Suggestions

I take your point Reggie, most cannot even be bothered to read the guidelines for the boards or get familiar with the site before they use the facilities, when i joined i spent the first couple of weeks checking the site out and reading everything including all the threads on the different boards so i new how it worked

Roy

Good idea - but I wonder how many people trying to send a message would even notice it?

You must know yourself how many don't notice that threads they exhume are up to 8/9 years out of date........

Reggie, I have used sites where you get auto logged out when you have not been "active" such as when you have closed your browser, and all PC's have the capacity to remember your log in details so being logged out is not a big deal, ( thats what i do with all web sites )

GR could easily do this and then i would suggest that the problem of messages not being opened could be resolved because IMHO the main complaint is from members trying to make contact for the first time with a tree owner,

So to solve this i suggest that when you search tree's and you are presented with the results with the purple button to the right for contacting the tree owner the last active and date be added to the purple button? Anyone thinking of sending a message would then see that the tree owner has not visited the site for what ever length of time it was before deciding to send their initial message or not as the case may be

Roy

In all honesty, sharon, there are more pressing problems which need addressing by GR

But, on this issue, GR notify people of contacts on their registered e-mail addresses. Even if a person isn't 'active' on the site, and his/her e-mail remains the same - a notification e-mail will arrive in that person's inbox.

At that point, the recipient chooses whether or not to look at the message.

Roy.......

Can you say how you envisage 'last active' would be defined - would that be picked up on board usage - or merely looking at the site. And if, like so many, the person in question hasn't logged-out - wouldn't that be a false picture?
I'm not sufficiently 'au fait' with the technical side of things to be able to know what the scenario would be.

Sharon, I think that's why my idea was not taken on board by GR because i suspect their to only be abt 5% of the membership are active

Roy

Another way to keep the members database up to date would be to charge non subscribers a pound a year to renew contact details

GR would earn revenue & we would know that the person we were contacting had been on the site within the last 12 months.

The downside for GR would be that their 12 million members figure (which is a great enticement to join) would have to be amended to reflect the actual figure - and we can't have that, can we!!!

That's a very good idea Roy.

Click on the name sounds better... save the bother of typing out a message.

When you click on the members name or send message button it would help if GR had a "last active" with the date facility, I have seen this on other web sites before i also posted about this in the past but got no response from GR or it's members

Roy

I got a reply last week to a message I sent in September 2010!

I also have loads of unopened messages ~ I figure they've died, lost interest, gone to another planet, or found a time machine ~ to tell their rellies to make sure they fill in forms properly.

As I said this has been mentioned many times and some people say they never log out so would that show up as not being an active member?

I know ancestry has this and It says I last logged in today but that is only because my laptop is playing up and I have to log in, but there have been times when it has said 6 months....but I have been on everyday.


GR could do something simular to ancestry but there are more important things to sort out first I would have thought.

Jax - I do not understand your reply!!

I'm not suggesting GR do anything other than opening a board with 26 spaces for the letters of the alphabet - My suggestion was for members to add the names of the intended recipient of their unopened messages after a specific period. (although another site manages to give a last log in date when a profile is clicked so GR technically could if it chose to.)

I can accept that some may answer, some may not but what I find hard to accept is that when I contact a so called "member" it should not include someone that registered 6 years ago & hasn't been back for the last 5.

If last log in details were given I bet the figure of 12 million members on GR you gave would take a tumble!!

How are GR going to know that they cannot be contacted on that email?

Some people have had replies after 3 years

GR have over 12 million members a fair number may have died? as the site is free to join and build a tree anyway you are just going to have to accept some may answer some may not

This topic comes up quite often

I have "Sent" messages that are still unopened after 3 years!

Why not have a board specifically listing members that have moved!!

Just an alphabetical list , where a name & the last 4 digits of membership number can be added by members when their sent messages remain unopened after 6 months/1 year.

That way, when we think we have a match we can check if that person is actually using the site.

I know this relies on people being honest - but we're all grown ups!!