* Rules of engagement

Please only post suggestions and requests for help on using this web site here.

For help with FAMILY HISTORIAN itself please post in the Using Family Historian - General Usage Forum above.
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Mark1834
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Rules of engagement

Post by Mark1834 »

Can I request clarification on the rules of engagement for the FHUG Forum please?

A recent thread made direct criticism of Calico Pie through an adverse comparison to a major market competitor. All posts in this thread have now been removed from public view.

We don't need to recycle the censored postings, but some general guidance would be useful please. I would feel very uncomfortable if the FHUG served only as a cheerleader for Calico Pie. It is the USERS group, and needs to reflect the interests of the users.

Clearly, personal attacks on anybody, whether within Calico Pie or elsewhere, have no place in this forum. However, objective comment supported by evidence must remain in scope, even if it is slightly uncomfortable reading for Calico Pie.
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tatewise
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by tatewise »

I tend to agree and was surprised to see the thread censored.
CP should have broad enough shoulders to withstand some critical comment, especially as it was not totally unfounded.
They were silent on progress for 8 months from October 2019 to June 2020 despite much speculation in FH7 Looks? (17520).
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Mark1834
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by Mark1834 »

There’s a related issue that has been at the back of my mind for a while, but I think it is relevant here.

There is clearly a nucleus of maybe a dozen or so people who make a very major contribution to FH, either here or elsewhere. I’d like to think this is all done for altruistic reasons, and we are all extremely grateful to them for their work over many years.

I have no problem whatsoever with contributors promoting either their own or their company’s services through a link in their signature for example. However, I think it is essential that any commercial involvement with Calico Pie is declared upfront to avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest.

I am definitely NOT suggesting such conflicts exist, just reassuring myself that we have a mechanism to prevent the situation arising.
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

You're going to have to spell things out for me, Mark -- how do you think a conflict of interest might arise? And who is this 'we' you're talking about? The individuals who host and pay for the site, and do all the necessary technical work in the background to keep it running? The people who administer it? The people who moderate it? Or the people who participate?
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Jane
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by Jane »

I moved it since it was a rehash of an earlier post by JSPhilips which I could not see was adding anything to the forums, especially as Simon had clearly stated in a recent announcement the state of play for V7.

Since you seem to think this is a problem I have moved it back and locked it.

I have hosted and covered most of the costs for this forum since it's inception in, it is rare to posts to be censored, but I really felt this was old ground and did not need to rehashed again.
Jane
My Family History : My Photography "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
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Mark1834
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by Mark1834 »

Thanks Jane, that’s perfectly clear.

To answer Helen’s more general question, a potential conflict arises when there is a financial interest in the outcome of a discussion or activity. In this context, examples would include CP employing somebody to carry out an activity such as preparing documentation, providing a technical help desk, software design and paid beta testing, writing plugins, etc.

I’ve no idea whether CP even do that, but I’ve had to routinely fill in such interest declarations in the past for community volunteer activities I have been involved in. I certainly didn’t feel it impuned my character or motives, and I hope nobody here does either, as that is certainly not the intention.
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Sorry, Mark, but I do think it impugned my motives and the motives of others here.

This is not a "community volunteer group" -- whatever one of those is -- it's a group of people interested in using a particular software product and/or helping other people to do the same on a peer to peer basis. We've been running on the same basis for 18 years (with many of the same core contributors) without an issue, so I'm still unclear why you suddenly think there's a problem. It's not a place to trumpet the benefits of a competitive product (although we have been known on occasion to advise somebody considering the product that -- on the basis of what they've said -- we don't think it's the product for them and they should look elsewhere.) And it's not a place to tell Calico Pie how they should run their business -- we're users of the product, not partners in the business.
FHUG is a user operated and supported site providing help and advice for the Family Historian software package.
is what is says on the front page, and that's what we do. Nobody benefits financially from saying 'go here and do this' or 'you can't do that' or 'FH doesn't support that, sorry'. Maybe CP might get an extra sale if somebody decides to buy the product on the basis of the advice they get here, but it's just as likely that they'll get advice on the FHU mailing list or the FH Facebook page, or from friends, or people on a genealogy course, of in the U3A, or a genealogy software review site, or https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/ or a genealogy forum... In fact, most of the people I see asking for advice whether to buy the product these days are on Facebook, and most of the users here have already parted with their money and are in a good position to make their own mind up whether they want to pay for an upgrade in due course or stay with FH6 or switch to a competing product for whatever reason make sense to them.
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AdrianBruce
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by AdrianBruce »

There is a certain lack of clarity, it seems to me, over who is responsible for what. I'd always known that the FHUG was independent (though I hadn't realised that Jane covered costs as well as admin, for which many thanks from me). But it was only when the Rootsweb list closed down to be replaced by the Groups.io list that I realised that it was Calico's list and is still, even in its new form, adminned by them. So if you'd come in and picked up on the list's ownership, you might well have imagined that the UG was Calico Pie's as well as the list.

Questions of ownership and the degree of participation by the relevant software company seem to vary across the entire genealogical communities. I've just been muttering about a certain genealogical site company's Facebook forum. People raise queries in there but the mods frequently say, "Talk to Support" and close the query. I can't see the point of it, to be honest as it's neither one thing (the company doesn't participate) or the other (the mods close down stuff that only the company can answer - leaving what to be answered in the FB Group?).

The FHUG is a breath of fresh air to me, vast thanks are due to the participants, and I just hope it's clear to people what's going on.
Adrian
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Russell
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Re: Rules of engagement

Post by Russell »

Prompted by Jane's posting, some Group users may not be aware of the FHUG Support page at https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?i ... pport_fhug

Looking at a good website is a little like looking at a swan gracefully gliding across a pond - you don't see the feet paddling furiously below the surface keeping everything moving!
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