Suggestions

Caroline, I have never, ever, used the records on this site so I can't comment on them.


I was soon pointed in the direction of the various invaluable free sites which are available and other help was given by members on the boards -some of whom hold localised records.


The quality of help, advice and guidance which is available on these boards is second to none. GR would be a very boring place with this facility



Cx

Cynthia
Thanks for the advice, unfortunately on most of my people nothing comes up on the timeline page at all. Some I do have to scroll down to view what's there and on others it's slap bang right in my face. I have noticed that I tend to only get the timeline for people that I have not attached any records for eg people way out on a limb of my tree somewhere. Then it will show me their birth year and even the birth of their children, as long as I haven't added their actual records/census.
Unfortunately approx 98% of my tree has been researched in depth and I have attached records for them which do not show up.

I agree with Caroline that responses from GR can, and usually do, "talk down" to the member

I have taken to saying in emails to them that "I do not want to hear another of your emails full of platitudes"

When I get the first reply to a complaint, it almost always says something along the lines of "this must be your fault. Which browser, server are you using. No-one else has reported this problem".

The best one was an email last week .............. 4th in a sequence of 6. She was responding to an email from me in which I detailed that my problem was with My Threads, and I used Mozilla Firefox, updated within the previous 7 days

Her reply was "Which threads are you having problems with? I have tried to replicate it with the threads you mentioned [threads on Suggestions detailing problems with My Threads] and have no problems with IE8 or Google Chrome" :-S :-S :-S :-S

I was very explicit in my reply to that ............... "I said in my previous email that I was using Firefox, so testing with IE and Chrome is useless for the problems that I'm having"


The reply to THAT, from yet another GR staff person, was an apology for the frustration I was having ............... and an acknowledgement that I was NOT the only member having a problem with My Threads, or with opening any other threads and getting constant error messages ................ and saying the problem had been referred to the developers.


The first response from GR staff to any complaint has been the same since I joined both GR and its parent company FriendsReunited back in 2004 ................ the member is at fault in using the wrong browser/server or whatever.


If you are using IE you should be using Firefox or Chrome, if you are using Chrome you should be using ........................




IGP ............... you have been very clear for months that YOU are not having any problems.

We accept that ......... I don't know why you aren't, but I would never consider that you are fibbing or stretching the truth


Please, why will you NOT accept that there are others who are having problems, and stop telling us that it is our fault. You are just taking the GR line!

AND also talking down to us.




sylvia

Absolutely right Sylvia.

I am sick of replies (got another one this morning) asking me what browser I use etc etc etc........ I replied, told them I had given them this information many times. Also sick of advice on how to do things.... they must think I have little experience in computers. WRONG!

Who tested the "new" tree? I don't have a problem with things changing, but when they don't work properly (for most of us) it is VERY frustrating. The new tree should be taken off and tested properly. That may save the GR people time, they won't have to keep replying to our messages.

There are samples of genealogy software - google for them..... most hold up to 100 names. I tried them before I spent the money on a good one. Maybe GR could try looking at those, get some ideas? The GR system is rather awkward.

For a minute there I thought it was just me !!
I thought maybe I was being sensitive to others comments, but now I see that I am not the only one who read the situation the same way.
I had the tree to test many months ago, and at the time did point out it seemed okay to look at but there were problems. I thought these were just because it wasn't fully opened yet, but now they are still there mostly.
With the timeline Genes are still telling me it's my fault one way or another, but if I can see it on some how can it be my softwear at fault...I'm no computer genius but I find my way around it.
I know problems happen I get it, but why can't they just admit there are problems and they will fix them as and when rather than always hoping we'll believe it's all our fault. I'm sure once it's working properly it'll be a great tree.

Personally I don't know you from Adam and to my knowledge have never had any contact with you before this, so no I do not have it in for you.
If not agreeing with you totally is having it in for you then.........
What other post have we possibly missed ?

Sorry Caroline, I was referring to the member who has reported several of my posts on this thread, not to you, unless, of course you reported the posts.

The 'missed' post that has not been reported was the one timed 18 Feb 2012 20:30

Sylvia, I DO accept that a handful of members are having problems but I do NOT accept that it is always the fault of GR. If it were, then everyone would have the same issue. I say this from years of experience as a business systems and IT support manger.

I have had internet performance problems which meant GR ran as a pig on one of my PC's for the past two weeks, although my other PC is running as sweet as a nut. Both PC's are connected to the same ISP via the same router.

I suspect the problem is the network card is past it's sell by date and have ordered a replacement., but to blame GR?

Nope not me I've never reported anyone ever.
I know we have not agreed but that doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong !
Whomever reported you had their reasons I'm sure, on a personal note I have to say that I did ; as I commented earlier; find your tone somewhat annoying but at the end of the day I lost no sleep over it .
Good luck to everyone in their search/chat/gossip/moans/whatever

Caroline,

Noted, thank you.

IGP

your messages were there when I posted my message at 23:41, and also when I saw Catherine's message at ca 1:00 am


I did NOT report them!

A difference of opinion is just that ................ I'm not vindictive enough to report anyone with whom I have a difference.

I have reported a few posts over the years .................. but "for cause", ie foully abusive, or homophobic (yep, there've been one or two of those!)



I AM intrigued that all your posts have gone ......................... posts RR'd over the weekend usually just show as "post removed .........." until Monday.


Have you contacted GR?



sylvia

Thanks Sylvia, I'll wait till tomorrow and see what transpires.

I agree too, only posts that are personally abusive, not due to difference of opinion should be reported and removed.

Well they seem to be back now. I wonder if GR ticked off the person who RRed them.

Rollo


you have to laugh ................ or you'd cry!



I do hope you have access to money before then!!



I'm such a dinosaur that not only do I not have a cell phone, I refuse to use an ATM card :-D

I like to talk face-to-face with a real person ........ the teller at the counter.



I was, incidentally, thinking the phantom myself. There were a couple of other innocent postings that went RR over the weekend.




sylvia

"We had exactly the same whinges when the current tree was introduced a couple of years back" - no. the objection now is the disappearance of ready visibility of person notes. In the previous changes the most important piece of user friendliness about GR, unlike Ancestry, that whoever you clicked on in the tree you could instantly see their notes, was maintained.
It is not an improvement to have to click "details" or "edit details", bringing up another screen, to see the notes.

I quite like some of the format of the new tree, although adding a person has been made more difficult as you need two clicks as the first quick addition screen does not have enough detail to be meaningful. However, I have never come across anything so full of bugs. It's a positive infestation Using the latest version of Firefox on a new computer running Windows 7 should not make me an unusual user, so I find it difficult to believe that this has been properly beta tested.

I have reported the bugs to GR, but I am back using the old tree as the new one for me is pretty much unusable.

As I read in a paper his week. We should not assume that change is always good, it is just change.

THANK GOD the old tree is back. :-D

The old tree has been available as an alternative to the new tree for weeks!


It apparently will be available until they get the new tree problems solved.

....... until the new tree problems are solved.

so those of us who dislike the new tree are OK for quite a while yet........ :-D

Phil from GR has mentioned that the old version cannot economically be maintained in its current state and in order to facilitate some of the changes coming in the future, such as multiple trees, security options, better printing, alternative displays, etc it needed to be replaced with a newer version.

The 'new' tree is work in progress and, by all accounts is likely to be so for some time to come. My main concern that it has been rolled out with rather too many bugs in its present state, which is detracting form progressing to the next, and probably more significant, stages of development.