Lack of New Project Authorizations

[Canyon Wolf]

I am an existing group administrator. I have been waiting more than 8 weeks for two FF projects to get authorization. I understand many others have been waiting more than 6 months. Some claim you just have to know the right people to get instant authorization. That is just NOT RIGHT!

Now I learn through the forum that no new projects will be authorized until after the new MyGroups goes live. This project is still in "Alfa" testing! It sounds like we will be waiting many more months for our projects and then a lot of brand new administrators will be saddled with yet another "improvement" which doesn't work well or provides little benefit (ie trees, surnames). I don't believe the current administrator tools have much to offer FF projects, but it is better than offering nothing at all.

I have been recruiting and paying for tests for these projects but still have no place for my testers to go. There are others who have already tested and would like to join - but there is nothing to join. I have spent more than $1000 in the past two months and that should be worth something to this company. They don't seem to care about keeping existing customers happy despite the fact we are probably bringing them lots of new customers. Many of those new customers would probably not test on their own! We are their best sales men and women.

I for one am not purchasing any additional kits until I have projects for them. That's right FTDNA, no more of my money despite the fact I have another 5 people recruited. It is bad business for me to advertise something I can not produce (a project) and I am losing credibility with my recruits because of it.

It is REALLY BAD BUSINESS for FTDNA to ignore it's existing customers and administrators.

[suttonwho]

Canyonwolf (and FTDNA!) I am in a similar situation. I'm the driving force behind recruiting family members to test and have also gotten totally unrelated people people to test and transfer based on the back of my enthusiasm. For the most part, these people don't 'work' their matches and would have no idea how to begin to do so. I admin for the uninvolved.

The ones who would like to be more involved (when first/2nd cousins and aunts begin testing- probably on the heels of the Christmas sales) are going to be asking me a lot of questions and it is going to be a huge hassle making heads or tails of what is going on with their matches and their questions. I am relying on getting us all into a project so I can see some of their info and help them. I've applied for a project but the request dissipated into the ether.

FTDNA's database isn't huge, but it seems to me there are about 10 of us that have recruited everyone else to test I for one need a tool to let me help my recruits, and the easiest method is that project I applied for.

[ljc]

Mea culpa

My deepest apologies for the delays in approving new projects.

My goal was to vet new applications to be able to provide support to those who have little or no experience with genetic genealogy. Regrettably, my goal created a bottleneck, and for that I apologize. No excuses - this task should have been handled much better. I strive to provide a high level of customer service, and I care a great deal about keeping existing customers happy, but in this area I failed.

At the time the post about approvals being postponed was made, we didn't think we were going to be able to create new groups until after until after myGroups launches. Fortunately, that's not the case and I've begun working on getting the applications evaluated and either approved or contacted if they're denied.

Again, my apologies. I will make sure this situation is rectified as quickly as possible.

eta signature

Janine Cloud
Group Project Manager/Liasion
Family Tree DNA