Suggestions

I don't have a tree on GR, but I use the site daily............when I'm at home.........and I don't log out

I have suggested a workable solution before, but here goes again.

All GR needs to do is to show the last action that a member has made on the site. We know they keep a record of this as it can be seen for members in your contacts list.

The action could be anything at all, it does not need to be a log-in nor a tree update. It could be a pm sent, a message posting or a record lookup. etc etc

So for Sylvia, it would say, for example

Last Activity:-
21 Nov 2011 20:34
Community board posting

IGP

That would be fne ....... except I see no need to show WHAT the last activity was.

That smells a little too much of Big Brother tracking me


it merely needs to say

Last Activity:-
21 Nov 2011 20:34




sylvia

What about Sunscription Status.
People can't reply if they havn't got a current subscription . . . or is this touching on Big Brother too?
:-\

Jeremy

the vast majority of members on GR are Free members


You probably don't realise that this site originally started with only free members. There was also 1 General thread where people could ask questions, but wihtin months it became a general chat thread.


so sometime in 2003 or early 2004, the paid subscription was introduced .......... at first there was only one level, now called Standard. I joined in April 2004, as a paid subscriber, for the grand price of £7.00 or £7.50 a year.


BUT they retained the free membership .......... and in fact, if a paid subscriber does not renew, he/she is just dropped down to the free category.

A free member can build a tree, read the boards but not post, be contacted by paying members, and can reply to a paid member, but cannot iniate contact with other members.


This is all that many people want.




so, no, you cannot stop a non-paying member from replying to a message sent to them


................... because, in fact, it is more than likely that the member you are trying to contact is a Free member, not a paying one.




sylvia

Thanks Sylvia
I was not suggesting to stop anyone from sending messages and I too have a paid Standard Membership.
I had not realised that a Free Member CAN reply to messages they receive. I have never been in that position.
My suggestion was directed as a possible mechanism to guage whether a reply to a sent message was likely but clearly I see that would not work

As we know Ancestry does say when you last logged in i.e today. last week ect this is what it says for my account

Member since 13 Oct 2004
Last signed in Over 6 months ago
Profile updated Over 6 months ago

Very strange as I actually use the site every day plus I have to sign in as my computer will not save passwords. So would this mean someone may not contact me as I have not used the site for a while?

jax

That annoys me too Jax.
Sometimes in the recent member activity, someone will have added something within the last 24 hours, but Ancestry still shows last signed in over 6 moths ago on their profile.
I often find things of interest, but don´t contact the tree owner for that very reason.

After a 2 year break from Genes looking after a family member I would have been mortified to sign back in and find that my membership had been cancelled and my tree had disappeared after all the work I had done. I am now on Genes everyday not necessarily adding to my tree as I am researching relatives in Ireland. If I post a message I will wait for a reply as I appreciate that the kind people who are helping me do not have to do it and at times without them I would have been completely stuck.

I have been a member for a number of years now but I certainly still need the help and appreciate the time that other members give to my request especially as they do it by choice and not because they are paid to do it!

i agree with sylvia, that seems a very good suggestion and not a whiff of Big Brother.

and flick, not being funny, if your tree isnt on genesreunited how would anyone know to contact you, you wouldnt come up on any tree searches.

it is very frustrating when there is no response to a request/message, thinking that someone "out there" may have information that is of use and you may have info that they could find useful

I think Flick is mostly here to exercise her sleuthing skills and help other people with their searches :-D

you can still search trees for your names and contact other people who have them even without a tree on here, I have often contacted people about names I have not bothered to put in my own tree, siblings of my ancestors and such, my tree here has always just been my own bare branches

at least if you don't fill up your tree with 1000s of names you aren't likely to get 100s of messages and end up being one of those people who don't reply to them ... :-)


and yes Sylvia's refinement of Inspector Green Pen's proposal sounds very simple and workable ... and why not just do it ??