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CWGC Debt of Honour Database - Problems?


Seadog

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I do see your problem Norman!

However, I have fiddled around a bit and have solved it.

just click whenever it says To read or similar and hopefully you will get to a page which says Press escape to close full screen (or similar).

Then, if you look up the top you should have a *black bar with white shapes - e.g. arrow heads in the centre and a white circle at the LH side.

This white circle is situated at the LH end of a black line which is superimposed on the *black bar.

You slide the white circle along the black line to enlarge the page of the report.

You may have to move your head around to see the black line, especially if, like me, you are using a lap top with the screen hinged at what turned out to be an unsuitable angle.

CGM

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CGM, thanks for those instructions for I am truly appreciative (honest). So instead of a simple PDF file which can be downloaded by anyone we have this somewhat (?) over-complicated system. I have had a go but started to lose the will live so gave up!. Perhaps you can post any figure you can find in the latest report relating to expenditure on IT if you can I shall be eternally grateful!

Regards

Norman :wacko:

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I would agree that care should be taken in any approaches to the CWGC on this issue and we should be at pains to be constructive in criticisms and comments. As with any Government funded organisation budgets will be under huge pressure and have been for some time. I was fortunate some years ago to be given direct access to their burial records, originally on-line but when that system failed, using the original paper records. The people I approached to get access and those I met at the offices were unfailingly helpful and polite. I do not believe that problems and issues like the ones described are part of a deliberate policy to make life difficult for those wishing to research naval casualties (or RFC/RAF for that matter). Indeed, they may be 'leftovers' from previous versions of the database which are not easily, or cheaply, reconcilable with the database framework they currently employ, Whilst we might all wish that Geoff's search engine was the CWGC search engine of choice I suspect we are expecting rather a lot of an organisation, which has its own management, the government and the public to answer to, for them to hand over their 'flagship' dataset to a relatively unknown third party. I am sure they have procedures to go through if and when they tender for such programming work (I assume it is not done 'in-house') and unless someone tenders for it then they cannot just give the work away. Perhaps, in approaching the CWGC on these matters, it is something where a spokesperson talking on behalf of the GWF might be a reasonable approach. Perhaps there are people here, an within the WFA, for example, who have contacts which might be exploited.

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Sorry but I cannot agree with you on your premise of “care” when approaching the CWGC on issues such as those under discussion here, I do not share what I consider to be misplaced reverence for this organization whose major work finished years ago with the construction of WW2 war cemeteries and the burial and commemoration of the WW2 dead. In modern times their basic responsibilities can be summarized as:

Horticulture – Maintenance of war cemetery plants and flowers etc

Buildings maintenance – Care and upkeep of structures

Information – Maintaining a database of the dead and making this available to the public

Interments – Acting on instructions from partner countries in the burial of found remains.

Like any business I assume that the CWGC are answerable to those who fund the organization and also have a duty make data available to all who wish access to such data. So much can and should be improved with their interface with the public, for instance look at the request made recently regarding what they describe as “work” to be undertaken on war graves in civil cemeteries in the UK. There was no explanation of the meaning of this announcement and no further details have at this time been available on their web site. The problem is that by the time any constructive criticism can be made it is all too late. On the specific issue of the inability to search the database using ships names I stand by my opinion that at its best this shows a degree of incompetence by those concerned and at its worse can be construed as a slight to the memory of all those seamen who died be they RN or MN for as I have already said in my opinion their ship is the equivalent of their regiment and should be treated as such.

Regards

Norman

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I have little reverence for any organisation let alone the CWGC. The CWGC has, I understand, been struggling against inadequate budgets for some considerable time now. We would all like things done yesterday but, in the current economic climate, we may have to wait until next week, month or year before seeing our preferred outcomes. Your listing of 'basic responsibilities' sounds relatively small scale but given the world-wide spread of their interests and duties is actually enormous. Three of these four 'responsibilities' are the essential work of the CWGC. Maintaining a database is a relatively recent one with which there are clearly some issues. Having said that there has been undeniable progress though clearly not as fast and as far as you and others would like. I do not think moaning at and belittling the work of the CWGC staff likely to be especially productive. To be blunt, I doubt whether those of us here know more than a very low percentage about the work done at the CWGC, the pressure on budgets and the available staff, their management priorities or any other aspects of their work and, unless or until, someone with detailed knowledge of the workings of the CWGC's database and software comes along I doubt whether either of us are going to end up much better informed about the reasons why these problems exist.

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I agree that without detailed knowledge it is easy to make assumptions there is however the annual reports which are apparently available on-line but would be a waste of valuable quality time in trying to master the actual reading of these. As for the budget being under pressure, every organization is subject to this and sometimes radical thinking must be done, for instance what about contracting out the work of the maintenance and upkeep of the war cemeteries, here in Bristol this happens with the public parks and the results are excellent. I also reckon savings could and should be made by using the web for core information and not long-winded descriptions of battles look at this link can any of this be classified as core business or even part of the CWGC Charter?.

http://www.cwgc.org/learning-and-resources/histories.aspx

Given that if the IT function is outsourced to apparent professionals the fact that one man (Geoff) can create a search engine which far exceeds the functionality of that presently available must pose the question of why was this allowed to be done and at what cost and by who?.

Regards

Norman

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I've had this with a few of my links - what works for me is adding a forward slash immediately after the casualty number eg:

without http://www.cwgc.org/...asualty/1629852

with http://www.cwgc.org/...sualty/1629852/

Terry

I was using a different link format - eg. /search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2240072

A slash at the end does not help. However, all I store in my database is the casualty number so it is easy to change my code to use the other format /search-for-war-dead/casualty/2240072/ (adding a slash to all links). Hey presto all the broken links are working again - thanks for the tip.

Works for me - but it's not a great substitute for proper backward compatibilty.

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I have allocated a precious hour of quality time to attempt to read the 2010/11 annual report on the internet and by a miracle succeeded. However the time was wasted for as is usual with these reports it is packed with PR guff and just the merest hint of financial info. For instance the only major expenditure detailed in respect of operations is:

Charter activities £55.7 Million

Special & Agency Purposes £5.7 million

No breakdown whatsoever of the figures so the cost of IT must be hidden in one of them. How can such huge figures be reported with no breakdown as to how the cash was spent and what is “Special Agency Purposes” any idea what this is no guesses please.

Regards

Norman

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While Geoff's website is useful and very good at what it does, I don't think it's designed to stand up to the number of hits the CWGC website has to deal with. And it's a very different design proposition to create a website and back end system which can cope with such traffic. Not to mention designing the overall system for minimum downtime

As to the finances, you're looking at a high level financial statement - not a detailed budgetary breakdown. CWGC is financially responsible to its sponsoring governments, not us. I'd imagine the distinction being made is between that expenditure that is a direct consequence of activities mandated by its Royal Charter, and those it carries out on behalf of others, eg the contract maintenance of certain non-World War graves for the MOD and similar.

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Have to disagree with you there David on the annual reports that I have seen and get sent to me the financial information is quite detailed not £55 million spent! which is not acceptable and certainly would cause problems if this was a commercial company. As for not being responsible to us (the public) I note that the vast majority of their revenue does indeed come from the UK taxpayer.In other words as it stands that report is next to useless, and in respect of your comment about Geoffs search engine and the CWGC I fail to see why when the ships name is quite clearly defined on the individual record why a search cannot made by such name.

Example:

http://www.cwgc.org/...sualty/2979063/

I see that there have been no comments regarding what I would describe as non-charter activites such as Facebook, battle histories etc etc for which a cost is most certainly involved.

Norman

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Looking at the original charter, V Purposes and Powers of the Commission section 2 para xv gives them pretty wide latitude to carry out that "which may be incidental or conducive to the carrying into effect of any of the purposes or the exercise of any of the powers of the Commission"

I would suggest that the use of tools such as Facebook (which to the best of my knowledge is free to use - and I maintain pages for 3 small voluntary groups - though obviously staff time has a cost, I'd suggest it's a cost effective means of communication with large numbers of people), and providing general education in the war through the histories quite reasonably fall under the heading of being conducive to proper commemoration of the men and women under their care.

I said they are not directly responsible to us. They receive their money via the MOD I believe (so far as the UK taxpayer is concerned), and so the MOD is accountable for how that money is spent - so long as they are satisfied with the level of detail they receive. I note that the current annual report notes that more detailed accounts will be given in future annual reports to bring the Commission in line with current best practice. The preamble to the statement of accounts does give some detail of the agency spend

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I would suggest that anything which detracts from and is additional to the original concept of the charter is both a waste of effort and no doubt money and I see no credible reason why the CWGC should extend their activities into areas which are already far better covered by other media such as books etc. Again I stress that we the taxpayers fund the UK part of the CWGC and therefore have or should have an interest in both how this funding is spent considering the current financial constraints and also have a view on the performance of the Commission in all that it undertakes. As for the annual report being updated to give more detailed financial information in the future well about time.

Norman

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In that case they shouldn't have developed a website at all - or even computerised their records. They were perfectly adequately fulfilling their objectives without them. Then where would we be as researchers?

It's all about engaging with people where they are and educating them as to why these people were commemorated in the first place, and why we still commemorate them today.

You are normally the first to insist that they should be keeping us better informed as to their activities - in a strict reading of their charter, what obligation do they have to do that? Things like Facebook and Twitter are simply tools which allow information to be disseminated more rapidly, and help them to paint the day-to-day picture of their activities in a way other media cannot.

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It's all about engaging with people where they are and educating them as to why these people were commemorated in the first place, and why we still commemorate them today.

You are normally the first to insist that they should be keeping us better informed as to their activities - in a strict reading of their charter, what obligation do they have to do that? Things like Facebook and Twitter are simply tools which allow information to be disseminated more rapidly, and help them to paint the day-to-day picture of their activities in a way other media cannot.

Well said. Their FB and Twitter pages will take moments to update and could easily be done by someone in their lunch break or on the train home. It isn't sensible for an organisation to be without a social media presence.

Just to add - in the face of the condemnation - somewhat appositely, CWGC's premises are built on the site of a drill hall. They couldn't have been more helpful in tracking down some photos for us from their archives and freely allowing us to put them on the website to share with the wider public. Please see Maidenhead.

Gwyn

Edited to make my post a bit clearer. I know they have Twitter, @drillhalls follows them.

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Indeed, and Facebook. Norman seems to think it's a waste of time and money though

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I guess we're all entitled to our opinions but I was quite please when they re-tweeted a few photos taken on my June trip and asked if they could include them on their Facebook page.

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Here is the latest way of the CWGC spending their apparent tightened budget which has been alluded to by some members.

http://www.cwgc.org/...ws/signage.aspx

Please note this is the first 3,000 to be erected, there are over 12,300 such sites in the UK so estimating the cost per sign at a modest £50 each that would be a possible initial cost of £150,000. If any member can see the slightest point to this exercise please post. In the unlikely event that all 12,300 are signed that would of course cost £615,000. .

Norman

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Actually Norman, since their role is to commemorate the dead service personnel of two world wars, I an entirely in favour of decent signage to help people find war graves. I have on occasion found it very helpful in France and Belgium, and consider it a fit and proper use CWGC funds.

Keith

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Sorry Keith but you are not actually addressing the specific actions of the CWGC, these are not direction signs, also note that the sign states "At this location there are Commonwealth War Graves", so what about the vast number of war dead at those locations in the UK who do not have a CWGC headstone?, take for instance the largest public cemetery here in Bristol, Arnos Vale, no longer used but preserved as an historic site. There are very many private memorials here and just attaching the sign as shown will do nothing to aid those with any interest in the subject who probably are quite aware already of the existence of both the CWGC and private headstones. Perhaps the previous confusing request made by the CWGC for a number of relatives of the war dead in certain UK civil cemeteries to contact them was a somewhat convoluted attempt at obtaining permission to erect a CWGC headstone on a private grave where such did not exist, mind you that is just a guess of my part.

Norman

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A lot of people don't realise there are large numbers of war graves in this country as well as overseas. This seems a perfectly sensible way of starting to raise awareness, whether those graves have private or CWGC headstones is an entirely separate issue

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David the fact that the casual passer-by is told that war dead are buried in the particular cemetery means what? I bet that the vast majority of people will just pass by and why not. How much is this to cost and would there not be better things to spend the money on, here is one, add the fact that over 60 sets of human remains deemed to be attributable to the British and their allies were found during the rescue dig in the area of the new industrial development at Boezinge to the Cement House War Cemetery database record and in future add such information to ALL those cemeteries in which the found dead are buried. Any money remaining (of which there will be lots) could be spent in ensuring that the database search engine is at least as good as the one designed by Geoff and that the RN and MN dead can be searched by ship.

Norman

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Norman

We will have to differ. By your logic, there would be no signs anywhere, whether in the UK, or around the world, wherever war graves are to be found. However there would be a super database for the few thousand (perhaps), of researchers. Oh, and we would expect the government to commit considerable financial resources to identify newly discovered remains of our soldiers, but would of course then bury them in cemeteries that would not be signposted.

As a holidaymaker, I have often halted to pay my respects at cemeteries whose existence I was previously unaware of. I rather doubt if I am alone in that, and if similar cemeteries in the UK cemeteries are eventually signposted by the CWGC , I'll be calling at a few more of them as well.

The database and its front end are I agree far from perfect, and I would welcome further improvements, but I am equally confident that it meets the needs of 99.9% of its users, and probably a rather higher proportion than that.

Keith

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As a holidaymaker, I have often halted to pay my respects at cemeteries whose existence I was previously unaware of. I rather doubt if I am alone in that, and if similar cemeteries in the UK cemeteries are eventually signposted by the CWGC , I'll be calling at a few more of them as well.

Keith

Particularly the communal cemeteries which have signs similar to those proposed for the UK.

I agree that letting people know the graves are there to be a useful way of raising awareness. Perhaps some new visitors may pop in around November time once they know of their existence.

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So far as I understand it, the identification of any remains, and the initial decision to commemorate is down to the MOD, not CWGC. Until their decision is made, what can CWGC do?

It appears to me that most of the remaining issues in the database and associated search are down to historic data quality issues (inconsistencies in the recording of unit information over time, errors introduced when the records were digitised), rather than the system itself. Those are the hardest things to flush out when testing. We are already seeing further improvements to the new system from its initial launch (eg searching on additional information field), and it is undoubtedly more flexible than the previous system

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