tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post6388576913058055925..comments2024-03-26T11:22:41.940-07:00Comments on Genea-Musings: Many RootsWeb Mailing Lists Are Now InactiveRandy Seaverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17477703429102065294noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-45605233011388786322019-05-07T15:39:17.914-07:002019-05-07T15:39:17.914-07:00To Anne Mitchell.
From your response it would appe...To Anne Mitchell.<br />From your response it would appear that you sent emails requesting verification to list administrators. I have reason to believe that one particular list in which I am interested may have no administrator as such, but was still reasonably active last year. How difficult would it have been to send a message to each LIST, as well as each list administrator? I would like to reactivate this list, how do I go about it? Regards Margaret<br /><br />Margarethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13431835881471083144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-22085647041096047162019-04-03T14:17:18.223-07:002019-04-03T14:17:18.223-07:00Tis truly a shame. Those of us who were early user...Tis truly a shame. Those of us who were early users an supporters financially are not surprised that Ancestry.com would kill it. It was begun by a genealogist and the site was designed for ease of use allowing anyone to review a thread regarding individual topics or surnames. Ancestry apparently uses non genealogist IT personnel, who simply don't understand the needs of the people they are supposed to serve. All of their search engines are clunky. When they took over Heritage Quest that did away with a wonderful search engine and replaced it with a clunky one that does not begin to compare.<br /><br />One of the thing that I like about MyHeritage is that all of their employees are genealogist. Thye truly understand how we think and design products that meet our needs.pdxtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01857645218434239213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-15650987898001564052019-04-03T03:22:25.220-07:002019-04-03T03:22:25.220-07:00What a great post -thanks Randy!
I was NOT contact...What a great post -thanks Randy!<br />I was NOT contacted - my admin email was the same email as it’s always been, I received other admin topical emails and it is the same as my paid ancestry account. The list was obviously active as can be seen in the archives for the month it was stopped and no official Rootsweb posts are there warning of it being discontinued for lack of being able to contact the admin.<br />I have tried 3 times to ask to have it reinstated and never get a response - so they clearly need a better way to ask for reactivation.<br />Also this is a county list, it’s the historic county of Missisquoi county, Quebec, Canada. Modern Canada has a new official county but this is important entity for historical research.<br />Guess there just were mistakes made with making my list inactive and yes I’d like very much to have it reactivated and would be happy to help fix whatever seems to be wrong on their end.<br />Thanks Randy -share my email!<br />Newer genealogist - if you are not a Rootsweb Mailing list and message board user become one! Get these active again and get connected to others researching your surnames and families in your locations. Cunningb2https://www.blogger.com/profile/07696599520308356494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-58484104839773240672019-04-02T16:21:46.782-07:002019-04-02T16:21:46.782-07:00Hi Anne,
Thank you very much for the information ...Hi Anne,<br /><br />Thank you very much for the information you provided about the mailing lists and the problems with them. I appreciate it and hope that Nancy and the users of the lists do also.<br /><br />Can a mailing list be activated again? How can Nancy get back into her list? Contact me at randy.seaver@gmail.com if you want her email. <br /><br />Randy Seaverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17477703429102065294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26204193.post-30213935207911370252019-04-02T14:45:22.176-07:002019-04-02T14:45:22.176-07:00Hi Randy and your readers,
I'm the product ma...Hi Randy and your readers,<br /><br />I'm the product manager for RootsWeb at Ancestry. Well over a year ago, as we began resurrecting RootsWeb into a more secure code base on secure platforms, we attempted multiple times to contact all admins for the Mailing Lists. About 70% of those emails were bad emails and the admins could not be reached. We also posted to the listowners list and other places trying to get the word out on the new rule: to continue to be a list admin you had to verify your email address and make sure it was current, which I do believe was a very reasonable request; there aren't many sites that let you use a unverified email these days.<br /><br />We left lists whose admins had verified their email over the past year active. Admins had a year to verify their email. An admin cannot maintain a list with the new tools with a new login which requires a verified email. <br /><br />We also made the decision to leave county boards without admins active and we maintain those ourselves.<br /><br />Lists that had not seen posts in months and had no verified admin were made inactive. If someone has a good reason to reactivate a board, I have listened and sometimes done so, if seems like there will be actual posts on the board. All the archives that we had available to publish have been published and will remain available.<br /><br />Our goal was to cut down on the huge volumes of spam that come through the system. With over 33K lists and less than 30% with verified admins the lists were unmanageable. The amount of spam bogged down the system and added to the cost.<br /><br />Twenty years ago, mailing lists were one of the first places people would look to communicate with each other about genealogy. Today with multiple social media platforms, and many genealogy sites, both free and paid, most people don't think to look for a Mailing List. It isn't on most genealogists radar and the system usage was impacted and has dramatically declined over the years. Better technology and platforms leads to better communication methods.<br /><br />No solution will make everyone happy. We found the solution that allowed us to lists with posts with actual genealogy content up and running.<br /><br />Anne MitchellAnne Gillespie Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00451657375587655764noreply@blogger.com