Misuse of privacy level? [closed]

Question

I've been trying to keep up on my error reports. I came across a series of errors related to one case of a typo on a death date (showed 1873 instead of 1773) but the privacy level was green/public. I could see that the PM has been inactive for quite some time. I stumbled through the definition to find out how to deal with it and came across the "unresponsive PM request". I had already left a couple notices but set about doing what I had to do to tick all the boxes, waited a week, submitted the form. The "request" option on the form is to adopt the profile, though I really don't want to adopt as I have no interest in this person other than to clear the error. I'm waiting for the next step to be complete.

Next, I noted recent work on a Beasley. As the admin of the Beasley Project, I always look up current work on the surname. I found a profile with a "red" privacy level, birth "1880's" death "1930's". I am PM for a man of the same name date and place, but no way to compare. I looked at the PM profile and at her work. She appears to have thousands of profiles and a sampling suggests that every possible profile (less than 200 years) is marked "red" privacy. Beasley is one of her surname tags, so I'm assuming there must be more of interest to my work. As near as I can tell the PM is very active and good at what she does but seems to be operating completely counter to the purposes of WikiTree.

My work is with a large One-Name Study. As such my to-do list is in the thousands and beyond just working in WikiTree. I'm stepping through the one problem mentioned in my first paragraph mainly to see how it works. Otherwise, that wouldn't be on my to-do list at all. When I see such large-scale impediments to collaboration as described in the second paragraph I begin to think that my time would be much better spent elsewhere but WikiTree. I don't have time for thousands of small battles to fix WikiTree Profiles.

Comments

@Jillaine... That's why it seems more about control than privacy.

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Matthew, I can speak from personal experience that I've encountered this with men, as well, so I doubt it's a gender thing.  I have had, in the past, the theory that it's generational. But I don't know if that's completely true either.

Douglas, I think you may be right.

Walter, we need a magic formula that we can give to such profile managers so that they open up their profiles a bit more.

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I normally suggest when getting access to a trusted list that people havent touched for years is to take away the profile manager....  

Is that a good/bad advice?!?!

For me the basic pillar in a Wiki is that people should have the possibility to add information without access control....

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Being on the Trusted List does not allow you to change the status of a profile manager.  You have to be a Profile Manager to do that.

I know of one project that will downgrade PMs to TL if the PM has had no activity on wikitree for over a year.  Seems completely reasonable to me,

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@Jillaine I know and my point is suggesting to the PM to take away him/herself so we get open profiles and can add value...

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Yes, thats the magic formula that I was referring to above. How do you think we can encourage inactive PMs to do that? Frankly, I think an Ales-level db_error would generate a list of PMs who have not been active on wikitree for over a year would be sent to Paul, or a bot, resulting in downgrading such PMs and if their profiles are non-Open (white lock), open them if Death=non-null and pre-1900 (or some agreed-upon death date).

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The magic formula is that WikiTree should stand for quality and a community that adds value...

The problem is that some people get frustrated if you add "too much" quality ==> they feel useless....

Easiest solution is maybe change the default settings of privacy in WIkiTree of newly created profiles to open profiles then we will have a lot of less problems   

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Doug, Being pragmatic, and to reiterate what Jack Day suggested, did you request being added to the trusted list or sent them a note. At least you could collaborate in private in that case. If they do not respond, you can the go through the Problems with Members process. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Problems_with_Members I only have done it once for someone a part of a surname project (Porterfield in my case) as I was trying to get merge completion. The genealogist also appeared to potentially be under 18 given the decade of birth. The issue in that case was simpler as he has entered a few profile and had gone inactive. Not sure what was said, but within a few days he responded and accepted me as a trusted member, I did the merges and moved on.

I tend to be rather open in my genealogy,but I would have to agree in general with Dale that, when people submitted/entered their information it was with an understanding that of the privacy rules in place at the time. That makes it hard to retroactively soften the privacy rules without impacting that group, even if they are a minority here. Yea, and it really annoying sometimes when you are on a roll and you hit a privacy road block.

One other thought is also to come bearing gifts. If I want to be on a trusted list I will often come with a source not on the profile or offer to do merge/gedcom cleanup. I will add that as a comment on the profile before the request to be trusted or opened.

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Yes, I did request to be on the Trusted List. Heard nothing yet. I have no interest in taking this matter to a "problem with members" level. I see this as a policy and practice discussion for the community.

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Magnus, the default is "open" when creating a new profile manually if a death date is specified...

Answer 1

My grandmother was born in 1909 and still has 2 daughters living that may not like too much information being online. Protecting privacy is a lot more important than your One Name Study so do not be too quick to judge others on the privacy levels. If they were born after 1817 they could be set to Red if the manager wants by the terms set when they joined.

Comments

Douglas, My own mother died 35 years ago and I am the oldest of 6 living children. The youngest is 12 years younger than I am and I have 21 years to go before I hit my still living fathers age. Some people die at a young age but there are a lot more living longer and the local news has regular reports about those living more than 100 years so like it or not I feel that we should not complain or accuse others of violating the ethics of WikiTree when the rules about the privacy settings have been in place since before you and I joined.

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Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Byers. I appreciate it. But I don't think red locking a fella who has been dead 125 years is friendly. I will add the son to my guy. If the wife is the same as the one showing for the red locked guy, she's going to have 2 husbands. Again, thank you for the guidance.

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Eddie, You should at least try to communicate with the profile manager before adding a possible duplicate and if you have any reason to believe that you are creating a duplicate you should not do it. My point is that the privacy controls have been around since the beginning and it would be unfair to others to force their removal based on the actions of just a few members

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In situations where I'm eager to do work but am waiting for a response from a profile manager is to develop the biography on the profile of a relative that I do have access to, for instance the parent.  At the bottom of the bio I'll add ==Bio for Andrew's Son Henry== and then ===Birth of Henry=== with Henry's birth information and inline source, then ===Marriage of Henry=== with the marriage information and inline sources, etc.  Now the information is up on WikiTree and already accessible, and when I finally have access to Henry to do an edit, it's simply a matter of cutting and pasting the work I've already done, and then filling in the data field.

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Thank you, sir. Sent a message a couple days ago. Don't know if it's the same guy. Name of wife is similar. But these old folks kept using the same names! And they married their cousins!!  I found a guy in this big colonial family who had a stepmother two years younger and when pop died, he married Stepma .  I don't add anybody unless I have a good source. Probables are just put on the bulletin board and I quit until I got coffee and a cigar.  : )

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"could contain information that could endanger the safety of living relatives" (Dale Byers). Really? If someone were conducting a blood feud over a century old I don't think they'd be relying on genealogical data from wikitree for their targets. Can you give a single example of this happening?

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You folks are aware that there's a website (mostly US info) masquerading as a genealogy site that has your whole family, your neighbors, your current address, etc. I don't know if I'm allowed to post the address but it's not hard to find. It was all over TV and Google news last month!!

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The issue isn't really what others are doing, or what it's possible to do, but rather WikiTree's own standards.  I rarely create a profile for a living person on WikiTreee -- my thought is if they want the information up, they should do it themselves.  

But yes, the possibility of finding stuff out is great on internet.  I once helped a Korean church which was celebratring its 100th anniversary and wanted to invite as guests descendants of the three missionaries who had helped found them.  With just the names of the missionaries and the church that had sent them, I was able within several weeks to find living descendants of all three, and a couple of them were able to accept the offer of tickets to Korea for the celebration.  But WikiTree does not want to be a purveyor of identifying family information about living people, and I can respect that, because the information I found for the Korean church could have been misused by others.

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@Matthew: I don't know about endangering the physical safety of living relatives, but it could certainly endanger their peace of mind.  Especially if there are black sheep/family secrets.  Some things (like having a baby out of wedlock) were not only shameful to our forebears, but in some cases criminal.

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Using the old "endanger the safety of living relatives" argument is illogical on this site, or any genealogy site for that matter. It is far easier to find sensitive information that is actually useful to crooks on non-genealogical sites, not to mention that most if not all information included on genealogical profiles is gathered from public records in the first place.

This is not a debate about safety. Never has been. It is solely about control. There are valid reasons that some members may have for wanting to control access to their immediate family members' profiles. Controlling access to profiles beyond that, especially for deceased individuals, becomes a more difficult argument . . . perhaps that is why some resort to the "danger" myth.

There is a balance that can be achieved which maintains control of immediate family profiles for legitimate reasons while still allowing for collaborative access to the profiles of older, deceased generations.

Answer 2

I've placed a message on Mary's profile asking her to review her watchlist for Red privacy level settings, pointing out that no one but her can see such profiles and asking her to open them up. She may not be aware that no one can actually see the profiles when marked that way.

Comments

Patients is the key here people. I've only been here a couple of years so I probably have less experience with these problems than most of you, but I have had great success with most of the other contributors I have encountered. Yes there are a few that create profiles that are linked to their family line that show little to no interest in collaborating or even communicating about an issue with a given profile. Just like almost everything else in life, things usually work themselves out if you give it some time and half a chance. Have a little faith and patients.

Answer 3

Having health problems and trying to catch up.  Please forgive me.