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Messages - Nick_Ips

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37
The Common Room / Re: Free weekend access Newspapers.com
« on: Tuesday 22 February 22 18:22 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 18:03 GMT (UK)
I didn't give it to them, and as somebody just pointed out they have no right creating an account for me in the first place without sending an email with a link to confirm that the person wants the account to be opened.

Again, they wouldn't have it if you hadn't given it to them. I can understand where you are coming from, but if you depart from the facts in your dealings with them you are likely to just make the situation worse.

Also, Chris Doran's post about emails/links is not describing something that organisations have to do. Many do that kind of verification as a way of protecting themselves against bots and fake accounts etc, but their 'right' to create an account for you will be governed by the terms and conditions you agreed to when you entered their site, clicked on one or more buttons, read the T&C's, and gave them your email address. That is almost certainly where your consent was given.

All you need to do now is to follow their process to get the account deleted.  Making potentially defamatory remarks about them won't help you achieve that.

38
The Common Room / Re: Free weekend access Newspapers.com
« on: Tuesday 22 February 22 13:51 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 13:37 GMT (UK)
There is no way I trust Newspapers.com with my financial information.

I just had a look at what that dpo means, Data Protection Officer.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/data-protection-officer-dpo.asp

Ancestry's privacy page has links regarding deleting information that don't work.  If Ancestry's Data Protection Officer doesn't reply, doesn't reply within a reasonable time, or demands my payment details just to delete this account then I need to take some big steps to protect myself from them.

One of the roles of a DPO is to ensure that systems are in place so only the 'owner' of data is allowed to make requests which involve processing it.  There have to be safeguards in place so random strangers cannot make requests such as changing passwords and deleting accounts (potentially maliciously).

You could be going round in circles with the DPO for some time.

Ancestry are a large company and have a decent reputation. So long as you are dealing with them - not a spoof site - then you already have a lot of consumer protections.  You shouldn't be unduly alarmed.  I'm sure you will get it sorted out, but you may have to accept them following their procedures.

39
The Common Room / Re: Free weekend access Newspapers.com
« on: Tuesday 22 February 22 13:31 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 12:57 GMT (UK)
Sorry it is beyond nasty to ask for my card payment details, as I have never given them these, have never had an account with them, all I did was use my email address to try to send a one paragraph document to myself.

Just for info, it has become quite common for even reputable companies to ask for payment card details as a method of identifying an individual, even if no payment is to be taken from that card.

Personally I usually avoid giving card details (and most other personal information) at all costs - but sometimes it is the only way of making progress with organisations that have their own rules (and laws) they have to comply with.

Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 12:57 GMT (UK)
I feel very badly shaken by how they have behaved.  I wouldn't have believed a big company could behave so badly. After Newspaper.com's email yesterday demanding my card payment details before they could do anything they haven't replied to my reply that I only want to be able to delete the account I never created or change the email address that I never gave to them.

There's a risk of sorting this out being more difficult than it needs to be if confusion over what the actual problem is leads to Newspapers.com tech people trying to solve a different problem to the one which exists.

You do have an account, and you must have given them your email address, otherwise they couldn't have used it in the way you described earlier.

If you are telling them to delete an account you don't have, linked to an email they shouldn't know, then they are going to get confused as to what you are asking for.  Furthermore, saying you didn't give them your email address may make them think someone else has been using it to falsely set up an account, raising questions over who is controling the account and paradoxically increasing their need to get verification of your ID (e.g. by taking card details) before they can do anything.

I'd suggest the best approach is to say you didn't realise that giving them your email address would result in an account being created, and can they please delete the account and all information linked to it.  If you check their privacy policy it does seem that is something they can do.

40
The Common Room / Re: Free weekend access Newspapers.com
« on: Tuesday 22 February 22 10:04 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 00:26 GMT (UK)
Their last email says they want to help but they need my card details....even though I repeated over and over that I don't have an account with them.

I suspect their systems may require them to have your card details to verify your ID when they interact with you - i.e. to make sure you are the person who 'owns' the account.  Unfortunately (even though you didn't want one), you do now have an account.

Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 00:26 GMT (UK)
It looks like you have to have a paid account to create a password to have any control over your email address that they hold for you.

I don't have a paid account with them (never have) and have a password and control over my account settings.

Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 00:26 GMT (UK)
Does anyone know either how to delete the account or create a password to change the email address?

If you go to "Account settings" (on a menu from the button on the top right of the page) there's an option to "Change Password".

Unfortunately that might not help much, as you have to enter your current password before setting and confirming your new one.

If you didn't enter a password then it might be worth trying leaving that blank - but I'd be very surprised if the account setup process allowed a blank password to be entered.

An alternative might be to log out, and then use the "Forgot password" link to get a password change link emailed to you.  BUT THE RISK of doing this is once you log out you will lose the access you currently have if the "Forgot password" option doesn't work.

Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 00:26 GMT (UK)
Take this as a lesson from me, never use your real email address with these companies if you don't absolutely need to....even to email yourself documents, they will snatch it...

100%.

Quote from: Althea7 on Tuesday 22 February 22 00:26 GMT (UK)
....however many times you explain that you don't have an account with them.

But you do...

If all else fails, one route out of this might be to give them details of a credit card, which I believe is necessary to activate the free trial (this may depend on the status of your account).

Make it clear that you are not authorising them to make an immediate charge to the card.  Once you have been able to access your account, cancel the trial (in accordance with the T&C's). 

Should something go wrong and a charge is made to your card you can then raise it as a dispute with your credit card provider.  Make sure you read the T&C's carefully first to ensure you do have a right to cancel with no charge being made.

41
The Common Room / Re: HMCTS will site (again!)
« on: Friday 18 February 22 09:48 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: dawnsh on Friday 18 February 22 00:07 GMT (UK)
I click to open the image and order form but I cannot turn off the order form and I cant see the tops of the pages, even reduced to 50%

I just cannot scroll up.

I've tried edge, chrome and firefox, none of them scroll up to the tops of the pages.

I'm sure there was a button to hide the order page a couple of days ago.

Anyone got a solution?

The workaround I've been using to make the site partially usable is to switch to "No Style" in Firefox - from the menubar "View"->"Page Style"->"No Style"

The result looks like an olde worlde web page with basic links, but most importantly (to me) a copy of the page image in full and at a size which is readable on screen.

Having got used to where the different links are I'm also now finding it easier to navigate between years and pages using the "No Style" layout compared to the standard layout.

You may need to scroll down quite a way to see the full-size image (there's usually a thumbnail one higher up) and sometimes it takes a 'refresh' of the page to get it to work.

Switching back to "Basic Page Style" reverts to the original layout.

HTH

42
The Common Room / Re: Ordnance Survey Symbols
« on: Sunday 13 February 22 17:47 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: ukireland on Sunday 13 February 22 15:59 GMT (UK)
Thanks to those who responded to my query. The map was dated 1905 but other map editions prior to and after that date did not have the marking on them. I now believe this was a temporary quarry screening building that was obviously located next to a small stone quarries. There would not have been any electricity on site at that time so it must have been a manual/mechanical operation.

...which could include horse power, consistent with Mike's Gin suggestion.

43
The Common Room / Re: probatesearch website
« on: Sunday 13 February 22 12:06 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: dawnsh on Friday 11 February 22 13:54 GMT (UK)
Which reminds me, the calendar pages were indexed by 1st three letters only which is why the old system returned so many pages.

Based on that, I searched for my gg-grandfather's will in 1933, searching on the 1st 3 letters of his surname returned too many pages, adding in a 4th letter reduced the number of pages down to four but in the sequence 324, 323, 325, 322.

Moving onto 1934, the 4 pages were in the order 333, 334, 335, 332

A step forward for me but we shouldn't have to find a work around.

A search on the full surname of 5 letters still gives no pages.

Before the wildcard 'trick' became known I'd followed a similar logic and discovered a page could be found by searching for the first full surname which appears on that page.

E.g. Looking for "PAVELEY" d.1985 gives the following results for each search -

"Paveley" - 0 pages
"Pav*" - 2 pages
"Pave*" - 0 pages
"Pauwells" [no wildcard, first surname on page 6507] - 2 pages [including 6507]

I got this to work consistently in pre-1996 years - although obviously it is only any use if you already know (or can guess) the first surname on the page. (e.g. where you have searched on Ancestry first)

It seems the new indexing/search system is treating the first surname on each page in some different way to others on the page.  Note that I wasn't getting results for "Pave*" - I've found it inconsistent whether more than three characters+wildcard works ("Pauw*" in this case does).

"Frustrating" is the word I'd use about this update to a site which previously worked just fine.  Another annoyance is not being able to use right-click to save the page image - there are workarounds, but all involve more effort than a simple right-click.  :(

44
The Common Room / Re: Ordnance Survey Symbols
« on: Saturday 12 February 22 12:39 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: ukireland on Friday 11 February 22 22:23 GMT (UK)
...as it is unlikely to have been a building.

Obviously with only limited information... I'd suggest the oval-shaped features may well be some kind of quarry or pit.  In which case the building(s) might be temporary ones associated with some kind of extractive industry.  E.g. a shed for screening sand/gravel, or for brickmaking (with clay), or even storage for burnt lime.

Knowing the type of soil/subsoil and getting confirmation the features were some kind of quarry/pit might help understand whether there were buildings here, and what they might have been used for.

45
The Common Room / Re: 1921 Census
« on: Tuesday 30 November 21 16:14 GMT (UK)  »

Free access to the 1921 Census at two sites in addition to Kew -

Quote
The census will be available online via our commercial partner Findmypast and will be free to access in this way at The National Archives, in Kew.

In addition, visitors to the Manchester Central Library and the National Library of Wales will be able to access the 1921 Census of England and Wales via the Findmypast website for free following its publication next year.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/regional-hubs-to-offer-free-online-access-to-1921-census

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