⭐NEW⭐ Updated Community Code of Conduct
We have recently updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please take a moment to review it. Our Code of Conduct is designed to promote a positive experience in our community and be sure it is a safe space for all.
I understand the frustration that happens within some of the FamilySearch products and processes. Please know that we value your feedback, even when it is negative but that doesn't justify poor behavior. Complaints can still be made in a kind way. We are striving for a positive atmosphere where everyone feels safe to share and learn together and we ask that you comply with our Code of Conduct.
Thanks to all of you for being here!
Samantha Sulser - FamilySearch Community Manager
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/community-code-of-conduct
Answers
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"Posts or discussions may be edited, closed, or removed without notification." What would be the harm in notifying the poster that his post was edited or removed? Seems to me that a notification and reason for the post removal would be helpful.
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@Chas Howell You are right that it would be helpful and in most cases we will notify members of changes. It helps members understand what was wrong so they don't keep doing the same thing. We are just stating that we might not do that. But most of the time we will. Sam 🙂
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@Sam Sulser , I have a question for you related to this policy. My wife has been a long time user of Family Search, entering in thousands of records and providing all the references. Due to health reasons her mobility is limited so spending dozens of hours each week doing research was normal.
She found over the years that mixed in with all the messages of praise and thank you she received from other users, there was one user that very often would send insulting messages and telling her to stay off of Family Search. If there was ever someone who qualified for violating the code of conduct it was this user. My spouse opened cases with support related to this individual's messages. Support said they wouldn't or couldn't block a user but that the person could be muted. So my wife did that.
Apparently this user knows a lot about Family Search and how muting works- the user's name and the subject line still shows in Messaging when muting is enabled, but only the body of the message is muted. So this user started sending my spouse nasty messages in the subject line and only a short "just stop it" or something to that effect in the body of the message. Thus effectively circumventing the muting feature.
Additionally this user was an expert at microaggressions. I've looked at the history of changes on many records and found this user was going back and deleting my spouse's entries of information about things like known residences with the reason being "duplicate or extraneous info". This user was virtually erasing all the work my wife did the day before.
My wife was terribly upset one day because again out of nowhere this user had sent her a nasty, insulting message. She asked me to contact Family Search and ask for help as she was so upset by the experience she didn't want to deal with any of it anymore. Particularly since Family Search had done nothing to stop it in the past when she asked for help.
I asked during a chat session with Family Search to please put me in contact with the legal department so we could discuss the situation. Maybe I should have asked for some other group, but in the company I work for it would be the legal department so that's what I asked for. The chat agent said I couldn't contact them but she could send a request to them and they would get back to me. That was over 2 months ago and I still have not heard from them.
Within days of my making this request, my wife's account was terminated and she received an email to that effect indicating she had used "inappropriate language" in communicating with others. I'm guessing it was because after that last nasty message from the other user she responded back and indicated in no uncertain terms to leave her alone.
In addition to canceling her account they sent a notification to her Bishop informing him as well that her account had been canceled.
I'm a software architect for a very large, global company so I know a bit about the business and in this case, had Family Search taken responsibility to actually block these nasty messages from this user, my spouse would not have had any need to say what she did. All she wanted was for the abuse to stop. Likewise if they had looked at this user's recent work and all the deletions she was making.
So my spouse lost access to all of Family Search without any warning after repeatedly asking for Family Search's assistance and not getting it. Correspondingly she has lost the ability to submit names to the Temple for work to be done there.
With all that back story, my question is: How does this new Code of Conduct and processes around it, protect those who have been abused by violators of the Code of Conduct to ensure the abused aren't being further abused by Family Search itself? That is effectively what has happened here.
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@Eastern Redbud, my fullest sympathies to you and your wife, but the Code of Conduct that Sam is talking about here applies to this Community, not to FamilySearch "proper". The main Terms of Use for FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/legal/terms) were last updated almost a year ago.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi , It really doesn't change my question. Neither of the two Code of Conduct documents seem to provide any protection to protect the accused from overreach or even a quick to judge customer support person who might not have looked into the back story and just sees the last thing that happened.
Additionally, as a computer science expert, I can tell you that the Community and FamilySearch "proper" are not as distinct and separate of entities as some might think. Community.FamilySearch.org is a "sub domain" of FamilySearch.org. So from a computer science perspective the Community operates within the main FamilySearch.org domain. One can reasonable expect that the rules of the FamilySearch.org domain extend to the sub domain.
The fact that pages like this one on Community.FamilySearch.org actually have content on the page (like the logo at the top) coming from FamilySearch.org clouds any distinction that they are separate entities. The fact that there is one login providing access to the entire platform again blurs any distinction between the entities. FamilySearch should, from a best practices approach, either go all in as one organization/platform and do things like adopt a single Code of Conduct or clearly separate the two into separate domains/authentications/etc. using something like FamilySearchCommunity.com
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@Eastern Redbud, I don't disagree: the current setup is fuzzy, and not in a good way from a user's perspective. But on a practical level, the person who posted this announcement/discussion works in the forums, not on the main site, and while she can communicate with the right people to help achieve things that are pointed out here as needful (see for example restoration of access to the 1871 England & Wales census index), she cannot influence policy and practice on the main site, and the policy here is not the one that's relevant to your situation.
(The two codes are similarly one-sided, with no established means of appeal or dispute of employee decisions. It would be good if FS looked into changing that.)
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@Eastern Redbud I'm very sorry to hear of the issues with your wife's account. I would like to help with this. I will send you a private message so we can continue this discussion.
To specifically answer your question, the Code of Conduct is meant to protect everyone but it is specific to the community. The Terms and Conditions covers all FamilySearch sites which the Code of Conduct references.
Sam
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