Allow users to "lock" a person or couple's records from being edited.
Comments
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S. said: David I see your point of view, but someone please please answer me this what is a person to do about this of people changing the correct info over and over? I care about this being accurate and correct also! their is many other questions I could ask.0
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David Newton said: Locking profiles is not the answer. So what is? Simple: have a system in place for restricting the editing rights of those who mess things up.
It's far less disruptive as it only affects those who foul things up. They have an incentive to learn how to use the system properly as that is how their account would be unblocked. As I've said before have an escalating block system such that those who either cannot or will not learn to edit properly eventually lose their editing rights permanently. If they're LDS a corollary of that would be a permanent ban on doing ordinances and temple work as well. Doing that would not be something to do lightly, so there would have to be checks and balances in place to prevent malicious reporting of accounts and give people a reasonable number of chances to do things properly. The GEDCOM import system would also need ending as part of this as that causes a significant fraction of the problems with junk information.
Slow down newbies until they learn to use the system properly. Provide proper documentation for the system's basic functions. Reform the documentation approval process so that it actually works in the modern world. Eventually reach a point where editing rights are permanently lost if bad edits persist.0 -
Tom Huber said: As I wrote earlier, "the open-edit nature of FamilySearch Family Tree is not going to change." Certain records are locked and some are locked as a carryover from the previous system. A relative can get the carryover locked records unlocked, but they need to provide information about their relationship, as well as the information that they have regarding the person who record is locked.
Do not bother with some of the more significant historical persons in the tree, especially those involved with the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Also, forget about getting pre-1500 (birth) persons unlocked, but if you can contribute significant amounts of detailed and well documented (sourced) history, you may get special permission to work on one or more persons that fall into that category. I least, I would hope so. Those persons of far-eastern ancestry do not have this pre-1500 birth restriction.
FamilySearch does not (as we have been repeatedly told) have the resources to run any kind of vetting system such as the one that David Newton proposed. I happen to agree with David, and as far as documentation is concerned, I would like to have the PR folks who are constantly assembly useless (for me) campaigns. Use them and their time more constructively in putting together and keeping up to date, a fully functional online resource guide for using FamilySearch and in particular, Family Tree.0 -
Paul said: Tom
I am not encouraging you to create any sort of rebellion within the LDS Church organisation, but it is a shame that a group of the more experienced FamilySearch users (including yourself!) can't form a genealogy group, which could exert pressure on the CEO and senior FamilySearch management to alter their priorities. After all, it is your money that is paying for the work, so why can't you directly propose dropping all the silly campaign stuff and using those precious resources to do more important work?
The two things that most obviously come to mind are, firstly, having the ability to restrict use of Family Tree (e.g. read-only) to those who are continually frustrating its goals by their ridiculous inputs. Secondly, by finding a way of making it possible to note indexing errors on the main (familysearch.org) website. Okay, differently skilled personnel would probably be required, but perhaps FamilySearch should start employing staff with abilities that are more suited to its main needs!0 -
Juli said: A task that would be well within the same skill-set as the one that generates the useless and silly campaigns would be to rework the "entrance" to FS to better educate users about what's available and how it's different from what they may expect.0
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Tom Huber said: Juli, fully agree and something that I have advocated for -- the PR folks turn their attention to more useful activities than the campaigns. Documentation would include "home" page messages, including the "About" page.
Paul, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unique in that the few paid employees are not associated with ecclesiastical duties. And they are subject to the decisions made by those same ecclesiastical leaders, which we refer to as "the Brethren" which are constituted as the First Presidency (President of the Church and his counselors) and the quorum of twelve apostles.
If we have a problem with the policies, teachings, and practices, we are encouraged to take the matter up with our local ecclesiastical leadership.
I can understand the frustration, but as to the programming and prioritizing of what needs to be done, I addressed this in another current thread. Our automobile needs some serious attention, even as new as it is. There were parts that were borrowed and are ill-suited (the GEDCOM compare/add/change process is a good example), and some that demand attention because of behind the scenes issues (the temple reservation and ordinance section is an example of that). Others are nice to have and because we are far from perfect human beings, the decisions that we make are often not very good ones. That happens and the best we can do is to have patience, report our concerns in forums like this, maybe keep track of those concerns and/or bring them to the forefront by "bumping" the discussion thread, and then letting the engineers/developers do their thing.
I may make a lot of noise, but I really appreciate the tool that has become FamilySearch. It has a very long way to go and I may die before things get fully resolved, but at least, I can, with the aid of a local family tree management program, still gather the information, fully source and document it, no matter what the event is, and pass records on to my children who are interested in keeping up with the task of documenting my family's history.0 -
Grace Louise Barnes said: When someone reserves someone near me I send them a note if I want to do the temple work and they unreserve it and others do me the same way which has worked for both who wanted to do temple work0
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Grace Louise Barnes said: Who would ever have the time to arbitrator "things" in FS with so many working on it!0
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S. said: Tom check out Geni and Wiki Tree if they Imputed some what those sites do Like a over looker, than it might happen. all they have to do is make every file read only and have people prove why things need to be added as sources. Tom True to what you have said of Important things and not, I feel they could do better, some things they really need to look at and why. I also which they would Pony up on the dollar more, so they can things better on Family tree, Yes Family search talks about Hasting the Church work, but they also need to Focus on Accuracy of things. Over Seers would have to have special training, That most others won't need, it will not slow those who want to do research.
The church also has world indexing days were they try to get people to come and help index, Well I ponder this and would love this explained Publicly, Why the (blank) are the not having Sourcing and Duplicate Cleaning days on Family tree? Wiki tree does this! their is another thing Family search can get off their rumps and learn from some one else, and it is a very easy thing they can input here on Family tree. Have source and Duplicate days is a very easy input on to family search and I feel it should be done, and should have been done many years ago.
Locking aka reading is must and one reason is this: It could cause Hurt feelings and many other things towards families. I could on and on over this issue.
Tom I could go on and on this about how I would improve family search and why. Lock down is one of the Major things I feel, it is needed and if it was me and would look into this and make it a big Importance for lots of reason. I also would make Family tree clean out day, to help fix the tree to were it is source and the duplicates are gone.0 -
David Newton said: Oh for heaven's sake!! It has been clearly explained to you why what you are advocating WILL NOT WORK. It is not just that they will choose not to implement it. They cannot implement it. There will never be the resources to implement what you suggest.
There is literally no point continuing to advocate your proposal. If you continue to do so I will have to conclude you are immune to reasoned argument about this matter.0 -
S. said: in my thoughts Family search needs to lock records, or don't do it at all instead of having a double standard. It would better if they heavily looked into what I have said for many reasons.0
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Roger Moritz said: Keep and eye on your work, check off the black star and be vigilant. There is a record of changes that you can resort to.0
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Jathan Pfeifle said: I thinkk it would be beneficial to be able to lock recordw with information known to be correct, and if a person has additional information or corrections to be made to a record, there can be a way provided to contact the individual who created the record so it can be a collaborative effort , changes can be made, (such as geni and Wikitre do) and historically accurate records are not erased or altered to make them no longer accurate.0
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Brett said: Jathan
Firstly, "Welcome" to this "FamilySearch" ( "GetStaisfaction" ) 'Feedback' Forum.
Secondly, "Official 'FamilySearch' Representatives", do monitor; and, sometimes, participate in, this Forum.
Thirdly, I am just another User/Patron, just like yourself (and, happen to be a Member of the Church).
Many Users/Patrons who regularly participate in this Forum who have a great deal of knowledge and experience with "FamilySearch", like to assist/help other Users/Patrons like yourself.
Finally, this is a post from Over 6 years ago; and, the subject has been canvassed and discussed in many subsequent posts in this Forum.
There already is a way (means) to communicate (ie. make contact) with any User/Patron who has contributed to a individual/person in "Family Tree" if you have additional information or corrections that possibly should be made to a individual/person, so "Family Tree" is a collaborative effort.
That way (means) to communicate (ie. make contact) with any User/Patron who has contributed to a individual/person in "Family Tree" is by using "User Messaging" of "Family Tree".
Simply select the "Contact Name" of the any User/Patron who has contributed to a individual/person in "Family Tree" and send them a 'Message".
The problem/issue is that not many Users/Patrons do such; and, another problem/issue is that you can often spend so much time "Collaborating" that you do not get much work done.
"Family Tree" of "FamilySearch" is a SINGLE, "One" World 'Tree', for all of us, that is an "Open Edit" Platform.
I truly expect such may not change.
And, as has been discussed at length in this Forum, (1) who has the "Time" to be an 'Administrator' for a deceased individual/person in "Family Tree"; and, (2) who gets to choose who should be (or, not be) such an 'Administrator' for a deceased individual/person in "Family Tree" - after all we are all related.
Just a thought.
Brett
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I totally agree (9 years later) that the data needs to be locked somehow to my own family tree or maybe there should be a world master tree that everyone can add to that requires a source to change any data. At the very least make it so I can individually give permission to those wanting to change info in my own tree instead of open to all.
I only log in and work on my tree maybe a month out of a year. It is disheartening to upload data with sources that you have worked on for over 20 years to see that someone has changed the data based in my tree based on bad record sources or what they think is correct without any communication between myself and that person. Some folks just change the data and give no reason or source.
For example, someone changed the marriage date of my great-grandparents. My biological g-grandmother had died in 1923. My g-grandfather remarried in 1924 after her death to my step-g-grandmother. Someone changed the marriage date on that marriage from 1924 to 1904 and did not even source why they changed the date. This then showed he married her at the age of 15 prior to my biological grandmother which was not true.
I don't even think the person that changed the data is related. It may have been a typo on their part, but the fact remains there is still no source. This person has pretty much has gone through and changed most of my records on my g-grandfather with no sourcing. This person may be thinking they are helping out, but really they are making me back-peddle, wasting my time having to correct their mistakes, and making me question if it is worth my time sharing to this site.
This does a couple of things to me, psychologically, as a user: 1) I do not trust any of the info on this site and only take it with a grain of salt unless records are attached. and 2) Why should I waste my time entering information when someone can come behind me and change my tree without providing any sources.
On the flip side, I have changed data or have added to records without sources, but only on my own family members that I know personally and which I have direct knowledge of them. I state myself as the living source and leave contact info if there are any questions. This also helps me find distant cousins/researchers so we can communicate and work on and compare records together.
I am more prone to use the paysites which are much better set up to protect my tree so random folks do not have access to change the info that I share. I really do not want to lock out my tree on this site as I feel that all public information/data should be free and available.
Don't get me wrong, I am in awe of how far the Church has come with this site and feel that the board and programmers will eventually work out these kinks. I remember the days of waiting to use the data centers and using snail mail to get information. I am grateful BYU has a program that builds what we see here as well as working on new programs as seen in the Family History Tech Lab. This is a million times better than what it used to be. Side note: I cannot wait to be able to download a Gedcom. This has also held me back from fully using the site. Sad you did not go with the pure XML standard.
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You stated: "maybe there should be a world master tree that everyone can add to..."
That is exactly what FamilySearch Family Tree is.
None of us have individual trees here. Whenever you sign on, you are signing into the world master tree and none other. And, yes, do not trust anything here, or on any tree in any online or offline database, that is not backed up with sources.
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Nine years on, and the argument is still going....
As Gordon said: this is a "master tree". The difference between it and the individual-tree sites (besides the absence of paywalls) is that here, I can fix the errors. When people dutifully propagate other people's errors, following the hints given by the individual-tree site, the error becomes completely unfixable: even on public trees, contacting the owner is paywalled, so I can't even point out to the person that no, the aunt was not the mother, and the niece was not the daughter. (The particular error I'm thinking of is in at least twelve different trees on two different sites, so far, and has completely messed up my spouse's DNA-cousin identifications on those sites.)
One thing I wanted to point out, adjacent to the current discussion, is that the existence of sources doesn't guarantee anything: it doesn't matter how many censuses you've found the family in, if it's the wrong family.
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