Hi Paul,

First of all I’d like to thank you for spearheading this effort on our behalf. This was a project I had considered taking on over the last year, but due to personal commitments, I’ve been unable to. I’m sorry to hear about any abusive comments you’ve received – everyone on this board understands that you are doing this strictly from a desire to help and I think that any abuse directed at you is shameful.

I have a few suggestions that I would like to see incorporated into the board. My feelings on this are in line with most of the other comments. I like it as it is – simple, content rich, and the archive is invaluable. However, I believe that we can all have our cake and eat it too. Earlier this year I discussed with Frances and Sue the need to upgrade the board in an effort to shut out the spammers. Additionally, I have concerns that there is a lack of accountability by the site owners. We don’t even know if a proper disaster recovery plan (DRP) is in place in the event of a server crash or database corruption.

It is these two issues that are driving the need for a new board, not some misguided desire to upgrade just for the sake of improving the ‘look and feel’. David may be able to tell us who is accountable for the board in the event of a disaster and if backups are being done on a regular basis. If he can, my concerns will be allayed somewhat for the near term. However, with no monetary incentive to maintain the board and the back-end database we have no guarantee that at some point down the road people won’t forget this handshake deal between isle-of-man.com and… well, whoever. I don’t want to see a slip in accountability. I see this type of thing happen all the time in this field. Ownership in the system gets lost over time and eventually gets neglected – then the users are left in the lurch when the whole thing crashes.

The only solution to the accountability problem is a financial one. We (the IOMFHS) need to take ownership of this board, and then have a formal agreement in place with isle-of-man.com which stipulates that a proper DRP as well as other standard precautions and processes are implemented. And if isle-of-man.com cannot or is unwilling to provide this, then we should find another hosting service for the board. My suggestion is Antelle IT Ltd., which currently hosts iomfhs.im anyway. They advertise themselves as having the requisite industry expertise to provide just this type of solution. And since we must already have a contract in place, why not add hosting of the board to the existing contract? It might cost a bit more per month, but this is something I’d be willing to add to my yearly membership fee to cover, and I’m sure most IOMFHS members on this board would as well, knowing that we are heading off a potential disaster in doing so. It should be a simple straightforward process to move the database and site content over to Antelle’s servers and we would all have the peace of mind that our board would never get neglected.

Another benefit of moving over to Antelle, is we would be creating an umbrella for all Manx Genealogy content in one location (except for MNB – sorry Frances!) We could get rid of the IOMFHS forums page and put this board in its place. I don’t like the idea of the IOMFHS having a forum separate from this board anyway. The two perform precisely the same function, yet the IOMFHS forum draws first time and potential long-term contributors away from this board where their contributions could benefit the community as a whole (there is at least one other board out there –rootschat which causes the same scattershot effect, but I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about that one). Plus it adds one more site I have to check every day.

So, all that said, regardless where the board eventually winds up, there is at least one modification that needs to be made that will address the other issue I mentioned above – spam. There is simple but effective technology out there that will greatly reduce the amount of spammers visiting our board. The problem right now, is it’s too easy for a spammer – or a spambot to post something. The more controls in place, the more energy a spammer has to expend to post something, and the more cookie crumbs they leave, the less apt they are to hit the board. Email account verification and CAPTCHA images (see captchas.net) would eliminate most spammers and spambots. This is something that either isle-of-man.com or Antelle should be able to add into this board at very little cost and minor code modification.

Feature-wise (and I apologize if I’m repeating what others have suggested), but I would like to see on the links bar
1. A link directly to Brian’s data
2. A link to the IOMFHS main site
3. A FAQ page
4. A link to the IGI.
5. Get rid of the IOMFHS and Genealogy Links that go to the old IOMFHS site.
6. Get them add a new spell-checker.

The rest of this may overlap with the IOMFHS site and may be better addressed directly with the society. I would like (as I believe Donna suggested) a place to post Gedcoms as well as an area for one-name studies. I’ve often wondered what to have done with my site in the event of my death. I still haven’t come up with a solution, but I would like to donate my research, and this includes my site, to the society when I die. We should have something set up for this. There are at least a dozen such sites out there that I’m aware of hosting Manx one-name studies. It would be nice to consolidate these into one area.

If this can’t be done, then a list of Manx one-name studies should be shown.

Also, there should be an automated way to upload transcribed wills to Brian’s index. I realize this is the realm of the society, but since I’m on my soapbox… Why burden someone with this task when technology can automate this process for us?

And it would be beneficial to the society to put a link up directly to the IOMFHS new members registration page.

Other than that, keep the board as it is. No bells and whistles required just function, content, security and peace of mind.

Greg