A Plea to Moderators

Gordon Collett

I am posting this here since it appears moderators spend more time here than in Ideas. First let me thank you for your work. You are posting a lot of good answers for people here on the Help Center boards in a very timely manner.

I do have two requests on behalf of newer users of FamilySearch to prevent confusion and frustration on their part.

First off, please be sure to thoroughly understand a question before posting a Help Center article. I have seen too many links to articles that have nothing to do with the posted question.

Secondly, please be familiar enough with a Help Center article to be sure that the article still correctly describes how FamilySearch or Family Tree currently works. When the program is updated, there can be a significant time lag before all the Help Center articles are updated to match what the program actually does. Currently the most common example are all the Help Center articles that end in something like: "if this does not solve your problem, please contact FamilySearch Support. Use the Send a Message option for the fastest response:"

Wayland K Adams

Hi Gordon See private message.

Dennis J Yancey

I totally agree - this is a LONG STANDING issue - and not new the new community

so many times - the person answering the question - simply picks any Help Center article they can find - even if it is remotely related to the subject in question or happens to have sme of the same key words.

They are more interested in checking off the question from their list of items to process than they are really trying to find a solution to the real problem - or letting the user know that they don't have answer (initially)

Few things are more frustrating to end users than this . . .

I totally realize that the volunteer missionary support system - ends up with people trying to answer questions that they themselves may not even know the answer to. God bless the missionaries for their help and support!!!! I really mean that. BUT PLEASE - at least do a good faith attempt to ensure the link shared - actually applies to the question being asked.

PLEASE - - - help us avoid the frustration of advice or links that have nothing to do with the question being asked.

(my response is based on years of use of FamilySearch - and is not based on a single incident)