Suggestions

I think you're right Roy - the mushroom method will continue ;-)

I would not worry about this at all,

GR are inviting members?

I doubt very much that any members who have expressed a view or suggested ways to improve the site on this board will ever be invited after all they don't listen on this board so why would they listen to any member who gets invited to this event,

No doubt that after the event GR will announce that it was a great success and launch it regardless of any feedback that will be ignored in only the way GR can


Then the fun and games will start all over again.


Roy

Since, according to Aaron, GR sent the email to thousands of UK residents rather than millions, there is only about a one in thousand chance that any particular UK resident received one.

So it's not surprising that neither Sylvia, nor any of the rest of us on this thread, received one.

"I am in Canada BUT in order to pay in £ sterling and not US $, I have my residence put as in the UK

so my records with GR would include me as a UK member"




- so, Aaron, GR staff could not be certain that the emails were sent to a selection of several thousand members residing in the UK, could they?

In the middle of the Home Page:


Ask the Genes community
Our members are always happy to help anyone who needs a hand with their family history.

Joy


you are quite correct .................

I am in Canada BUT in order to pay in £ sterling and not US $, I have my residence put as in the UK



so my records with GR would include me as a UK member



Needless to say .................... I did not receive an email :))









I do however know of someone who has been invited to London to do Product Testing ..................










sylvia

Genes do not know who reads the message boards...even free members can do that and not everyone who uses these boards would read those posts, just like any guidelines that are mentioned

Even if their travel is not covered by the £50 limit, I can see that some people might consider it worthwhile to have a trial on the new site and to have the chance to influence the development.

As for emails, surely they were for those who don't use the messageboards. Messageboarders have already read the invitation and could have applied if they wanted to.

Even if they can tell who lives in the UK what is the point of inviting someone who lives in Scotland or Corwall or anyone who is not in a 50 mile radius of London?

How can GR tell who is in the UK? Some in, for instance, Canada have to pay in Sterling currency, according to GR, so some Canadians could be surmised as being in the UK by GR. :-S Ha! :-|

Well I am in the UK and not far from London.

I have participated on these Boards over the last 7 or 8 months.

I have given feedback to Support

I have a tree on here with over 3000 people on it.

So WHY did I not receive an email...... :-S :-S

I can guess.........
Some of my views that I have expressed have not been exactly complementary to Genes.
I am fed up with half promises and broken promises and two breaches of contract where Genes have failed to deliver images that I have paid for. using Pay to View. (Newspaper Archives wrong images)
It seems that every time Genes decide to revamp part of the site, something goes wrong which makes the task of research that much more difficult. I also have the impression from the number of unread messages in my sent box that many people have called it a day and simply walked away,
Perhaps I am a bit too cynical and if invited, would be considered too much of a disruptive influence????
:-( :-P

I take your point KenSE,

But as GR has, as yet, apparently not been able to successfully complete the 'technical' work that will enable the trees to function properly (as they stand at the moment), I can't really see that asking members for their input on further improvements is going to help right now?
Fix it first and then ask?

I suspect that the main features of the new raft of changes will be to do with trees, especially as that is the major facility on the site that doesn't work properly.

If that is the case then there is little point picking people who do not have trees on the site. Also it is likely that adding records to trees is an important feature to test and therefore they will want platinum members for that.

I have noticed a growing number of queries about records which the usual helpers are unable to answer because they do not use that facility.

If you look at the current activity on the home page there are about four times the number of PMs sent as there are posts on message boards and several times more additions to trees than PMs sent. So I would expect GR to attach far more importance to trees than to message boards.

yet most of the people who have so far responded saying they had not received emails, do live in the UK



not impressed one little tiny bit!




I do hope that a reasonable number of the respondees are people who have actually used the site, and especially have worked as helpers on these Community Boards.


Your reputation has been built on the backs of the volunteers. GR has even in the past used the "volunteer help" in advertising, without identifying it as such.

One reason why som many people believe that GR staff are active 24 hours a day, and respond to these boards.



Now, we are ignored once again.



Despicable!



Makes me wonder "why did I renew last week?" Stupid fool that I am





sylvia

"Having checked with the email guys, they actually set the emails to go to a selection of several thousand UK members, chosen at random.

Obviously we can only see so many people for testing, so we didn't want the email going out to millions! "


-

Of course an automated email could have gone to all members, it has been done before, albeit some time ago, probably in the days of Steve and Julie Pankhurst's ownership of the site.

If the emails were sent "at random" then I hope those participating won't be chosen entirely that way?

ie I hope that there will be a good representation and not just those who have more than a certain number in their tree
( many very experienced members of the site have no tree on here); nor just those who have Platinum membership ( likely to be fairly recent members I suspect) .

Perhaps the selection 'commitee' can also look out for those members who have contributed a lot to the boards, in terms of help and advice...and who may well have made many sensible posts on this board :-D

Well I hope some were actually sent to members who use the community boards on a regular basis?

*chucks Aaron a spade*

Ah, I stand corrected! Having checked with the email guys, they actually set the emails to go to a selection of several thousand UK members, chosen at random.

Obviously we can only see so many people for testing, so we didn't want the email going out to millions!
But we will be trying to allow as many people as possible to give feedback about the changes we make to the site nearer the time.

Make me number 10 :-(