So Free Users can no longer ACCEPT requested merges?

Personally, the neatest thing about Geni is collaboration, but if a person's first experience with collaboration is a prompt asking them to pay money to merge trees with someone else, that's not a very good way to introduce them to the site. I know I wouldn't have stayed.

It seems like letting free users merge with pro users is great, in fact, it seems to me to be the BEST way to educate new users, by letting the pro users answer merge related questions. And then, after seeing how NEAT merging is, then they look over at another part of the tree, and see the match algorithm hinting at matches, THEN they might be prompted to pay to see who they can merge with next.

That seems to me to be a better way of going about it.

are you speaking of private profiles? if you add the person to your family group, merge the profile then remove them you should be able to.

to quoate mike from another thread "however the frustration with free users not being able to add outside max family group has got us considering alternatives. In other words, "subject to change without notice"!"

I recognize the family group is a work-around, but I feel kind of weird, asking another Geni user to give me full control of their tree, just so I can merge a distant portion of each of our trees. I'd rather let other Geni users keep their trees private and just accept merges invidivually.

As far as I can tell, free users can't accept ANY requested merge, not even one where I've marked my side as "public". They all tell me that when they click "Yes, Merge profiles" they are wisked away to a "Geni Pro purchase page"

Sad.

Stephen - you are correct. Geni Basic users cannot propose any merge or accept any merge.

Even more strange, a Geni Basic user cannot even cancel a bad merge. Even if it was that same Geni Basic user who proposed it before the August changes, and that same user now realises it was a bad merge proposition, they cannot cancel it. Only a Pro (or maybe a curator) can cancel a bad merge.

Well, if that is the case, then I have to say I think that is FAR worse than restricting free users from being able to add their fifth great grandparents.

Think of it from a systemic point of view. A user's FIRST interaction with other users, (often close or distant relatives!) is a Geni window forcing them to pay. They don't even get to SEE the amazing capabilities of Geni?

Merging trees is Geni's best feature, and competitive advantage over the competition, and now, free users will not even get to experience that without paying?

And think of it from my perspective, that being a paid lifetime Geni user, the rest of my time her on Geni, I have to tell people that they have two options, give me 100% access to their entire family so that we can merge, or not merge? That's the option? I'm not asking distant relatives to pay on my behalf. As far as I'm concerned, I paid to use the propose merge tool, they should be able to accept those proposals I PAID for.

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And part of my disappointment here comes from my view of startup culture, and the computer tech industry, which I am a part of. It's really hard to be a successful startup. I get that. It's expensive, it's stressful, and you have to risk it all in hope that you'll win a permanent share of your industry.

With that said, Geni so far, until THIS decision, had made ALL of the right decisions. (Free, socially viral, collaborative, open, good quality privacy settings, high quality product, excellent community forums, wikipedia style contribution structure, etc) But restricting free users from "joining the party" and merging with the world tree is highly bizarre to me. Those user's can't see Geni's amazing benefits, and so they don't understand WHY they would pay. It's only after seeing how amazing merging is that I personally decided it was worthwhile to become a Pro user.

I want Geni to win. Not only because I think you guys are still the best in the industry, but because I think Ancestry is absurdly expensive, because I think MyHeratige is total crap, and because I KNOW the future of this industry is a facebook style free-ness,

I mean, just imagine if Facebook charged people to post to other users' walls. That's what this is comparable to, IMO. It would be highly detrimental to Facebook's competitive edge, and remember, Facebook had 100 major competitors, and yet they won, because they found another way to fund themselves. Even a company like Classmates.com, that had a 8 year lead on Facebook, was passed up and dominated (obliterated really) by Facebook, and why ? Because Classmates.com charged money.

I strongly hope you consider changing this feature. I fear that as long as free users can not accept pending merges, you are going to both discourage people from paying at all (and becoming real serious Geni users) as well as you are going to cause people who are serious Geni users to become dis-interested when they can't get any of the free users to accept pending merges.

Do what Facebook did. Fund yourselves on ads placed on free user's pages. But don't restrict their ability to contribute or collaborate on the site.

Stephen you remind me of the reasons I bought PRO.

I saw this fantastic collaborative community engaged in a making a "people's history of the world."

Not one wrriten by historians, not one where we had to hire professionals - but one where we could exchange information and teach other through our profiles.

Geni tells me I have Royalty in my ancestry, kind of cool. But what rocked my socks was a degree of relationship to E-no-li Black Fox, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation

Who knew? And I could never just sort of run across that elsewhere.

THAT'S what I pay for.

I'm totally with you. Those are all wonderful things, but people will never see that those things are possible if they can't even merge with another user without paying. Not allowing them to accept merges means new users will endlessly stay isolated, unless they're willing to give 100% of their data over to someone who sends them a family group invite.

As I said just now at

http://www.geni.com/discussions/101533?msg=745353

and

http://www.geni.com/discussions/99067?msg=745355

I can see a case for suggesting that Geni allow Basic users to accept (or decline where appropriate) merge requests proposed by others - even if they are not allowed to initiate merge requests themselves.

Reading the comments here and elsewhere on Geni, this inability of non Pro users to accept merge requests from Pro users does seem to be a cause of frustration for Pros and non-Pros alike.

I remember the merges needed discussions in the old days.

I was much too shy to participate and bought PRO instead.

There is a current discussion I'll try and find and bump to the top.

The old organized collaboration groups:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/63202

Merge Issues 1, for those who still have access: http://www.geni.com/discussions/52848

http://www.geni.com/people/Bj%C3%B8rn-P-Brox/285725352490006131
"Merge Issues 1, for those who still have access: http://www.geni.com/discussions/52848"
I can not access that discussion, is it for curators only?

The first Merge Issue discussions was only family group discussions since Family Group was the requirement to get them solved.

I have a question. Geni offers a free Trial of 14 Days. Couldnt one in theory, do a free trial. Accept all the merges, and request merges of their own, and then cancel the trial?

I am still a Basic User, because I do not want to waste money when I do not have the info I need to expand my tree. Once I have the info needed from Various relatives, I will pay for one months membership so I can merge everything. But when I cancel my subscription, are they going to take away the work I did as a Paid user? Or is it permanent?

Once a merge is done, it's complete. As manager you have access to edit the profile data regardless of membership level.

Thank you Erica and Carol. I was able to find that I only needed to add in 4 levels of relatives, before I found myself crossing into matches on other trees. So Once I join as a pro member, I will only need to do a few merges and it will go from a 60 member tree to several thousand lol!

Exactly! And then you feel obligated to contribute to the data accuracy of the World Family Tree. And the next thing you know, you're running around the internet reading archive stream data books from 1911 ...

Unless something else has changed "Collaborators" gives no access to Private Profiles, so Collaborating will not help.

Suggestion - since Basic cannot accept merge requests, and most Pro do not realize they are just setting Basic up for annoying Ad if they approve/request merge - why not, any time Pro approves merge, creating a merge request to a Basic - give the Pro an Ad (just choice one below!) - or choice screen if you will -
telling this is a Basic user, Basic users cannot accept merges, so --
would you like to 1) purchase a Pro Gift Membership for this Basic User, or 2) Cancel this merge suggestion or 3) send it thru anyway, knowing the Basic member cannot approve it and will just get an Ad if he tries.

Lois is right that collaboration is irrelevant here.

1. Pros can merge public profiles even without collaboration.

2. Collaboration doesn't help Pros merge private profiles.

3. Non-Pros can't merge anything, with or without collaboration.

I think it's simple. I paid for a lifetime Pro account. Any merge I propose should be able to be accepted by a free user. Anything else just pushes new users to other sites because they can't even get to experience Geni's best feature, that being merging trees, which is the first step in collaboration with other users.

Geni's biggest asset... it's biggest competitive advantage over their competitors is collaboration. If that has ended and now only paid users can do it, then I think it's a bad sign for Geni's future growth.

And I'm personally disappointed because that is not what I thought I was becoming a lifetime member of when I purchased my Pro account. I have pending merges with over 100 "free" users, and with current policies, they can't accept those merges, that is very disappointing to me.

Stephen are they private or public profiles? Because if public and with their agreement (informal collaboration, if you will) you can, as a PRO, complete those merges.

Not that I'm trying to sidestep your point!

Private ones, or public ones of trees of users who have not "joined the big tree yet" Even they can't "join the big tree" anymore without paying.

Remember, now free users are only allowed to add family members inside their fourth cousin tree, which default to private.

The current policies build a wall between the big tree and new users, with no way for them to join but pay, or join another user's family group and give up 100% of their privacy to that user.

They can set their profiles to public as a start.:)

This is not a change. The only way private-private merges have ever been done is through mutual Family Group.

By definition I believe the minimum requirement for joining the World Family Tree are public profiles. It is certainly my minimal rquirement for offering my PRO and curstorial assistance.

But again, this is a side issue to your larger point.

Erica, private-private merges used to be possible in two stages. One person proposes, the other accepts. Mutual family group between managers was not required.

That did change in August this year.

Then I stand corrected on that. But they still weren't part of the World Family Tree, so that aspect of Stephen's point is lost.

David and Stephen, I hear the frustration that's being expressed. At the same time, I have to point out that Geni's been set up on a collaborative model from the very beginning. It seems to me that if someone wants to do their family tree on Geni and keep all of their profiles private, they're "bucking the current" so to speak. It's not Geni's job to make things easy who don't want to work within the established model.

All of that is not to say that our free users don't have a right to be frustrated. Of course they do!

Erica - I am not sure what aspect of Stephen's point you think is lost.

In the past I had quite a few cases of new Geni users wanting to merge private profiles they managed that were not yet in the big tree with profiles that were already in the big tree. I issued the merge request; the new user accepted. Done. They joined the big tree. No mutual family group required.

Can't do that now, even if I were Pro.

Would now need mutual family group or for the new user to make at least one profile public to achieve the merge.

Jennifer, I think it is OK if people want to keep profiles within their family group private. That is the established model. Geni doesn't just help users to keep to that established model. It actively encourages it and causes it by making profiles added in the family group private by default.

Is that "bucking the current"? I don't think so.

I agree that it's perfectly fine for people to keep their profiles private! I just think that if you go to a potluck dinner, bring your own food, refuse to share, and then complain that you don't have all the goodies that your neighbor at the table has, you need to realize that you may have created the situation yourself. I'm not in any way saying it's wrong to do that. But as my grandmother used to say, "Life is a matter of choices!"