RootsChat.Com
Beginners => How to Use RootsChat (Please don't post requests here) => Topic started by: alderjones on Thursday 09 September 21 10:58 BST (UK)
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Am I the only person watching the number of members ready to help you message as the number increases! It's interesting to see presumably new members joining all the time. Just waiting for it to hit 280,000 now.
But - does anyone ever get removed? If someone dies and notification is passed on do they get removed from this number? How many of the 279,000 plus are active or have logged in in say the last 12 months?
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I do know a dear friend of mine who died, I did pass the info onto a moderator, don't know what happened after that , assumed her name was removed
Louisa Maud
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I think I dimly recall "deceased + date" being added on one post I saw, to the name. I could be wrong....
TY
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Well I suppose it depends on whether the deceased's relatives are aware that he/she was a member of Rootschat. If the relative is able to access their computer and knows the password for Rootschat then notification can be given that the Rootschatter has passed away.
I would imagine that there are quite a number of registered Rootschatters who haven't been online for several years and have probably passed on.
We quite often see old threads being re-activated by an enquirer.
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If we are notified that a RootsChatter has passed away, their profile is edited to show
Deceased † Rest In Peace
But as Girl Guide says, we are not always informed if friends or family are not aware that someone was a member.
Some people join and only use the chatroom. Others join but make no postings - quite a few of those. But their names remain on the list of members.
You can always check to see when someone last logged in by viewing their profile. I just picked one at random who joined in 2004 but had made no postings. They last logged in in 2006.
But there are plenty of us still around who joined a long time ago and still going strong. ;D
Nell
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Which reminds me I must tell my family my subscriptions, it will tidy things up but not for a long time
LM
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How many inactive users are 'logged-in'? How many of those will ever access Rootschat in the future?
When anyone logs-in to RootsChat, the default option is to stay connected. The user has to actively uncheck the box to prevent this.
Sarah and Trystan are certainly aware that there is a limit to how many simultaneous connections can be active on any server (even for Google & Facebook!).
There may also be security risks to allowing your device to stay connected.
I would advise RootsChat to reverse their default option, or, better yet, to automatically log-out any user after a reasonable period (1 hour?) of inactivity.
It would not be complicated to send an automatic email to any user who has been inactive for a very long period (2 years?) to forewarn that their account will be closed after a period (3 months?).
For users, I would STRONGLY advise that you always set yourself a time limit to stay connected.
GENEALOOGY CAN BE ADDICTIVE !!!
p.s. on the subject of 'security'; a user's activity pattern can be extremely revealing: It would be nice to see this feature eliminated when looking at a user profile. My house-burglar friends really love this sort of information!!!
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It would not be complicated to send an automatic email to any user who has been inactive for a very long period (2 years?) to forewarn that their account will be closed after a period (3 months?).
Why? it's often the case that someone comes across an old thread/post and posts a reply to someone who has been seemingly inactive a long time. With your suggestion the user would not get notified that there is a reply to that thread and may miss out on connecting with a long-lost or previously unknown relative.
You also can't tell from looking at a profile whether or not a user has been following a particular topic (or board or indeed all new posts) without logging in. Some people probably only log in if they are going to make a post.
p.s. on the subject of 'security'; a user's activity pattern can be extremely revealing: It would be nice to see this feature eliminated when looking at a user profile. My house-burglar friends really love this sort of information!!!
Not at all. How on earth can the user's activity pattern be revealing to complete strangers? If, for example, I'm not online it doesn't mean that I'm away from home. I could be out in the garden, doing housework, making meals, doing something else on my computer or any number of things. It also doesn't mean that my house is empty waiting to be burgled as there are others in the household.
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Not at all. How on earth can the user's activity pattern be revealing to complete strangers? If, for example, I'm not online it doesn't mean that I'm away from home. I could be out in the garden, doing housework, making meals, doing something else on my computer or any number of things. It also doesn't mean that my house is empty waiting to be burgled as there are others in the household.
Absolutely true aghadowey - I quite often nip off to do something else for a while then come back and carry on with whatever I was doing on the computer.
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I’m always logged in, can’t see any reason not to be. If for some reason I do get logged out I have to re set my password because I can never remember it.
On the subject of old posts, I was contacted just yesterday by someone who found an old one of mine. We’d been in contact years ago but lost touch.
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I first found Rootschat after I searched for a name that had cropped up in my research. It was from a post about a year old and the response helped me place him and the writer of an old postcard I found. He was married to a descendant of my two times great grandmothers sister and she was from another line descended from that same sister. Without this help I would not have realised there was another branch of the family in Australia. If the poster had not been contacted I may never have found them.
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Thank goodness for all Rootschatters
.louisa Maud
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Thank goodness for all Rootschatters
.louisa Maud
Indeed :D. I wouldn’t agree with deleting any member no matter how long they had been inactive.
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If we are notified that a RootsChatter has passed away, their profile is edited to show
Deceased † Rest In Peace
I have seen this once or twice, and would like to say this. If the Rootschatter whose profile is marked in this way is known to have been a Christian, then of course the † is fine, but not all of us are Christians.
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I think † or + are recognised symbols indicating death in many countries.
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Thanks, I thought it was just a Christian thing being used too generally -like saying 'Christian name when 'fore name' is what is meant. Still, I'd take a guess that it is more likely to be used in nominally Christian countries.
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Not at all. How on earth can the user's activity pattern be revealing to complete strangers? If, for example, I'm not online it doesn't mean that I'm away from home. I could be out in the garden, doing housework, making meals, doing something else on my computer or any number of things. It also doesn't mean that my house is empty waiting to be burgled as there are others in the household.
Absolutely true aghadowey - I quite often nip off to do something else for a while then come back and carry on with whatever I was doing on the computer.
i have also used Rc when not at home
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Must admit I only very rarely log out, like PharmaT I can often use different machines - and I hate trying to remember fresh passwords!
(Haven't we got rather away from the original point?)
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"does anyone ever get removed"
I don't think anyone gets entirely removed but some have been converted into "leavers" and at least one got converted into a "guest." If you come across a "leaver," you can access his/her profile and posts but the "guest's" profile and posts are unavailable.
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Am I the only person watching the number of members ready to help you message as the number increases! It's interesting to see presumably new members joining all the time. Just waiting for it to hit 280,000 now.
I've never seen the member statistics.
Coincidently I'm currently listening to "More or Less", BBC Radio 4, "the programme that interrogates topical numbers and statistics".
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We do try to keep profiles upto date so that any poster can see, we have our deceased members and also some members whose email has stopped working, but old members do frequently get intouch to update to their new emails addresses
Guests are folk who have asked for their profile to be deleted.
We have a lot of member who do family history in fits and starts so may only log in when they receive a new reply to their topics.
Hope that helps
Sarah
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There's a classic example tonight.
Original post from 2007.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=201628.0
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I have often seen older posts being answered
A family member found me quite by accident, I think someone must have seen the post and told them, they had been discussing it over Christmas dinner in New Zealand and replied to me, I also think sometimes members just scroll down at old posts that may not have had many replies and replied themselves, done it myself when I have been at a loose end for anything that catches my eye
LM
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... I've from time to time written into the search box some name or word that has then thrown up some very elderly posts. sometimes, that's been good for me and the original poster, advanced both of us in our searches.
TY
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Well, the 280,000 was reached on Friday and now we're another 50+ into the next thousand.
Just interesting to see people are joining all the time.
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I've never seen the member statistics.
I've found them, on the Home page. It also says there are "6.4 million helpful posts".
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I first joined in September 2004, and my first post was asking about my Walder ancestors of Slaugham.
So much info on RC now it has become a genealogy database of its own, although the search engine often tries to "put words into my mouth" when I search for keywords, as if it thinks it knows better than me.
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So much info on RC now it has become a genealogy database of its own
Occasionally, when I google a topic connected to family history, or a historical field of interest, among the results is a RootsChat post. Sometimes it's an old post by me. I'm going round in circles, meeting myself coming back. ;D