No matter what Facebook says…
In just a little more than three months, every American genealogist will be anxiously trying to access one website.
When the 1950 census goes online on 1 April at, first, the National Archives of the United States and then — within hours — at places like Ancestry and FamilySearch, huge numbers of researchers (The Legal Genealogist among them) will need information about census enumeration districts and the like that’s often hard to find and generally hard to use.
Except at one website.
A website where that exact information is easy to find and the easiest to use that exists.
The same website where, for example, we can do one-step searching of ship passenger records.
The same website where we can do one-step searching of the New York State census and a whole ton of New York City records.
The same website where we can find a whole raft of useful tools like alphabet and calendar converters.
The same website where, come 1 April 2022 when that 1950 census is released, so many of us will be scrambling to see if we can figure out exactly where we need to look — what enumeration district — for our family members.
And — sigh — the same website that one great big social media platform called Facebook has decided is spam, and won’t let us include a link to it in any post there. Any post with the URL to the website gets blocked.
The website, of course, is called One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse, it’s been online practically forever (in web terms), and it’s one of the most valuable collections tools a genealogist has.
And why Facebook has labeled it spam is absolutely beyond comprehension.
But then why Facebook does a lot of what Facebook does is absolutely beyond comprehension.
So… here’s what we can do about it.
First and foremost, bookmark the site. We all need to do that. We’re all going to need it come 1 April (and, of course, we can all start using it now to get ready for 1 April and that census release). Go to One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse now and bookmark it.
Second, read up on how to best use the site to get ready for that census. Steve has a great article with Joel Weintraub online on “GETTING READY FOR THE 1950 CENSUS: Searching With and Without a Name Index” that we can review now, and he’s put a recorded presentation about the same topic online.
Third, tell Facebook (now Meta, of course) that it’s wrong. You can do that by going to the Facebook developer tool and entering the website link, which is https://stevemorse.org/, then click on Debug. The tool will return a message: “We can’t review this website because the content doesn’t meet our Community Standards. If you think this is a mistake, please let us know.” Click on the words let us know and tell ’em!! My own comment was: “This website (https://stevemorse.org/) is not spam. It’s a set of genealogical tools that family history researchers need.” Now, mind you, I don’t expect anything — Facebook says it doesn’t review individual reports — but if it gets enough of them, well, miracles can happen, right?
Finally, get used to referring to the website on Facebook as stevemorse (dot) org and telling folks to replace the space (dot) space with a period (and telling them why!!). For now, at least, that doesn’t trigger Facebook’s spam system. That way, when people start asking about where to find the tools, we call all answer without losing our minds (or at least our tempers) over Facebook’s stupidity here.
Because, darn it all, the website One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse is not spam, does not violate any community standards, and shouldn’t be blocked by Facebook.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The One-Step Webpages are NOT spam,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 17 Dec 2021).
Submitted, with the suggestion that they look at Steve’s awards and interviews as linked at his website!
While I recognize that Steve’s site is not spam and should be left alone, if you do get locked out of his site, there is another option. Claire Kluskens in her blog “Exciting 1950 Census News from NARA,” stated they will have a AI-read census available, which I imagine will be the same for Steve. Here is the post (and it refers to the NARA press release of the same): https://twelvekey.com/2021/12/14/exciting-1950-census-news-from-nara/
The machine-generated index isn’t going to be good enough to let folks avoid doing background work such as “what enumeration district.” And Steve’s site is valuable for more than just the 1950 census. The issue isn’t limited to “how do we find our folks in 1950” — it’s “how do we convince a social media platform not to improperly target a genealogy tools website”.
Thanks for posting this – I have now submitted a report. I had tried to post a link to Steve’s tool for the Index of the Repressed (which compiles information for descendants of Polish people who were abused and forcibly removed from Poland by the Russians during World War II) to a Facebook group earlier this year only to be told it was spam. I was completely confused as Steve’s site clearly isn’t spam and his search tool for this resource is very helpful. I have used some of the other tools as well and am grateful he makes them all available for free. I told Facebook this.
Suggestion: ask your local newspaper to look into this, if they have a desk that reports on social media. Facebook/Meta has no interest in what we say as users, but if they get enough inquiries from journalists perhaps they will resolve the problem.
A good thought!
Until they fix it, everyone can just link to this post, that has a link to that page… 🙂
There is also the option of quitting FaceBook, just sayin.
Without a good social media alternative, that leaves a lot of people without community.
Aha. Thanks for posting. I have posted a link to Steve’s site in the past with no problem, but recently got the notice. I did dispute it. No word from Meta. Steve’s site is awesome for finding people on ship manifests. Show me everyone from Sczplanza arriving between 1900 and 1905. Love it.
Hubby says that FOR OTHER WEBSITES that FB has decreed as unsuitable, folks often get away with putting the URL in a comment *not* the message.
We can but hope!
Susan
Well I got this shared to two other genealogy groups and then FB limited me and said I can’t share it anymore.
I had this happen to me too. Every where I shared the link was coming up spam. I’ve been reporting it to Facebook every time. Thanks for the info. I honestly thought I was doing something wrong.
Nope, it’s Facebook that’s doing something wrong!
I reported it several days ago when I first saw the mention of the problem. Steve’s site is AWESOME and needs to be accessible for everyone. All the stupid websites that get through and this one they decide is spam. Just ridiculous.
It seems Facebook is doing this to other posts too. I put a post up about a membership milestone for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh on our page and suddenly, months later, we get a content violation.
I really wish I closer to the 2nd cousin who is the brother in law of Sheryl Sandberg….
While FB doesn’t explain what is violating their standards one possibility occurred to me reading the disclaimer paragraph at the top of SteveMorse.org. Some of his tools fetch data from other sites. Of course that’s integral to what makes the tools helpful – but Facebook may be thinking he’s violating IP. I’m sure he’s gotten permission from all of the sites. It’s not like he’s doing this secretively, and he’s been doing it for years.
It could be something else, but this did jump out at me as a possibility.
Done! Thanks, Judy, for getting out ahead of this and spreading the word within the global genealogy community.
BTW, I also let Facebook know that calling its parent corporation “Meta” is antithetical to the meaning of that word in Buddhism . . .
Thank you for the alert on this. I followed your instructions and left feedback.
A more public view of Steve is needed. Interviews on “60 Minutes”, “20/20”, or any News programs that are local would help move this forward and embarrass Facebook/Meta. Not many know, but Steve is one of the Founders of Intel! He is brilliant!
The architect of the Intel 8086 chip, to be accurate, but the irony of Steve Morse, of all people, getting banned anywhere on the internet is stunning.
Judy thanks for this post, being a sharer I had shared it around and got a notification from them that it went against their community and was listed as spam, I told them get out of here, and some other stuff while I was at it, thanks again for letting people know will share your article around also.