Group Administrator Guidelines for FTDNA Projects

[Rebekah Canada]

Hi,

Could you all please read the latest version of our GAP Guidelines? Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
http://www.familytreedna.com/learn/p...tdna-projects/

[jbarry6899]

New Guidelines

Rebecca,

Thanks for the update. In general I find the guidelines useful and clear. I have a few questions.

Regarding the prohibitions to:

Use a DNA project to advocate a personal or political agenda.
Use a DNA project to promote a business or commercial interest outside of the Family Tree DNA affiliate program.

It is not clear to what extent the projects may be used to facilitate a scientific or genealogical study that is not for profit. Can you clarify this?

The guidelines state:

Group Administrators shall not use this access to:

Add Project members to other projects or move a Project member from one project to another.

Is this to be prohibited even if the Project member agrees?

Further, the guidelines state:

Any external website should specify that the DNA results are from Family Tree DNA.

Because the tools for autosomal DNA projects on FTDNA are extremely limited, many of us create other sites for that purpose. Those sites may include results from other testing companies. Please clarify how these guidelines apply to such sites. (As an aside, it would really be useful to have better autosomal project tools!)

Thanks again; the guidelines should be very helpful.

Jim Barry
Barry Surname Project Administrator

[MoberlyDrake]

Project Administrators shall not:

Use a DNA project to advocate a personal or political agenda.

Isn't running a small family project with the sole purpose of breaking down brick walls in your family tree a personal agenda?

That is the only purpose of my project other than signing into 5 accounts with one password. The other 4 family members in the group couldn't care less! I have let a couple of people who are not family members join.

[Kathleen Carrow]

Rebekah

The guidelines seem good and clear for the most part.
This:
"Use a DNA project to advocate a personal or political agenda.
Use a DNA project to promote a business or commercial interest outside of the Family Tree DNA affiliate program"

Aren't there other business interests outside of the DNA affiliate program? Outside Contractors? How is that controlled? With their personal contracts I expect?

I agree that we should attempt to have a Co-Admin and personally am moving in that direction. My large group now has 3 and we are all attending webinars.

and this one :
"Represent Family Tree DNA as the testing company of choice, and facilitate a positive public image of Family Tree DNA and your project"

I think that the first part of that "of choice", could be restrictive for those who want to help others get the best results. One can be very positive of the public image of Family Tree DNA and advocate for our projects, which I believe wholeheartedly in, and still be candid about plusses and minuses of other companies.

I find some of the "cheerleaders" who applaud anything at all from a particular company to be advocating " a personal or political agenda" Groupies sometimes offend others with their lavish praise of mediocre results.

Your statements this week made me feel that you will NOT always be positive about some results.

I am most positive about transparency and the way that FTDNA allows transfers of 23andme and AncestryDNA results.The size of the universe of testers has always been of prime importance for me.

The fact that I am here as an Admin of 5 surname groups after 8 years (Join Date: Apr 2006)should indicate some choice without it being the only possible choice.

[Donald Locke]

This rule has me quite concerned.

" Authorize an upgrade to a Project member’s kit without their consent, even if the group is paying for the upgrade. Written authorization – either on paper or via e-mail – is required. When ordering through customer support, that proof must be provided to staff before an order will be placed."


The Locke project has for many years used donations to upgrade participants tests with the participants permission with out having to provide FTDNA a written consent as proof of consent. I have a couple of participants in my project whom had given me expressed permission to do Y DNA upgrades with the donations to the project, whom are now deceased and can not now give their written permission.

The participants in the Locke DNA project have always known that the project could upgrade their tests with their permission of course and none have ever had an issue allowing the project to pay for Y DNA upgrades to my personal knowledge.

While I understand the reasoning behind this rule, it is a little to late for the participants whom are either in their last days of life, or have passed away and not able to give me a written consent now.

[Paul Burns]

Oh dear! Do we really need this? I could quote a couple of excerpts from Peter's Principles, but maybe the old saying, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" will suffice. Sometimes it seems like every year management tries to make it harder for us admins to do our jobs. If FTDNA has received multiple complaints from individuals about this, please so state.
I have been an administrator for nine years now, and I do upgrade members (at my expense)and join them to other projects when I think it necessary. This is in my project description. I notify the member when I am taking either of those actions and would cancel it if the member protested, but in my nine years I have never received one. I believe my members appreciate my actions. If I am required to engage in multiple exchanges with my over 375 members, then prove to FTDNA that I have individual approvals for such actions, my project will be soon be dead in the water.

[emyr]

I also believe this to be a bit of overkill. I was recently contacted by a project administrator regarding my son's kit. The administrator wanted to know if I would give my permission for him to upgrade the kit. I said yes and the upgrade went through without any problems. I don't think he had to provide any documentation to FTDNA about my approval, and I don't think such documentation should be required before every upgrade.

If an upgrade happens without a member's knowledge, that would be different. In that case the member could contact FTDNA and the project administrator could at that time either provide documentation or explain why he/she did not request permission first.

I really don't understand what is going on. There are so many things that need work, but it seems the focus right now is on fixing things that aren't broken. As a customer of FTDNA, my primary issue right now is the gedcom problem. I'm sure other customers have their own more pressing issues as well that they would like to see resolved.

[Biblioteque]

Rhetoric or Reason

Kathleen Carrow: "Cheerleaders", "groupies"? Ah, you failed to mention "trolls".

Looking at this from a FAIR and common sense approach, FTDNA funds this forum with more dollars than just a pretty penny. If someone wants to espouse the merits of another company, don't you really think they should go elsewhere to another forum, out of fairness?

BTY, you used the word, "I" seven times in your lengthy post.......

[jbarry6899]

Recommendations

For me the issue is not whether to recommend FTDNA, which I am happy to do in most instances. However, there may be some project members for whom another company would be a better choice. Or I may want to recommend "fishing in all of the ponds" to increase the probability of a successful result. I want to have the freedom to make the most appropriate recommendations based on the project member's goals and needs.

Jim

[Kathleen Carrow]

Kathleen Carrow: "Cheerleaders", "groupies"? Ah, you failed to mention "trolls".

Looking at this from a FAIR and common sense approach, FTDNA funds this forum with more dollars than just a pretty penny. If someone wants to espouse the merits of another company, don't you really think they should go elsewhere to another forum, out of fairness?

BTY, you used the word, "I" seven times in your lengthy post.......

Marietta..thank you for being so very helpful.. Did you notice what the topic was? 7 of us so far have given our input which was what was asked of surname admins.. Was mine the longest?

[Rebekah Canada]

Keep the ideas flowing

Keep the ideas flowing. I will be frank. I am not happy with this version of the GAP Guidelines or any past version either. We need something that explains how to be an excellent admin without fettering those exact same efforts.

[LynCra]

Does not actually belong in the guidelines, but something that needs to be better addressed as information to both customers and administrators is FF projects. Not easy to figure out either which ones exist or how to set up and run one since the focus seems to be mainly on surname projects and many restrict participation to Y-DNA testers.

[Kathleen Carrow]

Does not actually belong in the guidelines, but something that needs to be better addressed as information to both customers and administrators is FF projects. Not easy to figure out either which ones exist or how to set up and run one since the focus seems to be mainly on surname projects and many restrict participation to Y-DNA testers.

LynCra
I think it MAY belong in the guidelines.Family Finder groups need to be clarified for sure. One of mine, a Geographic Project has almost 200 in it and more than 55 Family Finder results.

In many cases they are in with the rest of the project. That works for Geographic groups and sort of limps along for surname groups. The parameters have really not been defined, most of us have just welcomed in folks who wanted to test autosomally.

[LynCra]

Good point Kathleen. I am very grateful to those project managers who have accepted me into their surname projects when I have explained my connection to their surname through non-paternal lines. This has opened up for an exchange of useful information in both directions. I often wonder how many surname projects miss out on access to useful information that would explain some of their results since they do not allow women to join and much of the old family paperwork has been handed down to and kept by the daughters of the line.

[Biblioteque]

Kathleen, I stand by my point about a sense of fair play. One should factor in a dose of judiciousness when posting about other companies because they are competitors.

As a young child of the South, I once heard "When you go to a dance, you should leave with the guy who "brung" you. As in loyalty. 'Nuf said.