SA Geni Chat Group on Face Book

I also have a Geneaology Google+ group if interested.

Hi Willem - Yes! Post the link on the FB site too.

Good plan Batman!

Ok here is my Google+ Geneaology circle: https://plus.google.com/u/0/stream/circles/p6164d38b8b47ec55

Thank you for including me Sharon. I recently joined the 'I lived in Welkom' page and have found out what happened to a few friends from long ago - unfortunately none of it good as they seem to be 'popping off' at an alarming rate. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised having already hit my '3 score years and ten', but as I only feel 18 inside it still comes as a shock!
I've stopped visiting Geni recently....I can't add anything new since they changed the game plan; you have to join their 'plan' to continue working there....I've exceeded my new quota of 100 names many times over! I hate the way they (the Americans) change the place names one inserts!

Ah sorry to hear that you're not on Geni for those reasons Private User. Maybe when can use the FaceBook group to work a way around that. It is very 18yrs old to be on FB you know :-)

I am on Facebook; I avoid being bothered by too many people as I use my actual name rather than my nickname, the name most people know me by!
I HATE nasty modern abbreviations, silly games etc.
I find it a wonderful way of seeing photographs of my great-grandson and my great-nieces.
I don't have time to waste on inanities; a little more time to spare at the moment as my genealogy computer appears to be throwing a wobbly at the moment!

Thanks - I am on Face Book and would like to join the Geni Chat group.

Fantastic Rita Jessica COOPER (BROWNE)!
Just click on this FB link and request to be added, so I can join you in http://www.facebook.com/groups/243811932355680/
See you there :-)

This group is proving soooo useful in keeping the SA Geni community chatting to each other.
It's great to be able to send a 'heads up' to everyone about the SA genealogy news; or about research break throughs; or about Projects we're starting up etc etc - without bugging people in their in-boxes.
You can just check in here now and then, and by scrolling down you can look at whatever interests you; post your own responses; and ignore the rest.

If you haven't already, come and join us at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/243811932355680/

Pam Karp
Private User
Norman Jamieson
Carolle Louise Marquard
Cobie Petrus Jacobus Jacobus Botha, b1c7d2e2f4g11h1i4j3k1
Tony De Buys
http://www.geni.com/people/Wynand-Andr%C3%A9-du-Plessis/60000000023...
Therese Muriel Ferreira
Private User
Private User

Thanks for the invites. I am not on FB or Google+, and am not intending to be either. Good luck to those who are and find it useful.

Thank you Sharon for inviting me and a bit like other users I have some reluctance about Facebook which I use only because of my swarm of grandchildren who push me over the edge to sink - or swim. Managing a bit of a doggie paddle there.
From your list above I found new cousins, so thank you for alerting me to them. Will join:-)

Thanks for responding, guys:

The FB idea is actually more like a newsletter that people can check when they feel like it to see what's new on the SA Geni tree - not so much a requirement to chat on.

The idea is for it to reduce the work that is presently involved in communicating using Geni messages. At the moment, most Geni SA users don't have a clue what anyone else is doing. And the only way of telling them is to send a 100 individual messages out. It's way too much work.

If everyone checks the FB page monthly, then people are kept in the know. Nobody has to talk,

No pressure, tho :-)

Sharon - I'm a little unclear - why is FB preferable to a Geni discussion such as this one? It doesn't require sending 100 individual messages.

Good question, David -
you'd be surprised at how few people will see this message, because:

There's no 'automatic' alert that brings people following a project here (except for the hypertext alert I sent you, and it would take days to hypertext all the SA Geni users likely to be interested.) - so people who only check in now and then are quite likely to never see this thread.

And even if I did call the 200 or so active SA Geni users here by hypertexting them all - This is one topic, and we want to alert our community to lots of different topics. On one Geni discussion thread people have to wade through mounds of posts - without even the help of underlined headings.

Whereas, FB posts:
- allow people to easily & quickly scroll down many different topics posted over a no of weeks, and to find / read / add to only the ones they're interested in.
-They also allow links with images to be added to illustrate points
- And you can easily alert specific individuals in the group to a post they might find interesting without having to first find their profile and cut and paste the link.

Enough said? :-)

The FB platform is designed to help communities share info quickly and non-invasively (people can participate at whatever level of involvement its they choose). Geni is not.

Sharon - I don't want to prolong this discussion unnecessarily.

But doesn't Geni also help communities share info quickly and non-invasively (people can participate at whatever level of involvement it is they choose)?

Anyone following this project will see on their home page that there is an updated project which they can then check out or not as they want?

You suggested everyone checks the FB page monthly. Can't they also check this project monthly - or more frequently if they wish?

David, Anyone checking monthly is highly likely to have lots of other discussions they are following in front of this one - My own discussion page fills up in a single day, so I'd easily miss 50% of the older ones if I checked in even weekly.
So, even if they were interested they are likely to not even know about it.

Again - few people will even see this discussion for the first time until I've spent the hours of work to hypertext a link to all of them here, and even then only if they've come onto Geni reasonably close to me doing that.

As far as I know, people don't tend to use the Project Page list as a way to keep track of discussions. (Altho, I'd never thought of that)

And again MOST IMPORTANTLY for those of us without time - If there are numerous topics being discussed on one Discussion thread, this formatting makes it very difficult to speed read through them for salient details on any single topic you might be interested in.

Take a look at the number of topics already on the FB page.
This Discussion would be swamped by all those different topics interspersed by replies to completely different posts. People just stop reading, and understandably.

FB, however, provides the possibility to add to (or ignore) a single topic at a time, once you've opened a single page, and that capacity to sort through data manageably is what makes it a better 'news update' communication tool than this.

Interesting to think through, tho. I take it you think it's not a good idea to use it - Why? Does it feel like a betrayal of Geni?

Sharon - re your last para. I wasn't saying at all that I think it's not a good idea to use FB. As a non-user of FB I have no way of knowing how good or bad its facilities are. I just asked some questions for information.

I wouldn't have said it was a betrayal of Geni. I was simply asking - if you are doing work on Geni, and Geni has projects and discussion capabilities, why not use them? Why go outside Geni for discussions? It seemed an obvious question to ask.

I think it IS an obvious question to ask, and worthwhile discussing. Wasn't being nasty :-)

Sharon, there is already an automatic update. If you are following a project you get notified every time there is something new, update or a discussion post. Project discussions should be used this way - what else are they there for?

Dear Sharon and David,

I am so interested in the discussion which has transpired thus far re Facebook and Projects generally. I am an erratic user dropping out every now and then out of necessity and then desperately trying to hang on to what is going on, everywhere. Sharon is right that there would be many who would miss this thread. I would have missed it altogether had I not been invited. I am constantly surprised by projects/discussions which I find by accident. I am held back by much I do not understand or how to do. One cannot follow everything and one can feel swamped by the many topics and avenues of interest worth pursuing. Hopefully in time I will sort out a scale of merit for valid involvement and contribution. Right now I am open to using Facebook if it helps me stay in touch more.
This discussion provided me with another cousin and with a spontaneous click, I am now in delightful conversation and may well jointly discover some Free State connections and more. I am grateful for that.

:-)

It's always the case that if you have discussions in two places the total number of people who will see the discussion is more than if you only hold the discussion in one place.