New idea!!

Tracey Edwards Karcher

How 'bout we drop the "World tree" idea altogether, and go back to individual family trees, giving control of the tree back to the author/creator of the tree. Either that, or do away with family trees altogether, and just share documents and sources, with messaging and collaboration. We did that once before, it was called Rootsweb! The collective "world family tree" is not working! Too many cooks in the kitchen! No way to make documented corrections when others can come in, willy nilly, and change whatever they think is wrong even though there's no documentation to back it up, going so far as to delete/replace documented facts!

Paul W

This is not a new idea, but one FamilySearch is highly unlikely to implement. As has been stated many times, Family Tree is not a program that will suit everyone. Indeed, for many users there is a constant problem in keeping a watch on the profiles of their family members and reversing incorrect additions / changes - which are sometimes even made by fairly close relatives.

If you want your family tree to remain untouched, remember there is provision to add it to the FamilySearch website, under the Genealogies section. Otherwise, you can choose your own package from the many alternatives available on the market.

Being a collaborative, open-edit project is what makes Family Tree such a great - yet often very difficult - program to work with. Its contents / data will never be completely reliable, but - through Family Tree - most users will have found information on their ancestry (including ancestors themselves) they would have never discovered in independent research.

I, and many, many others, just accept it for what it is, and feel its benefits make it well worth the effort in continuing to persevere with it.

genthusiast

FamilySearch is implementing a Family Group profile sharing capability - announced at Rootstech 2023. We will have to see whether the new features will allow Family Groups more control/edit privilege. From the announcement it is ambiguous whether such will be the result.

I am more in favor of - people taking more care in adding to recent, near-related generations profiles with living descendants. If those descendants have contributed to those profiles - accept what they input as primary displayed information - unless you want to provide evidence about vital mistakes - or have been invited to provide profile input (yes, even though the platform allows you to open-edit anyone). I don't think that is too much to ask - respect living descendants wishes concerning their recent direct ancestors' profiles (yes even if you are a relation).

There could be an adjustment of the collaborative model Family Tree uses - allowing Family Group collaboration to be more influential to these more recent generations (most have been collaborated upon long ago). These tree profiles could have restricted edit - such that the Family Group collaboration is displayed in priority/preference to any other user 'collaborative input'. Such group collaboration could extend as far as their researched profiles. After such extent the open-edit model could remain.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

"Go back"? FS's Family Tree has been a shared tree from the get-go.

Your idea is like deciding that your local bookstore should lend you books for free, like the library does.

If you find that the disadvantages of a shared tree outweigh the advantages for you, then don't use the shared tree. Use one of the many individual-tree options out there, such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, or offline software.