Monday, June 01, 2009

Problem with BBC "People's War" search facility

Anyone who has accessed the BBC "People's War" website over recent months will have noticed the 'search facility' function is disabled. This is what it says on the front page of the website:

"The 'search' facility on People's War is currently not working. We aim to rectify this problem in the near future. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."

This can make it very difficult for users to find a particular story, event or person. This is especially so for those stories that were assigned to an incorrect category or region by the BBC website team towards the end of the project by applying Bayes' Theorem. For example some stories I posted which were about wartime life in Preston, Lancashire were categorised under London rather than Lancashire.

It is not easy trying to find who to contact in the BBC to see if this is likely to be resolved! So, I have recently sent a message via the 'technical fault' page of the BBC website. Hopefully, it will be resolved in the near future.

4 Comments:

Blogger Ron Goldstein said...

Joe

With regard to your protest, join the club :)
http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/veteran-accounts/18491-shame-bbc.html
Regards
Ron

Friday, 05 June, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I gave you an article about two books of the IIWW. If you want to read it:

http://literaturadart.blogspot.com/2009/06/algunas-notas-sobre-literatura-belica.html

Admin of Literatura del MaƱana's blog

Monday, 08 June, 2009  
Blogger ritsonvaljos said...

Hello Ron (and others)

I have received a reply regarding this problem. While it does not say exactly what the cause is, it has something to do with the 'infrastructure'. It should be fixed by late July or early August 2009 (hopefully).

Here is the reply:

Dear Mr Ritson,

I can only apologise for the continued delay in fixing the People's War search facility. Unfortunately it doesn't use the same bespoke software as the Your Photos archive, but instead relies on the pan-BBC search facility. There is currently a large volume of infrastructure work taking place behind the scenes on the BBC website, and the fix to People's War search has been prioritised to take place once this is complete. I appreciate that this is particularly frustrating for contributors like yourself, and for those seeking to research the archive, particularly during heightened periods of interest like the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings. We are scheduled to have a fix sometime between late July and early August, although needless to say I will keep pushing to get it rectified sooner than that if possible.

With best regards,

Richard Cable

Editor, bbc.co.uk/history

Monday, 15 June, 2009  
Blogger ritsonvaljos said...

The fault with the search function on the "BBC People's War" website has been rectified (August 2009). It now seems to be working satisfactorily.

ritsonvaljos

Tuesday, 25 August, 2009  

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