An earlier post mentioned "All, Will, Any and Last" but in fact ALL is a surname, WILL is a surname. It was not possible 10, 15, even 20 years ago for the programming mechanism to differentiate between the 2 uses of "all" below: All Johnson's out there, please contact me. and John All was born in June, 1899. They *tried* to weed out the common word usage by requiring the word be capitalized, but as you can clearly see, that is not enough. I was just over on the FTM Board and one sentence was: Did you Register Family Tree Maker? Register, Tree, Maker were all linked. On One Of My Boards, I Have A Poster Who Types Every Message Like This Despite The Fact That I Have Begged Her Not To. I haven't been brave enough to look at any of her messages to see how many "surnames" are linked. Another "not ready for prime time" feature/enhancement.... Dan On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 2:09 PM, singhals <[email protected]> wrote: > All right, but I don't see that it invalidates Ian's > original statement: this was possible to do 10, 15, even 20 > years ago. > > Whatever the mechanism and whatever it's matching against -- > it's been done before and shouldn't have produced these > results this time. > > Cheryl > Always willing to add ASSEMBLER, FORTRAN, COBOL, and > God-save-us-all Turtle Graphics into gone-but-not-forgotten. > > Mary D. Taffet wrote: > > > Cheryl, > > > > The actual programming mechanism itself is irrelevant (I use perl > > myself). What I was trying to get across is the knowledge on which the > > programming mechanisms operate, i.e. the interpretation/understanding of > > the underlying text. THAT is what is lacking/not performing well. > > > > Changing the programming mechanism (DOS, C++, Java, perl, lisp, python, > > etc.) has no bearing whatsoever on the underlying knowledge base. > > > > -- Mary > > > > > > singhals wrote: > > > >> As Ian said, this was easy enough to do in DOS, and since C++ and JAVA > >> et al are supposed to be even better, you'd think it'd be just as easy > >> with those. > >> > >> Clearly, though, not. > >> > >> Cheryl > >> > >> > >> Mary D. Taffet wrote: > >> > >>> Ian, > >>> > >>> Having spent years tuning linguistic rules for automatic tagging of > >>> names of people in documents, I can tell you from experience that it > >>> is far more useful to have a list of first names rather than a list > >>> of surnames. First names are one of the biggest clues which can be > >>> used to locate a surname. First names, occupations, relationships to > >>> other people and events (births, marriages, deaths, etc.) are the > >>> largest source of contextual clues available for automatically > >>> figuring out which words are surnames. > >>> > >>> People who do this for a living make lists of first names to enable > >>> this type of processing. While some may make lists of surnames, it > >>> is actually much less helpful. > >>> > >>> If you actually tried to perform such a task yourself, I think you > >>> would find it to be much more complex than you thought it would be > >>> originally. I spent over two years writing hundreds of regular > >>> expressions to capture all sorts of name patterns encountered in a > >>> single set of about 14,000 biographies. > >>> > >>> I haven't actually seen any of the linked posts yet, but I'll take a > >>> look as soon as I can. > >>> > >>> -- Mary D. Taffet > >>> Computational Linguist > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Ian Singer wrote: > >>> > >>>> Why can they not build a list of all the surname lists and then run > >>>> each message against that? I could do it under DOS so programmers > >>>> must be able to do it under whatever is being run there. > >>>> > >>>> Ian Singer > > > > > > > -- > There should be no attachments on this message, unless I > specifically mentioned them above. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

All right, but I don't see that it invalidates Ian's original statement: this was possible to do 10, 15, even 20 years ago. Whatever the mechanism and whatever it's matching against -- it's been done before and shouldn't have produced these results this time. Cheryl Always willing to add ASSEMBLER, FORTRAN, COBOL, and God-save-us-all Turtle Graphics into gone-but-not-forgotten. Mary D. Taffet wrote: > Cheryl, > > The actual programming mechanism itself is irrelevant (I use perl > myself). What I was trying to get across is the knowledge on which the > programming mechanisms operate, i.e. the interpretation/understanding of > the underlying text. THAT is what is lacking/not performing well. > > Changing the programming mechanism (DOS, C++, Java, perl, lisp, python, > etc.) has no bearing whatsoever on the underlying knowledge base. > > -- Mary > > > singhals wrote: > >> As Ian said, this was easy enough to do in DOS, and since C++ and JAVA >> et al are supposed to be even better, you'd think it'd be just as easy >> with those. >> >> Clearly, though, not. >> >> Cheryl >> >> >> Mary D. Taffet wrote: >> >>> Ian, >>> >>> Having spent years tuning linguistic rules for automatic tagging of >>> names of people in documents, I can tell you from experience that it >>> is far more useful to have a list of first names rather than a list >>> of surnames. First names are one of the biggest clues which can be >>> used to locate a surname. First names, occupations, relationships to >>> other people and events (births, marriages, deaths, etc.) are the >>> largest source of contextual clues available for automatically >>> figuring out which words are surnames. >>> >>> People who do this for a living make lists of first names to enable >>> this type of processing. While some may make lists of surnames, it >>> is actually much less helpful. >>> >>> If you actually tried to perform such a task yourself, I think you >>> would find it to be much more complex than you thought it would be >>> originally. I spent over two years writing hundreds of regular >>> expressions to capture all sorts of name patterns encountered in a >>> single set of about 14,000 biographies. >>> >>> I haven't actually seen any of the linked posts yet, but I'll take a >>> look as soon as I can. >>> >>> -- Mary D. Taffet >>> Computational Linguist >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Ian Singer wrote: >>> >>>> Why can they not build a list of all the surname lists and then run >>>> each message against that? I could do it under DOS so programmers >>>> must be able to do it under whatever is being run there. >>>> >>>> Ian Singer > > -- There should be no attachments on this message, unless I specifically mentioned them above.

Wendy, Several years ago, I'd see the "normal print but no line breaks" and reported it to the HelpDesk. They never found a thing wrong.... Dan On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Wendy Howard <[email protected]> wrote: > Joan, I just took a look at my one, firstly in "source mode" - and saw > the pile of junk that you have reported. When I opened the email in > Thunderbird normally, it appeared as it should though the text is quite > small. > > Before the recent fiasco where we didn't receive these emails at all, I > used to notice that the alerts would arrive in one of three formats - > this small print, larger ("normal") print, and normal print but no line > breaks. I haven't noticed that happening since we started getting the > emails again. > > I've taken a screen shot of the small and normal text posts, and posted > to the board with the picture, in case you're interested - see > http://boards.rootsweb.com/topics.rw.admin.badmin/5145/mb.ashx > > Wendy > > PS there was no attachment showing, either in Thunderbird or on the > Gmail web interface. > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* [email protected] > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* 03/01/2008 6:18:31 AM +1300 > *Subject:* [BAd] My Alerts -- this gets weirder and weirder > > > > I've been thinking about this since it appears I'm the only one this > > happened to and I have a question for the rest of you who received your > Alerts email > > normally... > > > > Did any of you have a message within the Alerts that, when you viewed > it, > > had an attachment with it? > > > > I'm actually starting to wonder if My Alerts attempted to send me an > > attachment (graphic) within the text alerts message. > > > > There is SOMETHING different that is setting mine apart and a graphic > > attachment seems ot make the most sense. The Base 64 encoding caused the > entire > > thing to come through garbled--but I'm wondering whether an attempt to > send a > > non-text image is responsible for it. > > > > Joan > > ---------- > > Mine came normally as usual, so it must NOT be an AOL issue. > > > > Sharon Dulcich > > > > > > > > > > **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. > > ( > http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ > > 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598) > > > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Lou, I've found this occasionally happens because the post count is off after cleaning a board because messages were moved or deleted. Let's say there were originally 317 messages, but you've moved/deleted 17. There is no longer a 7th page (for 301 to 317), but since the post count hasn't been updated, the system still thinks there is. It seems to clear up after the boards are re-indexed. Check back in a few days and the problem should be resolved. Dan On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 1:44 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I'm the admin. for the BUXTON surname board and I'm almost finished > cleaning > > it. When I finished this page: > > > > > http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.buxton/mb.ashx?o=150&to=254&dc=50&dir=forw > > ard > > > > the numbers at the bottom of the list of messages says there are still > 17 > > more messages > > and the "Next >>" link is showing up but when I click on it, the next > page > > is blank. > > > > When I try to refresh it, I get a blank white page. Would someone > else try > > clicking on > > "Next" link and tell me if the remaining 17 messages are showing up? > > -- > Take care, Kathie Harrison > NE-GEN-SOCIETIES List Admin > http://whispers.ancestralwhispers.com/ne-gen-societies/index.htm > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Wendy- Thanks for checking the source code (expanded headers)--I wonder if everyone would see all the junk coding if they checked the headers. I don't know why it came through within the message body for me but I don't think it should be there in the headers OR in the email--it's definitely broken. Joan --------- Joan, I just took a look at my one, firstly in "source mode" - and saw the pile of junk that you have reported. When I opened the email in Thunderbird normally, it appeared as it should though the text is quite small. **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

Sandi- Good to see you back--hope all is well with you now. Are you clicking links in the My Alerts emails to review new posts--is that where you are encountering the problem? There WAS a reported problem with the links not functioning and a few people have mentioned that the links still come through broken in their email program (because the extend over 2 lines and result in spaces and = showing up where the line break occurs). However, if any of the above is the source of your difficulties--try just going to the boards admin center and clicking on the My Alerts link and accessing the new posts (at the top) from there. I haven't seen any issues with accessing My Alerts directly on the board. Joan --------- Sandi wrote: I've been out of commission for a time and am trying to catch up. I have not been able to get the Alert messages correctly for the past couple of weeks. Either it takes me to a blank page, or to the page where you hunt for boards, or all is garbage. I likely have trashed all of these. When I get those, I have to stop and go to each and every post on the board and try to see if it's ok or not. Has been maddening. I hadn't reported it, trying to get back on my feet! Sandi **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

Hello, I'm the admin. for the BUXTON surname board and I'm almost finished cleaning it. When I finished this page: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.buxton/mb.ashx?o=150&to=254&dc=50&dir=forw ard the numbers at the bottom of the list of messages says there are still 17 more messages and the "Next >>" link is showing up but when I click on it, the next page is blank. When I try to refresh it, I get a blank white page. Would someone else try clicking on "Next" link and tell me if the remaining 17 messages are showing up? Thanks for your help, Lou **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

I'll try your suggestion the next time Joan; and thanks! Just one of those winter viruses that leave you too tired and blah to worry about boards and lists.! Sandi >

Dear Rootsweb Feedback, The new feature announced today, where "surnames" are linked to resources at Ancestry, is not an improvement as it stands at this moment. If anything, it is extremely annoying, and may put people off using the message boards. Too many non-surname words in posts are being picked up as surnames. Many surnames are not picked up at all. How about linking to surnames put in the surname field? This will have the advantage of avoiding picking up non-surname words AND encourage posters to complete the field, which many do not bother with presently, in my experience. Please take it off until it can be improved. At present it is torture. Kind Regards, Wendy Howard

Beth said "when cleaning up the surname area in message, I often copy particularly unusual surnames rather than retype them and possibly make a spelling error. That's going to be difficult to do now." I do the same, and am working on some at the moment. The good news is that those irritating new links are not visible when editing a post. The article says to send feedback to [email protected] I plan to do that, hope many of you reading this list will too, so that the message gets through that this is not an acceptable "improvement". Kind Regards, Wendy Howard -- Kaiwaka, Northland, New Zealand http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wendyh65/ <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Ewendyh65/>

Lou I tried it and it just stalls there and will not even got to the next page. I would report it to staff. On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 1:44 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > I'm the admin. for the BUXTON surname board and I'm almost finished cleaning > it. When I finished this page: > > http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.buxton/mb.ashx?o=150&to=254&dc=50&dir=forw > ard > > the numbers at the bottom of the list of messages says there are still 17 > more messages > and the "Next >>" link is showing up but when I click on it, the next page > is blank. > > When I try to refresh it, I get a blank white page. Would someone else try > clicking on > "Next" link and tell me if the remaining 17 messages are showing up? -- Take care, Kathie Harrison NE-GEN-SOCIETIES List Admin http://whispers.ancestralwhispers.com/ne-gen-societies/index.htm

Cheryl, The actual programming mechanism itself is irrelevant (I use perl myself). What I was trying to get across is the knowledge on which the programming mechanisms operate, i.e. the interpretation/understanding of the underlying text. THAT is what is lacking/not performing well. Changing the programming mechanism (DOS, C++, Java, perl, lisp, python, etc.) has no bearing whatsoever on the underlying knowledge base. -- Mary singhals wrote: > As Ian said, this was easy enough to do in DOS, and since > C++ and JAVA et al are supposed to be even better, you'd > think it'd be just as easy with those. > > Clearly, though, not. > > Cheryl > > > Mary D. Taffet wrote: > >> Ian, >> >> Having spent years tuning linguistic rules for automatic tagging of >> names of people in documents, I can tell you from experience that it is >> far more useful to have a list of first names rather than a list of >> surnames. First names are one of the biggest clues which can be used to >> locate a surname. First names, occupations, relationships to other >> people and events (births, marriages, deaths, etc.) are the largest >> source of contextual clues available for automatically figuring out >> which words are surnames. >> >> People who do this for a living make lists of first names to enable this >> type of processing. While some may make lists of surnames, it is >> actually much less helpful. >> >> If you actually tried to perform such a task yourself, I think you would >> find it to be much more complex than you thought it would be originally. >> I spent over two years writing hundreds of regular expressions to >> capture all sorts of name patterns encountered in a single set of about >> 14,000 biographies. >> >> I haven't actually seen any of the linked posts yet, but I'll take a >> look as soon as I can. >> >> -- Mary D. Taffet >> Computational Linguist >> >> >> >> >> Ian Singer wrote: >> >>> Why can they not build a list of all the surname lists and then run each >>> message against that? I could do it under DOS so programmers must be >>> able to do it under whatever is being run there. >>> >>> Ian Singer

In a message dated 2/29/2008 12:19:38 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Did any of you have a message within the Alerts that, when you viewed it, had an attachment with it? ------------------- Joan, I use AOL and mine didn't have any attachment. I use the email within the software -- not the web mail. Don't know if that makes a difference? Lou **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

In a message dated 2/29/2008 11:30:18 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: It appears that this new "feature" (when the hypertext surname is clicked on) takes one to a page where, among other facts about the surname, there is an advertisement for surname books, published by Ancestry.com, and being sold through Amazon.com, is found. ------------------- So it looks like this new improvement is actually a marketing ploy??? HOW TACKY!! JMHO, Lou **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

As Ian said, this was easy enough to do in DOS, and since C++ and JAVA et al are supposed to be even better, you'd think it'd be just as easy with those. Clearly, though, not. Cheryl Mary D. Taffet wrote: > Ian, > > Having spent years tuning linguistic rules for automatic tagging of > names of people in documents, I can tell you from experience that it is > far more useful to have a list of first names rather than a list of > surnames. First names are one of the biggest clues which can be used to > locate a surname. First names, occupations, relationships to other > people and events (births, marriages, deaths, etc.) are the largest > source of contextual clues available for automatically figuring out > which words are surnames. > > People who do this for a living make lists of first names to enable this > type of processing. While some may make lists of surnames, it is > actually much less helpful. > > If you actually tried to perform such a task yourself, I think you would > find it to be much more complex than you thought it would be originally. > I spent over two years writing hundreds of regular expressions to > capture all sorts of name patterns encountered in a single set of about > 14,000 biographies. > > I haven't actually seen any of the linked posts yet, but I'll take a > look as soon as I can. > > -- Mary D. Taffet > Computational Linguist > > > > > Ian Singer wrote: > >>Why can they not build a list of all the surname lists and then run each >>message against that? I could do it under DOS so programmers must be >>able to do it under whatever is being run there. >> >>Ian Singer >> -- There should be no attachments on this message, unless I specifically mentioned them above.

I've been out of commission for a time and am trying to catch up. I have not been able to get the Alert messages correctly for the past couple of weeks. Either it takes me to a blank page, or to the page where you hunt for boards, or all is garbage. I likely have trashed all of these. When I get those, I have to stop and go to each and every post on the board and try to see if it's ok or not. Has been maddening. I hadn't reported it, trying to get back on my feet! Sandi >

No, all mine were just plain transcriptions. That could be the problem for you, though. Cheryl [email protected] wrote: > I've been thinking about this since it appears I'm the only one this > happened to and I have a question for the rest of you who received your Alerts email > normally... > > Did any of you have a message within the Alerts that, when you viewed it, > had an attachment with it? > > I'm actually starting to wonder if My Alerts attempted to send me an > attachment (graphic) within the text alerts message. > > There is SOMETHING different that is setting mine apart and a graphic > attachment seems ot make the most sense. The Base 64 encoding caused the entire > thing to come through garbled--but I'm wondering whether an attempt to send a > non-text image is responsible for it. > > Joan > ---------- > Mine came normally as usual, so it must NOT be an AOL issue. > > Sharon Dulcich > -- There should be no attachments on this message, unless I specifically mentioned them above.

I've been thinking about this since it appears I'm the only one this happened to and I have a question for the rest of you who received your Alerts email normally... Did any of you have a message within the Alerts that, when you viewed it, had an attachment with it? I'm actually starting to wonder if My Alerts attempted to send me an attachment (graphic) within the text alerts message. There is SOMETHING different that is setting mine apart and a graphic attachment seems ot make the most sense. The Base 64 encoding caused the entire thing to come through garbled--but I'm wondering whether an attempt to send a non-text image is responsible for it. Joan ---------- Mine came normally as usual, so it must NOT be an AOL issue. Sharon Dulcich **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

[email protected] wrote: > Because of the need to send text messages only, the links aren't going > to show up in this message, so you'll need to go to the actual URL to > check it out. I primarily use Netscape (v. 7.2) and the words interpreted as surnames are NOT underlined in the message body. The pop-up balloon still appears when I pass the cursor over the word, though. I would never have known there was a reason to pass my cursor over any of the message content if I hadn't seen the announcement both in the Newsroom and on this list. I suppose there will be other folks who use Netscape who also won't see the "surnames" underlined. And if they didn't see the announcement, they'll have no idea it even exists. Using IE, the words interpreted as surnames are indeed underlined. Obviously, these two browsers work differently in conjunction with the new feature of the message boards. Sadly, though, it seems that almost every word found in the dictionary, with the exception of pronouns, who's first letter is in upper case is interpreted as a surname. :-/ BTW, did anyone else notice the difference between the balloon you see when passing over "surnames" in user mode and the box you see when viewing the same message in admin mode? -Marie

Mine came normally as usual, so it must NOT be an AOL issue. Sharon Dulcich ------------------------------ In a message dated 2/29/2008 6:50:54 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Mine came normally as always so it must be an AOL issue. Rick B **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)