General Chat

Lesley you have it in one

it comes down to the members that make this site.
So £10 is nothing

YES i think its good value
where else can you be entertained everynight
for less than £10 a year

PS I agree Kay with a change of colour :)

That's brilliant Rose :) What a wonderful find :)

Hi Kay,

I agree that Scottish records are lacking on here. I'd also say (as I've said on Ann's General thread) that I think General and chat should merge and become 'general chat' and all the genealogy boards should be merged together, it may quicken things up a little. However, that's just my opinion lol it could kill them dead ;)

However, I think the lack of moderators is an issue and I think visible paid & independent moderators would add value to what I get out of this site , therefore I think it's relevant to my discussion.

I didn't refer to anyone/groups as trouble makers as I don't always think that all those that cause problems on this site for some people are "trouble makers" by definition. I think problems arise because of a lack of visible paid moderators and because people have a difference of opinions sometimes. I think emicoms can help but I don't think it does in every case.

Providing more on the site as sexy ron puts would hike the cost even more,its all very well for those of us who have the pleasure of a yearly sub,but those who are not, £20 a year can work out money for nothing so after first 6 months they dont renew !!
so a £10 yearly membership for ALL,I'm sure with the boast of Genes of millions ?of members ! it can survive on that....



tree facility,,theres loads of sites where where you can put your tree and get contacts all for FREE,

theres sites where detailed information can be got.from census to more current records all for FREE.and not a C&P to be found.


The site could do with a Scotlands records one and do away with Tips board as its never used for its intended purpose.

Provide emicoms,,a useful tool that stops any misunderstanding in posts.


Trouble makers,,,,,,,,,,,why do they have to be brought into it everytime,,,they can only be a problem if they get pampered to.!

GR def needs a boost of someting to make it a more appealing site.....an injection of colour and more interaction from its staff....!!!!!

Hi Kriss, Shimms and Keith :) I tend to agree with what everyone has said so far, it comes down to the members that make this site.


Sorry to hear that you lost your tree Shimms, did you have a backup? Do you have one now?

I agree with what you say SRS ( MSE is good isn't it :) )

But for me I come back to the thought that had I not joined here, just gone to other sites i might not have in my possession now a cd of my gt grandfather singing... can't put a price on that :) nor had the initial help that found me someone I didn't know existed.

And of course £10 to 'meet' new and interesting people doesn't seem too much really ;) as well as knowing that a lot of people you like are likely to be here, on and off.
Yes, you can keep in touch with individuals elsewhere but not find them all together :))

Its worth the fee.

~~ waves to all O))

Hi SRS

When GR lost my FT it hurt so much and I did seriously think about cancelling my membership. Didn't though because for me the boards, friends I've made, tips, records etc are worth the fee.

xxx Shimms xxx

I remember thinking before I became a paid subscriber Rose, that £5 (ahem yes £5 lol) was expensive for a yearly subscription when I could get the same for free on other sites. I was using genforum (used to be an excellent forum) ancestry, rootsweb, gencircles, rootschat etc.

However, once I joined I never looked back. The 20p that I pay a week for GR did seem value for money as I enjoyed the chat more than anything.

However, when I saw the post on the the other board (the moneysaving expert site lol) it made me think about the value for money. Not that I would give up GR for the sake of 20p a week lol

You quite rightly pointed out that it's the members that provide the knowledge, if you think about it - GR provides the venue and members just turn up. Some sites provide the venue for free ;)

I'd argue that recently when GR introduced the Help Clinic they were providing an additional service...ie they provided access to certain paid sites to certain members to help out the rest of us. (I know it's contentious and that's a different issue) However, now that it's gone for now, we are left again with the help of volunteers and nothing else.

Then there's the tree aspect, however, ancestry and rootweb provide you with the same service for free.

There's not even visible moderators as such and one could argue (perhaps wrongly??) that this has led to many members in the past leaving GR and the boards not flowing as quickly as they used to be.

Ann's thread on General - has the heart gone out of GR is reflecting that it's not as energetic as it used to be, the threads are drying up although not completely and there are people who are reluctant to post because they feel pounced upon if they do something wrong (again is it because there's no moderators or self appointed ones?)

Just realised that my post is turning into Ron's suggestion lol Sorry Ron :)

On a positive side, I do think GR are trying to help, they've introduced the loyalty bonus if you're a continuous member, they did try to help with the Help Clinic. They do appear to be listening.

For me though, GR is still worth my 20p a week (well its less than that really) for now :)

For my £9.95 I think it's good :)

If I was using the site for records I wouldn't, but for the use of the boards and the 'search trees' I think that's very fair.

If I factor in those who have helped on here and relatives who I have 'found' who have added snippets of personal information that I definitely could not have got elsewhere, then it has been a real bargain !

It's worth the money several times over just for the breadth of knowledge of the members all in one place I think.

Rose xx

I take your point re the question, you're right, i'd probably get more of a response but that's not the question I want answering lol Well not today anyway ;)

There are a lot of very mixed feeling towards GR. I also feel GR could do a lot more to help it's members and clean up the site from trouble makers and also provide more things on the site. Thats just my view though. That said GR have new owners and slowly things are starting to be done. It will take time to do what they need to do, but at least Now they are trying. I have a Platinum Membership on here and do find it very useful for doing any searching i wish too, Mind you some other sites will allow members to do searching without charging extra to do so.
Maybe you might get a better feedback if you added a thread called
What would you change about this GR site? & what would you like to get out of the site idealy? and if GR provided all that was requested from it's members, How much would you pay for a membership?

Is the GR standard membership worth the money we pay? What do GR actually provide us that another site can't?

I was googling GR about another issue and I came across another Forum where they were discussing GR and one poster said that they found them expensive considering they do not do nothing in return for the cost.

I was wondering what other people thought.