Public profiles are now editable by all Pro users.

Randy, thank you for drawing attention to that. I have seen many positive changes in Geni in the last year or so, and I trust this is another positive change.

While it's clear from the blog post that Pro members can now edit all public profiles, it isn't clear whether they can merge them too. Can you clarify that?

While data changes on profiles can be undone, it's not so easy to back out bad merges. Essentially you can't. If two profiles have been merged that shouldn't have been, the only remedy involves creating a new profile from scratch to replace the second profile that should not have been merged with the first. Do the curators or Geni staff know of any plans to be able to reverse bad merges more easily? That would be a major improvement.

I also note that Edit Profile on a public profile now takes a non-Pro to "request Pro" rather than to request to collaborate with the profile owner. For a Pro, presumably it just takes you directly to edit.

I am wondering if this may encourage people just to go ahead and edit rather than to collaborate with and liaise with another profile manager. If it decreases real worthwhile communication between users, that is not a good thing. New users often find out about collaboration through clicking on Edit on a public profile. This may decrease collaboration requests. I am wondering what can be done to increase collaboration of this sort, rather than maybe discourage it.

Thanks again for pointing out this new and exciting development.

they cannot merge them yet. that will be a later release after merge undo comes out

Thanks Jason. Appreciated. That makes a LOT of sense!

[There was a sentence in the blog post that maybe wasn't clear. It read: "Pro users will not be able to make changes to the tree or relationship information for profiles, merge a profile, or edit profiles that have been locked by a Curator."

It wasn't clear to me whether "profiles that have been locked by a Curator" was a qualifier on the whole sentence or just on "edit"]

Any timeframe for "merge undo"?

While I can understand the logic behind change, I certainly don't agree with it. Having conducted detailed research on my family in central Kentucky which hinges on the difference of 2 different LT Robert Moseleys, one settled in what became KY and one live/died in VA; all too often far distant relatives confuse the two and want to incorrectly merge the two families. Since these are BOTH Revolutionaly War soldiers & public profiles, I don't believe it should be allowed for people to go in and start changing relatives, dates, etc on any public profile that they really know nothing about, because they haven't taken time or duty to do the research; and merely collected unsourced data from various places via the internet.

Anthony I suggest you get in contact with a Curator to get them to create Master Profiles (MP) for the profiles you do not want touched. They can even lock those profiles

Anthony Dale Myers

Luckily we have solutions to this all too common scenario, and that's the Master Profile program.

It is not possible to merge two Master Profiles with each other without a curator DE-mastering first - and that we don't do without as a minimum checking with each other; and of course following the documented profiles.

Simply post a request here:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/83475
for curators: my profile is good enough to be a Master Profile

With a link to the profiles in question, and we'll help out. We monitor the discussion daily.

Anthony Dale Myers I see that you took the proactive step of placing some text in the "about" me section of the profiles. You could also go in and change the font style of your note to include some bold print or increase the font size to make the 'do not merge' info even more prominent. Give this new system a chance but please feel free to ask any of the curators to put a lock on the profile if it ever becomes an issue again.

Randy

I would go further -- it is still a nightmare to me when I had to try and detangle the FIVE separate Park (Parke) (Parks) families.

Give me links Anthony I'll make them master profiles right now. :)

Just replying to "bump" this topic back to the front page so a second day of geni users will know about the changes.

If any PRO user can edit ANY public profile, the advantage of Collaborating is only for merging?
If the next step of merging public profiles will be released than what will be the advantage of collaborating?
I remember what happened when Geni changed "friends" to "followers" - we lost the option of allowing friend to view our private profiles.
I lost the ability to view my friend's tree and to keep that option I had to invite some of them to my family (we are not related)
When public profiles will become REALLY PUBLIC I believe that some users will upgrade to PRO (and I'm sure that is the main goal of Geni) but there will be some users (i.e. http://www.geni.com/discussions/96527) that will abandon Geni for other family tree software that allows more control on private / public data and profiles.

Yaacov asked: "If any PRO user can edit ANY public profile, the advantage of Collaborating is only for merging?"

I think the answer to that is mostly YES. But there is still an advantage to collaborating for a PRO if the PRO wants a non-PRO to be able to edit their profiles. The same goes for curators.

"If the next step of merging public profiles will be released than what will be the advantage of collaborating?" - I think the answer to that is the same.

Plus I think collaborators can see each other's activity, last login etc.

If we ever get to the point where any users (PRO or non-PRO) can edit and merge all public profiles, then most of the value of collaboration will have disappeared, and public profiles might as well then be managerless.

One of the issues here with managerless profiles would be who would be the point of contact for fielding questions on the profile?

Maybe I am taking too many steps forward at once, but this is where my logic takes me.

As always, I am interested in thoughts and views of others.

Replying one last time so that this info can be seen by a few more geni users that may not be aware of the changes...

bump...

Ah I see that a banner announcement about this is now being placed on users home pages. Nice:)

Great day in the morning! We have a link to the "blog" on our home page. Great work by Geni, thank you.

Thanks for linking to the blog!!!

I think this is a great step in the right direction. People who have paid to use the site obviously aren't the those who are going to damage or deface the site's profiles and data.

However, since this does seem to be the biggest concern (read the blog comments) then perhaps a short update about reversing such damage to the site, and what will be done to the user who does deface public profiles should be mentioned in the blog post, to ease those concerns.

Also, great news about the future, and merging public profiles. I work with so many abandoned trees that I currently have 1626 pending merges, and it's hard to know but I bet roughly half of them are with public profiles. Anyways, it will be nice to process those, and finish cleaning up their respective areas of the tree... (you know how you always seem to find one or two more merges that the match algorithm misses, but you can't easily see that they're there pre-merge....? That's what I mean...)

Couldn't be happier to see Geni surging forward, and making all the right decisions.

stephen if you link the merges on the public profiles to me i can complete them for you

I truly admire David Prins. He has such a wonderful way of disagreeing without being disagreeable. I am not so talented, so I simply will say THIS IS A HUGH MISTAKE.

That being said, I do have a question. Now, that the Edit Profile button links to a sign-up screen for Geni Pro, how does one request to collaborate?

An example click on my link to my profile
Angus Wood-Salomon
You will see on the right Send Message and Request to Collaborate.

A better way is to go to this project
http://www.geni.com/projects/Collaboration-Pool

In response to Angus' helpful comment:

1. Yes that is how you do it. And please include text in your message to explain your interest.

BUT we have lost the ability to send a simple message that is ready-made that said:

Form 1: "User x requested to collaborate with you on <clickable> Y's profile"

Now all you can send is:

Form 2: "User x requested to collaborate with you", and you may add some text below.

In my experience, Form 1 was more effective at getting a positive response than Form 2, and I think it is somewhat negative to have removed that option.

2. I commend the collaboration pool to our readers. But I also know that not everyone is comfortable with collaborating with large numbers of Geni users with whom they have zero connection. The collaboration pool has its place. In my opinion, it complements but does not replace the more focused approach. See point 1 above.

Joe wrote: "I truly admire David Prins. He has such a wonderful way of disagreeing without being disagreeable."

I take that as a lovely compliment! I am chairing and presenting at a conference today and may use that quote! Thank you!

Back on topic and to summarise what I think my current position is:

1. I was particularly concerned if all PRO could merge, given that there is no "undo merge" functionality. Curator Jason confirmed that those two do indeed go together. I am comforted by that.

2. I am not unhappy that all PRO can edit public profiles, given that:

(a) Edits can be undone very easily.

(b) If there are problems with edits, and people are often making editing mistakes on particular profiles, curators can lock the profile or field(s) concerned.

3. I am concerned that users may be less encouraged now and in the future to contact other Geni users and collaborate with them. I think there are ways that Geni could still encourage more collaboration.

David wrote:

====
3. I am concerned that users may be less encouraged now and in the future to contact other Geni users and collaborate with them. I think there are ways that Geni could still encourage more collaboration.
====

Are Projects that mechanism? There are for me. I work best in a more focused environment of a Project.

Yes Projects are an excellent mechanism. Also commended to our readers. Also complementary to (and not a replacement for) other mechanisms.

I am now in the middle of going through an "privatizing" as many profiles as I can. I made them public so that people could have the info, not so they could change the info.

Geni is now the Facebook of genealogy: continually removing privacy and control that a significant chunk of it's customer base wants.

I'm seriously giving consideration to dropping off Geni entirely.

philip you can revert all changes that are made to your profiles and you can ask a curator to make your public profiles into master profiles so the data cant be changed. i think you need to just give the new change a chance before over reacting

Philip, what you have to remember is that people aren't on Geni to start fights. It's like Wikipedia, right? How can a source that everyone can edit be so reliable? Because they have layers of checks and balances. In this case, when someone modifies one of your profiles, you get an email, and with one click, you can revert those changes if you want, BUT they didn't make them nonchalantly, they probably have reason to make those changes! And if they've added sources, they are helping to improve your data.

That is of course, assuming anyone is closely related enough to you to care about your ancestors. 99.999 % of us will never look at your part of the tree. Those who do, are likely doing to because they are related to you. You have a shared interest in data quality.

Just like Wikipedia, people will surprise you.

Private User

Do you have an example of an edit made to a recent profile that has had the profile vandalized with bad info? (June 23 the day the policy was changed)

It must have been some malicious edits to make you want to take down all of the profiles. I'm sorry that someone messed with your tree. Or is it that your worried that someone might mess with it the future?

The flip side is that on the whole a collaborative environment might actually fix mistakes and be self correcting.

@PhilipAndrewWeiss
For what it's worth, I tried several of the online family tree sites before choosing Geni precisely for its collaborative focus. The whole point of Geni is that we're all working together towards a common goal. I love that! We share our research, our struggles, our successes, and the One Big Tree. All of those things are attractive to me, as things are much more fun for me when I do them with others. I even enjoy disagreements, as long as they're civil. I love to learn from others and do my part in helping, too.

I know that approach doesn't work for everyone, though! As you note, a significant portion of the world's population doesn't care for such a free-wheeling approach, one which necessitates a relinquishment of control and a certain faith in humankind. If it makes you anxious, nervous, or upset in any way to share your work in a collaborative environment, then probably the best thing to do would be to check out some of those sites that aren't focused on everyone working together. You'll be more satisfied in the long run - and why do any of this at all if it feels horrible to you?

Having said that, however, I really wish you could find a way to stay on Geni and leave your files open to the public! After all, as far as I'm concerned, you're a potential playmate and I hate to lose a single one! Truly, I do believe that, in the end, there is great value in just taking the leap of faith that Geni requires. As Stephen Thomas Rice said, people have an enormous capacity to surprise... what if you missed that? C'mon, guy - stick around, won't you? I'll let you see my profiles if you'll let me see yours... /grin