Scotland Census, 1901

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Colin Cameron said: Brett, I don't think you're missing anything. It's the rest of us that are missing out

What I/we are seeing when we search for any name is "No Results for Name: *******". Even when I know that name is in there because someone else has already attached the record.



Colin.

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Paul said: Brett

Yes, can you please provide a screenshot of what you can see? It only has to be illustrative - nothing personal to you, but I'm sure many of us would just like to see how a successful search (i.e. with at least one result!) appears. Thanks.

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Colin Cameron said: Why not try Robert Stein MSBL-X44 as I already know that he is in this collection (as Robert Steven) because the record has been attached by another user. Or his wife, or one of the children born before 1901.

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Paul said: Thanks, Colin, but I wanted us to see a "positive" results page illustrated, as none of us (except Brett) seem to have seen anything other than one showing "No Results".

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Colin Cameron said: Sorry. I meant that as a suggestion for Brett, following your request. But didn’t make it clear.

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Paul said: If anyone is due to visit a Family History Center in the near future, I'm sure many of us would be grateful if they could log into FamilySearch - using a public account, not LDS - and go to https://www.familysearch.org/search/c....

I believe a search might well produce some results - rather than the "No Results" most of us are getting when searching from home. For example, I have just searched (from home) for an "Andrew McDonald" and no results were returned, instead of the hundreds that would be expected.

Any search of a relatively common Scottish name should prove the point of whether ALL users can see results whilst at a Family History Center ("Centre" if in the U.K!) or if this collection can only be searched from LDS accounts (from home and/or whilst at a FHC).

Thanks.

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Paul said: BTW - I APPEAR to have been successful in updating the Wiki article on the 1939 National Register - pointing out that to view the index you must be at a FHC. Hopefully, my comments won't be deleted, as both LDS Church members and other users need to be aware of this information. This will make them aware why they are getting the "same" No Results message (when searching from home) as they are getting when searching within the Scotland 1901 Census collection.

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Paul said: BTW - I APPEAR to have been successful in updating the Wiki article on the 1939 National Register - pointing out that to view the index you must be at a FHC. Hopefully, my comments won't be deleted, as both LDS Church members and other users need to be aware of this information. This will make them aware why they are getting the "same" No Results message (when searching from home) as they are getting when searching within the Scotland 1901 Census collection.



(Last line added today, for FS user information)

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A van Helsdingen said: I tried to edit the Scotland 1901 Census page about the apparent LDS-only access to the index. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/...

I gave nearly a weeks notice of the intended edit, and after receiving no objections, made the edit on 23 December. Today, however the edit was reverted, the reasoning being that only the legal team can make that sort of edit.

I won't be trying a similar thing again- I fear next time I'll face suspension or revocation of my editing privileges.

Just why does FS want their Wiki to be inaccurate and unhelpful for users?

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Adrian Bruce said: And if I put my professional standards hat on - why if you gave notice and had no objections, was the edit reverted by FS? What procedures were they following? Anyone who receives no objections within a stated period is entitled to assume agreement. That's the way document review procedures work.

If FS want certain statements in their Wiki to be made only by their legal team, they are entitled to make that decision. But, that decision has to be publicised and a procedure / working instruction written to define the process. That procedure must surely cover the circumstances that you describe and must surely require them to explicitly respond to you before you waste your time - and theirs. It seems to me that FS did not follow their (assumed) procedure.

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David Newton said: You can't say that! It's against the code of conduct of this forum since you're speculating on the competence of Familysearch, its staff and its volunteers. I'm afraid they'll just have to come in and censor you and shut down legitimate criticism. I'm afraid they'll just have to enforce their little, petty rules because they're too afraid to actually operate by proper standards.

Oh dear did I just bruise some of their delicate little egoes? Tough. They make stupid, censorious ridiculous "rules" and they will be called out for doing so. They will be repeatedly called out when they fail to enforce those rules consistently.

They will also repeatedly called out for improper operation of the wiki. They have removed accurate, pertinent and correctly-entered information from the wiki: the term for that is vandalism.

Yes I am saying Jeffrey Michael Svare of Familysearch has engaged in vandalism on the Familysearch Research Wiki. Please remove his access to the wiki until he has been retrained on proper use of the site. Please also remove all other Famiilysearch volunteer and staff members from wiki access if they share his views.

"14. Vandalism. Anything that is added, removed or changed in the Wiki that is an attempt to compromise the integrity of FamilySearch Research Wiki is vandalism."

Please also put proper, consistent, comprehensive, public editing policies in place. What Jeffrey Svare did is against the published policies, so there is no excuse for it. He vandalised the article, violated published editing policies and thus he needs to be punished for doing so.

And people wonder why I view the kowtowing process for wiki editing access with contempt ....

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David Newton said: Now how did I know that was going to happen? Legitimate cricism removed. Censorship again.

I called out someone for wiki vandalism. That isn't "kind", it can't be. What it is, however is constructive. I suggested a positive action for violation of wiki rules. I suggested that the user be banned from editing until they had undergone training on proper wiki use. I also suggested that everyone who shares that attitude undergoes the same training.

Here's the clue-by-four for Familysearch: treat your users with contempt and that contempt will be returned by those users. You do not automatically get respect, you have to earn respect. Familysearch have not earned respect. Familysearch have earned contempt and ridicule.

Incidentally you will need to delete a great deal more to properly enforce that nice little policy of yours. Most of the content of this forum will need deleting. If you're going to be consistent and fair and equitable then hit the delete key. Hit it a lot and keep hitting it until you've driven all of the users of this forum away. Otherwise back off and change that policy to a proper one.

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Paul said: I have just noticed my attempt to edit the Wiki article on the 1939 National Register was not successful after all!

As you will see from the screenshot in my post of 24 days ago, it appeared I had been able to include what I believed to be the helpful detail: "Note - You need to attend a Family History Center to view your search results".

However, this comment has since been removed. In view of previous comments in this thread I had partly expected this would happen. However, I would have expected to have:

(1) Received an email to advise my editing rights had been removed, or
(2) A message to advise I did not have the rights to add such a comment.

Either way, I am very disappointed that this helpful advice has not been "added back" by a FamilySearch employee - in "Legal" or from elsewhere.

This type of information is clearly available when viewing IMAGES (see below) so why can't it be provided for "indexed-only" collections?

In this case it is not a matter of suggesting search results can only be viewed by LDS Church members - I was merely trying to make it clear that ALL users need to be at a Family History Center to see this information.

As has been pointed out, courtesy and respect should be a two-way thing, so I am very disappointed I have not been contacted directly with an explanation confirming why my helpful, factual statement has been deleted.

(Clear information is provided about an image collection that can only be viewed at a FHC, so why can't we be advised when this is the case with indexed collections (e.g. 1901 Scottish census and 1939 National Register?)


I suppose it is possible a different message appears when viewing from a LDS account, but we have been reliably informed there ARE collections that Church members also can only view whilst at a FHC.

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Paul said: AvH

In my post (above) I asked if someone would kindly log into FamilySearch, via a public account, whilst visiting a FHC to confirm EVERYONE could view the 1901 Scottish census "results" whilst there. Nobody has responded, so what evidence do you have that this information is only available to LDS Church members?

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Brett said: Paul

I suspect that nobody has responded to your request above; as, it is the "Christmas"/"New Years" Holiday period; and, many "Family History Centres" (FHCs) would be closed for a period over that break time - my local FHC closed in about the middle of last month (December 2019) and does not open again until the middle of this month (January 2020).

Just my thoughts.

Brett

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Paul said: Thanks, Brett. However, I first made the request 24 days ago and have been a little disappointed that nobody has responded. A quick check would have cleared up the argument about viewing rights. (Just as when I discovered ALL users could see the 1939 National Register results whilst visiting a FHC.)

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Paul said: Happy New Year, by the way. Thoughts at the moment are very much with the plight of many of your fellow Australians. Puts things in perspective when we come here with our moans and groans about FamilySearch, eh?

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Brett said: Paul

'Thanks' mate.

'Yeh', things not that good all around "Down Under" at the moment.

We are lucky in the big City; but, totally surrounded by Bushfires.

For a number of Months now, we often see a "Red" Sun during the day - quite scary.

The Smoke haze is unbelievably thick, some days (and, for days/weeks at a time sometimes).

The number of Homes and Businesses lost is growing, not to mention Crop and Stock losses; and, of course, that goes without saying, the Lives lost.

The Communities that have had to evacuate is ever increasing.

Our Volunteer Bushfire Fighters have been battling the fires for 3 Months now - there does not seem to be an end in sight yet - just so little rain.

Our oldest Daughter was living in a "Granny" Flat in a Suburb adjacent to the "Royal National Park", she has since moved back in with us, to be on the safe side. That "Royal National Park" (like many) is "Closed" this weekend due to Fire Danger.

Oh, "Yeh', the 'Drought' too.

Again, 'Thank You' for the thoughts.

Brett

ps: Oh, Yeh, my local FHC closed the day AFTER you posted, many would have been the same - I certainly was a little to preoccupied to give it any serious thought - give us about a week or two, we should be back on track.

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Adrian Bruce said: "Courtesy and respect should be a two way thing".
Exactly. So far as I can see, your amendment only helps people.

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Paul said: AvH

Looking at the thread on the 1939 National Register index (results) I note the comments of Phil Jeffrey:

" I could see it at home using my LDS account but when I switched to public account I couldn't see them from home. I have a FHC test machine I can log into and I do the same on that FHC test machine. When I did that on the fHC test machine I could see the records both as LDS account and public account."

So while I still see no evidence the 1901 Scotland Census index isn't available to all at a FHC it appears those with an LDS account might well be able to view the results of a search whilst at home (instead of getting the "No results" message).

However, the remarks made by Brett earlier in this thread are interesting, in that he says he CAN see index results from home - both from his public and LDS accounts.

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A van Helsdingen said: I noticed that "Dchin"s user page does not identify him/her as a FS employee or an editor senior in the hierachy. The reversion of your edit cannot be attributed to FamilySearch- it could just be an ordinary user.

I'd suggest using the "talk" feature to ask Dchin why your edit was reverted without leaving a reason in the edit log. If there's no response within a few days, then make the edit again, leaving a reason in the edit log.

As for the restriction message for images, as has been discussed on this forum, since October FS no longer discloses to non-LDS if LDS can view an image/index they cannot. https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

Even since early 2019- when I was told that any mention on the FS Wiki of restrictions on viewing records was not allowed (later reversed), there seems to be a growing trend of FS trying to keep information about these restrictions secret.

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A van Helsdingen said: Certainly I agree that it is possible that non-LDS may be able to see the index at an FHC. It would be more correct to say that from a home computer the index is LDS only. Brett's experience seems to be an outlier (or possibly a bizarre geo-restriction which gives Australians better access than the rest of the world.

It's not helpful that FS is not responding, leading us to have to "speculate", which is now possibly a violation of the Code of Conduct.

I've also contacted the National Records Scotland about this, and was told to expect a response in the new year.

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David Newton said: Keeping the restrictions secret: now why could they feel the need to do that?

BTW for the forum censors this entire bit of the thread is "speculating". You need to delete it if you're going to be consistent.

I think I'm going to point out any thread or part of a thread where we're "speculating" and thus violating the policy, leading to things needing deleting. Perhaps that will get through to those who wrote the policy and those who are enforcing the policy and get them to back off as they should. Perhaps not. Either way we'll see the true colours of the organisation. Then we won't be "speculating": we'll know what's going on.

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David Newton said: Oh dear we're "speculating" again in this bit of the thread. It needs to be deleted to be consistent about enforcing the policy.

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joe martel said: Colin, I'm not sure if your question had been answered or not. I just briefly scanned this thread to hopefully answer any unanswered questions you have. If you feel you have what you need, you can request to have this thread closed.

Through contracts record custodians control what can be seen by their users, and what other partys' users can see. In this case the collection is through FMP.  FMP and FS agreed to what FS users can see. Those FS users are broken up into different restrictive groups. I'm not going to get in what is fair or not but members of the LDS church sometimes can have more access than other groups of users.

In this case it appears that members can see the record (indexes) and Attach those records to a Person in FSFT. Once the record is attached any user in FS can now see that record index. These are restricted indexes as set forth by FMP. Searching a collection would reveal the indexes so the restricted indexes are only searchable by members as well.

The images for this collection are not visible to any FS user. I don't know if the images are available at FMP or some other party. 

There are many levels of access restrictions for the various collections, images, pages, redactions and it is a very complicated legal and technological issue. For instance, some information can be seen in libraries and family history centers. And there are always odd edge cases created by contract and time. Some collections disappear because of custodian and government control. So it's kind of a moving target. Trying to explain all this is hard and software and messaging could be out of date. I wish we had better visibility into all this but I think a company could spin up a whole division to assess collections and visibility throughout the genealogical world. That seems daunting. Hope this helps.

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Adrian Bruce said: Joe, I understand that it's hard and a massive task to come up with a definitive answer. I've also given up wondering whether certain access is fair or not (because I don't have enough appreciation of all the aspects).

What puzzles me is how people attempt to explain the facts in the Wiki and have those attempts rejected. Surely if it's a major task, then a Wiki approach would help? If FS is so nervous of incorrect statements that it wishes to reserve certain subject matter to its legal team, it's entitled to do that in my view. But then that approach needs to be proactively explained and not kept secret.

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A van Helsdingen said: Thank you Joe for finally answering on behalf of FS. Your answer seems to clarify that even at a FHC or Affiliate Library non-Latter Day Saints cannot access the index (unless attached to a profile on the FSFT).

This situation- no clear message anywhere about the index being LDS only- has caused much confusion. I suggest that the Wiki page for the collection states this fact and also there is something on the page that you search the index. It was very puzzling at first when all our searches for common names were returning zero results. Overall at the moment there seems to be poor communication from FS about restricted records, especially on the Wiki but also on the rest of the website.

It's interesting also that FindMyPast is the record custodian of the index, not National Records Scotland or ScotlandsPeople. I will await with interest what National Records Scotland, the ultimate owner of these records, has to say about the LDS-only restriction.

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Adrian Bruce said: NR Scotland (possibly via ScotlandsPeople?) will be the custodians of the images. I'd guess that the index was produced by FindMyPast under contract to ScotlandsPeople. Whether copyright / database copyright to the index resides with FMP or National Records Scotland, I've no idea. Either is possible.

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Colin Cameron said: Thanks Joe, We had guessed at the answer but nothing definitive.

I have no doubt that the details are complex but the cause of my problem is quite simple. The system knows these records are restricted. It knows not to show me the results. The complicated bit about who gets to see what has already been decided. But instead of saying, "These records/results are restricted", it says "There are no results".

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Adrian Bruce said: And at the risk of stating what should be the obvious - "no results" can arise for any number of reasons - the software does know which reason applies here but doesn't, as Colin says, tell us which. That is the problem - not the mind bending complexity of the contracts and agreements.