Thanks Marlene. Lots of food for thought in your email. We have 184 participants in the Daniel project, of which only 9 have not returned a kit and one of those is very recent, so may be considered to be active. We have only heard from 4 or five of the remaining 176 active participants, several of whom are are project managers themselves and have their own biases, which is fine as I obviously do too. I'd be interested in feedback from folks who are non-project manager participants as to what they would like to see on the project page and if they feel their needs are being met. Until very recently there has been no negative feedback sent to me about the web site, which has been extant for 7 years. I don't know how many participants subscribe to this list, though. I will also post a request to the Daniel-DNA list. Marlene, I have looked at the tools currently available to admins, but probably am not aware of tools that are in the works. So far, all of the reports I have found valuable have a cut and paste option that allows them to be added to other web pages. I have a masters degree in computer science, and working on a second masters in Library and Information Science, and have undertaken numerous web development projects, professionally, academically and commercially, so maintaining the Daniel and Hostetter sites, along with several personal and professional pages that I maintain is truly trivial for me. Diane Bradford actually has the lions share of work in maintaining the Participants page. Personally, I find the FTDNA generated pages rather dry, unattractive, not incredibly intuitive for the average participant, and not particularly well designed, to boot. I work for a large insurance company where privacy issues are taken very seriously. Based on my background, I recognize I may be more focused on privacy concerns than others are. In my opinion there is a place in the project for everyone, even the 12 and 25 marker folks. Not every one has the same goal or game plan. Some folks don't have the money to pay for higher marker kits, but want to be involved, and others don't want to pay for a higher marker test until they have at least one 12 marker match, and I am sure there are many other reasons why folks do what they do. I completely agree that posting these results is both misleading and wastes a lot of everyone's time, especially for common surnames which have an incredibly large number of unrelated families. I can see an argument for displaying the results as long as there is no direct link to the participant, but still question the value of doing so. I'd be interested in what value average participants see in this. I guess I can see value in following Marlene's example and posting only the results of 37 and higher marker tests, especially for projects for common surnames. My impression to date is that most folks just want to know who they are and are not related to. I applaud your effort to get useful information about earliest proved ancestors, but suggest there is value in having ancestor biographies even for 12 and 25 marker folks. As noted before, I think this is where the action is on any DNA web site. I encourage folks to do a factual biography of their earliest proved ancestor and basic information about their ancestor's children in order to allow as many folks as possible to make a connection. I am also against posting of pedigrees on web sites as there is too much potential for abuse. Again, thanks for your thought provoking input, Marlene. Best, Kevin On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 07:44 -0700, Marleen Van Horne wrote: > Kevin and other yDNA Project Managers, > > If you did not attend the FTDNA yDNA Conference in March, you are > probably not aware of the new tools being developed by FTDNA for > managing the Group Administrator Pages. > > When I started my project, I made the decision to use the project pages > provided by FTDNA, others made the decision to put their project > information on other servers. With the new dashboard tools, I think > most of what any project manager would need would be available through > FTDNA. It is also easier because the test results are automatically > added to the page, and all the administrator has to do is put them in > the right group. Once placed in the correct group, FTTNA's sort > algorithm puts them in order by test results. In this way those > individuals with the most similar test results appear together > > I really feel that a group administrator has some responsibility to > bring order to the information collected. This can be done without > violating the privacy of any of the project members. It can also be > done without pedigrees. I require ALL my project participants to > provide a brief line of descent pedigree. I also require a test of > either 37 or preferably 67 markers. Unfortunately, the 12 and 25 marker > tests do not provide enough information for genealogical matching. They > only provide haplogroup information. It is not practical for a project > manager or a project participant to research these low level matches, as > the common ancestor could be 40,000 years ago. I let my project > subscribers know this up front. In a couple of cases new subscribers > did not meet my requirements, while they are still in the project, I do > not include them in an identified group and I do not waste time > analyzing their test results. My project members know it is not worth > their time to pursue these matches. They also have not provided > pedigrees to me, so I figure they are cheating the other project members. > > I also do not encourage the publication of pedigrees on the website, > because at one time there was a possibility of a competing company > mining information from the FTDNA website. I do, however, put related > individuals together privately, IF THEY WISH. > > My projects are very small, as the surnames are extremely rare. I > realize that in large projects bringing structure to the information, > without violation a project members privacy is more difficult. I also > feel that without some type of organization the information is almost > useless. > > These comments should not be taken as criticism as to the way other > admins manage the information in their projects. This is just my > approach, and I realize other admins have different approaches. > > Marleen Van Horne > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DANIEL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi, All I'm a participant who is not a DNA project administrator but rather an average (or just above novice), casual researcher who has found great value in reported DNA test results that are kept current and have some sort of bio page. Part of the value I receive is from just this sort of dialogue taking place now. When the lists are active, it is very stimulating and there is so much to learn. I am a Finance and HR professional so I live with the same sorts of privacy concerns Kevin references but I don't share that level of concern as it relates to posting the kit results. I always think more information is better with the personal option of opting out. I realize not everyone shares this view and sometimes it seems necessary to protect people from themselves - using information incorrectly, making wrong conclusions, just wanting the gee whiz factor - but it seems to me that doing so penalizes everyone and defeats the purpose of the project pages in the first place. For me, having the relatively current project pages and bio pages - along with the gentle encouragement of Pam, Kevin, and several others :-) - is why I ended up getting the test done. The notifications offered directly to participants by ftDNA are just not compelling or sufficient to warrant spending the money.  I also actively recruit participants, for several lines, and have shared costs when there was a possible match to upgrade a test. In each of those instances, the availability and quality of the project pages in terms of # of participants, currency of information, and ease of use ended up being a major factor in their decision making. I echo Pam and Clay - please find a middle ground and don't let it become just a majority vote. Helping even ONE person seems like it would be worth it. Best regards, Jan ________________________________ From: Kevin <kevin@kevindaniel.com> To: Marleen Van Horne <msvnhrn@jps.net> Cc: DANIEL@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 10:25:57 AM Subject: Re: [DANIEL] updating Daniel DNA res Thanks Marlene. Lots of food for thought in your email. We have 184 participants in the Daniel project, of which only 9 have not returned a kit and one of those is very recent, so may be considered to be active. We have only heard from 4 or five of the remaining 176 active participants, several of whom are are project managers themselves and have their own biases, which is fine as I obviously do too. I'd be interested in feedback from folks who are non-project manager participants as to what they would like to see on the project page and if they feel their needs are being met. Until very recently there has been no negative feedback sent to me about the web site, which has been extant for 7 years. I don't know how many participants subscribe to this list, though. I will also post a request to the Daniel-DNA list. Marlene, I have looked at the tools currently available to admins, but probably am not aware of tools that are in the works. So far, all of the reports I have found valuable have a cut and paste option that allows them to be added to other web pages. I have a masters degree in computer science, and working on a second masters in Library and Information Science, and have undertaken numerous web development projects, professionally, academically and commercially, so maintaining the Daniel and Hostetter sites, along with several personal and professional pages that I maintain is truly trivial for me. Diane Bradford actually has the lions share of work in maintaining the Participants page. Personally, I find the FTDNA generated pages rather dry, unattractive, not incredibly intuitive for the average participant, and not particularly well designed, to boot. I work for a large insurance company where privacy issues are taken very seriously. Based on my background, I recognize I may be more focused on privacy concerns than others are. In my opinion there is a place in the project for everyone, even the 12 and 25 marker folks. Not every one has the same goal or game plan. Some folks don't have the money to pay for higher marker kits, but want to be involved, and others don't want to pay for a higher marker test until they have at least one 12 marker match, and I am sure there are many other reasons why folks do what they do. I completely agree that posting these results is both misleading and wastes a lot of everyone's time, especially for common surnames which have an incredibly large number of unrelated families. I can see an argument for displaying the results as long as there is no direct link to the participant, but still question the value of doing so. I'd be interested in what value average participants see in this. I guess I can see value in following Marlene's example and posting only the results of 37 and higher marker tests, especially for projects for common surnames. My impression to date is that most folks just want to know who they are and are not related to. I applaud your effort to get useful information about earliest proved ancestors, but suggest there is value in having ancestor biographies even for 12 and 25 marker folks. As noted before, I think this is where the action is on any DNA web site. I encourage folks to do a factual biography of their earliest proved ancestor and basic information about their ancestor's children in order to allow as many folks as possible to make a connection. I am also against posting of pedigrees on web sites as there is too much potential for abuse. Again, thanks for your thought provoking input, Marlene. Best, Kevin On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 07:44 -0700, Marleen Van Horne wrote: > Kevin and other yDNA Project Managers, > > If you did not attend the FTDNA yDNA Conference in March, you are > probably not aware of the new tools being developed by FTDNA for > managing the Group Administrator Pages. > > When I started my project, I made the decision to use the project pages > provided by FTDNA, others made the decision to put their project > information on other servers.  With the new dashboard tools, I think > most of what any project manager would need would be available through > FTDNA.  It is also easier because the test results are automatically > added to the page, and all the administrator has to do is put them in > the right group.  Once placed in the correct group, FTTNA's sort > algorithm puts them in order by test results.  In this way those > individuals with the most similar test results appear together > > I really feel that a group administrator has some responsibility to > bring order to the information collected.  This can be done without > violating the privacy of any of the project members.  It can also be > done without pedigrees.  I require ALL my project participants to > provide a brief line of descent pedigree.  I also require a test of > either 37 or preferably 67 markers.  Unfortunately, the 12 and 25 marker > tests do not provide enough information for genealogical matching.  They > only provide haplogroup information.  It is not practical for a project > manager or a project participant to research these low level matches, as > the common ancestor could be 40,000 years ago.  I let my project > subscribers know this up front.  In a couple of cases new subscribers > did not meet my requirements, while they are still in the project, I do > not include them in an identified group and I do not waste time > analyzing their test results.  My project members know it is not worth > their time to pursue these matches. They also have not provided > pedigrees to me, so I figure they are cheating the other project members. > > I also do not encourage the publication of pedigrees on the website, > because at one time there was a possibility of a competing company > mining information from the FTDNA website.  I do, however, put related > individuals together privately, IF THEY WISH. > > My projects are very small, as the surnames are extremely rare.  I > realize that in large projects bringing structure to the information, > without violation a project members privacy is more difficult.  I also > feel that without some type of organization the information is almost > useless. > > These comments should not be taken as criticism as to the way other > admins manage the information in their projects.  This is just my > approach, and I realize other admins have different approaches. > > Marleen Van Horne > > > >  > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DANIEL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DANIEL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message