Suggestion for Mitigating Some Common Reoccurring Issues due to Misunderstandings

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: There continues to be repeated issues due to misunderstandings by both new as well as experienced users. This is especially significant though with brand new users to the system.

Since most folks just want to jump in and start doing things according to their (sometimes incorrect) expectations instead of hunting forever to find beginner guides and knowledge articles. I believe that a short frequent reminder can mitigate a lot of this--especially since most of these things center around a very small number of key issues. For this reason I suggest the following:

Any time after a person enters their ID and Password to sign into FamilySearch, they will immediately be presented with a Modal Window (yes folks, this is a correct use of a modal window) that contains something like this:

While working in the FamilySearch FamilyTree, please remember these key issues:

• This tree is a single SHARED tree maintained through collaboration. Any information that you enter into the tree can be (and will likely be) improved upon or altered by anyone else.

• Anytime you modify the contents of this tree, you should provide justification showing why your new data is more correct than what was already there.

• If you do not provide justification for changes you’ve made, then you must expect that others will likely change the information you have entered.

• When creating new person records, avoid creating duplicates of records that are already in the tree.

The ONLY way that the window can be dismissed is via clicking on a button labeled "I understand" in that window.

Yes, this adds one more click to signing in, but I believe it could significantly mitigate the number of issues that continue to arise from people just not understanding that they are entering a collaborative environment.

LegacyUser

Juli said: The problem is, there are a lot of people who use FamilySearch only for research, and never go near the Family Tree. There is no separate sign-in for them. If all you want to do is search for records, then a message like this on sign-in would be confusing at best. I think most new users would assume that there was some sort of major problem -- wrong site, hijacked URL, FS is a fraud, etc.

If such a message could be conveyed upon one's first visit to any Family Tree page, it would be more effective. I'm ambivalent on how to define "first visit", though: first visit ever using that account, or first visit on each session (i.e. once every two weeks)?

LegacyUser

David Newton said: "Any time after a person enters their ID and Password to sign into FamilySearch, they will immediately be presented with a Modal Window (yes folks, this is a correct use of a modal window) that contains something like this"

Good idea. Bad frequency. This is the sort of thing which new users need much more frequently and long-time users do not need except at very rare occurrences. So certainly during account creation and certainly the first couple of times someone signs in with a new ID. However to do it to a long-time user often will provoke nothing but extreme irritation at being nagged too much.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: A modal can only be generated from a legacy window. They wouldn't see this until a successful login was achieved. And certainly anyone using the FamilyTree in recent times has seen modal windows.

So I understand the severe inconvenience that adding an extra click to the login process can create for some people :-) but it is a matter of the benefits of the mitigation being weighed against the inconvenience of the extra click.

But it is one click. And there is already a TON of extra links and pages and messages all being geared for new users only. This wouldn't add that much. Frequent users would just click through and be done with it.

Many sites today use a split entry sign-in. You put your id on the first page, and then continue to the next in order to enter their password. This is less hassle than that.

So It would show on every sign-in after credentials are entered for everyone. If you have a 2 week sign-in where you don't have to enter credentials, of course it wouldn't show then. This way would be extremely easy and fast to program as well. The amount of benefits from the short effort would be significant I believe.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: You know as well as I do that there are SO MANY extreme irritations on this website as it is, that having one extra click at login would be pretty trivial in the overall experience. Again, I just believe that the benefits of having such a persistent reminder (only a once per session nag) would far out-weight the small inconvenience that long term users would see.

I would certainly be willing to live with such an implementation knowing that anyone grousing about the shared concept of the tree would have no excuses since it would be very difficult to use the system without know these few issues.

And these are top issues as far as thing constantly being misunderstood.

Hiding this information anywhere else (the way it is at present) would make it pretty useless. No one would read it until AFTER a problem occurred and damage was done (i.e., the way it has been occurring for years now)

LegacyUser

m said: I love it.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: By the way, I'm not sure how many of the patrons on FamilySearch do not use the FamilyTree, but it seems that it would have to be in the minority. Even members of the church who have outside accounts must bring their records into the Tree in order to submit them for temple work (probably the number one reason that we even have the tree).

And even those who DON'T use the tree do have the capability to modify it simply by virtue of the FS account that they have. They need to know the key issues as well. Its only 3 or 4 issues that everyone needs to know before working in the tree and I can't think of any other effective way to get it communicated. Putting it into user guides or knowledge articles will never cut it.

LegacyUser

Juli said: I believe the vast majority of non-LDS FS accountholders have never touched Family Tree. VAST majority. Like, probably ninety-nine out of a hundred, or more.

Many of those people are already confused about what FS actually is; telling them about the collaborative, user-edited tree will make many of those people assume that that's _all_ that's on FS, so that they will thereafter throw away all historical records that come from FS, believing them all to be user-submitted junk.

LegacyUser

m said: Maybe modify to "If you visit Familytree..."

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: Great idea!

LegacyUser

ATP said: Jeff, I agree with all your reasoning in this thread. It really, as you say, difficult to know how to use the whole system as presently designed and implemented.

After months of struggling to comprehend how to use the system on my own, because everything for the most part is so far out in the weeds, I only came to this forum a couple of months or so ago to see what it was I was not understanding and why I was finding it so difficult to find how to more efficiently use it.

What I found was that I certainly was not alone in the matter. As you say, signing in is pretty trivial compared to the other issues abounding in the design and implementation that in my estimation needs a whole new complete rethinking. If, in the end, a concept is not user friendly, there is very good probability that many if not most potential users, depending on their persistence level, won't and don't come back, depending on the reason they came to familysearch.org in the first place.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, you can also tell by the continuous repetition of the same problems that keep being raised in this forum over the years.

You come in to the FT as a newbie and when you start having frustrations, you think that it's all you. It can take a while before you start to see how many things are just poor design with little to no documentation on how to use them.

I have a bit of any edge on some of these things as my career has required the ability to do essential modeling -- i.e., identifying and documenting the inherent natural "structures" of problems so that designers can model their designs around them in the most effective way. That's why you'll regularly see me around here grousing about one thing or another that should be changed :-)

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Julie, do you really think that 99% of all FamilySearch account holders never use the FamilyTree itself? Pretty well all of the users I know (except a few here on the forum) that use FamilySearch are using the tree as well as the research tools.

Although not directly related to your comment, it would be interesting to know what the ratio of member accounts to total FS accounts that there are in the system.

LegacyUser

Juli said: I'm just thinking through all of the people I know (of) who do genealogy -- friends, people on email lists and forums -- and out of those several hundred people, who all have FS accounts because that's where the Hungarian vital records are that we all use, I know of maybe five people (including myself) who use Family Tree. Some explicitly *don't* use FSFT because it's communal, and they don't believe in that; some avoid it because of the language barrier (i.e. they can't figure it out), and many simply don't want to put any work into yet another tree.

But yeah, it would be nice to put numbers to the question: what percentage of FS accountholders have never set up FamilyTree profiles for themselves?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: As a staff member of my local FHC, very few members visit and those who do are largely staff members. Of the rest, those who are not members, none use the tree, but come to access or receive help accessing the historical records.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I would certainly believe that most non-Church members in the UK will use FS only for the Historical Records and the Wiki (I keep recommending the pages about Lancashire parishes to all and sundry), so I think that there is a danger of confusion and surprise, as Juli suggests.

I know it extends the text, which is seldom a good idea, but could
"While working in the FamilySearch FamilyTree" be amended to
"While working in the FamilySearch FamilyTree (as distinct from searching the Historical Records, Catalog, Wiki, etc)"?

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Juli,

some avoid it because of the language barrier (i.e. they can't figure it out)

Many folks that DON'T have the language barrier still can't figure it out :-)

Reflecting on what you said, it occurred to me that the division between FS account holders that use the FT and those who do not probably does tend to generally follow the member/non-member demographics. If I were not a member having the church temple related beliefs that I do, I would also DEFINITELY avoid the FT itself. At least, there is no way that I would use it as my primary storage location for work that I did.

After all, who wants someone else coming in and randomly changing all of the work that they've done? Even if the changes made by others is more correct, there is still a natural tendency and desire to control access to what you have produced. So I definitely understand that.

But the structure and concepts behind the shared FamilyTree is absolutely IDEAL for the goals that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (and hopefully all of their members) have:

• Instead of everyone having their own little private area to create and protect their own personal view of the world, it is a communal thing where members contribute their time and effort to the construction of a common tree of the world. I.e., the results of your work aren't really yours since it has been donated to the community. Essentially, working on the tree is kind of like living the United Order.

• The use of a communal family tree was intended to reduce the amount of duplicate temple work being done. In spite of the current challenges dealing with duplication within the tree, we have been told that duplication of temple work has successfully been reduced SIGNIFICANTLY since the introduction of the common tree.

• To submit the names of ancestors in order to have their temple work done, the ONLY channel available for that is through the FS FamilyTree.

So in general, members of the church are going to use the FamilyTree itself. And with over 16 million members worldwide at the end of 2018, I kinda think that there is a pretty big chunk of FS account holders that all use the tree.

Obviously there are going to be exceptions. I know of non-members who like to contribute and keep their data in the tree. I know that there are many members with things like Ancestry.com accounts who had them before the tree was built and want to keep them for DNA purposes (again though, they still have to contribute to the tree to get their names submitted to the temple)

So I'm thinking that the ratio of people actually using the tree itself is pretty hefty. And referring back to the original topic, in keeping with the church's goals for the tree, putting reminders regarding tree maintenance at the sign-in point for all account holders would be completely appropriate.

All just my opinion, of course :-)

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: And of course, many members already are familiar with doing family history and now that they can do most of it from home, they don't have as much occasion to go to a FHC (except to see original images that are restricted from general access)

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Or maybe rearranging the text to something like "While working in the FamilyTree database portion of FamilySearch, please remember these key issues:"?

This could help emphasize that fact that the FamilyTree Database in the FamilySearch site is a distinct part of a larger picture

Also note that these reminders DO actually apply to areas outside of the tree. For example, we can now edit and correct names in sources. Historical records is an area where this applies as as well now, so making distinctions between the different areas doesn't seem as urgent a thing to me and the reminders apply to these areas as well.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I like the rearranged text - reads better than my initial suggestion.

I suspect that anyone correcting names in Historical Records will rather hope that anything that they do in that line will indeed be seen by others.

To reinforce Juli's concerns about non LDS users, I have seen on several occasions people getting really worried in message boards about the logon requirement and what it means, so anything FS can do to clarify that the warning is not directed at Historical Records users will help.

LegacyUser

m said: I am not LDS, but my ancestors were some of the first LDS members. So it makes sense to be on Familytree.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Understood. However, regarding correcting names in Historical Records, there are currently two significantly opposing camps on this, so i'm sure that there WILL eventually be changes to changes that are made there with their associated disagreements.

One camp (which I am in) believes that indexed information from a particular image should represent that image's contents EXACTLY as shown in the image. We do frequently see where an indexer couldn't make out the scribblings of the original recorder of the document, so they made a guess. Later someone familiar with the family comes along and can clearly see why the indexer made a mistake and so they update the name in the index (e.g. a "ee" recorded as a "u"). This is no more than the vetting that should have happened for the indexed information before it was released, but just wasn't possible without more information. This improves the quality of the index.

The other camp are those that believe a complete, proper name for the person should be put into the index, even if it never existed in the original image that was indexed. They would take a name such as "D.C. Smith" (as shown in the image of the original source as well as the index that was created, and change it to something like "David Crumbly Smith" because of information that they obtained elsewhere by looking at other sources and research outside of the indexed image. The presumptions that the original recorder themselves spelled something wrong

Besides being presumptuous, uses sources not documented by the index, totally changes the meaning and intent of the index, and some other potential problems, some people insist on changing the indexed name to the way that they just KNOW is the correct spelling of the indexed persons name. This logic and associated conclusions belongs elsewhere and not in the original document indexes.

But some people strongly disagree.

LegacyUser

m said: I like the rearranged text too.

Also I don't think some people actually read the reasoning statement. So maybe a reminder to read the reasoning statement?

The other day I thought, ok someone changed the name, maybe I need to improve the reasoning statement. It turned out I had several links to sources and a link to an article and a quote from the article explaining the name.