General Chat

Hi Again, Think the best bet, would be for Michelle to put an answer on this thread for everyone, the answers made on the previous thread were not just meant to gripe , but to give constructive critiscism to the original message. Sheila

yes, taht would be best.. in fact I mailed Michelle to that effect a few minutes ago

Fanx Wendy - had'nt seen that thread before. This whole situation is so sad is'nt it:~) Jude sarf wales (showered now)!!!

I've posted this on the Record Office board as well. I'm gobsmacked!!! Not only have all previous replies been removed from this thread, the whole thread has been taken off the General Topice Board. Enrest's thread - An Open Letter to GR- has also been removed from General Topics!!!!! Are we not allowed to respond the GC/GR's own postings now??!! This is getting ridiculous. Why post the thread in the first place? The nature of the subject was bound to cause some controversy. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen! Debbie

I have just e mailed directly to Michelle.

Hi, Think its a good idea to have a reply from GR now what it considered to be a commercial service? 1837 is a commercial business which this site promotes, are we not allowed to inform each other if there is a promotional offer on then? Also you this site advertises AOL and also the services of there own genealogist here, are you allowed to do so as you have a contract with them? This whole thing needs clarifying now as the original thread did not explain in enough detail. We the members look forward to hearing from you. Regards Sheila

Hi everyone, In response to your requests, I would like to say a few words. First we care very much for our members. We make changes when we can, based on your feedback and deal with your queries in quick and courteous manner. Second we are fair and treat all members in the same way. Recently we received complaints that one of our members was sending spam to other members. That member was removed from the site for emailing other members promoting their website and offering free trials. All of these complaints are investigated and if found to be a breach of our terms and conditions dealt with accordingly. We have these terms in place to protect our customers and prevent the misuse of GR and cannot make exceptions based on how long a member has been on the site. As I’m sure you can understand preventing members from spam is a priority. We have read the open letter thread and have responded to Ernest and the users who posted messages on that thread directly. Thanks for your comments, Michelle

Hi Michelle, I appreciate the fact that you have got back to us on this, however, where do we acutally draw the line, I agree totally that it is wrong to charge for any look up services we offer to people, and most of us do this freely, but when we recommend other web-sites to people how do we define 'commercial' is it o.k to recommend a site that doesn't charge for its services? And though I understand your policy, I for one would rather delete 'spam' and tear up any letters i get than lose a valued member of this site. Regards Sheila

michelle did you ask colin for his reaction or did you just delete him off with out any explanation what has been going on.give the poor bloke a chance and like another member said some members are fitted with anti spamming software so wouldn't it be a good idea to advice your members to be vigilant and not to take on offers from people when it involves a fee,.

I'm going to make myself unpopular again, by expressing the opposite view to everyone else. I DID receive an email regarding Colins site some time ago, just after it was launched, I can't recall whether it was from Colin, or someone else who had joined his site, but I declined and deleted the mail As I see it, Colins site is in direct competition with GR, and therefore I didn't think it fair to attempt to "steal" their customers. However, I do NOT think it's fair to simpy remove him without giving him opportunity to defend himself, but for all I know that may have been done. And finally, I have to say... to say that GR advertises FR, when it's the same company, is just silly. They are a commencial organisation, who's services we all use - and they can recommend services as they see fit. If we don't like the way they run things, we can always go elsewhere. Personally, I like it here, and like the people (on the whole). I've made some wonderful friends here, got some great help with my research, and hopefully helped a few people along the way too. Lets not spoil it all by petty bickering.

paul this is not bickering .we all pay our membership including colin.so he had the right to explain himself before g.r removed him from their site.who's it going to be next when someone puts a thread on which upsets them.it's happened before.g.r should email the person to give reasons why his thread had been removed and that counts for everyone else.and at the end of the day.if your sensible enough you would not hand over any fee to anyone.

I have never received an email from Colin advertising his site nor indeed even making mention of it. It has been talked about between us on MSN but I have never ever been approached to join. In response to Michelle, I put a lengthy reply on Ernest's thread today and I have not received anything from GC as has been stated by Michelle. Jacky

no they haven't said either way that they had removed it .probebly worried they are going to lose their members.tell us either way because ernest will probebly let us know soon.

Lisa - if you re-read my post you'll see that I said that I thought Colin should have been spoken to before he was removed.

i can understand paul that you said he should have had his say.but obviously he hasn't .they should have emailed him warning him that he was in breach of his contract with g.r instead of striking him off like they did.it might have been all innocent.like i said it's not the first time that we have made a complaint to g.r about threads being removed when they haven't been offensive on the site and people have said that.

Paul I am pretty certain that Colin would not have just out of the blue e mailed you his site addy. For one thing when he started up he was very careful not to step on GR's toes and for another he was just too busy, it was very complicated to set up the site. Probably at the time (and I note that you can't remember), someone on the site mentioned how good his site was (and is) and you said something like you hadn't looked at it so someone else on this site sent you the address. I am sure that colin would not have spammed as he is against it. Incidentally, I enjoy this site too (I also like Colins), but there is room for both and I don't like the idea that a thread can be arbitarily removed. Ann Glos

my final word on the subject, as clearly we're (nearly) all clearly poles apart on this one... I don't want to call him a liar, but I'm pretty sure that it WAS Colin that emailed me. but it was so long ago that I can't prove it.

Colin never e mailed me and neither have I had any e mail from michelle about deleteing the thread that I had a reply on. I have also e mailed her directly but still no answer. How I git to hear about Colins site was that somebody mentioned it on a thread when we were discussing the name change.

g.r hasn't replyed to explain.

What a bout that woman who e mailed a while back telling me to look at her website. Other people mentioned it too. Was she not banned. Where do you draw the line.