That other genealogy site

[Lindsay]

To be fair to them, I did get an e-mail telling me they were moving

Although since it was an open e-mail disclosing my private address to multiple other recipients, and I haven't been on that site for years, I was less than impressed

[ninatoo]

Fiona,

I was an early member of the other board and I loved it. But it seemed that every time I went there there was less and less I could access without paying for it. Eventually I couldn't access most of the things I had enjoyed. I am not talking about asking for look ups. I was just happy to look at the photos, or read some history, and yes I can find them for myself on the net, but it was handy having them in one place.

Non profit it may be, but it was very very restrictive for me in the end and that is why I stopped going there.

Nina

[momat]

I know I never received any email from them to that effect.Had I done so I would not be wondering where they had gone!
I think my simple posting has been taken completely out of context.
I only made a simple statement and it has gone viral!!!

[apanderson]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over anything momat!

Things can be taken out of context all the time - you said absolutely nothing wrong.

Anne

[Russell]

Hi All
I think perhaps MY comments were taken as being derogatory/defamatory/insulting which was certainly not my intention. I was more concerned about the BIG BOYS who have no compunction about putting the 'small fry' out of business. All too often a small team -sometimes husband and wife - set up with the best intentions then run into trouble such as we had only recently when our service provider simply disappeared and we were left in the lurch. Without an 'expert' on board who had the patience and foresight to regularly backup the entire site TS would have flown away into the great ancestral heaven. We were lucky that AndrewP has a range of essential expert abilities and found us a new home but sometimes other folk have not been so lucky.
If I offended it was truly unintentional. I appreciate the varied help I have had while gaining expertise enough to help others.

Russell

[Currie]

I don’t know why anyone connected with ScotFamilyTree could be upset by Maureen’s posting or by anything said on this forum. The truth is that she has done the site a great service by mentioning their name on the internet. This not only makes the general public (Googler) more aware of its existence, but also makes the reasons for the current problem a bit more visible.

Without such mentions an internet site that doesn’t allow Google access can be just a complete unknown. People Google for information and Google and other search engines won’t find anything useful to them at a site such as SFT that blocks its content, or is hidden behind an impenetrable pay wall. Such sites generally have to rely on archaic methods of publicity such as dropping links here and there, word of mouth, such as has happened here, or, heaven forbid, advertising in the media.

Alan

[Woody]

Hang on guys! No need to burst any blood vessels! We're not taking offence. Momat is a valued member, as are they all, and should have received an email to say we had moved temporarily.
Something in the region of 3500 emails were sent of which less than 400 "bounced" back, presumably because the recipients had changed email address. Maybe that's why Maureen didn't get her email or maybe it's still floating out there in the clouds.

Yes, we are off air for now thanks to Forumer - I'm not even going to attempt to tell you what we think of them and their "customer service" - and therefore using a reserve site http://scotfamtree.b1.jcink.com/index

Russell, thanks for your understanding. You've been there so you understand the frustration of everything you've worked at for years just no longer being available.

Yes, we make a small charge to cover costs - £8 per year. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I could blow that in five minutes on SP!!
We thought hard before introducing a charge but in the end considered this the fairest way. We all pay a little towards our upkeep. This site does it differently in that you have a Tombola but the bottom line is that we need to raise a minimum amount of money to keep going.
We are totally non-profitmaking, every spare penny gets spent on discs/books for look-ups. We pay for SP credits out of our own pockets so (unless nosiness gets the better of us) we give a link so the member can get the information themselves.
Yes, there are areas that are only available to subscription members eg. Document Deciphering - we don't want to fall foul of copyright licences!

We're not in competition with Talking Scot, we're both Scottish sites and have the same committment to our members and to Genealogy.
In fact, our members use both sites and why not? It is a free country after all - we should know, enough of our ancestors died to make it so.

By the way, Googlebot is a regular visitor! Google scotfamtree and you come up with pages of stuff - I hadn't realised we had yapped so much.

We'll be back and hopefully soon. If you'll permit us, we'll let you know when. Until then we'll carry on helping people as best we can, just as this site does.

Meantime, many thanks for your interest and understanding.

Christine

[SarahND]

Hi Christine,
Thanks for the clarification! I blush to say I did not even know about your site But that oversight is now remedied If google has found you then you are also probably overwhelmed by spammers wanting to join-- or maybe charging for membership avoids that problem altogether? If so, I would say you made the right decision! It's a sinking feeling to wake up in the morning and see the inbox full of dubious new members that have to be dealt with somehow-- always afraid I'll go into auto-pilot and accidentally zap the genuine ones!

Do let us know when you are back up and running.

All the best,
Sarah

[momat]

Hi Christine,

Something in the region of 3500 emails were sent of which less than 400 "bounced" back, presumably because the recipients had changed email address. Maybe that's why Maureen didn't get her email or maybe it's still floating out there in the clouds

I certainly HAVE NOT changed my email so as you say it must be floating out there .
I will keep checking in on you to see when you are up and running again.

[AndrewP]

If these e-mails were sent out in bulk, then some of the mail servers may have rejected them on the basis that having so many recipients makes the mail look like spam. Spam rejection may not necessarily create a bounce back of the message.

All the best,

AndrewP