rootsweb - no longer possible to contact?

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

This may have been the case for some years, but I've only just become
aware.

I was looking through an old email from 2013 (in which genealogy was
mentioned), and was telling my correspondent of my new email, and it
occurred to me that rootsweb might have my wrong email too.

I remembered that rootsweb pages used to show the contact email of the
owner/submitter of the data: it used to be distorted, in grey, with
holes in it like bubbles, presumably to make it difficult for autobots
to extract, but still clear enough for a human to read. But now, when I
look - either at my root page
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=G6JPG or that for a specific
person, such as my father
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=g6jpg&id=I1 - I see no
sign of the old distorted email, or any other way of contacting the
person who uploaded the data.

Is there no such now? (Is it because of Ancestry's takeover of
rootsweb?) Or even any way of finding what address "rootsweb" have for
me? I have a note of a login password, but I can't see any login
link/button/whatever.

[john]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
This may have been the case for some years, but I've only just become
aware.
I was looking through an old email from 2013 (in which genealogy was
mentioned), and was telling my correspondent of my new email, and it
occurred to me that rootsweb might have my wrong email too.
I remembered that rootsweb pages used to show the contact email of the
owner/submitter of the data: it used to be distorted, in grey, with
holes in it like bubbles, presumably to make it difficult for autobots
to extract, but still clear enough for a human to read. But now, when I
look - either at my root page
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=G6JPG or that for a specific
person, such as my father
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=g6jpg&id=I1 - I see no
sign of the old distorted email, or any other way of contacting the
person who uploaded the data.
Is there no such now? (Is it because of Ancestry's takeover of
rootsweb?) Or even any way of finding what address "rootsweb" have for
me? I have a note of a login password, but I can't see any login
link/button/whatever.

It looks as though they are still in the slow process of restoring all
of Rootsweb.

There is information on how to log in to rootsweb at
https://rootsweb.blog/2018/09/10/update-on-hosted-site-restoration/#comments

However the last comment (5 Oct 2018) seems to indicate they have not
yet sorted out WorldConnect.
If you search that blog for World Connect you will find:
Anne Mitchell says: September 21, 2018 at 1:14 pm I do not have a
timeline for World Connect, but we are working on rewriting it

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[]

Post by john

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I remembered that rootsweb pages used to show the contact email of
the owner/submitter of the data: it used to be distorted, in grey,

[]

Post by john

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Is there no such now? (Is it because of Ancestry's takeover of
rootsweb?) Or even any way of finding what address "rootsweb" have for
me? I have a note of a login password, but I can't see any login
link/button/whatever.

It looks as though they are still in the slow process of restoring all
of Rootsweb.

Is that "restoring" because of the big server fallover (of about a year
ago was it?), or because Ancestry - deliberately or otherwise - broke
aspects of it when they took over?

Post by john
There is information on how to log in to rootsweb at
https://rootsweb.blog/2018/09/10/update-on-hosted-site-restoration/#comm
ents
However the last comment (5 Oct 2018) seems to indicate they have not
yet sorted out WorldConnect.
Anne Mitchell says: September 21, 2018 at 1:14 pm I do not have a
timeline for World Connect, but we are working on rewriting it

I'm not sure if what I have on rootsweb was a "site"; I don't remember
using FTP, I just uploaded a gedcom (in 2011, I think), IIRR by using an
"upload" or similar button. (A link from the comments on the above page
goes to a change password page, but that page only prompts for the email
associated with the <whatever> - the implication being that it'll send
an email containing a link; obviously, if the email has changed, the
person would never receive any such email.)

And there does appear no way for a casual visitor to contact the
owner/submitter (to point out an error for example); is that permanent,
or one of the things they're in the process of fixing?

[john]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by john

 I remembered that rootsweb pages used to show the contact email of
the  owner/submitter of the data: it used to be distorted, in grey,

[]

Post by john

 Is there no such now? (Is it because of Ancestry's takeover of
rootsweb?) Or even any way of finding what address "rootsweb" have
for me? I have a note of a login password, but I can't see any login
link/button/whatever.

It looks as though they are still in the slow process of restoring all
of Rootsweb.

Is that "restoring" because of the big server fallover (of about a year
ago was it?), or because Ancestry - deliberately or otherwise - broke
aspects of it when they took over?

Post by john
There is information on how to log in to rootsweb at
https://rootsweb.blog/2018/09/10/update-on-hosted-site-restoration/#comm
ents
However the last comment (5 Oct 2018) seems to indicate they have not
yet sorted out WorldConnect.
Anne Mitchell says: September 21, 2018 at 1:14 pm I do not have a
timeline for World Connect, but we are working on rewriting it

I'm not sure if what I have on rootsweb was a "site"; I don't remember
using FTP, I just uploaded a gedcom (in 2011, I think), IIRR by using an
"upload" or similar button. (A link from the comments on the above page
goes to a change password page, but that page only prompts for the email
associated with the <whatever> - the implication being that it'll send
an email containing a link; obviously, if the email has changed, the
person would never receive any such email.)
And there does appear no way for a casual visitor to contact the
owner/submitter (to point out an error for example); is that permanent,
or one of the things they're in the process of fixing?

You can do your own searching and find out as much about the status of
rootsweb as I have. I know no more that what I've found in a few
searches e.g. https://blog.eogn.com/?s=rootsweb

Or you can try to find a contact for rootsweb and ask there (but I doubt
you'll get much more than in the blog).

Rootsweb is free.

As far as I understand, rootsweb seems to have run on an ancient
software which was hosted by Ancestry for free (I don't know who
maintained the software). It suffered a massive hacking a couple of
years ago. Since then Ancestry have been slowly rewriting and restoring
the functionality. It seems to be taking a lot longer than they
originally thought. Since there is no income, there probably isn't much
incentive to put a lot of effort into the process.

I think Ancestry may have changed owners during this hiatus so it is
quite possible they have changed priorities and want more effort put in
to Ancestry to generate income/profits. Rootsweb may return completely
at some point but I think I can foresee there could be changes of some
kind to make it more of a marketing lead for a Ancestry subscription.

[Keith Nuttle]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
This may have been the case for some years, but I've only just become
aware.
I was looking through an old email from 2013 (in which genealogy was
mentioned), and was telling my correspondent of my new email, and it
occurred to me that rootsweb might have my wrong email too.
I remembered that rootsweb pages used to show the contact email of the
owner/submitter of the data: it used to be distorted, in grey, with
holes in it like bubbles, presumably to make it difficult for autobots
to extract, but still clear enough for a human to read. But now, when I
look - either at my root page
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=G6JPG or that for a specific
person, such as my father
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=g6jpg&id=I1 - I see no
sign of the old distorted email, or any other way of contacting the
person who uploaded the data.
Is there no such now? (Is it because of Ancestry's takeover of
rootsweb?) Or even any way of finding what address "rootsweb" have for
me? I have a note of a login password, but I can't see any login
link/button/whatever.

I was like you, becoming quite frustrated that the Rootsweb site were
taken down. What I have found is that many have moved to differnent
domains, or been incorporated into an ancestry site.


Supposedly for every Rootsweb group there was an Ancestry URL to the
same group. I just became aware of this a couple of weeks ago.

If as I was you are following a lot of surname and location newsgroups,
you can convert them to the Ancestry site by pasting
http://boards.ancestry.com into the rootsweb part of the URL as shown.

http://Rootsweb/group/surnames.deitrick/mb.ashx
http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.deitrick/mb.ashx

I converted a couple of dozen Rootsweb groups to Ancestry Groups using
the above method.

It works similarly for the location groups


http://Rootsweb/group/localities.northam.usa.states.ohio.counties.crawford/mb.ash

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.ohio.counties.crawford/mb.ashx

PS: I don't remember the exact URL for the RootsWeb group but the above
illustrates the technique.