Working together in FamilyTree with other community users.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Here is an idea I've been considering but would like some feedback. THis may never be implemented.

When you (a user) is looking at a Person/Relationship they can see:
- All the users that have contributed to that Person/relationship
- All the users watching that Person
- All the users that are live - currently logged in and viewing that Person or on one that Person's family members.

1. You could open one of those user's contact card and message them. Maybe even chat with them if they are live.

2. I think any user that participated in FT must let their contact card be shown to other users (it already is that way for conclusion contributions and changelog).

3. I think any user that participated in FT must always be able to receive a message from another user - that's a core principle of an open-edit community tree. So a User couldn't block messages from another User.

4. I do understand the desire to broadcast to all those users. I'm nervous about letting a User broadcast message a bunch of users with one send, and that boradcast would not be allowed.

Broadcast seems like a great spamming potential. I know you may want to just send one message to all those 100 users. But would you want messages from all the users that happen upon that ancestor. "Hey, we're related! How are you related to Grandpa Jack?" The messages may be very detailed about research and ideas, but could easily be from new beginners that just attached a hint and new to the system and not afraid to broadcast to meet all those users.

Maybe we may want to get to being able to broadcast messages from one user to the other 100, but maybe we could show correlation between the groups of users (watchers, contributors, there-right-now) to filter it down to the set of users that you really want to communicate to. Also if one:100 messaging is allowed, how does that get showed and managed in the User Messaging UI? Do you want to be able to turn off some users that you don't want to keep bothering you?

5. Consider Discussions. Most the time a broadcast is going to be like this: "Hey, I found this other birth certificate and want to change the birthdate of Jack. Is that OK?" Well, that is exactly what Discussions is for. But the UI buries that capability and we need to have more immediate notification when a user posts to Discussions.

A more cohesive approach should consider this community user visibility, Discussions, and Changelog.

So there's a lot to consider. But I'd like to hear your thoughts. Think, helpful users, and not so helpful users and how they help/hinder your work and what you want as impedance to noisy communication.

LegacyUser

Alahärmä said: Off topic: Is there a means for me to contact you privately?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: These are some great potential features, Joe. I have concerns with items 3 and 4.

Item 3 -- there may be a case when I am in the middle of some serious work on another person and do not want to be distracted. It would be nice to temporarily make such communication, "Not available at this time" with the option of joining it at a later time.

I'm not sure how that could be implemented, but maybe with the idea that such a communication open another tap (or window) in the browser, so as to not disturb the current activity.

And that leads to item 4. No broadcasting.

Item 4 -- While I agree that such a feature could lead to spam, my feeling is that it would never go to persons who are not signed in at the time the message goes out.

In other words, normal messaging can continue as it exists today, but this would be unique collaboration system, one that is intended to engage people who are currently signed in and active on FamilySearch with their computer or mobile device. It would not make a connection if the twenty-minute timeout had occurred.

It that was the case, then I would be in favor of a broadcast.

But, there should also be a means to capture the message and report it (not as spam, but as some unrelated (to Family History and genealogy) or inappropriate (abusive / stalking) message -- in other abuse of the system and something that would be disabled if the person sending was guilty of sending inappropriate messages. Along with this establish rules of "netiquette" that could be adopted from the old BBS netiquette rules.

Just some ideas to the thinking.

Thanks for raising this idea... it could lead to much better collaboration.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Joe

It is, both, frustrating; and, disappointing, that two (x2) relatively recent SIMILAR posts in this Forum on this very subject came to 'naught'.

They being:

Robert Wren
Year ago
Collaboration Needed to Avoid Duplications and Resolve Misunderstandings
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

and,

Mine
8 Months ago
Please provide (ie. add) a "Pop Up" / "Drop Down" Box, with a LIST of Users/Patrons who are WATCHING an individual a User/Patron is CHANGING
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

The two (x2) biggest problems/issue/concerns raised by other participants in this Forum were that of (1) "Privacy"; and, (2) "Spam Mail"; personally, neither of which I considered to be a problem/issue/concern at all.

Just bring up ( 'dredging up' ) the past

Brett

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: One additional thought. If the person does not want to receive any broadcasts from other users, then they should be able to disable such in their notifications settings.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: The privacy/spam issue could be resolved via my suggestions. The option of "opting out" of receiving such messages with the person sending them being notified that says, this person does not accept these messages at this time. Use the normal message means, which will notify the person they have a message awaiting them.

In other words, opt out of all broadcast / watch messages/discussions
still get normal messages left by other users -- Opt-out or receive notification of such messages.

As Joe point out, the idea is open for suggestions, but "may never be implemented."

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Excellent idea - we are desperately short of genuinely collaborative tools. Some comments:
1. Messaging group 3 - "All the users that are live - currently logged in and viewing that Person or on one that Person's family members"
I really don't see the point of this one - it could be so transient that it's just pot luck if you catch them. And half of them will say, "I was only looking!"

2. Re numbers - in the sort of areas that I work with, I'd be surprised to see more than 5 or 6 watchers and other contributors in total. (I'm ignoring Group 3). So I don't see any spamming potential!

3. I might want to mute future messages about a particular PID if all I did was standardise a place name or if I unmerged someone from "my" relative. Probably best to do that when I get an unwanted message rather than stick the mute button into all possible exits after an update.

4. There might be a need to mute certain users overall because they try your sanity but that should surely be a facility in messaging anyway. That, I would say, always takes precedence over the open edit requirement.

5. Yes, there might be overlap with Discussions so designers with a stake in Discussions might push back. All I can say is that I've never yet seen a Discussion used as that - I use them because (if I recall correctly) another idiot can't corrupt your note. Maybe, as suggested, such a messaging system might benefit Discussions because you could message interested parties to say: "Please see this Discussion that I just started on this profile." In fact, that might be an automatic all-interested- parties message that didn't need your intervention.

One way or another, I reckon that we need to have the facility to send one message to all parties with one click.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: By the way, Robert's discussion from a "Year ago" is worth looking at. He makes some important points, especially when it comes to FamilySearch doing more along the lines of promoting collaboration.. This would go a long way to help that, and should get a lot more attention than the ongoing inane "campaigns" which try to engage people in research.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Tom - I was thinking of this facility as being no more than bulk messaging. You seem to be approaching it more as an on-line chat system. Of course, my concept of the numbers involved lead me to believe that there's no chance anyone I need to contact is online when I am.

If I can't contact the full list of watchers and previous contributors in one go, because they're not logged in, then the proposal is pointless for me. Or am I missing what you mean? And I would hope (oh dear, am I being naive?) that all the reporting of spam, etc, that you rightly raise, is already in place for messaging.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: No, I don't think you've missed anything. But you have brought up an important point -- getting to those users who are watching a person's details for changes. Then, some kind of bulk messaging (to be left on the person's messages page) is also needed, but with a way to report inappropriate messages and, a way to opt out of the messages...

But, yes, an on-line chat connection could also be helpful.

For instance, when I started responding to your comment, it was only four minutes old. If we could open up a chat session, we could toss ideas back and forth...

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: And yes, Messages from other users (conversations) have an option to report abuse. It is hidden in the upper right corner of the message space under Options which is not very prominent.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: I think we are treading on thin ice with the "muting" and "Opt-out" ideas. In the current context, the messaging is so that when you see a change by a specific person, in order to collaborate with them you absolutely must be able to contact them.

There are many people that don't want to be bothered by others "complaining" about the work they are doing in the tree, even when they are screwing up things royally and keep repeating the same mistakes, and refusing to be helped by someone that has more of a clue than they do.

ABSOLUTELY IN NO WAY should somebody be able to "Turn off" messages that are being sent to them with comments or questions regarding things that they have done to the tree!!!

By providing that capability, you are basically giving people another way to bypass the collaboration that is ESSENTIAL to the success of a shared FamilyTree!!

I personally believe that if should be mandatory for EVERYONE with an account on FS to provide an e-mail address in the system. This does not have to be visible to anyone, but whenever a message is sent to a person regarding changes that they made to the tree, it should ALSO be copied to their e-mail and there should be no way to opt out of it.

If somebody is going to have the power to modify on a whim, any record that exists in the tree at any time, it should be MANDATORY that anyone can contact them somehow in order to discuss the changes that they made

A lot of the people that don't want to hear you are the same ones that won't bother responding. There are too many people who want to go in and change anything that they want without have to provide any detailed reasoning on it. The ability to direct questions toward them about what they have done should never be blocked.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Please keep the inter-FS communications to well defined applications. I think that going to a generic, do-everything email (or even Facebook) type of applications would be a grave mistake. There should be well defined and essential Use Cases for EVERY new capability or change in the system. There are already far too many issues because of things being thrown into the design simply because somebody just thought "it might be nice if..."

LegacyUser

Brett said: Jeff

Unfortunately you can:



Just 'un-check'/'un-tick'; and, its done.

Brett

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Brett, Thank you for linking my "Collaboration" post of a year ago.

https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

My summary at the end might be appropriate here:

A (THE) key to solving merging, duplication and various other problems may very well lie in one of the fundamental reasons for creating FSTree as open-edit. That key is 'encouraging collaboration' and setting up methods to better utilize the concept!!!

One can collaborate with another person, or maybe a dozen or two, but is virtually impossible to cooperate with a hundred, or worse, several million. This is especially true when the many of the directly interested parties are not even KNOWN (aka those who are fellow ANONYMOUS users on the 'Watch list")

At some point when there are frequent 'back and forth' merges, change, duplications and disagreements, without any apparent resolution, when it becomes apparent that after months, or years, without resolution of those differences; it would seem only logical for some interested party (or parties) to be able to call a temporary HOLD on changes to a PID.

This would 'encourage' or 'require' collaboration by those interested parties to open a discussion in a virtual 'meeting' to come to an understanding on the issue - or possibly to end up with two or three alternatives to adjudicate over a longer period of time.

FSTree was created in a 'modified' Wiki format. MOST Wiki's require moderating or some type of approval or supervision. That's true of the FamilySearch Wiki; it's true of Wikipedia. It likely needs to be true in FamilySearch, at least, in some limited fashion.

MOST entries in FSTree do NOT have a huge problem with multiple differing opinions. But the completely uncontrolled open-edit concept of FamilySearch will result (is resulting) in ongoing chaos for many of the billion PID's. How many, I do not know, but FS massive computing power should be able to analyze the quantity. I guesstimate maybe only 1 to 3% of my small 'branch' - but they may create 50% of my frustration. I would far prefer further research than repeated corrections or simply giving up.

That topic was based on the principle espoused in the formulative document for the FamilySearch Tree - an excellent (but ignored - IMHO) document: "THE CASE FOR MOVING TO “OUR TREE”

http://broadcast.lds.org/eLearning/fh...

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: I KNOW!!!

Any changes or "improvements" to the messaging system should only exist to permit certain situations to be handled that currently cannot be handled with the existing messaging system. Furthermore, those changes should not BREAK existing functions that are already working.

Too many people keep talking about making the system to do this or that, instead of just listing the problems that must be addressed (e.g., enforcing that EVERYONE is involved in collaboration and nobody can go off and comfortably sit in a quiet corner undisturbed while they change the contents of the tree to fit their own imaginations).

A general purpose messaging system that is not specific to the needs of patrons working within the FS databases has a real potential to become more of a handicap than a help. I seen this type of thing done in Software environments many times and it always ends up more trouble than it was worth.

LegacyUser

m said: Um...what is "contact card" and what is "broadcast" (I'm confused)?

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: I'm not really interested in GROUP messaging everyone who has touched a person or who is watching a person.

However, I do feel that with the current messaging options, we are missing the ability to message those who are "watching" the person.

I have made the assumption that for the most part, the watchers have probably been a contributor and I can find them in the change log. However, with merges the change log on the surviving person is not complete, yet the watchers from the merged persons are on the surviving person.

I have had times where it would be good to notify all the watchers first before I "disconnect" that person from a relationship. 50 years of family members passing on incorrect information ... where the attached sources today show otherwise ... it would be great to get all the watchers on the same page before I made the change, so that they stopped changing it back and forth until all 10 people figured out that the source, not the folklore was true. Could have saved hours of work and hours of back and forth communication.

My suggestion is to reveal who are the "watchers" and a link to their contact card for collaboration.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Robert, Thanks for repeating those truths here. The fact is that things like:

- the GEDCOM compare tool
- collaboration messaging that you can "opt-out" of, and
- the absence of reasonable moderation for activities in the FSFT

ALL DESTROY COLLABORATION! They all allow people to bypass the common sense of collaboration and do whatever they want to the data in the tree without having to be accountable for what they are doing.

When you want to work with folks in a collaborative way to resolve issues, but they choose not to, you are powerless and have no recourse. I know people who have given up trying to put together names for temple work knowing that it is hopeless trying to get certain people educated to the point that they understand (and indeed are WILLING) to stop repeatedly scrambling things.

LegacyUser

Ann H said: I think this is a great suggestion.

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: "Contact card" - this is the popup card that opens up when you click on a user's name in Family Tree. It is how you can contact that user. The user specifies what information they want made public. You can send an internal message through the contact card to another user.

"Broadcast" - means to send a message to a group of users at once.
For example if you wanted to message everyone who is watching or has contributed to a person in the Family Tree you could send one message and broadcast it to all those users at once.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: Being able to STOP receiving messages from someone, is like you are saying to them they really don't have any value in this world.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: I tried sending you an email  based on your GetSat profile. It bounced.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Alahärmä

FYI

If you participate in the "Community.FamilySearch" Forum; then, 'Joe' can find you; and, then send you a "Private" Message through that Forum.

I hope that helps.

Brett

LegacyUser

Ala Härmä said: Oh, yes, thank you Joe, but I have a long standing problem of Familysearch not accepting my email server and I have used a disposable email address for registration instead. Could you please mail me at getsatisfaction@miettii.net?

LegacyUser

KD said: True. There should be no 'muting' or 'opt out' of messaging - not even the current option to block messages.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: To pick up on one concern - to me, the context for this discussion includes a constraint on the requirements / design, which is that it should use the existing FamilySearch messaging system (with its ability to copy to email) as the underlying transmission mechanism. No extra bright, shiny things to be bought or developed.

If that mechanism won't support the functions we need, fair enough but that's my initial thought. So I don't see the need for any ability to turn off collaborative broadcasting (say) in order to concentrate on something because you can just not look at the FS messaging or your email.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Re muting. I had two cases that led me to suggest muting.

Firstly, "I might want to mute future messages about a particular PID if all I did was standardise a place name or if I unmerged someone from "my" relative."

If I can't do that, then this could discourage me from, say, helping someone to get some data correct, because I really don't want to be pestered about someone where I don't actually know anything about that person's life, only about the IT system aspects of their data.

With the unmerging angle, I am thinking of a case where I effectively unmerged Ann X of Derbyshire from Ann X of Cheshire - the latter being my relative. I don't really want to be pestered with someone asking me about Ann X of Derbyshire again.

There are counter-arguments to what I've just said - if I've not explained my role adequately, for instance.

Secondly, "There might be a need to mute certain users overall because they try your sanity ... "

I guess the counter-proposal would be - well, just ignore the idiot, but my impression is that most messaging systems do include some sort of "ignore this idiot" function and omitting it could lead to people regarding the FS messaging system as naive.

There is a further aspect - the requirement for privacy, etc., might need a mute button of some sort. This really is something that would require legal advice. The counter-argument is that collaboration is a basic function of FS FT and therefore FS FT needs its users to participate in such messaging and they shouldn't be surprised by such messaging. The counter-counter-argument to that is that FS FT hasn't used such messaging in the past, so it can't be a fundamental requirement to use messaging in order to participate in FS FT.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Sorry to put a damper on some very positive ideas, but I just don't see some of them will do anything to improve collaboration.

Recently, I have written to several individuals who have contributed (vitals inputs, etc.) to persons I am watching. Only one has replied. How are suggestions involving contact availability being "mandatory" going to improve collaboration? If I had sent a message to an email address rather than by the internal messaging facility would that have produced a different response from the individual I was desperate to get answers from (regarding his detailed inputs that had no sources or reason statements attached)?

I can see the sense of it being a condition of use of the website that FamilySearch contacts the intended recipient of a message by email, to advise there is a message for them In Family Tree. Many users go months without using the program, so would not even know there was a message for them otherwise. But I don't see a copy of the message itself being included in the FamilySearch email being essential.

Each to his/her own, but I NEVER take part in "live" communication - visual (Skype) or otherwise - any typed responses from me would be far too slow! However, I can see this is something that would suit many users - depending on the time zone factor!

I believe a few contributors to this thread are just being far too optimistic about what any "new rules" would achieve. In any case, things can work both ways and you could find an individual seeking to contact another user ending up unreasonably pestering them for information / explanations. There could be genuine reasons for not getting a prompt response - an extended holiday, illness, or the person might even have died! And I don't think I am exaggerating in saying some Family Tree participants might have mental health problems - someone actually posted on this forum that her relative was making ridiculous inputs due to this fact.

In summary, I don't think we should be too judgemental about responses (of lack of them) from fellow users and, as far as possible, any proscriptive changes involving contacting them should be avoided.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Well said, Amy, as usual.

I have never received a message from a 'fellow' watcher! In fact, no one ever has. It would seemed to me that 'watchers' would be a natural collaborative group that should be able to 'lock' a PID to discuss it, correct it, and then unlock it with, hopefully, better information- which would continue to be monitored, open edited and become more "WORTHY OF ALL ACCEPTATION"

This, to me, is one of the goals that was outlined in the White Paper which instituted FSTree.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: All schemes for control by patrons run into the same issue. What happens when the controlling patrons don't react? Perhaps because they're dead or otherwise incapacitated?

Well, we know from experience with so-called locked profiles of famous people - someone simply creates their own version of the real life human being and we end up with duplicates that aren't quite the same and no ability to merge even if the "truth" gets agreed.

Collaboration - yes. Control of profiles by tiny groups of self appointed custodians - no.