Those of you with a DNA Project have probably now received notice from Family Tree DNA about the new myGroups feature. I participated in the beta prior to the customer release, and I had a great deal of concern about the impact of some features of this design change for Y-DNA Projects. As a result, I have negotiated an option where any Guild member can opt out of two elements of myGroups, which I feel would negatively impact recruiting, and the growth of your project. myGroups is now available for the customer base to try, and feedback is resulting in changes. As a result, some or all of the issues I raised in the closed beta test may be addressed. Even so, I want to share with you my perspective and your options. My concerns about myGroups are the following: 1. Impact on recruiting I recruit persons with the following approach, which is very effective, especially for those participants concerned about privacy: I tell them: “Only those that match will see your name, and email, if you have it, and you will see your matches name and email, if they have it.” With myGroups where this is no longer true. For example, in the beta I dealt with, every project member is able to see the name and last login of every project member. Plus, anyone who joins your project at any time can see all participants’ name and their last login. When a participant is in the new myGroups Personal Page, in the upper left is the project name and a count of members. Simply click on the count of members and you see everyone’s name and last login. Besides recruiting, this also impacts the commitment I have already made to participants. I have therefore opt-ed out all projects where I have a major role. It appears that since the release of myGroups to the customer base, and then those having the same concerns verbalizing the issue, this issue might be addressed, but I have not yet seen the user interface functioning. One solution I read about would enable the participant to set whether their name displayed to the group. I have not yet seen it function. If you select myGroups, you would need to educate your participant about this setting. Family Tree DNA, per my discussion, recommended that the solution is for those members who don’t want everyone to see their name, is that they can leave the project. This is self-defeating for a Y-DNA project, where you want everyone with the surname to be in the project. 2. Activity Feed MyGroups is a social media front end, to encourage all the participants to post comments, questions, photos, etc. The project administrator would most likely want to monitor this, perhaps daily, depending on the activity, and answer the questions, or review answers that others have posted. Most surnames are multiple origin. I can see the value of this activity feed project structure especially for autosomal testing, and most likely for mtDNA Projects, geographic Projects, and haplogroup project, though I question the value for multiple origin Y-DNA projects. Will your participants care about the trees and genealogy of those to whom they aren't related? Personally, I am too busy with a project I am helping with recruiting participants to monitor postings and questions. We are on track meeting our goal of recruiting 5 participants a week, and the goal will soon increase. I have recently read, that as a result of customer input, the Project Administrator could turn off the activity feed. I have not seen this feature function yet. *** It is totally your choice whether you opt in or out. I simply negotiated the option for those that want to opt out. If you opt out, the member list remains private, and there is no activity feed or ability of members to post. To entice people to myGroups, Family Tree DNA is offering coupons on a daily basis. The 37 marker Y-DNA price offered by the Guild is better than a $20 Y-DNA coupon. The $100 coupon is for the much more expensive "Big Y" ($575.00 USD) which most members are not involved with. The coupons could have value to those who want to upgrade before a sale. myGroups is currently optional to all projects, but all projects will be converted to this format on April 16th. If you want to opt-out, I need to be notified by March 15th at DNA@one-name.org You can try myGroups if you want, and then opt out. The opt-out option is currently **only** available to Guild members. Please notify me by March 15th at DNA@one-name.org if you want to opt out. Keep in mind that anything could change during this customer beta period, and my two major concerns above could be solved for the whole customer base. Susan