Soldiers medal restricted in "memories"

LegacyUser

Arthur J. Lamberti said: I have a cousin who was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the french government during World War II. When I uploaded an image of the medal to "memories" it was restricted. Why would a medal earned by a soldier be restricted?

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: All images uploaded to FamilySearch must comply with the Upload Policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/l...

Point 12a says that photos relating to war must be approved on a case-by-case basis before submission.

You should contact Support to ask them to reconsider their decision.

I don't mean to be insensitive, but if this medal was issued by Vichy France, then FS may have objections to it.

Personally I have always thought the submission rules to be excessive, especially points 2,3 and 7, and that if would be better for FS to have its own rules independent of the LDS Church.

If your relative got this medal for fighting on the anti-nazi side, then I think its absolutely unjustifiable for FS to censor this image.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: To FS Staff:

I would like to suggest that these policies are published on the FS Website like all the other legal and privacy policies.

Photos of war medals and decoration which do not feature any fighting should never be censored and a point 12a should be amended to explicitly allow war medals to be uploaded.

I also note that for some people the only photos of them are religious, e.g. for some Catholics in my family the only photos are of them dressed as a Priest, or on First Holy Communion- they lived through a culture known as the "Rich Roman Life" when religion was very important and the occasions on which photos were taken revolved around religious events- Baptism, First Holy Communion, Ordination/Vows or Marriage. Under the current submission guidelines no photos could be uploaded of them because of the ban on religious images.

LegacyUser

Arthur J. Lamberti said: I neglected to state that my cousin was an American soldier.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Arthur

That should not be a relevant factor regarding this issue. Family Tree has users from all over the world. In spite of agreeing with much of the sentiment of A van Helsdingen's comments, I believe this particular area is a very sensitive one. Even if the causes were often totally misguided, citizens of even our "enemies" lost their lives, gained terrible injuries and left widows and orphaned children. Whether they were American, British, German, Italian, Japanese or whatever, we should respect the losses of families of all nations due to the horrors of war.

It appears FamilySearch / the LDS Church is acting with commendable sensitivity in this respect.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: How is not letting medals of soldiers being uploaded to FS "commendable sensitivity"?

LegacyUser

Paul said: Because perhaps they got their medal following an action that caused the death of somebody's loved one.

I know Tom Huber has made sensible comments on a similar issue, relating to "Labels", when people have requested one should be available for participating in this war or that. I just don't want to see anything uploaded that might cause offence amongst our international community. And, quite simply, one person's hero can be another person's villain.

LegacyUser

gasmodels said: remember the initial categorization of memories is done by a computer program. I believe it err's on the conservative side and sometimes restricts a memory when it should not. If you reply to the email you received regarding the restriction, a person then looks at the memory and determines if it should or should not be restricted. This person will also take into account your argument as to why it should not be restricted. Until you have followed the process to the end it is not reasonable to make a judgement as to whether the item and similar items will be marked restricted.

see the help center article for more details - https://familysearch.org/ask/productS...

LegacyUser

Roger Bell said: I'm looking into this. I have seen your image and it should not have been restricted.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I'm not sure that the analogy with Labels works for me. The labels were set up to celebrate certain aspects - to have a label was a "good thing" - or so it felt to me. Then the whole thing just ballooned with people wanting all sorts of labels to be created for them, so the opposition to labels was as much practical as anything, as well as Tom's instinctive dislike of the labels for military use.

Not wanting to allow images of medals - if this turns out to be the case - seems a different matter to me. It's about recording a fact rather than labelling someone with a "good thing". If an image is to be forbidden (if) then why would one allow the text-based recording of military service as a fact? One is just a pictorial version of another. Sorry but that would smack of censorship to me.

Speaking for myself, I would be happy to see images of Wehrmacht medals - it's a historical fact. The dividing line between acceptable and unacceptable military imagery is much more subtle and nuanced than a straight yes / no - unless you are a pacifist.

LegacyUser

Roger Bell said: The soldier's medal is now unrestricted.

LegacyUser

Arthur J. Lamberti said: Thanks