Create-an-account page improvements
I believe an issue with the Create an Account page is leading to a growing number of anonymous users who cannot be contacted in Chat.
In two instances, I wanted to contact the person who put some information in Family Tree.
One was a person who was adding Living people to the tree.
The latest problem is someone who has deleted all the exact birth dates (which have the sources included, so my dates were correct) and replaced them with just a year (sometimes the wrong year). I assume this user is a beginner.
In both cases, when I click on chat, I get this message:
Service Unavailable
Sorry, FamilySearch Chat isn't available to users without a birthdate in Settings or for those under 18. We're working to bring Chat to Shared Family Groups for those under 18 soon. Stay tuned for updates!
So with regard to being unable to contact such users, I think I see how the problem originates. When someone creates an account, it asks for name and date of birth.
Many people are reluctant to enter their date of birth online anywhere. What isn’t clear on that create-an-account page is that if you don’t put one in, it makes your user-contact inoperable and so no one will be able to contact you to share information, etc., through Chat.
On the create an account page, under that box, it would be helpful to add something that explains it, e.g.:
You must be 18 or older to create an account. No one can see your name, date of birth or e-mail. Adding a date of birth makes only your user name public, so people can contact you through Chat.
I hope you can pass along this suggestion to the team that does that create account page. I think there needs to be more explanation on the screen. Having anonymous users is problematic, such as cases like this where they add living people, or if they do other damage to the tree.
Answers
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@Mary Munk I agree, this needs looking into.
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I've had similar problems at the FSC with patrons trying to send messages because there was no dob in settings. It would be very helpful if FamilySearch required at least a year of birth for everyone's account.
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If the sign in page simply asked "Are you over 18" when no birth date is entered then it could enable the chat capability.
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