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  1. #111
    Super Moderator christanel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Megan Roberts View Post
    I am thinking of suggesting to a friend of mine who lectures on project management, that he should use the debacle as a case study of how not to do something, starting with "who launches something new on April Fool's Day?".
    Megan
    Love it Megan and follows the basic rule of capturing your audience from the start.

    I, like Ken, get so impatient waiting for the images to roll up and I do not have problems with any other sites either.

    Sue you have answered my question as to why I could not find a 'report a correction' link when I finally got an image and it was the wrong one! I was so frustrated I couldn't be bothered emailing them and now I can't remember which image it was.

    FMP is now my very last port of call, and even then I tend to leave before completing my task because it is such an effort to go through all the rigmarole and then not be confident that what I am looking for is not there or whether it is there and I am not looking in the right place. I don't have the time or the energy to sit and make their site more user friendly for me, that is their job.

    Christina
    Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
    William Burroughs

  2. #112
    raineshoe
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    Interesting Sue that you got a reply through the contact us button. I've tried that and not had a reply at all. More than likely as they don't like what I had to say so heads in the sand. I used to like FMP somewhat, but don't anymore/

  3. #113
    raineshoe
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    I've now posted on their Facebook page in an attempt to get a response. No doubt they will delete it!! LOL.

  4. #114
    Knowledgeable and helpful
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    Wakefield, West Yorkshire
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    Quote Originally Posted by raineshoe View Post

    As for the quote below, I have fallen about laughing. If this was beta tested its the biggest joke going. Any fool can see that it wasn't suitable for release, but judging by FMPs pure contempt for their customers I suspect they are sitting back clutching our pennies in their hot little hands and laughing all the way to the bank
    The site was running in parallel with the UK site for about a year (that is a long beta test period). The problems were not with the old site and not with the new site but new problems that occurred when combining the two subscriber bases.

    One of the reasons people may not get responses is the staff are busy sorting the problems, surely it is better to work on a solution rather than take hours repeatedly replying to people giving the same answer, yes there is a problem and we are working on x,y,z?
    I would say as a general comment not aimed at anyone. There is more chance of a response if a real name is used rather than hiding behind a psuedonym as that way they can see they are dealing with a real person rather than someone who is simply trying to stir up trouble (yes some people do that surprisingly).
    Cheers
    Guy
    As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

  5. #115
    Brick wall demolition expert!
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    Sep 2005
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    Lancashire
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    When I was locked out of my account for almost 2 weeks and tried using the Contact Us link - that did not work - I got no responses.

    Then someone pointed out to me that hidden away is the following contact address:
    [email protected]
    It can be found under Company Information and at the bottom of that page:
    Complaints process

    In the event of a query or complaint about our website or our services, please
    email our helpful customer support team:
    [email protected]


    Only when I used that and gave them a deadline to reply before I took legal action for breach of contract did they reply. They said that they had not received anything from me on the Contact us link!!! - says it all, and to add insult to injury they said the problem must lie with my computer - oh no it did not.

    Guy:

    Whilst everyone has a view of the troubles at FMP to say that they were testing the site for a year, I would have to respond by asking:
    how many existing users were involved;
    how many record sets were involved (if it was one their overseas sites; they have far fewer record sets than the UK); and
    what were the results of those tests?

    Many years ago I asked a prospective employee about his education and he replied along the lines of "I am very qualified; I studied for a BSc", so I asked what degree he had. He replied "None, I failed"!

    The other question that I would like answered is just what sort of planning and risk assessment went into the migration of existing customers and record sets from the old site to the new one? Because there is no evidence that there was any.

  6. #116
    raineshoe
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    Ha, got a response at long last and they have completely ignored everything I pointed out and told me to do exactly what I did which failed. Hey ho.... another lost customer. Seems FMP won't be around for long if they continue like this. And no Guy I'm not **** stirring, just a dissatisfied customer that wants the decent service I paid for and not getting.

  7. #117
    Ken_R
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    Megan.

    I use Firefox. My suspicion is that they have sought to tailor their site to Andriod devices such as SmartPhones and Kindle, which might explain the reasoning behind the vast amounts of 'white space' between 'input fields' and the large text format.

    For the life of me I can't see any serious researcher using such for dedicated research.

    At the very least one would use either a desktop or a laptop on a desk or table, with paper and pen to one hand, and liquid refreshment to the other. Oh, and music through headphones.

    They seem to be targeting a Market which just doesn't exist whilst, at the same time, alienating their existing customer base.

    That said. And going back to the viewer, when it eventually loads, I've been viewing the Shropshire Parish Records pages and there is an option to "View full page transcription".

    How naive of me to assume such would take me to a 'transcription' of the 'full page'. No. It takes me [seemingly] back to the transcription 'in full page format' from which I accessed the image. The same as if I had clicked on 'View Transcription'.

    It's English, but not as we know it!

    And the, once on an image, one has to 'go back' to Results before one can Edit a search. I know Ancestry (and others) is much the same but this demonstrates how the 'techies' have so little understanding of the needs of researchers. At least with Ancestry, with an Image, there is an Information bar displayed that shows from where the record is sourced. Very useful when SWMBO interrupts me and I'm forgetting what I'm looking at but, with FMP - nothing.

  8. #118
    jac65
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    Hi raineshoe

    Whereas in the old FMP the address search was a separate search purely for an address it looks like it is now combined with a person search. I did a quick check using known family addresses in the 1871 and 1901 and found them no problem, you mentioned William St, Clayton-le moors in one of your posts so I tried that in the 1891 census and found it as follows

    From Search Records select Census, land & surveys then select A-Z of record sets (on right hand side of page) then select the particular census, I looked at the 1891 census

    Scroll down to the bottom box and enter William street and select from list that appears. You now have the street name in a little box below where you typed, if you hit search now you get a large number of hits because William Street is a common street name, to narrow this down started entering Clayton-le-Moors in the Town box and selected it from the Menu You now have the town name in a small box, select Search and you get 43 results, select one of those and open the image.

    I'm not an FMP subscriber so I couldn't go any further but I presume that once you open an image you can go on to the next image etc. I did have a look at Ancestry and found the relevant images but did notice that some of the street was a few images from the rest of the street.

    Andy

  9. #119
    Brick wall demolition expert!
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    Sep 2005
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    Lancashire
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    Annelies ven den Belt, CEO findmypast has post a sort of an apology on their home page - in my view its not much of one.

    However, it also says that creating a "customer participation group" and inviting people to sign up to it, and that may be of interest to some.

  10. #120
    raineshoe
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    Saw that Megan. At least its a step in the right direction and a bit more effort than we've seen over the last month or so. Hopefully, things will improve, although I won't hold my breath at the moment. Will watch this space. I'm gonna sign up to the participation group to see if that makes any difference. Clearly there has been enough complaints now to warrant a reaction to try and put things right, but it shouldn't have taken this long in the first place.

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