Errors and Problem Reports

Version 3

File upload errors

From time to time, it might be impossible to upload a web page because the website to which the upload is directed might be experiencing problems or undergoing maintenance.

If you experience an error in trying to use SFTP to upload one of your web pages to the genuki.org.uk website, contact the GENUKI system administrator to report it.

If the error occurs on a site other than genuki.org.uk you will need to contact the webmaster of the other site, or the ISP hosting the service.

Problems and corrections

The GENUKI mandatory technical standards call for a mechanism to be presented as part of each GENUKI web page terminator, which encourages the users and readers to find help, report problems and contribute information. The standard mechanism results in a webform presentation allowing the reader to forward an email without being aware of the email address of the recipient. It also makes it more difficult, but not impossible, for spam generators and/or robots to harvest the email addresses of GENUKI maintainers.

If the page involved is related specifically to one section of GENUKI then the resulting email will be directed automatically to the email address nominated by the maintainer for this section. If the problem is judged by the maintainer to be genuine then a correction should be made at the earliest opportunity, and the originator informed. If the maintainer judges that the problem is not genuine, e.g., the originator is mistaken or the proposed correction impractical, the originator should be informed.

New maintainers should be aware that, despite contrary guidance, GENUKI readers will use the error reporting form for requesting help and advice with their own genealogy. It's worth having a few polite standard responses for dealing with such people. A good example currently in use by Brian Randell is as follows:

My apologies, but this is a standard response message.

I am afraid that for some time now I have had to include on the "Find Help" form (the one that you used in order to send me the above message) the following request:

"Please do not ask me for personal advice - though I am the maintainer of the GENUKI/Devon pages, in all probability I do not have the local knowledge that you require, leave alone the time to provide such a service, or at times even to reply to such queries. Instead, try sending a query to one of the Devon-related mailing lists."

You can find details of the mailing lists under "Genealogy" on the GENUKI/Devon county page.

My own area of interest and expertise regarding Devon centres on Clovelly in North Devon - otherwise, just about all I know on Devon genealogy is already in the Devon pages, maintenance of which takes up a good proportion of my spare time - hence my need to use this standard reply to your query.

Sorry. However I think you will very likely get some useful responses from the DEVON-L mailing list in particular.

Cheers

Brian Randell

Brian uses a whole set of such standard responses, set up as alternative signatures.

If the page is more general or at a higher level in the GENUKI hierarchy, the email will be directed to the maintainers' mailing list, and should be dealt with by the most relevant maintainer, who should use the maintainers' mailing list to inform all others that the problem has been recognised and will be dealt with.

The maintainers' mailing list is monitored by the GENUKI Trustees, who will deal with reports not picked up by anyone else.

Complaints

Users and readers of GENUKI sometimes phrase their problem report as a complaint, e.g., their email address has been revealed without their permission. In some cases they are mistaken and have confused GENUKI with another website. In other cases they might have a genuine complaint which needs attention.

See the section on Complaints.