Suggestions

I have to say the find living relatives board could be a real asset to the site if done properly and in a sensitive manner to all concerned ie the seeker and the person being sought.

This board needs to be private and posts not show up in general internet searches and then operated in much the same way as the other boards. By doing this then helpers can ask questions, and see what information has been sent by private message for example, Birth, marriage of person being sought,

However, before the person being sought is contacted by the seeker some kind of mediation should take place and the person contacted on the seekers behalf. The person being sought may not wish contact for a number of reasons but could be left with details of the seeker for them to reflect upon but on the other hand may be delighted.

I think consideration needs to be given to all parties concerned and hope for happy endings.

To me, the main thing is that the new board defeats the very purpose of this site.

All of those people could be getting the kind of help the board is rightly known for if the were posting on a regular search board here.

Many of us could name dozens of people we have helped find birth families, for instance (I know I could).

But without a thread in which I can say, or read someone else say, "I am PMing you the birth details of Person X" all the way up to "current contact info found for Person X and PMed", nobody I know is going to get involved. (Note that lots of the posts on that board are not "sensitive", they're actually just looking for possible fellow descendants of the same ancestor, misplaced uncles and aunts, and the like.)

This new board appears to have drawn in a whole lot of new paying members, and that's the only effect it has had as far as I can tell.

I thought this board was for people needing help to trace living relitives not people who have been dead for years

And where is our trying to find board gone?

Quite a few of the posts have nothing to do with living people for a generation or so....therefore I do not see that they need to be there in the first place.

When I said ten I could have said a hundred just as a figure of speech..but more than likely there could be three people replying which is two too many .

jax

Oh, I do love the vague undirected nastiness:

"If you take out of that the eagle-eyed board monitors"

There are only two of us in this thread, so I guess you're talking about both of us.

I confess to having read about 6 posts on that board, and reporting one for egregious breaches of privacy.

"Couldn't they be supported towards better practice in their use of the boards if they do not understand the guidelines, rather than using the instances that infringe the guidelines as a reason to do away with the living relatives board altogether?"

So what is your own constructive suggestion to this end?


"And no one has to help anyone to find a living relative. If they do not agree with the principle of the thing, they are free not to help."

Just as you and anyone else are free not to comment on threads on tihs board!

:rofl:

If you do choose to comment, perhaps you'd choose to say something germane. Whoever you are. (And yeah, when someone with a grand post count of 2 has so much to say about the workings of the site and about other users of the site, I'll comment on post count.)

The issue of privacy on the internet is not somebody's idiosyncratic hobbyhorse.

Whether someone is concerned about it, and who is concerned about it, has * all to do with this issue.

There's a fallacy known as attacking the speaker rather than the speech. You provide an instructive example of it.

If you don't believe that the people whose family laundry is being aired on the Living Relatives board are entitled to privacy, just say so!

I think "ten people send a pm asking for more details" is over egging the pudding slightly. If you look at the living relatives board, most of the posts barely get 10 views, let alone 10 replies. If they make more than 30 views, they are doing well! If you take out of that the eagle-eyed board monitors, scouring each post for breaches of privacy, the number of people actually looking at the posts is very few.

With regard duplicate posts, most people posting to the living relatives board are not frequent board users. Their use is more likely in the tens, rather than tens of thousands of posts. Couldn't they be supported towards better practice in their use of the boards if they do not understand the guidelines, rather than using the instances that infringe the guidelines as a reason to do away with the living relatives board altogether?

And no one has to help anyone to find a living relative. If they do not agree with the principle of the thing, they are free not to help. I guess that is what makes it 'fair' to paying members; if they don't want to do it, they don't have to.

I think the number of people using the living relatives board since it was started shows that there is clearly a demand for it.

There's also the whole duplicate-thread business.

There is no indication on the Living Relatives board that searches should not be duplicated on the Find Ancestors board.

(If you're looking for the birth family of your parent, who was adopted, which is it? Many people decide it's both.)

There have been numerous instances of such duplication already. Any member who undertook to help on a Find Living Relatives search would have no idea that searches had already been done on the other board.

Not fair to the paying users who spend so much time helping other members.

Gotta agree.

That board is really just another internet bulletin board, and that has never been the function of this site.

Early in my days here, late one night, I caught a post by someone in California looking for her dad's birth mother in England. He had been posting the same message all over the internet for five years.

I got on board and actually *looked* for the person, finding info in English records (her parents' deaths, for a location) and on websites in England (found references to planning permissions she had applied for, and info about her brother).

By dawn California time, mother and son were talking on the phone.

The way to protect privacy here isn't to prevent other members from posting replies to a search request. The exact opposite is true.

Many of these posts on Find Living Relatives contain far too much information about the private lives of people who don't even know they're being named and talked about on the internet. And all other members can do is report the posts as "abuse" if we feel third parties' privacy is being violated.

I don't know of many members here who are going to take on a search posted on Find Living Relatives when there is no indication of what information may already have been provided to a poster and so on.

I don't think that board is going to enhance GR's reputation as the go-to site for finding family at all.

I really think this board is not serving its purpose in most cases.

It is no more private than any other board, just seen three posts by the same person just giving names??? then what? ten people then send a pm asking for more details...week later maybe get a reply and you then wonder what it is all about.

Complete waste of time

jax