How do I contact a FS employee?
That is, someone other than a volunteer. Their level regarding the understanding of genealogy, good practices, and ethics are often limited.
My principal concern is how to deal with all the bad "genealogists" using this system, those who do not understand the nature of documentation and those who delete helpful notes and sources simply because it doesn't match their interpretation, which is usually based on who they *want* to be related to or on an uncited GEDCOM or FGS.
Answers
-
A few FamilySearch employees participate in this Community. But, it sounds as if you are looking for an enforcer - someone to assure that profiles are documented in a certain way. Or, as I have heard it called on other genealogy platforms "tree police."
FamilySearch doesn't have staffers to review or correct research in the FS tree. The size of the FS tree and the number of contributors make that impossible. The last I read, there are over 1.6 BILLION person profiles in the FS tree.
If the contributions rise to the level of abuse of the tree, you can try using the Report Abuse feature, but be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on the report, possibly without much result. The bar is high for FS to intervene.
5 -
Thanks. I have used the abuse form many times. I've had people curse me out, etc. My complaints have reached that bar in most cases. I don't want an enforcer. I want to have a serious conversation with someone about the "culture" here.
0 -
You can use the "Flag" button under your post to call a Mod to your post and ask to be referred to staff for a discussion.
0 -
If you could find such a person to have a one on one conversation with, which I doubt, I suspect that you would be told the culture FamilySearch wishes to promote here is one of collaboration, co-operation, compassion, community, patience, understanding, a willingness to continually reach out to teach each other and learn from each other, and unstinting efforts to preserve the best information we can here. Yes, these are high goals. Particularly when, according to FamilySearch's 2024 year in review, users logged into FamilySearch 285,000,000 times. With that much traffic there are going to be some conflicts. There are some new users who think Family Tree is their own personal tree like most other web sites who may need a lot of contacts from a other experienced users to teach them the need for notes, sources, documentation, and that there is more than one Mary Smith in the world.
RootsTech is a great place to get acquainted with culture FamilySearch is working to promote. Here is a class from last years conference which is a good start for getting to know the people behind FamilySearch and the work they are doing:
9 -
Gordon Collett, the fact that we're unable to contact an employee disproves your points about the culture they're trying to promote. I'm all for collaboration and generally will email someone when there's an issue I'd like to discuss. Most people will respond well and we'll discuss it until it gets settled. Someone right now is deleting my notes and won't stop. Support will *not* deal with the issue. Yes, the cursing stops when I complain, but that's it. It's evidenc that they don't care about malicious behavior and, instead, they send me a boilerplate message about cooperation. This individual either didn't get one or is stubbornly ignoring it. In other words, they're saying: "Please back down to bullies." Extraordinary.
Further, that they promote "unstinting efforts to preserve the best information" is absolutely incorrect. Excellent, well-cited information is regularly being removed in favor of absolute drivel and only to support the personal ego — that they're descended from kings, etc — and with zero evidence. There is *no* action from support that *rewards* good work and, instead, encourages bad work. I'm a genetic genealogist of 19 years, a serious genealogist of 48 years. I've been a publisher, a teacher, and a presenter and will be talking this month in San Francisco at a conference sponsored by the California DAR.
I like working on FS because there are a lot of people here to work with and the access to resources are free. But the fact is that most people working on the tree have no idea about how to do genealogy. That's fine. Above all else, I'm a teacher and love to inform people about this stuff. But FS does *nothing* to support good work ethics *or* genealogy. I'd love to see that change. In the meantime, the vast majority of the public tree is junk. I do my bit to keep the little corners that concern me true, clean, and honest. I need to know that FS honors that.0 -
@Michael-Cooley said
"the fact that we're unable to contact an employee disproves your points about the culture they're trying to promote..."
Pedantically, no it doesn't disprove @Gordon Collett 's point. It does show that FS is failing to promote that culture successfully. They have the words right, but we have extensive knowledge of failures - whether through malice (unlikely, though not impossible in my view) or a lack of commitment on the part of researchers (what else do you call someone who refuses to check images against the indexed values) or a lack of imagination (because obviously there's only one guy named Samuel Windsor in England in the late 1700s...) or... And we have no means of addressing those issues outside certain very specific areas with excellent technical and admins - it does happen, for which I am profoundly grateful.
Somehow we'd hope to find someone in FS who is in charge of assessing whether those laudable (indeed, courageous!) aims are being met. It's that specific role that I'd like to have identified.
Come to that, I'd like to see those aims quantified.
2 -
Well put, Adrian! Yes, their "community standards" are fine as written but they have absolutely no muscle behind them. I don't like wikitree much but they do have a promotion system as such. It seems to work fairly well. Certainly, a voluntary staff, especially one as untrained as they are here, can't play policemen to the whole, but a variety of tools can be put in place.
For example, "GEDCOM file" as a source is ridiculous and should be eliminated.
If not there already, they need a Best Practices page, even for small things such as not capping the whole of the last name. (I think the latter might be buried in the wiki.) I would like to see the elimination of dupes in that page, and perhaps a system where a dupe can be marked as such at the time of elimination. (I have to be sure to go back and mark it once it's gone.) I'd also like to see a warning come up when someone tries to link them again.
Certainly, we don't want to hobble newbies and the unlearned, just provide them with real-time guidance.
I like it here. Although there are a lot of technical difficulties and hurdles, it's the bad players that really turn me off — and you and I are not the only ones who experience that. I'd like to see a group formed to discuss such issues — here or elsewhere. (I have lots of experience running groups on facebook.)1 -
I'd be up for a group like that.
1 -
Mandy, I'll try something on facebook. If there's an appropriate place here, I'm not aware of it.
0 -
Even a person such as the Director of the Society of Genealogists (1979-1997) in London could not convince FamilySearch Management to change attitudes.
Scroll down to the bottom of this (previous) FamilySearch Wiki page
https://web.archive.org/web/20150615214227/https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/User:AnthonyJCamp
0 -
Thanks.
I started this group last night. Of course, I'm the only member right now: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1278647859913433
I really questions FS's motivations. Of course, they're LDS so it must be religions. I suspect it's about promoted sealings. I won't say more than that. That have a very thin skin and are decidely unkind to critical thinking.0 -
Okay. The hired stuff will not correspond directly with their users. That says a lot, tells us a lot about their motivations and that they'd just as soon leave the tree to buzzards, which is what has happened. Why do some of us stay around? Because we care about genealogy, genealogy that follows the principles of accuracy and trusted citation.
Let's discuss: https://www.facebook.com/groups/12786478599134330 -
You might be interested in trying out CET Trees, a FamilySearch lab product currently in testing. This feature allows the owner to create a tree where only they can make edits. While all FamilySearch users can view deceased individuals in the tree, only the owner can modify information and relationships.
To participate in this lab experiment, you’ll need to apply. Follow this link to learn more and submit your application.
Keep in mind this product is in testing, so there are some limitations for now. By testing the product, you are helping the engineers develop a better product. You can leave feedback in the CET Feedback group. This group is monitored by the engineers.
2 -
Thanks, but I do that on my own at ancestraldata.com. It's not that I dislike collaborative trees, I dislike all the bad information put into them — and totally unregulated.
The thing is that the tree should not be the overriding feature, the data should be. That's why I call mine domain name ancestraldata.com. This should be understood by everyone and, especially, the folks at FS. And instead of empathizing, they call be unkind. That's the lazy persons' response to critical thinking.-1