G2G: Is it appropriate or necessary to restrict a deceased person instead of making them open to all?

Question

A person born in 1909 who died in 2002 and her children, six of whom are also deceased, are all unavailable for editing.  I asked initially to the manager asking why and received a reply that said send a trusted list request, but did not answer why that whole family needed to be private.

My understanding is that that level of privacy is not appropriate for deceased individuals unless there is some underlying reason.  Am I incorrect in my understanding?

Answer 1

Only the profiles of people who died 100 or more years ago are required to be open.  People who died more recently may well have living descendants who'd prefer to keep their parents or grandparents' profiles more private and that's OK. Personally I'd like to see people use the "Private with Public Biography and Family Tree" or "Public" levels for these profiles.  It can be hard to avoid duplicates or make connections when there is very limited information to see.

Answer 2

Sometimes, we feel we have a need to protect a group of profiles for one reason or another. They might be reasonably close family members, or profiles of someone who has a controversy in their family that we're not quite ready to share with the world. Sometimes they're just profiles near and dear to us for what may seem to be a silly reason to others. Asking for a Trusted List request is a good response and definitely within the collaborative model. And at some point down the road, they might just open it up as well, so I try to find a compromise when I encounter these types of situations. Often if you explain why you would like access, or you feel it should be Open privacy, then they can explain why they feel it should not and you can come to an understanding. I guess we won't always get our way on that, but at least we've expressed our thoughts and communicated.