Genealogy Chat

In my opinion, this site is the number 1 Family History site on the internet, but there's one thing that really pisses me off! When posting a message to a contact or forum, why is any internet addresses filtered and the paragraph formatting removed???

Hi Giles Yes we can agree with that, also have you noticed that when you contact someone from the names they will have access to your tree unless you remove the access. It should be around in my opinion. I did email them about that one but so far I have not received a reply, that was over a week ago now. Irene

I understand what you're saying about sharing your tree with other people you contact, but I think the filtering/formatting issue is more perculiar. Personally, I think there should be an option to let everybody see your tree! ;) A lot of my relatives have been funny about giving out info on living releatives, sharing trees etc. I think there are many people who are too private IMO. Personally, I'm not bothered about these things, and one person even let me view his tree going back to the 1400s, just for reference, even though I'm not related. Really, there's no harm in letting somebody see your tree... As long as you don't put addresses on there... Most people can be traced on the Electoral Roll anyway. What have you got to hide in you tree?

Under the Data Protection Act you can't post info about living people without their permission. Example: when filling in enrolment forms at college, students have to sign to say they agree to college using the details on the form for college purposes. We can't even keep students' addresses on the registers any more! Jan

Giles, The paragraph removal only happens on your first post, that is why you sometimes see people using `see below` so that they can format their information in the next post, if you see what I mean. Silly really, if they can get paragraphs to format on replies, why not on the original question/statement/complaint etc.

The paragraph removal also happens when you send a message to a contact. I can understand why they use it on the forum; it's so the opening post can act as a condensed header for each additional page in a big a topic. However, it's not nice when communicating with a contact. What's really disturbing is that GR have taken serious measures to remove any website addresses contained within a forum post. Even if you type in "d o t c o m" (literally without the spaces), it will not show up! The validation rules they've used with the filtering is absolutely sick... Why on earth would they do this?

For these, and a whole load of other reasons, I am now using the British Genealogy Forums more than GR. It's a very user friendly site, populated by very helpful people (just like GR) - and we can either post a thread or email each other direct. There's no editing of content or paragraphs and the threads are all 'filed' in a much more coherent style. I know that GR is unique in that you can upload your tree on site and people can search for matching names. Personally, I find it more helpful to have my tree on GenCircles and TribalPages and then to use the B-G Forums for messages. If you haven't checked it out yet, I'd encourage you to do so: www(.)british-genealogy(.)com/forums