Geoff's search engine

[GraemeClarke]

Morning

Oh dear !!

Was using Geoff's this morning and now this has appeared

In the past few weeks searches have increased to 300% of the normal level and are increasing. I don't have a problem with this traffic level and it does not cost me anything. I believe this increase is due to the seriously flawed CWGC name search. I have therefore suspended GSE until there is an improvement in the situation. I don't like bad design and I am not prepared to support it
Thank you for your understanding!

A great shame,

(WW2 and AFM appear to still be OK)

Regards

Graeme

[KevinBattle]

Yes, a great shame, but perfectly understandable.

It's a very good reason to email the CWGC and complain - it's about issuing UNTESTED "updates" onto the LIVE system without first crash testing them on an in house dataset.

Geoff is superbly knowledgeable about the CWGC database, it's strengths (and there are some - now!) and it's all too many weaknesses.

It's rather comparable to the story of the US and Russian space projects, the Americans spent millions developing a pen that would work in space, the Russians simply used pencils...

Had the CWGC simply discussed terms for taking over the program sub routines that Geoff developed to use on their own data, then a lot of money might have been saved.

I accept that these last few weeks have been exceptional for enquiries, but I seriously doubt that the order of magnitude is one that couldn't have been foreseen, but the CWGC site crashed for at least 3 days when neither GSE or the CWGC database could let you access any search. The fault lies with the software developers in the first instance, but poor control by CWGC that doesn't insist that the software is pressure tested or has increased capability.

I like the CWGC dataset as you can arrange each of the fields (alphabetically up or down, by date etc) and export the results to an Excel worksheet.

Whoever thought that a single Name Search field would be able to cope with all the permutations, surnames that could be middle names etc needs to be taken to task.

It does leave a capability gap as Geoff's was superb for finding ships crew, and is much more user friendly - just look at all the Search Field options available on GSE.

So, complain to the CWGC (as I have) and hopefully the Name Search will be spilt to first names and surnames as a first repair and then the other upgrade issues resolved. I have some sympathy,as the CWGC remit should be about upkeep of graves, not so much on accessing the data but in this case the "geeks" are running the asylum! If that affects the funds for grave upkeep etc then that is a very serious issue.

[welshdoc]

Ive already written to the CWGC and I suspect many others have as well. I just hope they listen as the current search is simply not fit for purpose.

[Seadog]

Do the CWGC actually know what they are doing with the search facility, I very much doubt it although there must have been meetings with the designers to formulate the requirements so what were these people thinking about when they signed-off the software?. How can it be that Geoff’s search is still far in advance of anything the CWGC comes up with? Still never mind it’s not the CWGC money being spent on this but ours.

Norman

[BillyH]

I complained about the removal of christian name search options by e-mail a few weeks ago. I didn't even receive the courtesy of the usual automated reply, warning me that it will take xx weeks to deal with my complaint.

I know christian names can often be unreliable, but if you are looking for a lead on a William Albert Smith from an unknown regiment then very occasionally it would come up trumps at the first attempt. I have just tried a search of their database for Smith and it comes up with almost 23,000 options.

BillyH

[johnboy]

The name search gives problems eg you have found a MiC which only shows initials for the mans Christian names. There is no search box for initials only. If you put initials and surname into search box more often than not you get no results as the initials are not recognised as a name.

[RaySearching]

Oh

Bad news indeed

looks like I will all be struggling for awhile

[Kath]

Tried CWGC for Humphrey - had to use Geoff & found him.

Kath.

[Derek Black]

forename perameters would have been welcome in the CWGC search, but so too would ship name or battalion number search options.

[Seadog]

I agree Derek and in particular the search by ship name. I had asked the CWGC to make this available and they replied that it would be considered when a major upgrade was made, so far nothing. The only suggestion was that we could download all the merchant navy records and then sort them!. Geoffs system has had the facility to search by ship since it started so why not the CWGC?

Norman