Naming Conventions and Merge issues.

Geni is on a recent drive to grow the World Family Tree to 100 million profiles and a LOT more merges are being allowed and processed.

The data conflicts you mention cause a lot of irritation and slows the whole process tremendously.

The problem is that there is a faction that believe that all names in the first name field IS the correct way. One reason being it reduces the number of TreeMatches reported.

The TreeMatch algorithm has also recently been improved.
Daan Botes time to do the switch?

There's no I in team and that's what we are on Geni. If the majority decision is to do something in a specific way then that's how we should all do it. There are other programs available where you can build your own tree any way you choose, Geni is not one of those.

Although I totally agree with all of us using an agreed way of entering names in a profile, officially there is no written rule how to enter names in the fields. The fields supplied can be used any way you choose. Common sense and the knowledge how Geni functions when it comes to searches is very important

Anne-Marie you are correct, and the reason I believe there is no 'official' written rule (there is an written Naming Convention wiki) is is to allow for area specific communities to define their regional conventions. For South Africa we do have written guidelines/conventions here: http://www.geni.com/projects/South-Africa-Profile-Guidelines/16231

Merge issues.......Geni is sending me (us) possible merges time and time again, and most are not even close. how do we stop this ? , as it is annoying....

I suggest that we put all the names in the first name Colum it makes easier to look it up again. As It is at the moment with everybody doing as he like is steering down to a disaster. I can`t count how many double middle names I have corrected and it just get more and more . They will think we are a stuttering nation.

I. 100% agree with Charmaine, after merging just look back and check if everything is correct.

Private User, I have complained about wrong merge suggestions by Geni time and again. In stead of Geni addressing the problem, I just get work around solutions.

I think Geni itself is the single reason for the most wrongful merges. If the second name field is the problem, why don't they just drop it.

It seems to me what Geni, and all those covering for Geni, doesn't understand is, that if a million people has to spend 1 second each on workarounds, 1 millon seconds, or 16,666.67 man hours are lost. Just think of all the productive genealogical research that could have been done with those unproductive hours.

The drive to reach 100 million connected profiles is the reason for the merge suggestion emails, the reason some of the suggestions are incorrect is due to the fact that they are partly computer generated matches.

The middle name field is the reason there are so many data conflicts AFTER the merges have been completed. It is here that many man hours are lost.

Our conventions are pretty clear that middle names belong in the field that is clearly marked 'middle names'

Another advantage of following the convention is it allows the middle names to be displayed or not. To be switched on and off. If you place all names in the first name field you effectively deny people who want to use that feature the ability to use it.

Private User , it is unfortunately not "some" of the merge suggestions that are incorrect, it is the majority of merge suggestions that are incorrect.

If it is "some", I can live with it. Unfortunately not.

I was told that is was because Geni doesn't use the middle name field for their merge filters, and therefore I should rather use the first name field for both first and middle names (as in MyHeritage).

Seems to me that there are conflicting messages from curators.

That is disturbing news Francois, maybe the curator in question can be summonsed to explain?

Have not seen Michael Stangel's communication that the merge algorithm has been sorted out .

You also find profiles like this one Catharina Gloudina Arangies and you can't do anything about it because of the settings on the profile.
The profile manager added 24 profiles in 2011 and didn't do anything after that. The merge requests will therefor sit in the system for a long time.

Private User
I know Jeanne Arangies who lives in Hermanus.(a former work colleague)
I have looked at the merges that are pending and have completed them.
Catharina Gloudina Arangies

Thank you John Sparkman, I went back and sorted out the merge issues.

Well done for setting a good example Charmaine!

The easiest way to find all the Data Conflicts your merge has just created:

On the merged Profile go to 'Actions', then 'View Nearby Merge Issues' then click on the Data Conflicts tab, then click the up arrow next to 'Updated on' to sort the list in a ascending order.

This will display the latest Data Conflicts near this Profile...

On that specific profile there's 18 merge issues and 11 tree matches. Every single one of them needs the profile managers approval.

Charmain i agree with u and donovan problem seems also to be that for example u and say a cousin are both on geni u research and work on example death serificates and cousin dearest knows for example our say grandparents was let say martha maria but neglets to put in her 3rd name then u get a conflict or in place of say bastian puts in bastiaan which occures in a conflict of the data and merge

I found 2 conflicts like this concerning my line and low and behold it was on my cousins input to the tree

Thank you Charmaine, Susanna, Francois,and best of all BIG TY to dear
John Sparkman

Some fathers and sons have the same names for three or four generations, and in some cases the same for their wives too, so it is best to triple check these, and their progeny, rather than getting over excited, and pre accepting the merge.....just to grow your tree.
I do however feel that Geni should not be sending us possible links, when the progeny is not a match. Geni can already see that those computer generated names are not matching, so they should be rejected, by Geni as a possible match....

We all know the pain experienced to fix this....
I have another one now, so I'll reject, and see what happens next week....

Dries, Francois, and others I agree, place all the names in the 1st box, and maiden names of women visible.

There is question mark hanging over this issue and a curator debate currently raging over the future of the middle name field, the international curators seem to be lobbying for more fields and not less however.... I will keep you informed of what I can.

I think the irritatingly 'off' merge suggestions by the programme may be part of a decision by Geni to try to merge in everything that it can, as quickly as it can - relying on on the enormous population of Geni users (and the tiny :-) population of Curators) to filter out the large numbers of extraneous errors generated in the process. In the end this benefits us all - so it's worth it.

Mike Stangel has already told us that Geni may look at the South Africans' issue with the middle name field, but until that happens the huge number of Data Conflict Wo/man Hours created because some users choose to ignore the middle name fields and some users don't - is really not helping the SA users participate in helping streamline the world tree.

Follow Geni naming conventions for middle names - which are the SA naming conventions - and you save us all a lot of time in extra steps needed to resolve ordinary Data Conflicts created because some of our users 'duplicate' the middle name in the first name field.

In each case this happens, the person resolving the Data Conflict has to stop and open the profile to fix the duplicate middle name. That wastes far more than triple the time it should take to resolve conflicts that are actually not conflictual in any other way than the duplication of the middle name - time which could have been better spent on fixing real data conflicts.

Also, ignoring the Middle Name Field while Geni still uses it, invalidates the functionality offered to Genii users to 'turn off middle name' viewing.

Sharon Doubell, I don't think the average Geni user has a problem with using the middle name field. It is because Geni doesn't apply the middle name field correctly in their merge filters that they are reluctant to use it. Don't blame the user, blame Geni. By using the first name field for first, and middle names, does not imply duplication.

I think why Geni is slow to correct their errors, are because there are a magnitude of unpaid slaves (a.k.a. Curators) that are willing to do their dirty work (sorting out the mess caused by wrongful, not well thought-through, and poor planned software).

Just a simple example: Not providing for adopted children in a genealogical software program? Not planned for very well.

Don't get me wrong, Geni has some very good features, but I do suggest they start paying attention to the not so well executed features too.

Merging and middle names: I rest my case.

NOT the same middle names for the fathers. Both the father's middle names are in the so-called "correct" fields.
NOT the same mother.
NOT the same year of birth.
NOT the same siblings.

Dropbox-link to the compared profiles:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hsfq03tgz13ktr6/Screen%20Shot%202015-02-2...

Francois, Yes the TreeMatch algorithm is not perfect and Geni WILL be switching over to the better MyHeritage SmartMatch algorithm hopefully in the near future...So these issues WILL be improved.

What we have now is clever people who have in their wisdom devised a 'workaround' to reduce the number of TreeMatches they have to personally deal with, and the rest of us will for years to come have to deal with the resulting mess of data conflicts and names in wrong fields..

The current curator and management debate is that the middle name field is not going to go away, but software engineers will improve the merge process.

Follow Noah's Dictum:
You can't go wrong using Geni fields "as labeled."

Francois Cornelius Swart, i3j5 - you're right: it is irritating; but I don't think that the workaround of putting all the names in the first name field will automatically solve that, or in a way that doesn't cost us elsewhere - eg mismerges with people who actually have double barreled first names: Jean-Marc Francois duToit is not the same person as Jean Marc Francois duToit.

Reducing the complexity of the data storage capacity of the Geni programme - doesn't benefit us in the long run, in my opinion; but I will follow whatever convention Geni decides on – because idiosyncratic ways of adding data create Data Conflicts to resolve that would otherwise not occur – and that means more work than just rejecting merges.

Sharon Doubell, "idiosyncratic" refers to something peculiar to an individual. I don't think my way of thinking is pertaining to me alone.

Just read the following on the Dutch naming conventions for Geni: "Good genealogical principles require one single field for all first names ..."

They urge the Geni Dutch members to leave the middle name field blank for the cause of "Good genealogical principles".

Thus, is this idiosyncratic? Most certainly not.

Oops! Here is the link to the Dutch Naming Convention for Geni:

http://media.geni.com/p13/b3/b3/92/6e/534448394aafd7b2/geni_profile...