ATTENTION Curators, please assist

Would it be possible to start a discussion for issues with Geni?
Non paying users cannot raise a ticket, but they may notice some errors or problems.
It would be nice to have a discussion where they can post these.

Sticky - yes, done.

Discussion for issues - it's possible, but I believe we've tried this in the past and the problem is that there's too much noise. Not all bug reports are good bug reports, and we don't have the staff to respond to everyone or else we'd just let everyone open tickets.

so in other words no pun intended it turned into a big sticky mess? Job Waterreus I think that non users can report bugs in the submit a idea section.. odd place for it software flaw perhaps in the help section but it can be done..

Private, thanks. I know that can be done. It is not obvious for all users however and it is difficult to get a good overview there
Mike Stangel, I was thinking about a discussion so that we could be sure it was a bug. In that case a paying user or curator could raise a bug.
Michael, may be it would be more practical to start a bug project and start a separate project discussion for each bug. that discussion could be closed when a ticket was raised (or when it turned out not to be a bug)

I still have a problem with http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000012923309663 and would appreciate some help:
Someone did a wrong merge, but removing one of the parent will give an error (will split the tree)
One Maria has as parents George Abraham Waterreus and Maria Helena van Zijp. This Maria is born after 1899.
The other Maria is Maria Engel Dorothea born 29 sep 1895 in Rotterdam and died 06 dec 1976 in Rotterdam, wife of Johannes Wulfert Wilhelmus van den Eshof and child of Johannes Waterreus and Sophia Maria Theresia Steenlage.

Job: re: Maria-merge ... requesting un-merge of the Aug. 26th merge.

Yes Job Waterreus I agree.. and disagree.. I see the benifits of starting such a project but i think working on it from the help webpage would be better.. But as you said not every one knows about that.. I don't think doing it out here in the forurm would be a good idea however.. It would just be too messy but that just is my view of it Maybe it could work Mike has said they have tried this in the past and it has not been exactly helpfull... but it is a good idea worth exploreing..

Mike was referring to Discussions where the purpose was to actually present the Bug -- and he and/or Programming Staff were monitoring the Discussions to rush off and work on them. Job's suggestion is different -- as I understand it, he is suggesting a place for us to talk amongst ourselves till we determine it really is a bug - and possibly also how to phrase it - before either tagging Mike or someone else or starting a Bug Report or opening a Ticket. I think that might be helpful. Tho mixing up all sorts of different issues could be messy if we are not careful - which is one way a Project might help - allowing as it might for a separate discussion about each suspected bug (and when someone sees that there are two discussions about the same bug - they perhaps can put link in one, say continue all discussion in the other)

As far as I can tell, they do not actually have any way to do such a thing as Job is suggesting over on the Help Platform.

Do not know if such a discussion thread already exists in the Curator-only discussions. Or if there are Projects only Curators can access. Unless they do, this discussion is probably off-topic. But I couldn't resist commenting. Apologies.

Lois,

Thanks for explaining it better than I did.

What would be a good project title?

new zombie discussion
http://www.geni.com/discussions/142109?msg=976538

"User Discussion of Potential Software Bugs in Geni Platform."

"What's That Bug?"

"Is This A Bug?"

...and of course everyone should read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug

or http://nexiilabs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/shutterstock_c...

Mike Stangel, you stated that there are 24 curators and 5 millions users, or 1 curator per 200,000 users. No wonder our curators are swamped.

Do you see a day when the curator ration will increase a bit?

I am getting tired of answering quries that some people put forth that don't fit the criteria above is there a sperate spin off we could make for it?
something like "general cuartor non merge questions here"?

morel he meant to say there are 124 curators

Nah, 24 is probably more correct when counting curators active in the discussions...

The first post in this thread is a straight copy by Mike of the first post in the original discussion - so folks will know what the thread was created for without having to go back to the original discussion. Possibly some comment to that effect would have been helpful. It was posted 9/5/2010 and possibly there were 24 curators then.

Do not take it as Mike saying how many Curators there are now. Last I read, there were currently 100 Curators.

24 was, I think, copied from a very old discussion. We have over 120 curators around the world. It's true that some are more active than others.

do you have to have profiles tagged if you want to create a project i would like to start one and then create a discussion from it like above like bug reports.. do you think it best to go this route as opposed to a discussion thread? i perhaps perfer the thread over the project rather then have a project every time something comes up...

Private,

I'm not sure I understand your questions correctly.
As far as I know it is possible to create a project without any tagged profiles.
From the project you can start multiple project discussions (a separate discussion tread for each subject) .

A difficult thing will be to give each discussion a good title (so people will know where to post or when to start a new discussion) and to know when to close it (so the number of active discussions will be not too large)

I think it may help to have a general discussion for each year with a topic like 'Is this a (new) bug/feature in <year>?' (closing it at the start of a new year) and have only a few people (project managers) creating new discussions for a specific topic. When a new discussion is created, the messages concerning that topic could be moved to the new discussion, so the number of messages in the general discussion would not grow too much.
When the conclusion is reached that it is indeed a bug, a pro user or curator could raise a ticket and close the discussion.

re http://www.geni.com/discussions/142108?msg=976780 from a few posts back . . . Angus Wood-Salomon I think Michael needs to be reminded (again) to mind his manners and stop posting things like this.

llyod do i need repost your deleted racist comment to a curator? don't make me go that route

Mike Stangel the reason we can't have discussions is cause of trolls like him.. I was perfectly on topic here...

Ahem!
You are addressing one of the Ashkenazim.

Michael - in the post Lloyd linked to, you start
1] "I am getting tired of answering quries that some people put forth that don't fit the criteria above" -
and continue 2] "is there a sperate spin off we could make for it?
something like "general cuartor non merge questions here"?"

re 1] If you are not a Curator, any questions asked here are not being asked of you at all - so no idea why you are exhausting yourself answering them.

re: 2] This is for Curators please assist -- requests for assistance - FROM CURATORS - and is NOT limited to merge requests. As a matter of fact -- folks just wanting simple assistance with merges can use
http://www.geni.com/discussions/99133- PRO USERS PLEASE DO THE MERGE-REQUESTS OF NON PRO USERS !

+1

My link above - to Pro Users please help with merge-requests -- keeps getting a Technical difficulties message - possibly because the hyphen is run on to the URL - so in case anyone may want to use it, posting again -
http://www.geni.com/discussions/99133

Anyone wanting help with merges involving their Max Extended Family to Private profiles they do not have edit-rights to will probably want Curator help. Also - anyone feeling an unmerge needs to be requested - only Curators can make that request. Curators are also able to look and let you know how recently someone has been online (if "Abandoned Tree" shows under "Actions" - then you do not need a Curator to tell you it has been a long time; if Activity shows recent actions, you also do not need them!). Curators are able to look at and edit your profile, the private profiles you manage in your Max Extended Family, etc. - so for folks having problems, they may be the best source of someone who can help.

Curators have no special powers to fix bugs or locate a useful FAQ - so bug reports, questions re: is something a bug, and questions re: how do I ... - all of which may need an experienced geni-user who is willing to help but do not need any of the special powers given a Curator do not actually belong here. You will occasionally see such questons here because not everyone is clear on what needs a Curator -- and the Curators know that and do not want to be or seem rude. But for those of us who understand -- it is disrespectful if we clutter this discussion with questions and problems that either a Curator is not equipped to handle (eg fix such-and-such bug) or questions that do not require the special powers given to Curators (eg is such and such a bug and/or 'how do I do such and such' questions).