Where to post Community-related ideas
If you have feedback or ideas for improving the community, please post them at the link below. You can also vote on other ideas. Voting and commenting on others' ideas also helps us identify what the general community is looking for, so regardless of whether or not you have an idea, you may want to check it out.
We appreciate your help and your patience as we continue to improve the FamilySearch community experience.
Comments
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For what it is worth, this comes across to me as quite unintuitive. If something is broken in how the community works, would you not want to report it to a a category that is intended for how to "improve" the community (i.e., how to fix it in this case)?
The "How to Use" category would be where people go to learn how to use the community based on how it currently works. IMHO fixing bugs would always be considered an "improvement".
Perhaps the "FamilySearch Community" category should be renamed to "How to IMPROVE FamilySearch Community" in order to more clearly delineate it's purposes in the exact same way that the "How to USE FamilySearch Community" category does. As it is right now it seems quite ambiguous.
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I tend to agree with Jeff.
I have been posting problems in IDEAS - where most everyone has told me is the best place to post bugs/flaws.
How to Use - is How to use . . .
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I was signed up for and received digests from FS Community and also received the daily German Community e-mails. For some unknown reason, this all stopped last week and I am no longer receiving anything. Please allow me to know if the FS Community has ceased being.
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yeh - all sorts of issues like this that Mary reported . . . where to even begin reporting so many issues . . .
seems to be competing with the crisis at the Texas border.
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What was wrong with the old community format
I cannot find anything here & I suspect by the lack of posts in the groups I use many others are having problems
OH well it was interesting but will not bother coming back here
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Hello Lynda,
I understand. It isn't very intuitive. We were so used to our last Community and how it flowed, we are at a loss here sometimes.
Let me know what you are having trouble with and I will try to help.
Thank you,
Anitra
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Where is the "How to Use Family Search Community" category? I can't find it in Q and A or in Ideas.
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I dont think there is one for reasons not exactly clear - but there is a section in the IDEAS area.
GROUPS, Q/A, IDEAS . . . seems to be some overlap between them all - and people end up jumping all over.
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I applied to host a group for my internship in what I guess was the time you were changing the interface. It got lost in the translation. I tried again on March 25th 2021. I finished the application and it said somebody would get in touch with me. Five days later no communication. That is when I learned that FamilySearch help does not help with community problems. I kept going in do loops. Who do I contact? I am not trying to yell here, but I am really frustrated.
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Oh dear.
I'm so sorry. The new interface isn't easy and it is still being created and integrated with the old platform.
I believe the new platform is not creating new groups just now.
Please send me the link where you applied and I will see what I can do.
Thank you,
Anitra, Group Leader
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Thank you,
I hope this helps.
Debbie Simms
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Hello, I see that you posted this question in the How to Use FamilySearch Community.
That is the place I would post your question.
I see there is no answer.
What kind of Group are you wanting to begin?
You can begin an Indexing group. Sign onto FamilySearch.org. On the upper bar, on the left is Indexing. You can get started there.
I think that forming new Groups is on a hold, pending the complete transfer of the old groups.
Good luck.
Anitra
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What I am doing is in Wisconsin. I am starting with Adams County and putting everybody who was on the 1910 Census in Adams county into the family tree. This is a project for volunteers because there are many aspects to this task. This was my project for my internship.
Debbie Simms
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The Community is going through a transition phase - and at the moment new groups are not being created. Im not sure when that will change.
But as to your project - have you considered various collaborative tools - such as Google docs, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and more?
what are some of the things that you are expecting a Community Group to be able to do for you?
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Dennis,
I have Google Docs and I can do Zoom. My internship was with BYU Record Linking labs. And my supervisor has come up with different ways to do family history. He has taught me well. I have Google docs with names and hints for the 1910 census in Adams County. There was over 8000 people in Adams County Wisconsin in 1910. I have a Google doc that goes city by city and alphabetically in 1910 and we look to see if all the A*s etc. in like Friendship, Wisconsin are on a family tree, if they are not, we add them. These are some examples. We need all hands on deck. When we get done with Adams County we will select another county in Wisconsin. I am also setting up Relative Finder groups.
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I got here through the Home page>scroll down to Community Hub and see the posts, then I had to click on the post from Caleb Love that tells us to go to the "How to Use FamilySearch Community." (That was quite a hunt!)
Now that I am here I would like to ask...How do we get here easily? There should be a very obvious link on the Community Home page for "How to Use FamilySearch Community." As a FamilySearch Support Missionary, we get questions about the Community and we are supposed to direct the patrons to the Community to ask their questions about the Community. If the missionaries and the patrons can't even find the right place to ask the right questions in the right categories, then obviously a button is needed right at the top of the Home page. Or, under Q&A there should be a category for Questions about Community. Thank you.
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I agree with @JeanNewell1 ,
Getting around is not intuitive. Some of us need it to be.
Thank you,
Anitra
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Agree with you. Why did support have to change things? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There are plenty of things that really needed fixing with the indexing/reviewing that they could have been doing instead of turning all the things that were working topsy-turvy.
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There was a need to move to a totally different platform - - a platform they knew was not going to be identical. There was no choice but for things to change.
But I wish there would have been more transparency on the whole change - and what we would lose in the process.
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I give up; they win. It took me 15 minutes today just to find where I was yesterday. There new site stinks and is totally useless. I will just go ahead and review like I always did and if I can't figure it out on my own, I'll return it in hopes that someone else will be able to do it.
I can't receive anything from anyone needing assistance so I can't even help anyone here. I'll check in once in a while to see if anything has improved so that if it does, I can return but if not, I'll just plod along until someone somewhere figures out why no one is even interested any longer and does something about it. Goodbye and good luck to everyone who has the patience and fortitude to continue. I'm just too old to wait that long.
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I do not find these changes intuitive or improved. Quite the opposite. Functionality that made this a community is gone and now it is an echo chamber where one is only notified on postings that answer or respond to one's own post. A platform should not dictate functionality, but that seems to be the standard answer given to why things were completely changed.
Judging from the proliferating comments, it would appear there was no acceptance testing and I wonder if there even were any user requirements documentation, that was validated by actual users?
Just because changes can be made does not mean that they should be made.
These changes and the reduced usefulness means that many users will stop using the incredibly unintuitive and non-responsive platform, individual FB and other true community collaborative platforms again may spring up, and the premise and promise of a global community are no more.
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As a developer (programmer) I know sometimes it is necessary to convert to a new system. Converting to a new system can be an exciting time for many improvements. I get the impression that the new system was not adequately designed. Sometimes programmers do things that are convenient for them (the programmer). I know that it can be much more work to make things easy for the user.
I am new here. This is my first post. I apologize for making it critical but I hope it helps. I am here because I was unable to use the Community forums. I wanted to create a thread (discussion) about the problem. I can use FamilySearch but I cannot use Community using the account I was using. I reported the problem and they have attempted to help; a FamilySearch person even logged into my system remotely to see the problem and they have been unable to help. Finally I just created another account and now I am here using it.
I now see that I can post problems in the "How to Use FamilySearch Community" forum. I will create a new discussion there to describe the problem. If someone else encounters the problem then it might help them.
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I am totally new to Community and am a missionary here now. I do not know the old platform at all, but am finding my way around this newer platform a bit at a time. I have utilized the "bookmark" option and the "follow" option to make sure I know where I have been and what posts I want to utilize more. I also set my notifications to let me know about any communication I have been involved with. Those things have helped me immensely.
I hope everyone will be patient as more people mention the things that aren't working so well and changes can get made. This will STILL be an amazing place for people to collaborate and help each other with family history.
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I am so happy to be discovering this new platform. I know that it is challenging and we are are having teething problems. It is so good to be using this platform, so many features, wonderful work by FamilySearch developers. Community is a good forum for all things Family History. The groups make it easy to navigate to the topics I follow or am interested in.
Amazing forum. Keep it up FamilySearch! Thank you
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