3 Discovery messages at once is too much --- and I have My Ancestors messages turned off! (please m

LegacyUser

m said: 3 Discovery messages at once is too much --- and I have My Ancestors messages turned off! (Please make sure opt-out works.)

LegacyUser

Bill Mangum said: With all the comments about FamilySearch not doing what is expected there is hesitancy from employees (me) to make any comments. I am sure my grammar and intent in replying will not be perfect so please be patient. It is a new year and I am venturing out to attempt to show FamilySearch does listen and are always gathering feedback from users from this venue and countless other venues. We may not reply enough to comments but we do listen.

"Too many messages in a short time" - good feedback. Better feedback is the dates the messages were received (did they really come in one day or did you take the holidays off like I did, and see three messages when you returned?)

"You have opted out of campaigns". If you still get emails after opting out please let us know asap. You should not be getting emails or text messages if you have opted out.

There is not a way to opt out of notifications for discovery and ancestor messages showing up in FamilySearch Notifications when logged into FamilySearch or using the FamilySearch App. They will show up there but no action required on your part. There is an overwhelming number of people that love these and have asked to have them not just show up but stay there for a long time.

Thank you again for using and contributing to FamilySearch
Bill

LegacyUser

Brett said: m

Not only that; whereas, I did not mind seeing that "Calendar" one; but, I feel that I should have NOT been sent the other two, that of: (1) "Has Your Child Tried Ordinances Ready?" [as: 'Yes', they already have]; and, (2) "Homeland Discovery" - "Your relative was born in England." [as: I have extensively worked on that particular individual/person. Plus, as I am an active User/Patron, I ALREADY know my Ancestral 'Homeland(s)'].

Brett

ps: Hopefully, "FamilySearch" are, both, (1) Working on the ability to Turn "OFF" those "Discovery" 'Messages', if we so desire; and, (2) also Working on addressing/fixing those "Campaigns".

.

LegacyUser

m said: Dates received: 3 Discovery messages today, 6 Jan 2020--at the same time.

Wow--I think Bill is saying I have to put up with Discovery messages (which I don't want). Is that correct?

LegacyUser

m said: Mine says

(1) "We found your relative's headstone." (Oh, no! There's hundreds of ancestors.)

(2) "Your ancestor's anniversary is coming up!" (Oh, no! There's hundreds of ancestors.)

(3) "Your relative was born in..." (Oh, no! There's hundreds of ancestors.)

This is out of hand and could get worse.

LegacyUser

Brett said: m

'Yes', seen all those too.

Same, same ...

In many cases, I was the one who added the "Headstone" onto the record of the individual/person.

And, as an active User/Patron, I ALREADY know where many of my Ancestors are born.

'Yes, those "Campaigns" NEED much MORE work; BEFORE, they are released.

And, that push for "Participation", by the less active Users/Patrons, NEEDS to be direct to the less active Users/Patrons, NOT the active Users/Patrons.

Brett

.

LegacyUser

m said: Yes!

LegacyUser

Brett said: ☺

LegacyUser

Brett said: Bill

I do not have a problem/issue with the "Campaigns', 'per se'; and, as such (ie. also), some of the "Discovery" 'Messages'.

But, I do have a problem/issue with receiving "Campaigns"; and, as such (ie. also), "Discovery" 'Messages', that NEGATE the fact that I am an active User/Patron and that I should/most probably ALREADY know much about my Ancestors; or, that my Children have ALREADY used the likes of "OrdinancesReady"; especially, when our youngest Child's 'E-mail' address is linked to that of her Mother.

The push for "Participation", by the less active Users/Patrons (especially, Members of the Church), NEEDS to be directed to the less active Users/Patrons, NOT the active Users/Patrons

Brett

.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Actually there IS an action required on my part. I want to be notified whenever a conversation message is received dealing with PID records I had worked on. The little red numeric indicator is rendered useless to me as it gets saturated with all of the other non-useful campaign stuff coming in. I can't tell if there is a real useful collaboration message there for me, or some kind of campaign ad. I MUST take action on each and every one of these Discoveries/Campaigns by deleting them so that I can easily see when a REAL useful message comes in. The conversation message should never have been grouped with the others.

All of the others are one-way advertisements. They are not collaboration. The conversations are TOTALLY different and should be a separate feature, since they ARE collaboration (In fact, they are really one of the only real collaboration functions on the site at present). Minimally control of notifications needs to be separate for the conversations. This was promised many months ago when they first added the Campaign-related features.

And I received those same three messages that others here did. But since that information has already been included in those records and All the associated sources attached, I'm left wondering why they were sent to me in the first place.

I would really like to separate the really functional features from the FS spam related ones. This is one are that I would like to see addressed as was promised months ago.

LegacyUser

Juli said: I agree with what Jeff Wiseman said upthread: the "discovery" messages DO require action on my part: they require that I delete them so that I'll have half a chance of seeing if an actual message arrives.

Today I got two pieces of garbage from FS: one about my grandmother's homeland (I've been there, so you don't need to tell me about it as if it were some sort of amazing discovery), and one about her birthday (yes, I know she would've turned 106 today, I've been thinking of it all day). And to answer Bill's question above, no, these did not pile up over the holidays; I was on FS just last night.

Please allow us to opt out of ALL notifications about campaigns. I don't want to see that red number up in the corner only to discover that it's yet more spam.

LegacyUser

Bill Mangum said: Hopefully you have witnessed over the past several years that feedback is accepted and changes are made. The use of the site continues to increase at a very aggressive rate each year and the user satisfaction overall continues to go up. That is because good people like yourselves have given feedback in ways that can be both understood and acted on. It is obvious to me that each person involved here is working hard to gather their family and help others to do the same.

We are working on ways to better communicate the types of messages and allow users to see what is important to them. Please do not take any statement of direction as an absolute or associate a time commitment with the statements. There is so much work to be done that we work on things as fast as we can and constantly prioritize based on what helps the most users in the most significant ways first.

Thank you again for your input
Bill

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Bill,

If there is one thing regarding the messages, it is to honor the opt-out under notifications, or, at the least, create a new list under Notifications. Right now

You can customize what FamilySearch notifications you want and how they are delivered

is no longer applicable, since we (as users) cannot impact whether or not we receive the "Discovery" Messages through FamilySearch internal messaging system.

I'm with user m and received three discovery messages, all pertaining to people that I contributed and researched. STOP THE MADNESS, PLEASE!

LegacyUser

Brett said: Bill

I do not have a problem/issue with the "Campaigns', 'per se'; and, as such (ie. also), some of the "Discovery" 'Messages'.

But, I do have a problem/issue with receiving "Campaigns"; and, as such (ie. also), "Discovery" 'Messages', that NEGATE the fact that I am an active User/Patron and that I should/most probably ALREADY know much about my Ancestors; or, that my Children have ALREADY used the likes of "OrdinancesReady"; especially, when our youngest Child's 'E-mail' address is linked to that of her Mother.

The push for "Participation", by the less active Users/Patrons (especially, Members of the Church), NEEDS to be directed to the less active Users/Patrons, NOT the active Users/Patrons

Brett

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Yes, i, too received the same three messages today. They were of NO VALUE to me..for similar reasons already posted.

I would humbly suggest that a better use of these messages would be to promote education on how to best USE this FSTree program.

How about promoting the FHGuide? Explanation of how to merge, find sources, collaborate with others, watch people, use the catalog, 'elusive records' (Robert Kehrer ). Adding sources. Etc. Etc.

How about directing messages based on length of time, (experience). Beginning lessons for the newbies. Teach collaborative techniques (if someone can expand them). How about the problems with adding GEDCOM into the tree, using the FSWiki.

As has been asked elsewhere - what ARE the top (e.g.three) priorities or goals these days????.

LegacyUser

m said: Please hear me, FS---

I stopped working on FS for 1 hr went away and logged back in---and was faced with 3 spam Discovery messages.

Patrons who log in 1 time per year---they will be faced with 80+ spam Discovery messages.

(Mixed in with real messages---thus DECREASING collaboration!)

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: yes, that is currently correct and has been for several months now

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Bill

For sure most of us really appreciate efforts of FS employees to keep in touch with forum patrons through feedback on the forums :-)

What we see here far too often is a new feature which is added to the site which has nasty side effects (or just breaks something that was there) because that new feature is not complete or has not been thought through completely. E.g., in this case, the opt-out controls were never put into the feature like they should have been. But then, it is as though the feature is assumed to be "completed" simply because it is now installed on the site, and all priorities and work on it STOPS for months until eventually FS gets around to finishing it by removing those side effects which it added to the system.

So the feature was high enough priority to get it installed, but once it has been, there appears to be no importance assigned to fixing the problems that were CREATED by the new feature. And when there is no feedback from FS on it, the silence comes across as "Sorry, we already decided what we will do on this, so you'll just have to live with it".

I hope that this is not the intent, but in so many cases, the things that I see tell me otherwise.