Would you consider this harassment?
Regarding Guillaume Lalonde (LBYY-B94)
A member has been repeatedly removing the "G" from Guillaume and replacing it with a lower case G because that is the way the priest wrote it when he was baptized in 1684. A search of other records written by that priest shows that he made no differentiation between "g" and "G". Several other people including myself have corrected the G and this individual keeps changing it back with the only explanation being that that is the way it was written. I've made comments both in English and French as to why it is incorrect with no response other than to change it back. I don't know if they are doing it from ignorance or malice but I am getting extremely frustrated. This is a direct ancestor of mine and want the profile to be correct.
I've been dealing with this issue for a long time now and made a formal complaint over three months ago with little to no response. I've gotten the same form letter twice which start with:
"FamilySearch Family Tree is a collaborative, universal pedigree best worked on with others. Key ingredients of that collaboration are the ability to make changes, updates, and additions, as well as conversing with other users." I fully agree with this except that the individual involved refuses to converse in any way. It then goes on to talk about uploading my Gedcom to the Pedigree Resource File which has absolutely nothing to do with my problem and makes me wonder if there is an actual person reading my complaint or just an AI.
As of today the name has been corrected five times by other members since I made my complaint (I was asked not to make changes while my complaint was active) and each time the name was changed back shortly after.
Any suggestions on how to proceed? or do I just forget it and let it be wrong?
Answers
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I understand that it is annoying, but it doesn't qualify as abuse under FamilySearch tree standards.
I have a several profiles that I have to repair regularly. I check my following list first thing almost every day.2 -
Hi Michael, I asked if it was possible to delete my tree and start over.
Because it is a collaborative effort, it is not possible to do so.
Your best bet is to get a piece of software called Legacy 10.
Make a tree on that and keep it local. I've found that's the only way I can have a tree
the way I want it that no one else has access to.
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I would agree this is not harassment. I would agree with Áine. Just change it back every day and put in the reason statement exactly what you wrote here. That is, "Other records written by this priest show that he made no differentiation between 'g' and 'G'. The name should be entered as would be standard for the period and not according the eccentricities of one priest."
It's fine to keep a back up of your other records in a different program as George suggests, but that doesn't help Family Tree stay correct. This is basically a situation where the last person to give up wins.
This other user has relationship viewing turned on. How is he related to you and do you both share Guillaume as a direct relative? If you can claim a closer relationship to him, maybe that would help.
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Thanks for your replies. If you'll look at the "latest changes" section you'll see the problem and how many times this has been addressed. The last time was yesterday which was what prompted this message. Every time the name is corrected, it is changed back immediately with the same cut and pasted explanation with no attempt at interaction.
I also maintain trees on Wikitree and Ancestry as well as my own software so that isn't my concern. I just want it as accurate as possible. At least Wiktree and Ancestry have a method to directly communicate with other users when there are disagreements.
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You can start a chat with the person making the changes. Just click on the user name then click Chat:
This particular user has even included an e-mail address.
Of course, that doesn't mean you will get a reply.
At least this is happening on a small, manageable level. I don't know if things have calmed down but Charlemagne at one point was having his name changed over a dozen times a day for weeks on end by dozens of different users.
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Michael; The best solution for you may be to create a private family tree. This is a tree that you will own and only people to whom you have given permission can make changes. To do this just click on the "?" in the circle at the top of any FamilySearch page and enter "Create" in the box. You will be shown how to use this function. I hope this resolves this issue for you.
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No, please, stick this out. If everyone gives up on the concept of a shared family tree where we all have to learn how to get along together, the information in Family Tree will never achieve its lofty aspirations.
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@Michael Houde FamilySearch does have a direct communication method, as @Gordon Collett has explained, but unfortunately there are effectively no consequences for lack of communication, or indeed for accidental or intentional corruption of the Tree. The bar for reporting as abuse is very high, and the policing of the Tree is otherwise left to the user community.
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When I click on their name to communicate all I see is:
I've tried that before. There is no email and no chat button and when I try searching for him in the chat it says they can't be found.
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He has clearly declined to register for chat, which is unfortunately his right (at least he's being honest, unlike all those who register for chat and then fail to respond).
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When I go into the Chat and search for him, he pops right up:
I do have to ask. Did you at some point in the past try to chat with him and have forgotten that? I don't know what happens if someone hides you in chat. Does hiding a chat also remove contact information from the user information card?
In any event, it looks like the Chat problem is on your end, Michael, because when I click on your user name I get this:
Looking at the help center article that comes up under learn more, I see this explanation:
I assume you are not deceased and that since you are working in Family Tree you have completed registration. You can't do anything about the first item or the fourth item. So make sure items 2 and 3 are taken care of.
For item 3, go to Settings by clicking on your name in the top right corner of any FamilySearch page (not the one here in Community) and choosing settings. Go to the Permission tabs and make sure you have that first Directory permission turned on.
@Michael Houde , if you are absolutely certain that you have never tried to contact this other user and can promise me that he is not mad at you and never wants to talk to you and cannot with the information above get the chat system turned on because of your age or country of residence, I would be willing to send you a private message with the e-mail I can see for him since he has entered it as a public e-mail.
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I'm conflicted about trying to contact someone in this situation. On a group of profiles I have to repair regularly, the contributor who keeps making the incorrect changes has sent me quite rude messages. I finally had to mute him.
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Thank you. I did have chat turned on but I didn't have my birthdate entered for privacy reasons. Now that I've entered it I can see the chat button. I'll try contacting them directly now and see what happens.
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Unfortunately, some users will insist on inputting a name in the exact manner in which it was written. Okay, it's fair enough to index the name "as recorded", but I find I often need to adjust names, where there is a misunderstanding over what the letters in the name are meant to represent, or if - as in this case - it is essentially the "grammar" that is wrong (small / lower case letter to start a proper noun).
The problem is commonly found in older documents, here being a couple of examples I have encountered:
fforde of Fforde - a "double-f" was the common way of writing the "F" used today. Further, an "e" is commonly added at the end of many surnames, up to as late as the early 19th century. (In this example, as with the name "Smythe", many individuals still like to record their own name like this, even today, although there is no difference between Ford and Fforde - or Smith and Smythe. (Keeping up a tradition, or plain snobbery?)
Greengrafs(e) - here a simple misunderstanding has been applied in indexing the name: the letter before the "s" represents the old "long s", which just happened to look rather like an "f", but was actually a totally different character - another "s"! The name today would always be spelled (or "spelt" as we write in England!) as Greengrass, but some users still insist on using the incorrect spelling:
In summary, I would agree with the advice to change anything that appears to be, or is, downright wrong. However, expect to receive some opposition to your changes - even rude responses, as Áine has received! Again, I agree the matter can't be regarded as harassment, or abuse.
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I have to say that what is kind of funny with this whole discussion is that when you scan through the parish register it becomes clear very quickly that this priest or clerk himself really wouldn't have cared how anyone wrote the name. He was extremely flexible in the use of capital letters and apparently had no concept of "correct" or "incorrect" regarding them but instead used them in an entirely random fashion:
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@Paul W It gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective) - the contributor who sent me the rude messages also recruited his father to tell me that I needed to back off because his amazing perfect child couldn't possibly be wrong.
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It goes even further than these minor discrepancies. Literacy rates were minimal a couple centuries ago, and for a lot of folks, their name was really just a sound. It was up to some scribe or bureaucrat to figure out how to express it in writing. I've got a lot of ancestors named Mulanix / Mullinax / Mullinix / Mulnix / Molyneux / Molineux who'd probably be amused at our debate over the authoritative way to spell it, to say nothing of my Italian and Armenian ancestors, and the immigration agents whose job it was to spell surnames that they couldn't even pronounce correctly.
But I think there is an argument that this is abuse, based on the fact that the other editor is ignoring the FS guideline, which states to "use normal capitalization". I think the other editor would have a hard time arguing that the "normal capitalization" of a proper name is no capitalization at all, especially when the counterargument is "look at literally any style guideline".
Further, the guideline states to use the "birth name or complete legal name", even specifying to use the newest legal name (aside from name changes through marriage). That means the government documents take precedence over the church records, so any legal document like a birth registration that includes the capitalized name beats this quirk in the church record.
The guideline even allows for the "most commonly used name" to be entered in the primary name field, and I'd assume most of his documents, especially anything he signed himself, would include the capitalized G. That means he's disrespecting the wishes of the late M. Lalonde by ignoring his clearly demonstrated personal preference, in addition to disregarding of the FS guidelines and being completely unwilling to work in a collaborative matter as required by the site Terms of Use.
So I'll dissent here and say you should submit this an abuse report, framed in the above way, and I would expect FS support to… well, do nothing at first. They'll tell you to try to work it out. So just wait a few days after that for diplomacy to inevitably fail, then, at a different time of day and day of the week, (e.g. if you submit the initial abuse complaint Wednesday evening, follow up Sunday morning so you get a different agent), reply back exasperated saying you tried and are still getting stonewalled, and just ask support to please talk to the the other editor — at that point, they probably will, and if the other editor treats them the same as he has you, they're not going to be happy about that.
In the meantime, just in case you didn't know about this, here's a trick that might make things a little easier: bookmark this page:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/LBYY-B94/preferred-name
That's the edit history for the Name. When the other editor changes it, just hit Restore on your last name change to revert it back. It's obvious this person isn't going to communicate — (he's probably just hitting the Restore button too) — so it's not worth putting in any more effort than necessary. Good luck!
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@Michael Houde Mod note: Your image was edited to maintain the privacy of a living person. Please see the Community Code of Conduct.
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There was nothing in that picture that wasn't freely available in the change log. Are you or someone else actually going to do something about the actual problem? This has been going on for months.
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(The reason for editing your image, as we have been told, is that the change log can only be seen by signed in users of FamilySearch who, if they read any of the terms of use or are just paying attention, know that they have consented to the information in the change log being visible to all other users while this Community is freely viewable to the general public. That results in the privacy restrictions noted in the code of conduct.)
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@Michael Houde As several of us have endeavored to explain, the changes are not abuse or harassment under the terms of FamilySearch. I understand the situation may be annoying, but FamilySearch will not take a position between two users who disagree on using Guillaume vs guillaume.
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Understood. Sorry, due to issues in my past I have a very low tolerance for what I consider to be bullying so I will let the issue go and continue to change the capitalization myself. It appears someone else has also taken up the cause on Guillaume's profile with a very lengthy reasoning so I can only hope that will get through to them.
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