How do I stop a user from removing step-relationships en masse?
I am dealing with a user who deletes step-relationships en masse. He acknowledges the relationships, but he just doesn't like them showing up on Family Tree. I would be willing to go in and restore the broken relationships, but he'll just re-delete them if I try. He is a database vandal. How can I get him stopped?
Answers
-
Might be worth trying Report Abuse given that you have clearly exhausted the contacting-the-offender route (although it may not result in any FS action, given that the bar is ridiculously high).
0 -
I doubt FamilySearch will get involved in what is basically a question of personal preference and style which has little to no effect on accuracy of data. Whether one likes to see a family with implicit step-relationships or explicit step-relationships doesn't change those relationships. The decision to only imply relationships makes for less confusing pedigree charts and a clearer view in the Family Members section. Directly stating those relationship potentially shows that step-siblings viewed each other as siblings rather than as "that other guy's kids."
Here is the difference in how the Family Member's section looks using each style (as created in the Beta site sandbox):
Personally I like the simpler, cleaner left hand style better because I find the right hand style somewhat messy and confusing. But then life is messy and confusing! I tend to only use the right hand style when there is clear evidence of a true step-relationship and the family lived within the last hundred years or so. It really isn't helpful to show some medieval king with four kids with his first wife, those four and five more with his second wife, those nine and three more with his third wife, and those twelve and six more with his fourth wife.
Regarding convincing another user who has equal editing rights in Family Tree to you to leave in place step-relationships you feel should be displayed, which is more the point of your question, I would say it depends a bit on the actual situation. Are you both grandchildren of the couple involved? Are you a grandchild and the other user is a 12th cousin? Do you enter the step relationship for families where there is convincing evidence the family viewed these as relationships or do you enter this for every single couple that had more than one couple relationship? Did these people live in the 1900s or the 1400s?
If these are relatively close relatives and you have good reasons to explicitly display the step relationship, then probably the best you can to is put in a good reason statement and then every time the step relationship is removed, message the other user, politely explain why it needs to be there, and ask that user to leave it in place. If you have other relatives who work in Family Tree and agree with your point of view, asking all of them to also message the user might be helpful. All of you should watch these relatives so that you get notified right away of a change. If every time that user makes a change the user gets a dozen chat messages asking him not to, you might finally convince him.
3 -
I you're curious like I was about the 'beta' site mentioned. Here is some info. I was not aware… so thanks @Gordon Collett
0 -
I had a similar situation a while back. Given that the user user was related and I was not, I was happy to agree to his request and removed the step-relationships that were bothering him so much.
I suppose it depends how deeply you feel about the issue and whether you feel it worth what might lead to a protracted period of "edit wars" if you do not concede to his wishes.
0 -
@Mark McKenzie_1 Off topic, but, yes, the beta site is really handy. You can play around and test out things without making any changes in Family Tree or having any weird things get collected in someone's change log. Also, at times that is where you can get a sneak peek at very new features before they are even hinted of on the main web site.
The beta site's version of the Family Tree database gets replaced with the current version of the actual Family Tree database a couple of times a year. So you can also make use of it, if your timing is right, when you come across a Family Tree profile that got really messed up within the last six months or so. You can go to the beta site and look at the profile to see what was there before any of those recent changes were made.
And, of course, you can do what I often do. Create illustrations to explain things about Family Tree without using real profiles. You can create simplified profiles to clearly identify only those features under discussion.
1 -
@Gordon Collett You said that the beta database gets replaced a couple of times a year. That's not quite accurate. At most, it was once a year, and the last time was in November 2023, and it wasn't updated in November 2024. So I would be wary of assuming that it will be updated any time soon. But on the plus side, the situations you set up on the beta site might last longer now than they used to, which could be helpful if you want to revisit a scenario you put some effort into creating.
1
