Cant say that I am all that excited about getting some smartmatches to site managers who have mytree021, mytree02,mytree03, newmytree01, newmytree02 etc.
When you get a smartmatch and he or she has several trees you get matched to them all and it cannot be that those infinite number of duplicate tres makes a vaid smartmctch.
So when that happens and you report the issue to myheritage- guess what, that cant have a word with th offender becuse POLICY does not allow them to contact the site manger .
What a lot of codswallop. In ANY organiazation, if an individual , stpes over the line the is ALWAYS a direct path to management,bbut not in myheritage. What alot of incompetent individuals would devise a POLICY that prevents tem from making informed comment and or advice to a paying subscriber.
I finally gave up with STUPID MATCHES and turned it off.
My life is so much easier now without haviing 5,036,957,563,037,656 stupid matches to confirm with someone with the same letter in the first name or surname or matched to the same sex
I had just slightly fewer smartmatches than you but I think you kmight be on the right track with turning it OFF.
Smartmatches is a ill-named venture and it has become a career rather than a hobby and to see so many matches that are not anywhere near valid is disheartening. Pity that myheritage sand in Tel Aviv is so dense and semes to me that the heads are well an tryly under the sand so commonsense will most likley not pervail.
Please take a look at the link provided below as this I am sure will help you with your SmartMatches coming from duplicated family trees from other site managers.
This and many other useful links and information can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of your web site home page and selecting "Help" , this will take you to a "Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)" section covering the whole Myheritage experience and many different topics.
The supplied FAQ link below refers to how to lock out selected Family Trees from being SmartMatched wherever you are faced with tree duplication that you would rather not have to deal with by having to repeat a SmartMatch for each duplicated family tree on a site. The issue I have with this approach is that it leaves us site managers the task of deciding which family tree is the working tree and which ones are duplicates. This is not always a clear choice as duplicated trees that are created earlier may have a greater number of records and also may not be the sites default tree. In summary, this approach to the issue doesn't deal with the root cause.
SmartMatches should actually be 'Smart' and when we 'Confirm' a SmartMatch, we need a selectable option to 'Confirm' a match with all duplicated family trees being managed on that site. This would allow us to do a single 'Confirm' pass for one of the sites trees, rather that having to repeat 'Confirms' for each of a sites duplicated family trees. Afterall, the majority of family records in each of the duplicated family trees will be 100% matches to each other.
In addition, I'd like the option to confirm all SmartMatches for each site, for any family tree records that report say between 95% and 100% compatibility (Configurable). This will avoid the temptation for site managers to click on 'Comfirm All' whenever there's a large number of SmartMatches pending and who won't spend time actually checking that each record is indeed a match.
But I'm afraid that myhertiage have their collective heads in the sands of Israel . we are beating ourselves up over this becuse they will not see the point. I think they have a narrow minded outlook that does not alow for a developed point of view.
Pity really beciuse it brings smart matching right down to a level of - Stupid matching , but that is caused by the myheritage attitude, not the users.
One can hope that someday the pennt will drop and the light may come on in Tel Aviv and we will all be overjoyed.
But please dont hold your breath becuse I think change is not something Gilad Japhet has allowed his mignons to undertake. Unless of course its for the greater good of residents of USA.
Hopefuly though the yanks will come on boeard with this smartching to duplicate tres and wehn they do- lookout, the change will be like an express train.
I think that when it is highlighted to you that some one like Alf TABOR has tree01 and treeo02 and tree099, and in each tree there is a match after match. and myheritage has a policy that you cannot contact the site manager because it is against policy. then we have an issue.
We have two issues really because there is then issue of gentle management persuasion to remove old or less valid trees. There is the issue that policy is policy and it cannot be altered, questioned , or found at fault. The policy makers are not beyoud reproach and it is reasonable for to have a second look at wether the policy is sound.
I think it flawed. And site mangaers shuold be held accountable and responsible for whatever they post and subsequenlty, management MUST have the right to contact them.
If it were deemed that a tree, when updated, overwrote the previous tree then all would be good but it seems to me that myheritage glorifies itself by saying that ther are 50 trilllion smatmatches when in fact there are but a few hundred. A more realistic approcah and less glorification would give better results, happier smartmatching and fare less DULICATION.
How come myheritage cant (or wont) see that- its fairly obvious.
I must be the only one of 500 million myhertitage subscribers, that firmly belive that if a site has not been updated for 3 or 4 or 5 years then the likeyhood is that the user has moved on.
Myheritage believe that the user has "stored" the data and will one day come back.
My parallel is the lapsed catholic- I am nealy 64- I gave up as a practising catholic when I tuned 14. That is 50 years ago and I still hold adamant that I will REMAIN lapsed.
I have a very dear friend who is CONVINCED that one day I will retun to the fold. Not Likley but she holds faith.
I think myheritage have blind faith that everyone who has EVER joined will one day return to the greatness created by the oh so wonderful team.
I am here to tell you that when my subscription expires in April next (and I am counting down) I will not re-subscribe and I will not return, so dear users in april next year if you get smartmatched to me - dont expect a reply.
But why oh why do we have hundreds, no thousands, of smart matches to people who are NEVER going to respond.
I seek eagerly to match with bona fide persons with up to date data- and not to data that is older than my subscription.
Or am I alone in this feeling- I doubt I am but convincing myheritage is likened to suggesting to the Pope that perhaps Christ was mythical- and getting a good response.
Idealogy is good and has a place but I think in myheritage- practical approach is much more benifical. AND it would help this time delay nonsense in getting smartmatches that are in effect invalid.
Who cares if the original subscriber has 'moved on?'
We are dealing here with information that often is several hundred years old. If it was valid in the first place it is still valid, whether we do or do not 'get a reply'. Maybe the original site manager has died. I would want to know that records from the hundreds of hours I have invested are still helping others .......(sob)
By the way I wonder what MyHeritage does with the records from discontinued sites; I would hope it is preserved and that it will still come to me if the system detects a match. This stuff is too valuable to lose just because no-one is paying an annual subscription; in fact I would be willing to pay a little more if necessary to get it, the current subscription is cheap enough. Keeps me amused in most of my spare time for maybe a couple of dollars a week.
Maybe this old material could be marked 'Archived material' with a note not to expect a reply!
Certainly accuracy and verification are important but to me this is more a matter of following up later; most of my matches come from several sources and that gives some credibility. And I can look up Tools/Inconsistencies for obvious errors, and follow up with a quest for certificates etcetera.
Even if a SM comes from an old tree it can be helpfull if the SM is correct and has more info than I have. The handling of that SM could be better though. It should not end up in the list of SM Confirmed by me and waiting for answers. The SMs could be brought back the day the tree owner comes back. I have 22000 SMs waiting for Confirms/Rejections by others. I dont see any use of having that list available. I am interested in SMs which are Mutually Confirmed and the once we disagree about.
The handling of SMs could be better if it was possible to filter them by: Waiting for my response, Mutually Confirmed, Disagree
SMs that are mutually rejected should not be of interest.
I see the great disadvantage in confirimng with and OLD tree, is that the CANNOT e any interaction. Just consider that if you have a doubt or need extra info or just want to qualify any data it IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN , why becuse the originator has absconded.
Then fact that you can see that soemone else has same or similar data is small part of smartmatching- proven by the option to Send them a message, or visit their site. Why would you do either to a site that is defunct and will NEVER respond. There are far more active trees and active site maangers without bothering with 7 year old data.
Citations are one of the big issues with online information and often left out. Right now I have only a small part of my information online with citations. Most of it is checked against my sources but I have not yet included the citations online since it is a large effort to collect and add. People have copied my information without any hesitation and I have later, when adding citations, found errors in my tree which people happily copied without checking.
For citations I have used Primary sources such as church books and Secondary sources such as litterature and information from known researchers. So if I would use online information it must include citations from this type of sources.
I would never use online information without being able to check where the information comes from. So if there is an old tree with citations I check them and decide if I can include that information. If not I just move on to the next Smart Match.
I agree that there should be a posibility to let the user be able to filter out these SM, if they are unwanted, in our preferences settings.
A bigger issue for me are all these trees that are uploaded as new trees like: Mytree ver 1, Mytree ver 2 etc
To see the same manager/owner upload a new versions each week/month which I have to Confirm/Reject again and again is quite tiresome and I have now started to exclude those trees/managers/owners even thou I know that some of them have mutual ancesters.
So may be a block list of trees and managers would be a solution for both problems. There is some kind of solution for this as Ignor this tree but I cant see which trees I have ignored if I would like to accept them again. It would be great if it worked for Managers/Owners too.
Well its great to see that someone else is peeved by the upload of tree after tree from the same manager, and this mytree1 and mytree2 and mytree134, does not put smart matching at its best. How many trees anyone can have - should be better managed. I agree that a site manager is entitled to have different trees for differnt branches of research, but when a tree is uploaded and its the only tree then there should be a process to eliminate the older version.
But I think myherirtage gets its kicks from being able to show that yo have XXXX,0000 matches, whereaas in reality you dont.
So why do we users put up with this nonsense? Apathy comes to mind.
Hi, I have posted a new comment on item Smart Match Webpage VS. FTB. Currently one year ago for the first posting. It's a pity new comments do not bring the discussion back to the top. Regards, Geoff
Totally agreed. I even noticed a couple of times yesterday where I had responded to an OP and the MH person responded to me. So the original person won't even know about the MH response unless they keep looking. You don't get any notification at all unless your message gets a response itself.
I uploaded my tree form FTB to the website almost two months ago, but the Smart Matches are still being processed. I read the help center, and it states that Premium users get priority in processing, and it has a link to upgrade my site. Now those two are unrelated. I do not have a Premium user status, but the family site which I am the webmaster of is in PremiumPlus category. So which one is taken into account? Either way, I think two months should be more than enough time for processing even basic trees. Or are my Smart Mathes being stuck in the system like someone else's were? This also happened the last time I updated the online tree. I had to write on the forum before it was corrected. Everything worked great when the site and it's owner both had Premium status. Now, thah the site is PremiumPlus while the owner and all the users are basic members, something isnot working. Please fix this problem permanently. Thanks!
thank you for letting us know. I updated match records in your family tree - you should get them soon. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. Please let me know if you need more assistance.
Its just that your smart matches have eloped with mine.
For some reason I had thousands of matches last week and none this week just like you. I think they are hiding together, hatching a secret plan to dominate
Perhaps we should set a class action and get a refund. UNLESS the smart match department of myheritage have a better answer.
The exact same thing happened to me last week. i wrote to support, got no response, and posted a question on another forum (but can't find it at the moment.) Let me know if there is some answer or solution. Ben Stern.ben@gmail.com Thanks.
There are several reasons for smart matches to disappear . The smart matches are generated when you make a change in your family tree and publish them to your website. The data will then be compared with approximately 24 million other family trees at MyHeritage . Due to the fact that this takes some time it will take a few days days to collect the data and for large trees it can take longer.
The smart matching technology is very dynamic. It happens that in this "intermediate period" webmasters make changes in their family trees and remove individual cards and even entire trees. The result is that you have received a message that you have a smart match, but that the data has been removed. The result is an empty smart match.
If the publication of a tree is removed from a website then all the related smart matches will be removed as well. Both the smart matches in your website as the smart matches that have been confirmed and rejected by other webmasters.
When a new tree is published the system will generate new smartmatches for this tree and the whole process will start again, which will take time.
Another reason is that webmasters sometimes decide to change their site settings and turn the smart match system off. As a result all smart matches related to this tree will dissapear.
But from my point of view, I simply "work on my files - off line" then upload by Publishing.
We do that on a regular basis but for some strange reason the lastest Publishing exercise has led to mahem.
So now I am frightened to publish, lest I fall victim to the "system" and finish up with no matches in a repetrtive cycle. Or have I not grasped something here?
