MyHeritage -- Snaps Up Geni.com

1) killing zombies was not the original purpose of the curators: it's simply a task along the way needed to execute the vision of a single integrated documented historic world family tree (insert commas as needed).

2) what part of the word BUG is unclear ? :):)

3) I haven't even begun to talk about the absolute nightmare it took to weave together 800 copies of Charlesmagne among others.

So the bottom line is - wait for the technology to be in place. "Trusting" that pristine unduplicated error free GEDCOM files can be properly uploaded by members is a foolish trust indeed. I wouldn't trust myself to do it properly & I know what I'm doing.

I know what a "bug" is Erica, do you know what a "strawman" is?

I know I'm not a straw man and I hope you're not, either. If someone has a question, cannot they ask for themselves? I do answer as myself and not a mouthpiece.

Alex, I do think GEDCOM upload would be much safer if the user had to click on each individual profile to signify "this is a new profile that I believe isn't on the world tree yet" before adding it.
Anything that allows an user to add 1000 things without doing 1000 actions is going to cause reduplication - unfortunately, the reason people want gedcoms is that they want the ability to do exactly that.

Erica Howton & Alex Moes Thanks for the replies. Erica, I looked at your example and I am aware of Geni's policy ..... I had however checked out quite a few instances of pro and basic users complaining about files being private. When I have gone to the profile of the user's who complained I have found they are private with no access to there tree. So why would someone copmplain if others were doing the same. Most of the private files I have found can be worked aound anyway tree or no tree.
I guess my privacy default will be two or three generations out as I don't see a need for users searching below that. In the future I will ignore the standalone and private profile complaints and consider them aimed at profiles over 3 generations out. So with the onset of MH I will not have to be making any changes to my tree (nice).

Thanks ... Dave

Harald, I hope Geni adopts your suggestion of importing one-by-one, and not en masse. I'm anxious for gedcom uploads to be re-instated, but in every case I've looked at in my database it would be very difficult to create exactly the right gedcom without massive duplication. Other users might have a different experience.

Dave

I pretty much agree with you. :)

Erica - re: 2) Basic members were able to accept merges initiated by their collaborators / family group members. Now they can also initiate them. - No, not actually so, but --- If a PRO requested a merge on two Public Profiles he was a collaborator on, it went thru without any acceptance needed by any manager or collaborator or etc, even if one was in a separate tree (if in Big Tree, collaboration not even needed). If a PRO requested a merge on two profiles in a Family Group he was a member of, it went thru without any acceptance needed by manager or other family group member. And similarly if PRO was a collaborator of one Public Profile (or it was on Big Tree) and Family Group Member of a Private Profile - he could merge these without any approval needed from anyone else. (The Basic Member was not accepting these merges, they were simply being implemented without his approval or acceptance.)

Harald,
I agree with you completely that it should be more onerous for people making the upload rather than letting any old crap be uploaded and then left to the rest of Geni's users to clean up.
All i am advocating is a way to "copy" a profile from MH to Geni without having to copy and paste every individual data field of that profile manually.

Lois I'm less interested in the past than the present & future.:).

Alex I agree that there "should" be tools to minimize the manual data entry duplication efforts. But the tools are not in place. So in the meantime - CTRL C & CTRL V are your friends. :)

I'd be all for a way to import individual entries from Ancesty.com

And google place names is my enemy :(

Oh gosh yes... I want to be able to type in a place without it being renamed to something that didn't exist at the time the person lived! :)

My favourite is when the auto-fill recognises the Place Name that i want as a Place Name and Country, even though i know the county and state i have occassionally been lazy and just accepted the auto-fill of Place, Country - then been very unimpressed when the new profile only displays Country.
And this is for modern localities that google maps will give you streetview for, not extinct places :(
Tying back to the cut&paste conversation above - the result of this is that instead of copying a single data field, ie. "Place, County, State, Country" i have to go to edit location details and copy/paste 4 fields for every location for every profile, birth, baptism, marriage, death. Potentially 16 data fields per person just for localities :(

/rant

Alex and then if you're "cite sourcing" a document - you have to do it all over again. Let's say four census years, even just birth / death / location for each. Plus location lookup doesn't even connect with google half the time on wifi.

No wonder I have tendinitis.

That sounds odd, i mean wifi is a hardware option so while it might slow your connection slightly it shouldn't stop a software application?

True - could be (likely is) a crap modem. But all software applications depend on networking, so it's untrue that "it's not in the software.".

I fail to be excited about the "exciting offer" for people with lifetime memberships. I now have 5 years instead of life and to compensate me, I get records matching that seems to cover US sources and nothing else. My tree is geographical and tracks families in Canada. I have no interest in US families, so US sources don't help me at all.
Just call me one unhappy camper!

Yup I agree with Jess. I honestly can't believe my lifetime Geni membership is now a 5 year! I was thinking I was being given something at some point. Not having something taken away. I'm so discouraged.

I am very disappointed with Geni.com's decision to transform my lifetime account into a 5 year one. I could expect to live for 40 more years - they just withdrew 7/8 of what I paid for.

I'm really confused on all this. I just got an email that now my LIFETIME membership is now only a 5-YEAR membership! Is this even legal?! Talk about bait and switch.

Hypothetically, after 5 years if I don't pay up again will I even be able to access all the profiles I've contributed to the site? Really upset!!!

Noah Tutak I am still waiting for information as to the status of my paid for lifetime PRO account and also the paid for lifetime PRO account of my daughter in law which I paid for.

They promised us when they stopped offering Life Time Memberships that those of us who had bought Life would be grandfathered in, it would be for Life. Absolutely promised it!

I certainly made my decision based on getting more than 5 years from my membership. At the very least, they should give me choice of accepting their offer OR. This majorly sucks!! I paid for Life less than a year ago, so starting my 5-year as of today is no big wow plus. Can I cancel and get my money back?

According to the Terms of Service:

"Prepaid fees for annual and multi-year subscriptions will be refunded based on the number of months remaining on the contract period, beginning with the month following receipt of written cancellation, but may be subject to adjustment according to current product pricing and subject to adjustment for any incentives or discounts provided for said prepayment. A Member choosing to cancel a prepaid subscription prior to the end of its prepaid term may also be subject to a $15 processing fee. No partial month refunds will be provided."

Will they honor their Terms of Service and give refunds?? And if so, how much?

The MyHeritage data subscription that was given in compensation for the shortening of the lifetime subscriptions is valued at over $600, more than anyone paid for a lifetime subscription to Geni. That said, if you are dissatisfied with the exchange, contact Geni Customer Service (see http://help.geni.com/entries/21135687-how-do-i-contact-geni-about-m... ) and our CS team will be happy to assist you.

I'm suggesting everyone go to MyHeritage to the contact us section and voice our gripes there as well. This is just WRONG!

Back on page 1 of this discussion Private User said " I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the offer we will be sending out next week. And if by some chance you are not you can contact me directly and we will work together to make you as happy about this as we are."

Well guess what?! I'm not "pleasantly surprised! And yes I'll be contacting you directly.

I haven't received the "lifetime" offer email but from reading the posts here I am totally pissed off! My dad paid for a lifetime membership for me just a little over a year ago mainly because of all the restrictions Geni was putting on those that were using the free membership. Geni made it so it was almost impossible to use the site without paying for a membership. My dad bought me a lifetime because he know how much I enjoyed working on genealogy and that I wouldn't just work on it for 1 year. I can't believe they would do this! I have worked for companies that have been bought out by other companies and they always grandfathered in those that had memberships under the old company. Someone mentioned that this was like a bait and switch and I agree, especially with all the shenanigans that Geni started doing last year.

P.S. If you sent the email to my father because he bought the lifetime membership for me...I will never get the email.