Protecting the tree

As you sent me an invitation to comment as the '3rd curator' (sort of like the 'fifth column'?) I assume you've sent one to the curator involved, who was also the original person to add that profile and the ONLY OTHER manager on that profile.

Apparently Geni staff sent you both a letter, which also said that they felt he had done nothing wrong either, and urged you to understand that on a collaborative tree, there is no way around working with the other managers of shared profiles to reach a consensus.

Deleting the Curator's name from the above message - although I don't think it is especially beneficial to pretend it isn't easy to find out 'who', and to assume it will resolve something easier if it is spoken about anonymously.

My original message - http://www.geni.com/discussions/111238?msg=804624 posted without knowledge of the 'restrictions' and 'reporting' that had just happened, read like this:

"Annelise am I correct in thinking this is part of a research debate you're having with the other manager, *?
As the two of you are co-managers, have you and he tried to decide between you how you'd like this profile to look?
I know * is a 'conservationist; at heart, so he will act to preserve existing data as his first knee-jerk action in all cases.
(Because of this personality characteristic he is invaluable on the Curator team for his ability to spot details that threaten the tree before they've even entered the rest of our peripheral vision :-)
I also know that this often makes him at first defensive sounding in written engagements (He tends to presume he is being attacked :-) ; which is exacerbated by the fact that he's a 2nd language English speaker -
But he's a real pussycat if he knows you mean well for the tree, and aren't attacking him.
Is it possible that you can try and have this conversation with him again - knowing that?"

I deleted this innocuous post on that thread, when you said that the issue was already under review by Geni, and I realised there were far more than just this curator involved - in case it interfered with the process of review.
I also urged you to stop posting on the matter under review, until Geni had had a chance to look it - as it looked like 'goading'.

The offensive tone of your replies in that case suggested to me that collaboration was not the point for you at all, and helped me understand what might have made your co-manager feel attacked in the first place.

While the question of Curators locking profiles, is a very worthwhile discussion to have, if you're going to use this example as your test case, we should first clear out of the way how much of an inconvenience was created for you by having to communicate with the one other manager of a profile you'd merged into, before changing the data he'd put in.

Annelise stated she was trying to find out how common it was for curators to completely lock out geni-users because no prior approval had been given. If it is the case that curators are choosing to lock out Geni-users, as apparently it is from both her comments and Sharon's and Hatte's - then this is a very valid question, and important for all users to be aware of.

I do not feel her comment and question here was being provocative. She gave a minimal amount of background. Sharon gave much more.

Hatte - Customer Service may have settled that dispute. Asking us users how common such disputes are is, in my view, not provocative, nor in my view does it paint her in a bad light. Suspect your view/impression that it does comes from the other interchanges added to this one - not the little she is actually saying here.

Annelise, no one benefits from a confrontational thread like this one.

If you start a new, non-confrontational discussion, maybe under the Locked Profiles project, I'd love to chat with you about locking, vandalism, suspending users and all the interesting topics related to them.

http://www.geni.com/projects/Locked-profiles/109

I'll delete my comments but suggest that Justin's remains until this thread is deleted.

Thank you Hatte...

Private User, bullying on this site is not common and not intentional. I'm sorry that you felt that way, but as you experienced our CS group is always available and willing to help out in these situations.

When there is a profile with an unreasonable number of locked fields - especially where some fields contain wrong information and the profile lists no sources - a good solution is to create a parallel profile as a sibling with the right information.

The curator with the unreasonably locked profile can then at their leisure review the new information, give their opinion under a discussion, while keeping "their" data "safe".

This eliminates unpleasant exchanges in private messages and keeps things objective and to the point.

Using the discussion section instead of messages also tends to keep the conversation more respectful and polite because all of Geni is watching.

However, this relies on a curator's good will to have their information challenged without taking personal offense, or taking action to eliminate out of hand any new information simply because it is new.

This is the approach I took. But it did rely on the curator showing the same respect to my parallel profiles as he showed to his own unreasonably locked ones.

That is nowhere close to a good solution at all.
It creates competing duplicates that need to be merged in. It is the complete opposite of collaboration and unsustainable on a shared tree built through goodwill.

The most obvious solution is to first contact the curator with your information and improve the profile together. You should do this if you change data on a single-managed profile anyway. It is only polite.

If, during that discussion you then feel the curator is abusing his/her powers you can ask Customer Services to help you.

When you have an objective, reasonable curator, that works fine. I have been doing that for over a year now without any problems. But here is your own description of this particular curator:

"He tends to presume he is being attacked" and "will act to preserve [his own] existing data as his first knee-jerk action in all cases." I would use the words unreasonable and paranoid. You use the word "conservationist".

You have accurately defined the situation: "competing duplicates that need to be merged in". That IS the task. But how should this be done ?

I propose a dispassionate system, with peer-review in the daylight with parallel profiles. A level playing field, and the more accurate profile be adopted.

You want it done behind closed doors.with tha e unreasonable curator that has to be appeased and drag in customer service in if necessary.

Here is a quote from a customer service email. "We do not tell Pro users that they have to ask permission before merging or editing any public profiles "

I say lets put all the data in competing profiles and let an objective community decide - and take the emotion and the power games out of it.

Annelise,
I do not know profiles was a problem, but would like to assure you that majority of Curators will not lock profile fields unless they are documented.
Some, in rare occasions, unfortunately do.

Most of us follow public discussions, even if do not participate in them, and hopefully your idea of public discussion will alert some of us if there is a problem. But lets move forward and hope that this does not happen again, as you have made a very clear and valid point.

Public peer-review. Of course, I'd love it, if feasible. Though your run-of-the-mill peer-review process is usually institutionalized, professionalized, fairly slow, takes place within strongly formalized hierarchies, is certainly not transparent to everyone, not even fair, dispassionate, or without any bias/controversy. Needs more input, tbh :) So, how would you do it, Annelise?

Olav - is this the same one with a 'screaming photo'?

Yes, Jadra, it's the same Olav, but more "maturely" packaged and approved by concerned relatives, rendering me in a more appropriate and sensible look/package for the upcoming decade! I'm not sure yet if I'm game, though :P

Ok - Annelise - I still hope you will not need to go peer review way, but if you do, we are here, 'Jadra - the all visual' and Olav now 'the Serious' guy who liked my graphs.

I wish somebody was challenging information on profiles I have entered (I call that - helping me out).

Peer review is the correct way when there is a dispute.

I, too, say that adding new information to profiles is "helping" - not "vandalizing the tree".

Here is a short history that shows how it is done.

I made a change to a profile. The manager/curator objected and removed it. To eliminate the emotion, I created parallel profiles (husband and wife). The manager/curator removed the parallel wife profile.

I invited a second curator to take a look - a discussion took place on the "discussion" tab of the profile - a few other interested Geni users came by and gave their opinion - and a consensus was reached very quickly.

The 2nd curator made the changes and merged the profiles.

Successful peer review, and it worked.

(The original curator did not accept the majority opinion, objected to one of the field and removed - and the second curator but it back)

Annelise, which area you work on?

Please send me a message. Not relevant for this topic.

An unexpected advantage to the "build a parallel profile" method was more research by more people collaborating; an informal and short term mini project. New family members were uncovered!

No special peer-system needed then? Everything working as intended? As for your question in the OP, no, never, I'm too slippery to jam myself like that :) Just kidding. Anyway, I hope you manage to draw enough attention to all your problems and good luck in your future endeavours as well!

Annelise, you are hijacking your own argument. You have accused Ofir of being arrogant and bullying you. Whatever chance there was to work through what happened and pinpoint where he could have behaved differently; and should do so in the future – has been completely undermined by the arrogance and vengeful bullying behaviour that you continue to engage in on these threads.

You say “When you have an objective, reasonable curator, that works fine. I have been doing that for over a year now without any problems.”
- You are mistaken. Your rude response to the first conversation I had with you elicited a number of messages from other users describing their experiences with you as “arrogant” and ‘brusque.’

You say “You want it done behind closed doors. with the unreasonable curator that has to be appeased and drag in customer service in if necessary.”
-I have no idea where your assumptions about me wanting closed doors or being interested in appeasing people comes from. The problem here is exactly that no open discussion was had with the person BEFORE you went behind his back to have his profile unlocked and changed.
Whether or not he would have given you an adequate explanation for locking it; or whether he would have co-operated with you – all, unfortunately, becomes moot, because your own behaviour was so non-collaborative and arrogant.

Your own fighting talk about ‘level playing fields’ for ‘peer review’ of ‘competing parallel profiles’, explains a lot about why you are experiencing this as an “emotional power game”. Geni is a collaboration, not a competition. You can’t call for a peer-review before you’ve even had the discussion; and you can’t accuse people of appeasing his arrogant behaviour, while expecting them to appease yours. I think Geni told you this too.

I am leaving this discussion as it is effectively blocking the possibility of having a conversation about the real problem.

When a profile is locked are Pro members not able to still add to the "About" section? Or is that also locked?

Surely this (the about field) is the place to make a note of any information with sources, and then to message managers and the Curator (if there is one) to alert them to the information you are suggesting? The send message to the manager tool can be used and other people added to the address bar.

When a profile is locked (not field locked, but entirely locked) no member, including a manager of the profile, can edit it, including the about. I don't know if discussions can be started from such a profile (never tried it). So the only option is to contact a curator.

Cross referencing again the locked profile project

http://www.geni.com/projects/Locked-profiles/109

Annelise

I am concerned your original question is not being adequately addressed so would like to we are focused on that topic - yet avoid agendas I hope!

"Am I the only one this has happened to ? I am just trying to find out how common it is for curators to completely lock out Geni users because no prior-approval has been given."

First, this is the "curator right" in question from the public Wiki:

http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Curators

Suspend editing permissions for users they suspect of vandalizing the Big Tree. When a user is reported, their editing permissions for all profiles except their own are suspended until Customer Service investigates the situation.

====

I have used the "right" once, I believe. It was a bit of "closing the been door after the horse kicked it down" I'm afraid. There were some 30,000 profiles in question; three or four curators familiar with that part of the tree reviewed the case after being alerted by yet another curator; and then we focused on tree repair.

I suppose the statistic I am looking for should come from customer service. Total users "reported" by curators this year v. Total determined that user did nothing wrong.

The conclusion that I did nothing wrong - yet the curator did not misuse his power - is self-contradictory.

A simple acknowledgement from the curator that he made a mistake is in order. An apology would be better.

Annelise - re: "The conclusion that I did nothing wrong - yet the curator did not misuse his power - is self-contradictory." - not necessarily so - don't know as it fits the situation - but IF the curator suspected vandalism, then blocking the user would be the correct (a correct?) action - after which CS is supposed to investigate -- and, if CS determines from its investigation that in fact there was no vandalism, then CS would come to both the two conclusions above. The blocking comes on the suspicion of vandalism, after which the investigation is to be made.

It does not seem, reading the WIKI, that there is necessarily any requirement that there be a basis for the Curator's suspicion. This is where the rub comes. Tho - baseless suspicions, repeatedly found to be unconnected to any vandalism, should (and probably would) be looked at askance - not sure what action would be taken.

Lois, thanks for you comment - this is a valid summary.
The problem has been identified and hopefully some measure in place to help Annelise deal with future problems (if they arise).

Lets hope this never happens again.