Unresponsive collaborators

While I agree with you in principal, it's probably also safe to assume that people's focus in relation to "wide range collaboration" are likely to shift, interst levels might dwindle fast when life happens in-between, etc. In such a context, I'd say that only 5 unanswered is still a fairly good outcome. Well, unless it was 5 unanswered of 5 possible of course :)

NB! Some of them here had already blocked you!

P.S. Some of the followers (~3) are kind of spies - they are followers for all projects in Geni.

Only 5? Not bad!

I’ve got 10.
That is if we count the abandoned profile “error error”
who’s alter ego most likely is that profile he’s following.
( That guy, on the other hand, is NOT in the “pool” )
( Come to think of it, why IS “error error” )

And then there were 9…
Some people have (lives?) things going on which keeps them from spending too much time gazing at the computerscreen. They’ve simply not been online since entering the “pool”. Umm let’s see, that’s four.

Then there’s this guy who’s BEEN online but not done much at all since being admitted. ( to the “pool”, that is!) He’ll come around, I think.
Then there’s this next fellow who I’m not sure of. Yet.

And then there were 3…
I browse through the “pool” every now and again to check for new members.
And when I have to press the “collaborate” button for the third time, it’s obvious they’re cancelling..
Now that is clearly NOT in the spirit or the intention of this Collaboration Pool.

Umm, Lauri ?
You don’t by any chance mean “supervisors” …?

I'm new here, so please know that I'm not trying to step on any toes - but may I offer the possibility that sometimes life just runs away with us? There've been two different periods in my life over the last decade when my life was interrupted to such an extent that all the activities I'd been participating in just had to be dropped. Once was due to illness and the other time was due to a family emergency.

Both times, I simply didn't have the ability to notify all of the people that I was involved with that things were going on. It did cause inconvenience to others, and when I was able to pick up the pieces again I offered my apologies. Most people were understanding.

So perhaps it's possible that sometimes those who appear to be unresponsive simply have more urgent matters happening - not evil intentions!

It's also about interpretation of the "rules". When I joined the pool, before the invention of projects, I sent requests to everyone and had an several interesting conversations with some of the pool-dwellers. Anyway, a handful of the people on the list/project do not necessarily interpret collaboration as mandatory, they are just indicating a willingness to eventually collaborate with you if they so choose and see fit. The "rules" have been modified since, but to exemplify, here's a PM-series from 2010 that nails it:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olav Linno Poëll, Today at 1:43 PM

I got your name as listed in a document in the Geni "Collaboration Pool", listing everyone who has signed up for the pool in question to do mergers etc on historical profiles. The list is located in this thread on page 72:

Collaboration Pool: http://www.geni.com/discussions/6000000008539319639

Your name is listed both in the plain text fields as well as in the Excel-files linked on that page. If you have not signed up for the Collaboration Pool, I suggest you remind them to remove you from it, if you have not done so already, in which case I apologise for bothering you :)

Regards, O

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collaboration Pool Memeber X, Today at 1:47 PM

I am indeed on the list. If there is something specific you wan to collaborate about, you are as I already said welcome to contact me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olav Linno Poëll, Today at 1:51 PM

Ok, I see. Well, you might consider removing yourself from the list since you are not in compliance with it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collaboration Pool Memeber X, Today at 1:54 PM

That is a matter of interpretation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olav Linno Poëll, Today at 1:57 PM

So it seems. Best of luck in your future endeavours.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collaboration Pool Memeber X, Today at 1:59 PM

The same to you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olav, I nearly crapped myself laughing!

Liivi, the number "10" was from the days when everyone in the "pool project" was added by themselves. There were about 100 people in there, so I'd say a ten percent loss is a fairly good outcome.

After you started adding people from the "pool discussion list" the numbers grew significantly.
For the same reasons listed above.
Some hasn't been online for quite a while.
Some won't collaborate unless you're closely related.
Hey, some people who signed up for the list has for various reasons left geni alltogether.

Liivi, from your list of 40, 22 are on my collaborator's list and one slipped under my radar so I've sent him a request.
Today I took the trouble of counting and ended up with 31.

Cheers

From your list nr 2, 3, 25 and 31-35 have not responded to the invitation, or has rejected. The rest are collaborating.
As far as I have understood the system, a network of cooperators really come to use when you and someone you are not colabrating with have common collaborators. Then they (the common ones) can resolve issues that otherwise are blocked. Am I right?

Not sure why I'm listed, unless it's another Kari Hayes - I check in at least once a month if not more often, as I get the chance. What's going unanswered? What am I missing?

Kari,
yes that is you listed (you can tell because it links to your own profile). The list that Liivi posted is people who have joined the Pool, but NOT responded to her request to Collaborate.

Why are people are STILL adding OTHER people (i.e. not themselves) to the project??

Shmuel - you CANNOT add yourself to this project - or any other project. Only an existing collaborator can add someone else to a project. This is a flaw in the integrity of this project that I have previously pointed out.

[Curators may be able to add themselves - I am not sure about that - but others cannot.]

Kari, you were in my list as the collaboration request that you accepted 2 hours ago was sent 2 weeks ago. I'm glad to see that some of us have lives outside Geni :-)

Shmuel, adding people to the project was my attempt to have an up-to-date list - so that people could remove themselves if they have changed their minds about being in the pool. I haven't fully gone through the list that Henn published last. I didn't add people who haven't been online for a long time. Having the list in the project makes it much easier to see who are you collaborating already as the green sign is shown.

Would it be reasonable to say that anybody who has not logged in for 2 months should be removed from the project?

David, yes someone needs to approve when you click 'join' but many have been added by me, or some other active user, from their profile using 'add to project'.

Liivi regarding your point addressed to me - yes I understand that. Also when I see and others see the update "Liivi added "Jane" to the project", it doesn't distinguish between whether Jane asked to be added to the project and Liivi acted on that request, or Liivi did it from her own inkling.

Liivi - I am not suggesting that you have done anything improper - far from it - but it is open to abuse that any existing project collaborator can add some other random stranger without their knowledge. I would hope that we are all above that.

Regarding the value of the collaboration pool, I am finding those who do not collaborate to be much less of an obstacle than in the past. In the past, if you didn't collaborate or have a collaborator in common, a merge between public profiles could sit there forever and never get completed. Nowadays with curators and automated scripts, I can set up ("stack") a merge between two public profiles and there's a reasonably good chance that it will complete within 24 hours if the profiles are "obviously" the same - even without any collaboration.

Liivi asked "Would it be reasonable to say that anybody who has not logged in for 2 months should be removed from the project?"

I would say no. I regard having collaborators as a bonus that eases working on Geni, and if some proportion of the collaboration pool members go AWOL it doesn't concern me too much. That some people join the project (and the previous discussion) and then don't collaborate is not in my opinion worthy of wasting time and effort considering.

Concentrate on those that do collaborate, benefit from those relationships, and don't worry about the rest.

When "X added Y to the Collaboration Pool project."
is preceded by "Y is now following the Collaboration Pool project.",
then X joined and was approved by Y.
When it's simply "X added Y to the Collaboration Pool project."
then X didn't join themselves.

In Henn's last list there're 360 names. Perhaps about 200 are active. Being able to know which ones should you not worry about, would make it easier and quicker to go through the list, especially for people who are new to the Pool.

Liivi: your first five lines make sense - but not necessarily always the case. Also in lines 3 and 5 I think you mixed your X and Y.

Liivi - your second paragraph - there are all kinds of things that people do on Geni that if they did something different instead would be more helpful. I don't think that joining the collaboration pool and then not answering collaboration requests would make my top 10.

Dear Liivi, I am number 24 on your list and I am sorry that it took me 3 weeks to accept your request to collaborate, but I have now done so. I have not been active on Geni for some time now, but I will try to log in from time to time to accept requests, if nothing else. I have 383 collaborators, so I am not trying to be unresponsive in any way.
Best regards, Arthur.

Avoid collaboration with these:
Private User
Private User
Private User
Dangutė Rudėnienė
Private

They are kind of "super-blockers". When you will send them collaboration requests, then:
A) they will (usually) start to follow you
B) they will (mostly) block you

You are blocked by some user if at his/her profile page:
* button Follow resets automatically to default soon after pressing it (you can't follow) [test it also with reloading tab or window]
* you can't send him/her collaboration request (no such field)
* you can't send him/her family group request (no such field)
* if you try to send message to him/her it disappears (it is automatically deleted and also missing from sent items).

Lauri

+ more:
you are blocked by user if:
* you can't send him/her gifts (even for PRO)
* you can't write to his/her guestbook/wall (no such input field)

Livi, I'm #15 on your list. I've started denying collaboration pool requests since my family tree has gotten extremely messed up. I'm on here enough, and have seen quite a few "requested merges" that are full of errors. I'm also leery of anyone with very few profiles added.

If I see your name on any profiles I'm merging, I'll definitely add you as a collaborator.

I am number 39 on the list.

I accept all collaboration pool requests when I'm here, but I only login to GENI once a month or so, when I get an email that one of my family has an upcoming birthday or anniversary. I'm pretty much done adding ancestors that I've found.

My tree is a DISASTER thanks to early collaborators who merged faulty information that I could not undo. I gave up months ago. I hope somebody is working on fixing the trees of the early colonial families that have 80 year old women giving birth, and 20 different versions of the same 4 children.

Ok, I just noticed something that @David Prins posted:
"you CANNOT add yourself to this project - or any other project. Only an existing collaborator can add someone else to a project. This is a flaw in the integrity of this project that I have previously pointed out."

I have ignored several messages from total strangers who are not even related to me who are asking me to add them to the pool. I'm not going to DO that. I won't vouch for someone I don't know.

Not to worry, Sue, requests to join are sent to every collaborator of this project. If you ignore or decline then somebody else can accept.

Sue are you sure they are asking you to join the pool? When I request collaboration, I mention the collaboration pool in case they don't know about it.
Unless it is a relative, I only request collaboration when the person is a manager of a merge I am trying to do.

Kuvanimi profile was set up to make printable tree templates:

Grandparents
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true...
Aunt & Uncle
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true...
First cousins
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true...

When someone clicks on Join Project every collaborator (currently 322) gets an email unless they have changed their notification settings at http://www.geni.com/account_settings/notifications. It disappears from Geni inbox after someone accepts.

Liivi Murumets -- Those templates could be really helpful. Nice work!