The statement that "it will take at least a week for a memorial to be added" e.t.c should be removed from the page. This is totally inaccurate and is only leading to frustration amongst submitters. The truth is that months rather than weeks are passing before a memorial is added to the inventory and even then there are numerous errors.
Secondly The submissions form seems to have been designed deliberately to generate maximum confusion. The following changes need to be made.
"Position" this box needs to be blank unless someone uses a drop down, same applies to "type of memorial" and "denomination".
The number of errors being generated by these boxes is ridiculous.
Thirdly A method of listing names in an sensible manner to reflect those who died and those who served needs to be added as a matter of urgency.
All the above are simple changes to the data input format, why is nothing being done to correct the obvious?
The impression I get is that this site is being run by failed politicians who are actually incapable of fixing anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a problem with much of the data that was held in the UK National Inventory of War Memorials in the form of photographs of memorial name lists as opposed to hand-written or typescript lists. These form a small but significant part of the official national archive on which the Lost Generation database is based and seeks to help complete. The problem is not the fault of our partners at the UK National Inventory of War Memorials - it is something that arose in the massive work of transcription involved in creating the Lost Generation database, over half a million individual names (which had never been digitised). The problem is being resolved but this has had to be done with extreme caution so as not to damage the information thousands of members of the public have input into the growing on-line archive. It is expected that the main phase of this database work will be completed during May. Until then the Lost Generation team are being very cautious and holding new submissions safely in the pending area, so they are available on-line (but not in their final form until this issue is entirely resolved). Apologies for the time this is taking but it is critical that the intergrity of the data is ensured.
Ericferret, thank you for your feedback - it has been noted and will be acted on once this database work has been completed .
Still no change, amazing. I suppose if I check back in another 6 months something might have happened. I notice the waiting list is now stretching back over a year.
I sadley have to agree with you. I was fully behind this site and strongly agree with getting all the memorials with names and photo's. I live in Fareham and this site only showed one memorial, i went to another church and descovered another memorial tucked behind the church. I photographed it and entered the details into this site about a year ago. Having already been despondent with this site i stopped visiting. Being the special day that it is today i thought i would come back and check, with hope in my heart. Unfortunately the site hasn't added my entry and even worse the other Fareham memorial one has gone. Feeling very dispondent i doubt i will be returning to this site again. I have seen other memorials that are also missing from this site but i see it as pointless in me photographing them and entering into this project as it appears to be dead in the water.
What is most frustrating is that minor changes would make major improovements. I now realise that there is a fundamental problem with this project.
It treats us like morons i.e any information we supply is suspect.
The way to deal with this was to publish everything in good faith backed by photographs and then cross check any errors or disputes raised by the public. This way every memorias would not have to be verified by a physical visit in the short term and this site would actually be useable and user friendly.
It appears to be stuck in the Flanders mud and bleeding to death. A classic example of Britsh bureaucracy running amok.
