C4's collaboration with UKNIWM has great potential. But is the database of names already overloaded? Loads of "server error" messages, and clicking on "full list of people" just gives "page not found". I really hope the feature to search all names on a given memorial comes on-line soon. But it wouldn't surprise me if C4 may have seriously underestimated how popular this site could become.
Krisbee, here's the latest from the technology front - the very heavy demand on the Lost Generation website in its first few days of operation was indeed causing erratic performance of some of the Search functions. The Channel 4 sappers have been working round the clock, under a constant bombardment of feedback from the Lost Generation team regarding performance and optimisation, to iron out these issues and cope with the huge load of concurrent users. Various upgrades have gone live today and performance should continue to settle down and improve over the next few days. Thanks for your patience - we very much intend to fulfil the "great potential" you spoke of as we go forwards.
By the way, you may well enjoy 'Not Forgotten' with Ian Hislop starting this Sunday at 8pm.
I was keen to view this programme when advertised, but was concerned it might come out very dry, hesitant too with Ian Hislop presenting, (I suspected some political sarcastic commentary throughout). But I was delighted with it's content and it has certainly twigged the conscience of myself and many others I'm sure.
My son's school currently has two seperate plaques for two pupils who fell in the Great War. They now will become more significant, not that they were ever forgotten, but time does move on and unless the generations educate the young they too will forget.
It also demonstrates to me how strong a nation we were then, rigid backbone, forthright and willing to give everything.
Well done Channel 4 and the makers for something, very cleverly portrayed.
The site just doesn't work does it. I have tried so many times to use the search facility and not managed to get on once. Server not found, every time. Folks will tire of trying which defeats the object of the exercise surely. Regards.
I stand by me original comments of the 14th November. I appauld what C4 are trying to do, but apart from a samll window of improvement late last Frid & Sat, the site appears completely overloaded now. What a terrible shame the UKNIWM did not have the funds to do this themselves. To have a strictly non-commerical, gimmick free site, akin to the CWGC. God only knows it's part of our heritage.
Come on C4, try harder, do it properly, or hand it back to the Imperial War Museum's UKNIWM.
They've given you all the data, now let's see if you can put in the necessary IT infrastucture to let us access it, or it's going to turn into an embarassing fiasco.
There’s something of a history of sites like this struggling under the initial loads – the 1901 Census I suppose is the classic, even this last week the Crimestoppers site – I quote our public service colleagues at the BBC from last Thursday: “Users flood 'Most Wanted' website: An FBI-style website, aimed at tracking the UK's most wanted crime suspects, has received more than 350,000 hits on its first day. The Most Wanted site proved so popular on the morning of its launch, it received 21,000 hits in five minutes. But many people were unable to access the site, Mick Laurie, chief executive of Crimestoppers, said. On Thursday night the site displayed a message which said it could not be accessed because it was still "too busy" as a result of its "unprecedented popularity".”
Both the above sites fell over in their early days. Lost Generation, whilst not entirely falling over, has been on its knees at times – especially in the wake of Sunday’s hugely popular first episode of Not Forgotten. The traffic to Lost Generation has been of this kind of order and frankly we are struggling to manage it, we are working on it flat out and as per the notice on the Home screen we expect improvements to the memorials search tomorrow and the people search on Friday. It is an enormous database (well over half a million names) and quite a technical challenge. We will get there shortly, things will settle down and we do appreciate your patience.
As you rightly observe, we made some successful improvements at the tail-end of last week only to be swamped again on Monday and today.
I think it’s important to recognise Channel 4’s huge public service investment in this project – our colleagues at the Imperial War Museum/UKNIWM have been beavering away for 16 years on this project on a shoestring with a sterling army of volunteers. The Channel 4 Lost Generation project took under 12 weeks! (with a rigid deadline of 11th November.) We hope Lost Generation will help complete the job which the UKNIWM have carried out so doggedly to date and which they have got to a point where it is about 60% complete in terms of the memorial database and maybe 30% complete in terms of a names database (which was paper only until Channel 4 joined forces with the Inventory). Channel 4 viewers can now help complete the task. Channel 4 is giving the Lost Generation site to the nation in the capable hands of the Imperial War Museum in due course.
I don’t think Lost Generation really constitutes a “commercial site”, there is no revenue generation on the site, it is just that it's more than a database – it has a wealth of editorial around the database, with a particular emphasis on the current equivalent of the Lost Generation of Pals - today’s seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds who are indeed the internet generation.
I’m confident the project will live up to your expectations and again appreciate your patience in these early days.
P.S. I appreciate the site is commercial in the sense that all of Channel 4.com carries advertising but that is the other side of the equation which enables the Channel to make such a sizable investment in a project with the kind of public value exhibited in Lost Generation. Over 500,000 names had to be input by hand - twice-over! - to get the 98%+ accuracy of the Lost Generation database. Not cheap!
Also, I didn't mean to be quite so anonymous as my last posting. I am the Commissioining Editor who developed and commissioned Lost Generation.
I am grateful that the Commissioining Editor should take time from what must be a busy schedule to explain in some detail the current situation with access to the “Lost Generation” database.
It is right to say there is a history of sites like this struggling under the initial loads, the 1901 Census launch was a classic example.
I do recognise Channel 4’s significant public service investment in this project, it is highly laudable and as one who has trode the same path and followed the same trails, I found the first programme in the “Not Forgotten” series compelling viewing and the database is invaluable.
But I would hate to see the huge potential of this site put at jeopardy when no one can access the information held. I just hope people will be patient, and not turned off by the frustration of finding the site paralysed and unable to cope with high usage for what will have been large periods of the first two weeks of going on-line.
Let's hope the sites future is bright and as a national resource is the triumph that I, and those who support you aims, wish for.
I know C4 is working hard to improve performance of this site’s search function and the “Memorial Search” does appear to be working now – sort of. But WW2 only memorials have suddenly appeared in the lists and a lot of entries are just listed as “TITLE”. Should this be happening?
Krisbee, thanks for this feedback - been sent through to the technical team. The WW2 issue was fixed last week but seems to have been undone in the latest upgrade - as you clearly recognise, the scope of Lost Generation is WW1 only and therefore encompasses joint WW1/WW2 memorials but not WW2 only. The 'Title' bug is being addressed now. Your help restoring the proper search functionality (with this kind of invaluable feedback)is much appreciated.
The name search is now working after a fashion, BUT there are still bugs. I did a search for the surname CHITTY and got 20 hits. I clicked on the 3rd one, CHITTY A, and found he is on the Lynchmere memorial. I then clicked on the memorial "Full list of people", and got a screen saying there were 50 hits and displaying the first 10. So far so good. Then I clicked "next", but instead of getting the next 10 names on the Lynchmere memorial I get 49400 hits, who have nothing to do with Lynchmere memorial. Come on channel 4 when are you going to get this right? Meri
It is two weeks since the launch of the searchable database of names/memorials and it is still not working. The "latest news" message is now six days old and tells us nothing new.
What is happening? Do C4 expect to get the names searches working any time soon? Or, will the interest generated by "Not Forgotten" and this site just fade away and the number of posts on this Forum tail off as disillusionment sets in?
Can anyone help, its probably me being technologically challenged. I have just got up the war memorial for a local school. It states 24 names are available, but lists the first 10. I have tried to click next but then get 49,000 names in a continuous list. How do I find the other 14????
Krisbee, I agree about becoming disillusioned. I have found so many poorly and innacurately described memorials. I am working through the local ones trying to amend. Has this informatuion come from the IWM's inventory because their forms were so detailed I find it upsetting that so many mistakes have been input.
Rest assured you are not technologically challenged, but C4 certainly appears to be.
At the moment, you can only access the first ten names on any memorial for which there is a list. Added to which you will notice they are mostly not even presented in alpahabetical order.
The database just dosen't function as it should and as yet there is no indcation when it is likely to.
It's an understatement to say how disappointed I am.
What worries me a little more is that I typed in my own name expecting to find Percy and Frederick of the 9th Glosters and 1st SWB's. I did not get either. But I did get two I have never come across. Neither of these appear on the CWGC or Soldier's Died in the Great War databases. Sadly, I suspect the original data entries for this new database.
I have exactly the same problem when trying to examine the list of names at St John the Baptist church at Alnmouth. Starts with 195 names and then reverts to 49400 names. I thought that it might be a problem with the 'maths' of the database and in fact there might actually be only 195 names. So I set to and kept hitting 'NEXT', but no there does appear to be many many more names than 195!!
Perhaps C4 techies will get to the bottom of this annoying quirk.
Gatow
quote:
Originally posted by merib: The name search is now working after a fashion, BUT there are still bugs. I did a search for the surname CHITTY and got 20 hits. I clicked on the 3rd one, CHITTY A, and found he is on the Lynchmere memorial. I then clicked on the memorial "Full list of people", and got a screen saying there were 50 hits and displaying the first 10. So far so good. Then I clicked "next", but instead of getting the next 10 names on the Lynchmere memorial I get 49400 hits, who have nothing to do with Lynchmere memorial. Come on channel 4 when are you going to get this right? Meri
I don't know if C4 are still monitoring this thread, but credit to them for ironing out some of the problems. Performance has really improved. I hope this is not because all the initial interest has been lost.
The "49400 names" bug on listing names on memorials has been fixed. But a number of other problems do remain.
Clicking on the “Advanced search” button for a “Find a person” search takes you to a pages which says “Find a person is currently unavailable”. This is confusing as you certainly can search for a person.
The “Find a person” search originally had last name and initials input fields, but has now changed to a keyword search so that searches on surname only can return some unexpected results and hence significantly bloat the list of matched items.
But, perhpas more worrying is some the inconsistency between searching on memorial and searchng on person. For example searchng on PINCHES by memorial returns an entry for "EH PINCHES" (nore there is no space between the "E" and "H")which is for an individual memorial to "Edward Harold Pinches" , a pair of candlesticks in a church. Search for "PINCHES" by person and the is no entry for that individual memorial to him. Not only that, but he is not listed as being on the "Mitcham War Memorial", which he certainly is.
Then there is still the unanswered question of missing data - data that the UKNIWM certainly held at July/August of this year but does not appear to be on this database. This seems to be at odds with C4's statement that "The Lost Generation database started life containing all the relevant information in the UK’s official inventory of war memorials".
For me, at least, perhaps this last point is the most curcial.
