I have cut my usage of Geni drastically due to the incessant drama, blatant naming convention battles (people adding dates and titles in the naming fields, folks changing last names to Married names without documents of a surname change, people constantly changing Master Profiles without consulting the curator first) and negative energy by users with name-calling, people who delete my stuff, rude emails, etc.
I have edited my privacy, and management setting until I am blue in the face... it seems to do no good...
Geni can not, or will not fix this problem...
The dreaded "A Profile you manage has been deleted" e-mail.... I don't care if I can UNdelete profiles... I shouldn't have to, arbitrarily deleting profiles that you DON'T manage is VANDALISM (whether intentional or not). I have had nearly 200 profiles deleted from my tree by OTHER people in the last 2 years... including MY SON... deleted by someone from India that I never knew, or is even remotely related to me...
This past April, one Cousin deleted 37 names from my work (that I have been working on for 39 years... (yes, since I was EIGHT years old)), all because in his words, I was "doing harm to his family by displaying maiden names of DEAD PEOPLE... and then he blocked me to prevent rational discussion about why he did this...
2 weeks ago, I woke up to find 5 more of the "A Profile you manage has been deleted" e-mails in my inbox.
Additionally, I seem to have bee added to the giant family tree involuntarily... now I see that I have over 1 MILLION relatives on Geni...
I can't possibly imagine this to be true... If I can't trace a blood relation to someone (or a spouse to a blood relative) I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THEM... I don't want to see in-laws of in-laws in-laws 4th cousin's in-laws, sister's cousin's father in-law... ESPECIALLY IF I CAN'T trace an actual bloodline (not marriage only) to them... It's entirely too much data to care about... I already have nearly 9000 names of blood relatives and immediate spouses (and I don't even record spouses parents) in my tree... (unless they can be traced to my son (i.e.-my wife's parents...))
I cannot leave my data on Geni, as I fear it will be altered incorrectly and further vandalized. I will be maintaining my tree on other sites, most notably JewishGen, and Ancestry.com. At least on those sites no-one can change your data without you doing it yourself. I will be happy to fix any innacuracies that are found on those sites. If Geni ever fixes this problem, I may very well return with a fresh upload of my GEDCOM...
meanwhile, I have offered management of my data to another cousin who I KNOW will keep it accurate... if he accepts, then my work here is done... if not, I will begin self deleting on September 1st. I will NOT offer the management to anyone else... sorry It has to be this way...
David Rosner
replies to here (public) or to "DavidRosner@aol.com" (private)
Dear David,
Just recently I have come in contact with you in relation to common relatives.
I am sorry about your decision.
Not all Jews are "smart" nor decent people, and therefore situations of the kind you describe can and will occurr.
I had my share of profile delitions, many times with a reason, and most times by someone closer to the person than I was.
I suck it up for the benefit of the "klal" (public). I have seen some other sites where nobody can interfere with your work, but at the same time they have little incentive to add, edit and build the larger tree.
You want a tree in which you can trace all the people via blood lines, I want a tree that accurately reflects marriages, births, deaths, divorces, etc.
I believe that if we had the capability and information, we could trace all our lineages to a small group of ancestors, or for those who literally believe in the Bible/Torah, to Adam and Eve.
Therefore I believe in the concept of the BIG TREE, with all the negatives that can come along, as you mentioned.
Life is based on trade-offs, and each of us judges with different yardsticks.
Bottom line, I and many others will miss you and your contributions.
I hope you continue with your hard genealogical work wherever you choose, and let us "pick" into your tree elsewhere so we could benefit from your work. Likewise you are always welcome to study what we do and barrow anything that could help you.
Good luck,
Daniel Levy