a fake).
Maybe POTUS really does enjoy genealogy?

Mike Stangel - When you said today that "I'm standing by my statement as my understanding of Geni's privacy policy. Maybe someone from Customer Service wants to bring clarity." --

Were you referring to my first comment today, referring to searches on Minors /Sasha Obama -- or to my comment of Aug. 26 re your previous statement that, "Living profiles with no user in their max family group can be flipped public by Customer Service and/or curators" ??

Max family group. As for minors, I'm sure that intended to say that private profiles of minors wouldn't show up in search results -- if the profile is made public, well, that's what public is for.

Mike - As i understand it MPs can't be made Private.
So by making Sasha Obama an MP it forces the profile to be public yes?
The benefit of the current situation would be that duplicates can easily be merged in with the MP at any time, but this convenience comes at the cost of her loss of privacy.
Would it be impractical in this type of situation to remove the MP status and make that profile private (therefore complying with Geni's promise to protect minors). The managers would still be able to approve any merge requests that might come up.

Alex as a curator i do not like that solution for a "child in the public eye." It does not protect her privacy nearly as well as the many curators would and do - instead it puts the burden on an individual.

This is an exception case. I believe the policy is intended for the 99 %. Let's deal with the one off separately and thoughtfully.

There seems to be a little confusion with the understanding of private and public profiles. As you read our privacy policy it states profiles are in two groups public and private. Then it goes on to list the privacy setting that are in place for private profiles.
It also says they are not searchable by anyone outside of your tree meaning that a profile in the tree needs to be claimed or it does not apply.

Erica,
I don't understand how a public MP profile can protect her privacy better than a private profile?
What burden is being placed on an individual?
Each curator could merge a profile with the original so that all the curators were managers of that private profile - burden spread.
Frankly as for the daughter of POTUS i don't careless what data is visible on Geni for her. Google returns 21,600,000 results (0.19 seconds) when you search "Sasha Obama", if anyone thinks that there is some secret private info hidden in her Geni profile they are nuts!

I will address your question by PM.

Incase my last post reads a bit confusing:
I don't have an issue with the current situation, my earlier posts were simply ideas for other options that could be explored.

Charles - You state that Geni's privacy policy "states profiles are in two groups public and private. Then it goes on to list the privacy setting that are in place for private profiles.
It also says they are not searchable by anyone outside of your tree meaning that a profile in the tree needs to be claimed or it does not apply."

This last sentence - "It also says they are not searchable by anyone outside of your tree meaning that a profile in the tree needs to be claimed or it does not apply." - makes no sense to me. Can you elaborate and/or clarify?

Minors under 13 are not allowed to have claimed profiles, so surely you are not referring to the last statement on the Privacy Page - http://www.geni.com/company/privacy - in the section under Search Privacy - that is "Minors under 13 are never searchable by anyone outside your tree. " - or are you?

I may be wrong but I think you need to make a distinction between searches from inside Geni and those from outside, (Google etc). Also logged in to Geni, or not
As to the Obama children, they are not a good example because they are public persons due to being paraded around on television and the campaign. A better example would be your own children or grandchildren under age 13.
I remember one case where a member wanted his grandchild to have Geni access so he just removed her birth date. The family did not live in the USA and where the did live, there were no laws about online privacy for minors.

Alex: To me it is not fair to sell access 60 + million (+ 40 million duplicates?) profiles and after starting use the customer will realize that maybe 40 million out of the 60 - million are kept in a 'private' sector of Geni.

IMO all these private profiles breaks the foundation (sold) idea of Geni and the World Tree. With all the "private" profiles, that are sold as a part of the tree the geni Pro-users can access until they realize that Geni is as any genealogy sight sold, It takes about a week or to to put in your own family and then the real work start. And then, after paying one realize:

There are very few working on the World Tree.
There are lots of users just keeping there own family and claim every profile of theirs as private family.
They are doing nothing but holding on to their private idea and privacy. (Why don't they keep their private tree on paper at home??!)

Since the paying guest access was claimed by Geni, as all other genealogy sights, there are less growing of the world Tree I think. Many users disliked of course the normal business idea. I'm not sure of all the details Lois always tell about all the dangers all the family of hers are at, if keeping the Geni Idea alive. Because that's the very idea that gives Geni new customers, while all the private profiles chase the customers away.

The power over "family" kills many very good project ideas and keep many akward discssions alive. Akward in the sence one can get answers "Don't you understand .... have feelings .... dont want to tell ... bla, bla, bla..." Of course it's understandable with all the kind of feelings we all have! But if they are hard to handle why not try to be open and fair in a social context and realize that it's not uncommon, it's not fair, it's not correct from another view. E.g. open and honest genealogy.

I belive many Zoombies are there just to keep profiles private as alive. Or something in that way.

I have contacted persons who have left since the Big Geni Change and their answers are almost always the same: The Geni product sold is like a car with a painted steeringwheel and only an illussion of the wheels.

As retired economist I would like to propose: Raise the price twice or more to all the Geni-users who dont like the idea of the World Tree and instead just keep their profiles on Geni as on a private computer. Or put a price on each private, passed away profile above the ordinary Pro-user price. Let's say 1 USD each. Just to messure the willingness to protect the strenght in needs of integracy, "power" or what so ever.

All living and all young protected by Geni, does not need protection by Geni-users. Then Geni-Team every day can go in and easliy "kill" profiles in the 120:d birthday and open the profile that might have a lot bigger family than the one-user would like us to belive.

Agneta,
I think you're addressing multiple issues.

Geni advertise 60+ million profiles and that's what they have. I used Geni as a BASIC customer for about a year before i handed over any money, so i definitely know what i am paying for and what it's limitations are.
If people are attracted by the flashing neon sign of "60MILLION PROFILES!" then they should have been taught by their parents to check what it is that they are buying before they hand over any cash.

As for privacy... well i agree with pretty much everything you said.

I agree with a lot of Agnetas thoughts, especially the ones about all the damned private profile-lines in Geni. I don´t understand why to encourage those profiles, in my mind they are an obstruction to the whole tree. I can´t see the meaning of keeping profiles from the 17-1800:s private! Like Agneta I think that persons with private profile-lines should leave there trees in their own computer back home.

But - I would see to that the nearest generations of my own family are kept private though. I have had my parents public, until I was contacted by a person who had “Googled” on a perifer profile in Geni, managed by myself, and so found my name. She had then, found the information to call me at my home. (By the way, none of this contact-information is from Geni.) So it´s a good tip to keep your immediate family generations kept private, not only your own family-profiles, if you don´t want to be contacted by complete strangers. That of course also refers to all the profiles you create of now living people.