Hijacking and Sabotage

Here is another example how he takes management.

This profile Niels Rudolph Juel has now two wife’s , one is the Original added by Johan Reventlow now managed by Karin Anita Murphy, second wife is added by Private, and if you look at this profiles revision you will see this profile has not been merged into this place but been added as wife ( why add same wife again?).

He have then made a conflict of somehow to get management over Niels Rudolph Juel, and if you look at revision you will see he have moved this profile’s daughter Mathielde Louise Elisabeth Juel before he merged Niels Rudolph Juel and thereby take over the management.

I have no problem to Collaborate with people, but I do have problem with people that do not respect other peoples work

Glenn Ivar Østen, Bjørn Brox and Cecile Nygård are part of the Norwegian Mafia on Geni which have taken over a large number of Danish profiles created Johan Martin Reventlow , who for reasons unknown to me (but one can guess) has left Geni after creating a large number of Danish historical profiles. The members of Norwegian Mafia are very possessive with respect to these profiles although they have no close family links and have not spent any time themselves creating these profiles.
Although they seem to spend all their time on Geni given the large number of files they manage they do not have the time to maintain each profiles which is clear when one considers the number of files they control . Bjørn Brox manages 265,204 profiles, Cecilie Nygård (Eliasson) 61,269 profiles, and Glenn Ivar Østen probably something similar. As a consequence the Johan Martin Reventlow profiles often are in mess due to indiscriminate mergers by the Norwegian Mafia itself and by people with whom they collaborate. I have spent more time than I like to think about to clean up the mess. This has provoked the anger of Bjørn Brox and of other members of the Norwegian Mafia, as it is seems the see my effort to clean up the mess for which they are responsible for as a challenge to their control over the Danish branch of the Geni Big tree.

After an anonymous slander campaign by Bjørn Brox a couple of month ago accusing me of sabotage due to what in fact a disagreement on name conventions and merger policy, the Members of the Norwegian Mafia discontinued collaboration with me. This means that I cannot add links or add information to the profiles they have taken over from Johan Martin Reventlow although a lot of these are in my and my wife’s blood line.

Take the example of Mogens Christian Skeel. He is the brother to Jytte Schmidth (Skeel). My wife has a long time ago put on Geni a profile for Jytte Schmidth (Skeel) and for her husband Aage Schmidth based on family records with information provided in “about me”. Aage Schmidth is my wife’s first cousin four times removed, thus a close blood relative. Cecile Nygård has taken over a profile for Jytte Schmidth (Skeel) from Johan Martin Reventlow. This profile, as in general the profiles from Johan Martin Reventlow on Geni, only contains information about date of birth and death. Since Cecile Nygård bloked collaboration and do not respond when I try to contact her I was not able to merge this profile with the one made by my wife, neither were I able to add additional information, photos and links available from Finn Holbeks excellent and comprehensive database. In contract Cecile Nygård could and still can propose a merger between the the two profiles of Jytte Schmidth (Skeel) and the other profiles of which there excites duplicated. I would readily have approved such a merger. Compared to the original profiles from Johan Martin Reventlow this would have adde photos, supplementary information and in addition to link to several profiles which have not previously been on Geni. What is the problem with that? It seems the problem is that this means that the Norwegian Mafia would not any longer be the sole administrator of the profiles taken over from Johan Martin Reventlow.
However instead of proposing a merger Bjørn Brox has since misused his privileges as curator plaster MP all over the place and to overwrite the information I have introduced, and as in the case of the Munk family tree created a mess. This is deeply unprofessional. This is behaviour you expect on a social computer game not on a programme to provide family information.

In contrast to the members of the Norwegian mafia at Geni, I see no merit increasing the number of profiles I manage. I create profiles in the process of cleaning up the mess left behind by inappropriate and incomplete mergers. This sometimes makes it necessary to bypass profiles which are blocked in the one way or other, as in this case of the profiles managed by Cecile Nygård, or because the users who have created the profile are not any longer active on Geni or have left behind only incomplete and often erroneous information. When a proposed merger provides new links I always approve such mergers, but profiles with no new information obviously created only to become manager of profiles for well known people, a strategy widely used by members of the Norwegian mafia, and which they now accuse me I of using, I do not approve as they potentially create a mess which it subsequently is time consuming to clear up for serious users.

I have an excellent collaboration with almost 200 mainly Danish Geni users, but also a few of Norwegian and other nationality. One such collaborator is Karin Anita Murphy. The profile for Niels Rudolph Iuel's wife which I added in the process of cleaning up this part of the tree is merged with a profile originally created by Johan Martin Reventlow and now managed by Karin Anita Murphy. I have on this and on several other occasions merged profiles managed by her to improve the information on Geni. Niels Rudolph Iuel thus in contrast to what is claimed by Glenn Ivar Østen has only one wife on Geni. His profile and surrounding profiles for which I am not administrator has additional information which I have added from Finn Holbek.

As it has transpires from the above, Glenn Ivar Østen’s comments are both slanderous and confused.
They are slanderous because , as anybody who has followed my activities at Geni in detail can testify, I am not motivated by maximising the number of profiles I manage at Geni or want to "hijac" (whatever that means) other peoples profiles. I have spent a lot of time on Geni to contribute to make it a reliable source of information about Danish family connections. I consider this an important cultural endeavour which if successful will contribute to improve social cohesion among Danes and establish contacts to our Norwegian friends who share much of the Danish ancestry with us. I have in fact added information from Finn Holbek to a large number of profiles without adding my name as administrator which I could easily have done by adding duplicate profiles if I had been interested in increasing the number of profiles I manage.

I certainly do not sabotage anything. As an ordinary Geni user I have as any Geni user know little scope for doing so even if I wanted to. However, family trees are routinely sabotaged by the type of indiscriminate mergers advocated by y by Bjørn Brox, who works for Geni Inc. (unpaid he claims). This strategy may increase Geni Inc.’s profit by increasing the number of links seen by new potentially fee paying users, but have been disastrous for many inexperienced Geni uses who in good faith have spent many hours in putting their family information on Geni and naively agree to collaborate with people like Bjørn Brox with the result that they have lost all their work. I definitely do not engage in indiscriminate mergers. I have in fact by Bjørn Brox and other members of the Norwegian Mafia been accused for the opposite. I only implement mergers which add new links or substantial new information.

However, in contrast the Norwegian Mafia in the form of curators has the means to sabotage the works of Danes who challenge their control over the large number of profiles they have taken over from Johan Martin Reventlow, but which they make no effort enhance with supplementary information but often leave in a sorry mess of incomplete and erroneous mergers. The leader of the mafia, Bjørn Brox is a curator special privileges at Geni and he as computer expert misuses these privileges to maintain the Mafia’s control over Danish profiles at Geni. He has recently created chaos in the 19 generation Munk family tree which I had spent several days to clean up by disrupting links and overwriting and deleted information, which I from Finn Holbek’s database laboriously have put on profiles not only administered by me and but also by other users.

Furthermore Glenn Ivar Østen's comments are totally confused (which does not surprise me after unsuccessfully having spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to explain to him the reasons for the name convention for Danish women I follow). The example clearly reveals that the way I operate is not a problem for those who collaborate with me, but it may be for those like himself, Bjørn Brox and Cecilie Nygård (Eliasson) who have discontinued collaboration with me and want to in full control 100.000 of Danish profiles they for obvious reason have neither the insight nor the time to maintain and improve. As the example chosen by Glenn Ivar Østen clearly illustrates, they prevent users they dislike from adding documentation and new links to profiles they have taken over from Johan Martin Reventlow. This type of intimidation is totally unacceptable. They try to make us follow rules which may be in the interest of Geni Inc, and may be for users who consider Geni a social computer game where the objective is to maximise the number of profiles managed. However, the way the run Geni is not in the interest those of us who want Geni to be a instrument to link and improve information mainly on Danish families. We need to find a way to stop this type of intimidation before more and more Danes get disillusioned and leave Geni in disgust.

I know from reliable sources that the slanderous and confused comments by Glenn Ivar Østen is part of a concerted effort to reassert the control over the Danish part of the Geni tree challenged by more and more Danish users introducing their family information in profiles administered by themselves which may contain copies of profiles which the Mafia have taken over from Johan Martin Reventlow. However, their effort is likely to turn out to be counter-productive. I have already received many indications from Danish users who want to curtail the dominance of the Norwegian Mafia by the appointment of Danish curators.
Anyone who wants to support an effort on have Geni Inc. appoint Danish curators who has the confidence of their fellow user are welcome to contact me on my e-mail address knud.munk@uclouvain.be. I will if indicated make an effort to find a person who can take the lead in such an effort without provoking an escalation of the unproductive conflict with our Norwegian friends.

Knud Jørgen Munk

Let me say in this connection that whenever Cecile Nygård and Brox come into my tree, it has revealed double profiles and misinformations. I have not yet seen any reason for Cecile Nygårds creating new profiles for existing profiles or Broxs indbanden and marking himself, when the tree has been pretty okay before these persons indbanding. I have never chosen any of them as cooperators.
A M Kjær

First of all Knud, I DO NOT belong to any mafia group as you call it and so far I know, such don’t exist.

And I did NOT take over profile from Johan Reventlow. Facts are that my profiles from MY tree were merged with his and that’s why I’m Manager on many of “his”.

Just because I’m Norwegian born, doesn’t mean I don’t have Danish roots.

I have added manually about 7500 profiles to this tree and are today manager of 6800 profiles, so don’t accuse me for take over others.

I’m not confused but stick to the facts that you do try to take over management over profiles and disconnect profiles.

As for Niels Rudolph Iuel it is not claimed by me but ADDED by me, and I can easy see that you have added a second Niels Rudolph Iuel at that part of tree and then have merged this into my profile so you could take over the management.

I was and are not confused about your name rules, and I told you I was not against what you did with your own profiles. But I’m against that you change other people’s profile that you are not manager for. At least you could have asked profiles owner before you remove all Marriages wife’s Last Name.

All Country’s has their own name rules, but in genealogy most people do add maiden/born name as last name and some cases marriage name but you are the only one I know that empty the Last Name on those.

I did ask you to post about this name rules in public discussion, so people can come to an agreement what is correct to do, but you did totally ignore that. And where does that make me confused?

Your reply here do tell me it is more that you are confused, and stick to your own rules no matter what other try to say to you.

I suggest that everyone involved try to solve this disagreement without resorting to name-calling and abuse.

I'm sure this can be sorted out if people communicate their intentions a bit more clearly when doing large merger operations.

The new projects feature in Geni should be a good forum to discuss naming conventions and disputed links between different profiles.

The Big Tree will never be completely consistent in terms of naming conventions so I suggest people be willing to kill some of their darlings from time to time.

Bottom line is we all want the information in the tree to be as correct and close to the truth as possible.

We don't want flame wars, or situations where people pull out of the tree leaving huge "dead branches". There isn't really any point in controlling as many profiles as possible in the Big Tree. The point is to find good ways of collaborating. If you want to merge with other people's trees you won't be able to stay in sole control anyway.

I know some people administrate far more profiles than they can maintain on their own, but they are rarely the only people with access to these profiles, and in some instances there are good reasons for why they control that many. It is certainly not a phenomenon restricted to the administrators mentioned here anyway.

I am not aware of any Norwegian Mafia, and I'm not interested in joining one (if it really exists). Norwegians and Danes share a common ancestry in most cases, and it would be stupid to argue over control of this shared heritage.

So, please try to come to an agreement. Create a project (or several) that relates to the profiles concerned, and present your sources there so mergers can be done with the best possible documentation available.

That's just my two cents.

Note - there are 50 curators and almost 50 million profiles in the Big Tree. My experience (even as a curator) is that curators (who are volunteers) do not have the time or the inclination to "take over" anything.

When an user leaves Geni, and his profiles are not removed, *someone* has to take over management - since the first one to see the abandoned profiles is often a curator, this responsibility often falls on a curator; the inclination of the curator (at least mine!) will then be to merge with some active tree, rather than to leave them unattended.

In my experience, all curators respect sources and facts - we all work towards getting a single, correct tree on Geni. And that is what I believe the vast majority of Geni users want too.

Let's try to discuss the matters that we don't agree on (like the name convention), and not act in anger.

(One parenthesis: When you merge two profiles, and one of them has an empty field, Geni will fill in this field without flagging it as a conflict. This means that leaving fields empty is often suboptimal - and leaving the last name field empty will almost always lead to "the other name" being entered when you merge with another profile. This may prove to be less than useful.)

Knud, you need help, but not the type you get here in Geni.

First, let me remind you all about the Geni terms you find a link to at the bottom of every page.

Secondly I would remind you that public discussions is indexed by search engines like Google, so in you case I hope someone important to you and your work don't Google your name.

Third I will also remind you that everything in Geni is logged now, including cutting connections, and everyone can see who have done that if you click the revision icon in the tree view. Removal of correct hot-matches is also visible with name of who did it with a timestamp.

I invited you to join a project on cleaning up the danish royal lines since there are so many common kings with the Norwegian and I also suggested to start projects on Danish noble lines to clean these up and make project for famous Danes. People who have read your answer are shocked.

I mark profiles as Master Profiles when they reach a certain standard and checked against for example the finnholbæk site, but lately I have received a lot of request from people to mark their Danish ancestors as Master Profiles to give them some protection, but unfortunately avoid locking them.

You should ask yourself why people are removing their collaboration with you.

Private User@bj
I noticed above that you mentioned that removal of correct hot matches is indexed. As you remember a while back I was plagued with those dreaded "crossed out me's" and both I and other people removed matches that were managed by the "crossed out me" . Can you tell me if there is a list or link that I can access that will allow me to to reverse the removed matches so some of my lower relatives can be put back on the hot matches. As it is, every now and then someone finds one and the one merge migrates down to the lower levals. Many people broke the connections (that's ok with m) I'm mostly concerned with me fist 6 to 8 grand parents and their descendants.

If a Tech is reading this how about a spell check for this and emails.

Please make note that Bjorn and the other Curators do a great job, and deserve praise. Bjorn manages 265,000 profiles and I'm sure he's made a mistake or two. I know I have. The only way not to make a mistake is to never do anything!

Unfortunately there are no yet central register on removed hot-matches and which profiles you should inspect closer. In the case mentioned by Glenn above following someones merge and add activity is a good place to search for removed profiles. Manually adding /search/matches/ in front of profile indexes is a way to find them, but an ordinary name search when you suspect something is removed is also working fine.

In your case I pick up fragments of your alter ego profiles every day, specially in the royal lines where a major cleanup is going on at the moment. I do however Geni can gives us a list of disconnected profiles because a lot of your profiles I find is totally without any connections.

About spell-check of messages and other input-fields in Geni, - that is an option you add to your browser, but I doubt you get it if using Internet Explorer. It works fine in both FireFox and Chrome.

Bjorn...just a public thanks for your clear, consicise and often well-thought out answers to our questions.

And, yes...IE has NO spell check within sites like Geni. For a good speller buy lousy typer like myself, this is NOT a good thing!

I am Norwegian and manage probably several hundred Danish profiles. Most of the profiles I have taken over after I've seen them be left without an administrator for several months. On the same basis I manage many profiles Swedish, Dutch, British, American, German, Icelandic, Irish, etc. Without exception, I have entrusted these profiles to relatives of the profiles when such arises by merging the profiles.

Like most Norwegian, I have lots of relatives in Denmark, Sweden and the United States, both contemporary and ancient. I know that it's a little sore that Norwegians are stigmatized as "mafia" and in particular those named here. These appear to be skilled facilitators who help people the world over. I would have left geni.com long if it were not for the help and support I have received from them a long time.

The following advice they have given me: Get the knowledge, disseminate it and use it in conjunction with our other users of geni.com.

I have focused on the goal of building a large family tree for all people. My task is to ensure that my entire family is in that tree and I would like to achieve without anyone suspecting me of having other purposes. To succeed, I need others' help and I will gladly help anyone else who needs it.

Translation done with some help from google.

Anita M. Boynton@anita
I just downloaded IE spell check at http://www.iespell.com/download.php
Free and seems to work OK with win 7

Add profiles and Pick up profiles is 2 different things! If you add profiles you make a profile. And if you merge and see profiles connected to the tree without manager than you have not added a profile. You have given the profile(s) a manager to get them merged.
You also can as I have by Reventlow's profiles been given those eather by the old manager or GENI (the management is transferd because you was the closest related at GENI at that time or you had many connections to that tree by merges or you was the only collaborator). I was the only collaborator, had done many merges between my own and Glenn and Reventlow and have many related familylines to Reventlow in the Danish nobel families. And also collaborates to many and share my profiles. So eather Geni or Reventlow gave me the management of the profiles about a year or a year and a half ago.

How many relatives you will say you have you choose by going to preferences at treview or at settings. Than you choose numbers of generataions and the number of relatives and anchestors will changes from person to person even if they are siblings!

All my collaborators can work at my tree if they do not disconnect profiles that are correct connected. And if we disconnect profiles we should move it to the right possision or give the manager a message. Disconnections together with removed match is in fact worse than deleting a profile. Because we do not get any messages when that happen, and they are hard to find and link to correct possision. Aspesially when they are disconnected all relatives, and names are deleted!
This has happen a hughes amonth of times last half year and the two last months I only have got time to correct that. That is a delay of hours I could have used to add pictures and informations to my/our profiles instead or done merges to make the tree cleand up!

ANY WAY when you accept an invitation you also should be working at profiles to make the Big tree be cleaned up for duplicates and fill in informations! And activity lists and Revisions list show whom and who is working or have been working at a profile. You could have your initiales behinde your informations in about it. Links shown is connected to your profile. And you could ask for management, but do not expect to get main at other profiles than your direct closest family, because the main manager also has relationship to the profiles! Than it should not be needed to add a new duplicate profiles. And that is to make a tree together with nice collaborating!

People that use dirty tricks like disconnecting, remove match, deleting names in order to take over managements or delete profiles again and again I would not cooperate too when they continue after a warning!

Who would?

By the way, managing 65000 profiles does not mean that I am the administrator. Most of the profiles are merged together to other profiles and have got other administrators. But in the Danish Norwegian nobilities I have many not only because of Reventlow's profiles, but because most of my anchestors is born as members of the old danish/german lnobilities, clericals, military officers, and merchants.
So genetic I am more than 50% danish, less than 25% norwegian (most of theese are connected to the Norwegian old nobilities (uradel) with their foreign heritage and connections, and the rest is shared by Swedish and Scottish!

Born in a country do not means that you have most heritage there!

You describe here your personal tree and your work Cecilie, so this make me inform that sometimes I see profiles in your tree placed by you alone with no other names other than your own, which among others, leading to the profiles you here describes. Profiles without any data whatsoever, such as birth, death, location, links or information whatsoever. Maybe it was a good idea to get them in order first of all with more information than only some names? In case of profiles can be mistakes, it can bring misleading informations to so many people.I can add a couple of profiles as an example.
Ingeborg Tollefsdatter Helgeland
http://www.geni.com/people/Bj%C3%B8rn-2-Helgeland/60000000004143475...
Jon Sigvesson Helgeland
Anne Christensdatter d.y. Helgeland
There is more to see but please have a look at it yourself. I have contacted you about this but here in this thread you decribe your work, so I find it all right to give answer and information here, to what you are telling here in this thread. So again please, to everyone, bring more than only some names in your ancestors profiles.
A M Kjaer.

Why there are no birth and so one I tell in about it at my profile, But I can make a list you can see. The profiles you shows to here I have never found a birth to in any source. Sources is severale books of genealogy form this aera and well known families. But where there is a date to show to. But I do not see the meaning of adding a birth year that we do know probably is not correct. These are people living so early that there is no churchbooks. We was at least 50 persons twisting our profies together in different ways and how many we are now I do not know. And we did/does not add profiles witch our collaborators already has added. Thats why many of my profiles stands alone. I do not request for managements to their and they do not ask for managements to mine. And we import sources to those when we have time. They are profiles imported from my home program. I was comming so fare with my merges that I was going to go though my profiles and import pictures and such tings when I found their connections to Denmark and Sweden broken and it is 2 persons work! So I have lost nearly a half year at that. And it is not only me that should work at the profiles. When people do not follow up with merge issues when they ask to collaborate or has accepted to collaborate it is also their issue to get that finished. And I still means that more informations to these profiles are not as importent than get reed of al duplicates at the big tree. And than I have to choose be helping others to solve the messes with more than 100 merge requests every day from people that needed help or being selfish and work at my own profiles. I preferd the to help others first. Well knowing that while I does that I loose a lot of main managements to my added profiles and given/picked up profiles.

If people did not deleted or disconnected profiles and deleted already exsisting informations to those profiles I or others was manager of and let me work at profiles I manage (that is not a problem anymore) it had been no problem! If the other manager has more informations at his profile or more comanagers at his profiles he would get main. The fact is that theese people use
the dirthy tric to take over management be disconnecting informations and connections and since they want collaborate to me or as they says to me to my collaborators they disconnect my profiles connected to those they has got main to! That is the fact! And that is also why I would not collaborate to those. They have done so much trouble with the big tree of the Danish lines you have no know how at all!

But if it is so any one do not like to share managements of profiles they should not be at the big tree, but have a tree of their own with no collaborators.

but you must have found the names somewhere?

Problems arise when many people become attached to maybe wrong or even maybe never existing peoples profiles. I'm not saying, this is the case here but on the other hand, there is nothing that tells me the opposite.
I think it is a good idea to take the time to be in control of your own tree before you throw yourself into having to manage thousands of others. The few profiles mentioned acts as related to me but this I can only be questioning so far, and in this way, no one can trust related lists.
A M Kjaer

A M Kjær, she does say where she found her names at line 2 and 3 in her post, and she also do explain why they don't have dates.

But this thread is not about that, and if you have a issue with that people add profile without any date or source, you should create your own Public discussion.

Glen Østen, do you see this as documentation: "Source are several books of genealogy form this aera and well Known family"?
Seach on the names only leads to Geni here.
I find that my posts match to your thread subject. Profiles without any data at all, or some kind of add source, can be seen as "Hijacking and Sabotage", I am sorry to say,
I have allready explained, why I find it important, first of all, to use time to add sources to the prifiles you create, and I can`t see why it should be any problem. It does not take long, at the moment you are creating the profile.
I hope soon to se some informations add to the few profiles i showed here. That "it comes from books about well known families", I can`t use for anything. At least they are not so well known that they can be found on the internet. On google there is only those profiles from Geni showen here.

No it does not.
This thread is about user that do Hijacking and Sabotage with purpose to damage other users already added profiles, like disconnecting profiles.
That other user adds a Profile without a date is far from any hijacking and sabotage.
It happens that I add profile without date, because Parish Registers do not tell so.
But it defiantly confirm that they are parents.
I just think you should start your own Public Discussion where people can discuss this matter.