Suggestions

I requested review of the apparently inappropriate thread about the possible minors just before midnight UK time, nearly 11 hours ago. It's nearly 11 a.m. in the UK now? That's just too long. Reviews of posts on the Living Relatives board should be the priority for staff, particularly first thing in the morning.

Yes, the body of the post says "this post has been requested for review" (can no one speak English anymore??), but in the board list the names still show (and can be captured by internet search engines).

Janey I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

In my opinion, there are two sides of the equation and many variables which need to be considered. The seeker has had time to consider and reconsider every scenario of being put in touch with the person being sought. The person being sought has not. For one reason or another the person being sought may not wish to be found and yet their wishes are not considered in a desire to help put the seeker.

Contrary Mary I really don't think that it is the place of the members to act as intermediataries but if the information found was handed to an intermediatory to make contact in a similar way that Joy ~ Kentish Maid outlines in her description of the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service then consideration has been given to both parties.

I also think that it is great that members help find living people but would like some kind of mediation to protect everyone concerned.

I just PMed somebody about something on Living Relatives that I thought was an unnecessary bit of info about a family tragedy, and got this reply (in part):


"I have deleted that post as i had put it on the ancestors and had some good feedback. I cant believe how helpful everyone is."


There we go. The post on Living Relatives was totally pointless, the post on Find Ancestors got good help.

Just as we've been saying (not to mention more confirmation of the anticipated duplications).

But I reckon that in just over a week the Living Relatives has pulled in maybe 2000 pounds, even at minimum rates.

Quite right too

I was helping on one a week or so ago and someone reported it, could'nt understand why as the person was not living.
In cases like that then yes it should be reported and as the boards are manned 24/7 why have this stupid pm only board?

jax

I've just requested review of this one (as edited by me below):


X and Y were taken away from their father some seven years ago he has not seen them since they where at primary school. Their Mother moved away and DAD has not had any contact with them until this year when he found them on Facebook. unfortunately someone has deleted the profile on Facebook and we have lost contact again.PLEASE if anyone has any information on the whereabouts of these two children PLEASE lets us Know as DAD is heartbroken. All he wants is to hold his wonderful children in his arms and let them know he NEVER stopped loving them and he NEVER stopped looking for them. Please KIds get in touch with your dad HE LOVES YOU. From your step grandmother



?!?! If they were in primary school 7 years ago then they may well be minors -- the poster refers to them as "chlidren".

Stunningly inappropriate. Who among us has any clue what the circumstances of custody may have been?? But that's not to say that some eager beaver, or "father's rights" advocate, might not set about trying to track them down.


edit -- and just a plain awful invasion of children's privacy, if children they are. One does not post children's names and personal info on the internet, f*s.

I do wonder if GR actually read the looking for living people threads in the past?

As you say Dee regulars know not to post sensitive info, and since they bought in the" report as abuse" where the post is removed straight away, I cannot see a problem.

Rather then say to someone helping "can you remove that birth as it is recent"...for them never to return, anyone who sees it can remove it for them. Same goes for any personal details supplied from the poster.

If they are new to the boards they will soon learn what is right and what is wrong to post...if it is then explained to them in a friendly manner perhaps

jax

Going to stick me two penneth in.

Now we all know on here that we can't control what people post, but maybe GR could?? When it is regarding living or possible living relatives why not have a form like system......... then only certain appropriate amounts of info could be posted.

Not sure how they would go about it but I'm sure it's possible.

Regulars know not to post info that could be related to living persons or their family, hence we PM the poster...... and we say so on the thread..... how it works at the mo means no one knows whats happening, these definately needs to change.

Sorry for any typo's...... typing in the dark is harder than reading off the monitor. LOL!!


Dee x

"The seeker may breach privacy in their request for the information but surely the provider of that information is also breaching that persons privacy by supplying it. "

I don't agree wtih that, TF. All the info any of us can provide here is what we have found through legitimate sources.

My own problem is with the very personal nature of the information being posted on the internet where the world and its dog can find it easily. Not just the people concerned -- their employers and co-workers, and other family members. Once info is posted at this site, it is here for eternity, unless it gets deleted.

Someone searching for a birth parent can do it without announcing all the details of that person's life -- no need for tales of alleged adultery or alleged child abandonment and so on (remembering, of course, that it's always only one side of a story, and it may not be remotely accurate at that).

It isn't even necessary to announce that the individual sought is a birth parent. Yes, most of us like to know the search isn't an exercise in stalking, but that's something that can be explained by PM. (I do this all the time when someone has been decently circumspect and not posted the specific reason for the search -- in a PM, I say: if I may read between the lines ... .)

Most people who post their birth parent searches around the internet don't give the first thought to the people affected. The all-caps one I quoted on page 1 of this thread struck me as one of them -- all those names, all those people who may have no idea and whose lives could be upset. There are loads more.

Yes, those effects could follow when someone makes contact. I just think that's different from having your or your parents' private lives discussed on the internet.

I think people are entitled to find their birth parents. And in many cases, given common circumstances (women were coerced into relinquishing their children, whether by family or by agencies or by economic circumstances), while I might not say that people are entitled to find the children they relinquished, I'm not averse to helping, myself.

I just don't think that either party has any business posting the details of the situation (at least as they think they know them or choose to characterize them) on the internet.

And I think that a site that allows this may find its reputation diminished.

I am neither trained in, nor have any mediation skills, and further more, have no desire to.

My desire is to help find those people who are being searched for, nothing more than that.

Providing that the person seeking family is over the age of 18, I don't see it as my place to offer any advice other than *be prepared for rejection and be discreet, they may have other family who know nothing about you* and *consider using the services of an intermediary to make contact*.

GR do have a guide for those posting on the Find Living Relatives board........I don't know what else they can do, or what else you want them to do? It's up to the individual to read it and make use of the info, or not, as they wish, GR can't force anyone to avail themselves of mediation services.

Mary

Edit to add: I don't feel I am breaching anyone's privacy by finding information which is in the public domain.

"not everyone wants to get in contact with the children they have given up for adoption." - this applies to estranged family, for whatever reason, not only adoptees and birth parents. The Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service would always ask a person that it has found if he / she wanted to have contact with the person making the search. If the answer is no, then that is that; if yes, then someone would act as an intermediary with the family.

Janey, to be perfectly honest I haven't a clue how it would work but without it nobody is taking responsibility for breaching the privacy of another person. The information is in the public domain but it is one thing to find the information for oneself and quite another for someone to find it for you and serve it up on a plate. The seeker may breach privacy in their request for the information but surely the provider of that information is also breaching that persons privacy by supplying it.

The person being sought is being denied the chance to come to terms with someone wishing to make contact. The person requesting the information needs to be prepared that the person being sought does not want contact. This does not take into consideration the people around the seeker and the person being sought.

For me it is just not good enough to supply a place to request information about living people without having the support in place to help with making first contact.

But TF, this site is simply not a family finding and mediation service.

How could mediation possibly come into how this site operates?

Would I send my info first to ... whom? ... before it is given to a poster?

Adoptees are not offered a contact service when they get their adoption information so sometimes they only have a self help option and the fees charged are out of their reach, the waiting time within the department for SS can be many months before it reaches the right person to undertake it then often it gets passed onto an agency,,,,,,,,,with a high chargeable fee......!

Just read one on Genealogy Chat...so it just goes to show not everyone wants to get in contact with the children they have given up for adoption.

As we have seen on this" Long lost family" someone else contacts the person being searched first...they are not handed an address and told to get on with it as such

jax

I think some mediation is necessary because the fall out from making contact can be far reaching not only for the person being sought but for the people around them. Not everyone wants to be found and consideration should be given to their wishes which cannot be done without some kind of intermediatary.

This post (as edited by me below) currently appears on the Living Relatives board. It is the user's first post. Obviously the user has been brought to this site for this purpose only, by some ad campaign or other.



MY DAD WAS CALLED Mr. C AND WAS MARRIED WITH DAUGHTERS. HE LIVED IN city IN 19xx. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN A SELF EMPLOYED BUILDER OR AN ODDJOB MAN. HE WAS AROUND 40 ISH WHEN I WAS BORN IN 19xx. IF HE IS STILL WITH US, HE WILL BE IN HIS MID 80'S NOW.

HE KNEW F. AND D. P ESPECIALLY D. AS F. WORKED AWAY ALOT IN THE FORCES.

HIS DAUGHTERS'S USED TO HANG AROUND WITH Ms. AND Mr. P's DAUGHTER F. AND THEIR ELDEST DAUGHTER R. USED TO TAG ALONG WITH THEM, IE TO SWIMMING ETC.
MY MUM USED TO LIVE AT address, city AND MY DAD LIVED VERY NEAR TO HER..IF ANYONE KNOWS THE FAMILY'S WHEREABOUTS OR ANYTHING PLEASE CAN YOU GET IN TOUCH. THANKS name.


Do those daughters really want their parents' marital circumstances smeared around the internet like this????

One has a very unusual name. I have already identified her birth and likely marriage and several children to that marriage. Who knows what someone with the same basic skills and resources a perverse attitude might do with that information??

Why is this corporation not managing its website in a way its users are really entitled to expect of *this website* -- a way that respects individuals' privacy?

Hah Jax! I beat you on that one.......I'm so bored I actually did some work today. :-))

At this rate I will be up to date with my work and then what will I have to moan about! LOL

Mary

I am with you there CM I am bored too

So bored I have gone back to doing my own tree instead

jax

Post currently on the first page of Living Relatives:

"Trying to find XX Family who lived in XX Thanks"

Who wants to place bets on the outcome of that one?

On a regular board, someone would immediately ask for further info -- not even personal info about living family, just *when*, for starters. What has the poster done to find them, what is the poster's connection to them, etc.


I disagree with TootyFruity on the mediation etc. I don't think that's what this site is set up for, and I don't understand how it would work, since the other members provide info directly to posters.

I tend to agree that posts on the board that actually relate to sensitive searches should not be findable by internet search engines -- which of course defeats the purpose of a "bulletin board", which is all that board actually is, and the obvious purpose of drawing new paying members to the site.

It seems to have done that, but at the same time sharply reduced the number of posts on which other members actually can and are likely to try to help. The net success rate for postings at this site is going to decline precipitously.

The only appropriate and useful approach, to my mind, is to make it a board like the other one, where questions and answers can be posted in the thread -- and for Brightsolid to spend a tiny fraction of its millions on someone to monitor the board for privacy problems, and respond quickly *and consistently* if other members see such problems.

Basically there has never been any purpose in segregating boards for different purposes here.

It's too hard for people to tell what category their search falls into, and too many don't bother deciding, they just post everywhere they see.

I absolutely agree with you on this Janey.

The living persons searches are the ones I most enjoy doing but since the board changes I haven't done one......for exactly the reasons you have stated in the above post. As it is now, I have no way of knowing whether anyone is already helping the poster, nor what info has (if any) been found for them.

So for me now I'm not doing any searches...........and I'm Bored!! :-(

Mary

Edit to add: TootyFruity, I also made that suggestion about it being a private board i.e. not picked up by a google search to GR but it seems they preferred not to do it that way for whatever reason.