Curators merging is insane

Please tell us what the errors are first, with references to documentation.

It's no use. I don't like the system with curators. I want to have full control myself. I find something wrong made by a curator, then I have to contact a curator to get it fixed. How do I know the same thing will not happen again? The answer is: I don't.

Roger - sorry I hate to say it any site that is online is going to present merge problems - once you start to colloborate again - you can not control - I imagine if you take a deep look into MyHeritage - it is just like Geni - to quote My Hertiage "it is a family-oriented social network service and genealogy website" - is this not what Geni is?

I hate to say it you going to run into the same problems unless you "exile" yourself from all others - and ABOSLUTELY DO NOT merge profiles on MyHeritage

I applaude the curators for there efforts on the clean-up of the tree here on Geni - - the nobilities lines have been a mess because every one has a different name for them - a different way to entering their data about them into the fields and alot of people have never tried to find the historically correct name - many just accpet what has been gedcomed into files - never bothering to cleam up after they do gedcom a file into theirs creating even more havoc

they put titles/rank into either the given name suname area with the remaining open space inputting the full name given/surname in which is open or spliting them into the open space and middle name - -

To me the area of the nobilities have looked much better the last few months - and they are trying to document as the go the reason for the changes - -

Up till now there has been no standardization for entering the nobility lines - now that it has happened some fell their toes are being trompted on - to me i welcome it as I have tried to clean up a gedcom mess relating to the nobility lines - - I have finally just cut it out of my PAF file and compelely done away with it except for a gerantion or to that so maybe one day if I wish I can reconstuct a nice clean accurate line into my PAF - THANK YOU curators for your hard work in this area -

From what I have heard, MyHeritage does not have this crazy curator system.

It sounds like your opinion is that it is the curators who have made those errors you are not willing to tell about and document.

Why are you blaming the curators, Roger? There has been merging in the noble lines almost as long as there has been Geni. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Geni users who are merging and collaborating, and there are only 50 curators most of whom are working in a specific area to *clean up* the false data and conflicting duplicates. I think your frustration is misdirected.

Geni is not a finished product; it is an ongoing process of knowledge-building. That means that there is always construction going on, and as long as new people are joining, there will always be new trees to be connected and merged in.

Curators work primarily on merging duplicates into, and creating/building, Master Profiles for people in the shared historical tree. Building a Master Profile means that facts and data need to be verified, relationships need to be verified, research needs to be done to create a narrative in the About Me section, and more. We are "in process" for most of these, since this is a very new enterprise.

What do you think is crazy about this system?

I got an answer from Geni staff that only curators could have done the merges, because I did not approved them.

It would greatly help us explain the situation if you could pinpoint particular profiles of yours that have been merged. I have never come across your name before, so I don't know what area of the tree your ancestors are in (in terms of the nobility to which you refer--which nobility? what country/region? what family lineage? what century?) If you will provide us with some specific profile links, we can connect you to the curator(s) who works in that area and look into your concerns.

By the way, here's an example of a merge done by a curator. You can read it in the revision tab: Unknown Profile

It even says it's not created by me anymore. But I'm 100% sure it was I who created that profile.

This system stinks.

Sorry Roger I like what your term "this crazy curator system" to me it has helped to put a handled on some very big problems that existed - - I lkike the idea of 'Master profiles"

Pam you are so right the merging is not done JUST BY the 50 curators - it is done by ALL THE GENI USERS - some who DO NOT READ CAREFULLY and COMPARE data - they just merge for the sake of merging I ran into this with my Smith-Hinkley line and I am still seeing it it in profiles that I am being asked to merge -

Roger you AGREED TO COLLOBARATE to MERGE profiles with others and each of us has the responsibility to read each merge requst carefully and to accept or not accept it and then in the end compare the data of the given profiles and choose the 'best of the conflicting data" it is also our responsibility to offer documentation for the data given and to question data given if it differ from ours - but the data we/I have obtained comes from varuious sources - people etc. over the years much has been handed down and not documented - have to

Roger you need to learn to give - take; offer documentation for what you think is right/wrong and be willing to compromise if you are proven wrong - - everything handed down - or thats is printed in sources is not all ways accurate and true!

Birth/death certifcates can even be wrong - data it is given by an informant and transcribed by another person - thus comparision of data and facts must be done and documentented along the way - -

Genealogy has to be documented to be worth anything - many people refuse to do this - they just give names, dates and places and you are to accept it as the "Gospel Truth" - thus this information keeps getting passed on as such till somone starts to question, document and then they are the so-called 'bad-guy'

Judi, have you not read my previous example?

Roger, interestingly, I curate the Master Profile for Godwin of Wessex, which your profile will be merged into (but hasn't been yet). Here it is.

Gōdwine Wulfnothsson, Earl of Wessex

Do you have an objection to your profile being merged into this one? You will retain co-managerial and editing rights as one of the many managers of this collaboratively-built profile, and this one has much more information than the one you originally had. So why would you not want to have an ancestral profile like this that has been collaboratively built and to which you can contribute?

The only master profiles that you need to contact a curator about (in order to add information) are those that are locked, which is a very small percentage of them (this one is not).

If after seeing this you still do not want to be a part of Geni, and you still think the system stinks, then you probably need to go elsewhere, yes, because this is what Geni is all about.

Roger, you created ONE of the two profiles of GODWIN, but you were not the FIRST one who created one of thems. When two profiles merge the "created by" will be whoever made the FIRST profile. You are still co-manager of the profile.

How come you have not merged it already? Do you always ask people before merging, or do only merge by recieving requests?

Thanks Lars. That is an explanation at least.

By the way, my previous question was to Pam.

I have not merged them because I am working on another area of the tree this week. If I am aware that a tree is disconnected I generally ask, but once someone is part of the "Big Tree" then we do not need to ask because once you are connected in one place, your public, historical tree needs to be fully integrated.

Is there any way to search and find "Master profiles"?

Here's another example why I don't like this curator system:

http://www.geni.com/family-tree#6000000000732548154

This tree shows a lot of lines and warning signs and it looks really ugly.

And here's is the revision history:
http://www.geni.com/people/M%C3%A4rta-Bosdotter-Natt-och-Dag/600000...

None of the curators ever asked me before merging.

Geni's project is ONE world tree. Their slogan is "Everyone's related." On the "About Us" page here: http://www.geni.com/company/about_us
it states:
How Does Geni Work?
Geni is the leading collaborative genealogy platform. Geni users from around the world work together to build a single, comprehensive family tree. Users can build a private tree of their close relatives to connect to the shared public tree.

Start by building your family tree through our fun, simple interface. It's fast and free. Invite your relatives to join Geni and add other relatives. This makes it easy to grow your tree.

As your tree grows, Geni automatically looks for matches in other family trees. You'll be notified of possible matches, growing your tree even faster. Eventually your tree will merge with the world family tree, which currently contains over 50 million profiles.

Everyone in the tree has a profile which shows more about them and enables other family members to stay in touch. Families can work together to build profiles for common ancestors.

Geni will not share your personal information with third parties. We will not sell your email address or spam you. Users control which communications they would like to receive from us.

I forgot to mention...the KEY phrase is:
Eventually your tree will merge with the world family tree, which currently contains over 50 million profiles.

Roger, as I explained, the whole system is new and under construction,. It IS going to look ugly and messy for a while, but you have a thousand people working on cleaning it up as fast as we can.

You are a PRO user, so you have access to lots of tools. You can either help solve the problem, or you can complain and do nothing to help make it happen. Or you can leave and go to any number of other genealogy sites, none of which will be as great as Geni's collaborative family tree once it is fully realized.

I'm sorry that no one asked you before merging, but it only took one merge and then your tree was no longer noted as not being part of the collaborative tree--and in those cases, there was no way for any of us to know.

We merge hundreds of thousands of profiles a week--and to do that we don't have the time to contact each individual manager for each individual profile to ask permission. We did that for two years, and that was the system that got us INTO this mess--and it is the new system, which includes curators working hand-in-hand with other mergers and collaborators, which has made tremendous progress in the past three months. It will take time, but if you leave and then check back in 6 months or a year (or maybe less--I'm being conservative), you will find an amazing edifice of a tree built of master profiles, in which there is only one well-constructed and well-researched profile of those medieval and ancient ancestors to which all of us descendants connect.

So, you still haven't answered my question--do you want Master Profiles like the one of Godwin of Wessex in your tree? If so, then (I ask with utmost respect) stop complaining and start merging. Work with us and not against us.

(I'm out for the rest of the evening... so will not be here to respond right away).

I posted this over in the "we haven't told anyone yet defunct Forum" but thought I'd re-post because there is more discussion here.

I don't question the holy grail mission of one tree. That's Geni's prerogative. What I amm questioningis the implementation. I'm not questioning the valiant efforts of the volunteer curators, I'm questioning the wisdom of having them at all.

Geni's publicity has been SILENT on the curator issue. Did they send out an email to paying customers telling them about this new "feature". No. Did the do a press release? No. Did they post it as an internal note to customers? No. Can one find out about curators in the FAQ? No. Oh yea, the DID post it to the blog. Score: 1 - Good job.

Collaboration is a great thing. Working on family trees together, even better.

Forcing collaboration and merges on your unknowing customer base, not so good. Forcing merges in the name of "cleaning up the world tree" a fruitless endeavor.

Clean trees make genealogy boring. I don't want to know the ending of the story before I read the first page.

Score: Geni 100 Customers 0

Pam, if you merge Godwin, will my text about him written in Swedish be overwritten with the English text from the Master profile?

Good point there, Beth. No infomation ever reached me neither what I recall.

Roger, no. Your Swedish will still be there (at least in the About me section).

The only things that can be overwritten is name, dates, cities, suffixes, death versus living, etc. All the form fields, basically...not the About me though.

I pointed out some hoax pictures and some questionable research by a genetic genealogist who also used DNA from a living person (which he attributes to Elvis Presley) to support her claim that she is Elvis' half-sister. Challenging that researcher's work got me removed from managing the profile of George 'Chief of All' Sizemore by its curator. (Note the media associated with he and his father, who lived before portrait photography was invented) I don't know how else to escalate the situation beyond the curator level so I am simply speaking out.