A profile gone crazy and erasing large amounts of profiles

Private User

Here's a nice simple example

Francis Marion Huffman

Part of Alfre Woodard husband's tree (she is upcoming on the television show "Who Do You Think You Are")

I still have a problem to understand, why my family tree is listed at 117k profiles at MH vs. less than 3k on Geni, when it is 98% identical and used a 100k profiles Gedcom download from Geni next uploaded to MH for the 100k there. Identical trees listed as aro 2,500 profiles on Geni vs aro 100k on MH. Furthermore, my Geni tree was listed at 100k+ a couple a years ago, then 'reduced to aro 35k profiles and eventually 'shrunk# to approx. 2,500 profiles. Kind of interesting, really. Also I guess it now limits any Gedcom download of mine to aro 2,500 profiles, right?

As for SmartCopy, I haven't yet had the time to check it out, but could I use that to transfer my tree to an off-line drive?

Erica - - No Statement Whatsoever That the Profile was Created By SmartCopy -- Was It??
in about, under Military Service, so I assume just talking about Military Service, it says "Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees via son James Lloyd Huffman by SmartCopy: Jul 5 2015, 22:01:42 UTC" -- which apparently does not mean James used SmartCopy to enter the Military info on Geni but rather that SmartCopy copied from a MyHeritage Family Tree created by James OR Geni copied from a MyHeritage Family Tree where James had entered/updated the Military Service Info OR ??? Do you know which it is?

Sten - No idea what Geni is counting for "Family Tree". Seems to me I used to see higher numbers as well - but not sure I wrote them down anywhere, and sure do not know for sure what they were.

SmartCoppy is for copying from other sites to Geni. One direction only. So no, it would not help transfer anything to an off-line drive.

GEDCOM exports on Geni are currently limited to four (4) times the number of Profiles Geni is crediting you with having added.

If PersonA added 1500, but then 500 were merged with versions someone else added earlier, then PersonA would then only be credited with adding 1000 profiles, so merges can severely limit the amount you can download via GEDCOM. And no, this did not always used to be the case.

Before this msg I had 2,498 profiles (but 100k+ blood realtives) in my tree:

"Your family tree is growing!
Your family tree on Geni is growing! You now have 2498 relatives in your family tree.
Here are the newest additions to your tree:
Carlos Federico (Cantarito) Bunge Molina y Vedia added Ana María de la Serna Corbellini, Ricardo Blacksley, Ricardo Luis Agazzi, Manuel José Caraballido Fitzsimons and 2 others to the tree.

FRED BERGMAN added Ruud de ROOIJ to the tree.

View All Recent Activity"

After this I still have 2,498 profiles with no numbers added.
Kind of a joke, I guess :)

/Sten

To parse it out for Lois:

"Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees via son James Lloyd Huffman by SmartCopy: Jul 5 2015, 22:01:42 UTC"

Updated (update profile action, not add profile action)
From MyHeritage Family Trees [live link back to the source, aliased as MyHeritage Family Trees instead of a bald long URL] (if you have permission to see that source, you "will" see it by clicking the link)
Via son James ... (the profile where the action originated from; in other words, I was viewing James the son's profile & updated the father profile from that specific profile in the MH tree)
By SmartCopy (the signature of the application)

There is more detail in the SC project.

Sten perhaps the stat you're looking at needs updating by Geni, usually they correct themselves.

Erica - the link I gave yesterday IS to the SmartCopy Project -- and I do not see ANY explanation there about what their cryptic comments (which your refer to as "Citations") mean - don't even see a statement that they make any citations. Have now also read thru most of the Project Discussions - still do not see anything addressing any of this.

Can you be a bit clearer about where I should be looking in the Project ?

Sorry - re posting for clarity.

My suggestion is, of my explanation of the citation on "this" discussion is not making it clear enough, is to repost the query, and example, and my attempt at explaining, to a SmartCopy project discussion - either an existing one or feel free to start a new one.

SC is still in beta & it's a volunteer project.

It turns out no guarantee there will be any citation -- the user doing the SmartCopy has the option to turn that off.

https://www.geni.com/discussions/147781?msg=1033853

There is never a guarantee of anything with a Geni profile, and this has nothing to do with the tool. I tweak the format of citations for instance if I use multiple sources and want to arrange chronologically etc. For accountability, look in revisions to the Geni user.

re: "this has nothing to do with the tool." -- WRONG, it does have to do with the tool. The tool (according to Private User, who should know) allows the user to TURN OFF the citations.

If a you do not turn off the citation and then go in and "tweak the format of citations" , then revisions will show that - allowing folks insight into what happened.

If you turn off the citations, revisions will not show any history of a citation, will not show anything about SmartCopy having been used.

Lois, for me, what I said stands. I, as the Geni member, am responsible for the content / info, and that is apparent from revisions. The tools are just that: tools.

I have a MyHeritage data subscription, using it for RecordMatches is great. But I have not used it on all the profiles I manage. That is not the fault of the RecordMatch. :)

Erica - You made the statement that -- "SmartCopy "cites.". So wherever the profile copy originates, it "will" be source cited, " -- If that statement is not one you feel is important, I do not know why you made it -- it certainly mattered to me -- and it turns out folks can turn that off, so it does not necessarily happen. And it is a tool function allowing it to be turned off.

I think we may be discussing different aspects of a situation here. Not sure, since not totally clear what you are saying.

I do know - if there is a merge, ALL revision history on the Non-Primary Profile disappears. Plus - sometimes it seems Geni fails to record info in the Revision. In addition, many lines on Revisions I look at show as being done by "Geni" because apparently Geni sometimes failed, especially in its early years, to keep track of who did things. So your insistence that " I, as the Geni member, am responsible for the content / info, and that is apparent from revisions. " - Just not true.

Moreover -- The most revisions say is who did a given change - it never makes any statement about responsibility -- when I have contacted folks about info they entered, sometimes they said something like - I saw such and such at such and such place, sometimes no idea where they got that - but I would say in all cases they accepted no responsibility for the information. I am glad to hear you feel responsible for the info you enter, but that definitely is NOT universal - and Revisions AT MOST says who entered the info - Revisions says nothing about "responsibility".

Above, where I say "not totally clear what you are saying" - was referring to your statement "for me, what I said stands."

-- My focus was on your statement that
""SmartCopy "cites.". So wherever the profile copy originates, it "will" be source cited, "
-- but it seems like that is not really what you were insisting "stands".

I addressed your comment about SmartCopy in my first paragraph above. The last two paragraphs try to address the issue I guessed you might actually be talking about.

I am thinking that perhaps what I see as very clearly being two separate issues - tho with a relationship between them - you may possibly be seeing as one issue - and not even as separate aspects of one issue. But not sure.

OK, let's try again.

The terminology I use is as follows:

- I have a source for data I enter (and the method used to enter that data is irrelevant).

- that source may cite additional data.

- when I use the SmartCopy copying tool, if there is additional information supplied in the source, SC can pick that up and copy it into the Geni profile I am adding or updating.

- it is easier to do this than copying & pasting by hand. So for me, it is part of the value added in using the utility, and I am delighted with how that has worked out.

I thought you were asking to interpret the citation format, since you weren't looking at the tree that was my source data; that's why I tried to explain it, field by field.

Was that your question?

Yes, it is true that revisions are a log, supplying information about what actions are performed, and by whom. Yes, it is true that sometimes if you have a profile with an 8 year history, the revisions story may be incomplete in earlier years. But as you know, that's nothing I can addess.

And yes, perhaps there are profile managers who don't remember where they found their profile data; I'm guilty of that as well, everyone can always do better on sourcing out, I think! I appreciate the honesty of "what you see is what I know," and that's what I try to practice.

I'm not reading the entire discussion here as I'm short on time, so sorry if I'm off track, but in my opinion, SmartCopy greatly improves the act of sourcing where the information is derived. In most cases, users make no effort to document the online tree source when they update a profile. By default, SmartCopy will do this by making an annotation in the About section. Lois, you are correct that we give the user the ability to turn this off, but if a user deliberately chooses not to annotate the source automatically, is that the tool's fault? Seems unlikely if they turn it off in a SmartCopy they would have annotated it in a manual copy. I don't want to force an About entry if the user doesn't want it. Many users will use SmartCopy to upload a GEDCOM or otherwise copy their own tree from another site and wouldn't want to annotate in every about section that they copied their own tree (which may be temporary for the purpose of copying). I've turned it off myself on occasions when many SmartMatches are already included as references that reflect the same data (no need to clutter the About). It can be situation dependent. One area that I do force an entry on when copying is pictures. I will make a note in the picture description where an image is copied.

Jeff, exactly, and thank you again for this wonderful tool.

Lois wrote:

"If you turn off the citations, revisions will not show any history of a citation, will not show anything about SmartCopy having been used."

And that statement reflects the confusion, perhaps? That SmartCopy is "smarter" than it is?

SC is a copy & paste tool. It's a benefit to allow it to copy "all" info, but not always (example: multiple trees with same info!). I don't cite accept all the SmartMatches either : it's the same thing.

Erica - Your statement "SmartCopy 'cites.'. So wherever the profile copy originates, it 'will' be source cited, " seemed to me to be saying the tool would ALWAYS create a citation --
I discovered that one of the functions of the tool was to allow that to be turned off - So no, it was not always true. Did not know whether
a) I mistakenly read in an overgeneralization that you did not intend or
b) if you were unaware the tool could be turned off
--- thought if b) then you might appreciate learning it could be turned off, and even if only a), others might also be interpreting the same way I had, and so it would be good to provide the clarification.

Therefore, my comment on 7/29/2015 -- http://www.geni.com/discussions/148543?msg=1033903 -- that "It turns out no guarantee there will be any citation -- the user doing the SmartCopy has the option to turn that off. " -- and Jeff has now confirmed above that in SmartCopy, the user is given the choice to turn off the creation of Citations.

You responded to my comment by saying " this has nothing to do with the tool" -- this may be a matter of what we mean by/understand to be meant by the phrase "has nothing to do with the tool"

To me, the fact that the tool is programmed to allow the turning off of the citation-creation clearly and obviously is something to do with the tool. I thought your statement about it having nothing to do with the tool meant you were not aware the tool was actually designed to allow folks to turn off the citation-creation - therefore I tried again to share with you this new fact I had just found out. Which, as I said, Jeff has confirmed above.

Whether SmartCopy is good or bad, whether SmartCopy being programmed to allow the user to turn off Citation-creation is good or bad, and or if that is any different from a user choosing or not choosing to provide other documentation or etc. - that was not what I was discussing -- none of those have anything to do with my comments of 7/29 thru to now.

OK. I really hadn't thought to be getting into detailed discussions of smartCopy tool functions, just to demonstrate how SmartCopy cites the sources. Did I answer that satisfactorily? I did know the option to not cite as well as edit the citations it creates.

Erica - you directed me to go to the SmartCopy Project Discussions for clarification -- I went there, asked a question, discovered SmartCopy Citations could be turned off, came back here and shared that info (on 7/29) and haven't paid any attention to trying to understand the Citations themselves since then, just to trying to clarify that yes, the Citation-Creation could be turned off (and that yes, that was part of the tool functionality).

No, I do not understand at all " how SmartCopy cites the sources" - may try to digest info on that later, but for now, no -- and not trying to be rude at all when I say do not try to explain it to me now. Think there is too much that has already been presented that I need to digest before I am ready to take in more info about SmartCopy's citations.

And i,m not trying to be rude by saying let it go

Aruging over every tiny little detail like this in public helps no one.
Smart copy needs to be explained yes but not like this.

Michael -
Clearly you have failed once again to understand what was going on. There was no arguing over tiny details. Two people, each addressing issues they felt were important, failed at communication, kept trying, and finally realized what the other was saying.