Jan 19-24 1999

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 19:36:27 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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The USGenWeb ALL list, v2.0

The few, the proud, the BANNED FROM ROOTSWEB...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* put on your safety glasses, there's lots of editorial content

today. Read at your own risk!

We'll be catching up the last few days, since I was away:

Wednesday 13 January 1999:

There was no Board-L traffic on this date.

Thursday 14 January 1999:

There was no Board-L traffic on this date.

Friday 15 January 1999:

There was no Board-L Traffic on this date.

Saturday 16 January 1999:

There was no Board-L traffic on this date.

Sunday 17 January 1999:

Kay Mason posts to Board-L that the special election will begin on this

date. She notes that all members will receive a ballot for NC, and

members of the regions that are voting will receive appropriate ballots

for those regions. Also, one state is voting for a state coordinator and

the CCs will receive a ballot for that. She instructs members on what

to do if they don't receive ballots and thanks RW staffer Tim Pierce for

taking over when the former election volunteer quit abruptly.

Old News, Get It While Its Lukewarm Corner: The election is starting two

days late because of a tragic hard drive crash [hey, these things happen,

but why was there no backup?] followed by the abrupt resignation of the

volunteer [hey, these things happen too. Why does this project

rely on nonmembers to conduct our business?] The election has begun but

is not running entirely smoothly; there is a problem in one set of

ballot which need to be resent. The election runs until Jan 30; vote

early and vote often!

Current Events Corner: Today after realizing that I cannot post to ANY

Rootsweb list, I contacted numerous people about it, all of whom professed

to know nothing of it. Finally, after concerns started showing up on the

lists (-ALL among them) Brian Leverich posted a little note informing me

that myself and three others have been banned from using any of Rootsweb's

resources. He also threatens any others who help us by posting messages

with "whatever action seems appropriate". So there you have it.

They've threatened us, attacked us, attacked our friends, belittled

us, tried to kill the lists we post to, and pressured our SCs to

fire us. Support the Rootsweb Four!

Truth-Challenged or Just Confused, You be the Judge Corner: On 24 Sep

1998, Brian Leverich posted this: [begin fair use abstract] "RootsWeb

hasn't and won't ever unsubscribe someone from an official list because

they misbehaved, unlike some states with lists hosted elsewhere have

done." [end fair use abstract][incidentally he posted this about three

weeks before he banned me the first time.]

On 19 Jan 1999, he posted this: [begin fair use extract] "This is not the

start of some great witchhunt by RootsWeb. In the last three years, we

have suspended the privileges of only a handful of individuals. We don't

expect that to change in the future." [end fair use extract]

So which is it: we haven't and never will, or we will but only those

people we don't like? You Be The Judge!

"Inspector Dim, you are too clever for us naughty people".

---Monty Python

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

Proud Member of the RootsWeb Four!

-----------------------

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From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 20 14:19:09 1999

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 14:19:06 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Down but not out...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* as usual, contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!

Monday 18 January 1999:

One of the Board members posts a message forwarded from a SC regarding the

death of Bacon county, GA County Coordinator Michael Dean Bennett. [The

Daily Board Show joins with the rest of the USGenWeb Project in extending

our condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Bennett, and to the

Georgia CCs for the loss of their colleague and friend.]

"When they came for the trade unionists, I was not a trade unionist so I

said nothing. When they came for the communists, I was not a communist so

I said nothing. When they came for the Jews, I was not a Jew so I said

nothing. Then, when they came for me, there was no one left to say

anything."

---Pastor Martin Niemoeller

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

Banned for the second time by Rootsweb! Read all about it at

http://www.radix.net/~merope

Subscribe to the USGW_ALL list at http://usgw_all.listbot.com

--------------------

From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jan 21 17:08:24 1999

Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 17:08:22 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Been there, done that...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* wear your biohazard suit, this contains editorial content. Read

at your own risk!

Tuesday 19 January 1999:

Two formal protests are received by the Board regarding the banning of

The Rootsweb Four by Brian Leverich. One is from one of The Four and the

other is from a concerned project member. The only reply to the protests

is from Karen Isaacson [not a Board member] to say that their 'colleague'

CAN vote since when the RW staffer who is running the election "took

action against the four addresses, he made an explicit exception to the

filter so that they CAN vote". [how nice to have the explicit permission

of RW to vote in the USGW election]

Keep Your Nose Clean Corner: Over on the State Coordinator's list, the

SCs are falling all over themselves to justify Brian "The Enforcer"

Leverich's actions in banning four USGW volunteers from using the USGW

resources held on his servers. The best line of argument runs like this:

"If USGW had a mechanism in place to control unruly members Rootsweb might

not feel compelled to take such actions." Or perhaps another expressed it

more eloquently: "If we, as an organization, better-addressed the problems

presented by troublemakers like Teresa, Carol, et al, we wouldn't be

putting Brian in this type of a situation in the first place". But Brian

"Honorary SC" Leverich said it best: "If USGW was capable of better

translating its own members' desires into action, RootsWeb would be

extremely pleased to stay focussed on what we need to be doing: tending

and expanding the servers and tools available to the USGW participants who

wish to use them." [after affirmatively agreeing to the above post]. This

author fails to understand why a man who is, as he reminds us frequently,

very very busy with very very important things and who is apparently quite

sickly as a consequence of his heavy workload, bothers to read a littl old

mail list like -ALL or cares what is posted there. Furthermore, no one

but himself got him into "this type of situation". No CC, SC or Board

member has publicly asked him to take this burden from them, and if

they've been asking privately that would be very interesting indeed.

Incidentally Brian claims to have conducted some sort of poll to determine

that "an overwhelming majority of USGW participants" wanted action to be

taken to fix the lists. Anyone take part in that?

To give the SCs credit, several have posted eloquent defenses of The

Rootsweb Four. And one Sc posted what has to be my favorite analogy of

all time; the project is likened unto a "bunch of parasites living on a

swallow tail butterfly caterpillar, they sort of go along wherever the

caterpillar happens to crawl." Bless you, whoever you are!

Pontius Pilate Wannabes Corner: The Board, doing what it does best, has

officially washed its hands of The Rootsweb Four, banned for the

following:

Carol said: a. RW is at least a day late and a Dollar short

b. The CC's are being treated like mushrooms, covered in dung and

kept in the dark

Susan said: a. oops

b. I agree

Pam said: a. I have a string around my finger but can't remember what it

is for.

Teresa said: Absolutely nothing. Her power was out and she was off line.

In a post dated January 21 1999, the Board claims no prior knowledge of

the banning, says its not their business, no action will be taken on their

part on behalf of their constituents, and Rootsweb says we can vote, so

all is well. [and then they rolled over and Brian scratched their tummies

and gave them a Snausage.]

"I plan to take over the world!"

---Brain, Pinky and The Brain

This has been your Daily Board Show, just another parasite on a worm's

behind...

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-----------

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jan 22 18:45:27 1999

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 18:45:26 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* full of piss and vinegar, and editorial content. Read at your

own risk!

Wednesday 20 January 1999:

The board posts its "Statement Regarding Recent Protest". [yummy

Snausages!] One enthusiastic Board member offers to post it to all four

regionals, if no one else is doing it.

Like Rats From a Sinking Ship Corner: At least one state has left RW and

moved its pages and mail lists to another server. Unfortunately, that

state is not accessible from the National page, even though they have

acknowledged the move.

The Election Blues Corner: Problems with this year's elections have

ranged from the ridiculous [misspelled candidate's name] to the annoying

[incorrect positions listed on ballots] to the truly sublime [an entire

state not receiving its ballots and one state that apparently wasn't even

informed there _was_ an election]. Next we will hear that nonproject

members have been voting. But not to worry, by the next election these

problems will be solved. Over on the State Coordinator list, the current

Election Committee Chair is swearing she will never run another election

again.

Oh, and incidentally, I voted, using two brand spanking new ballots

delivered to my PC by a cheery scrub-faced RW employee, for the seventh

time about this time last night. Have I received confirmation yet? What

do you think?

Pot, Kettle, Black Corner: The USGW Advisory Board, angling for more

Snausages, has proposed some sort of Ethics and Standards Committee to

control the behavior of its members. They have apparently come back into

session as of today to propose this major change to USGW policy, and are

going to vote on it and push it through prior to the election [because,

you know, people that don't think like they do might get elected], even

though the Board is short two members and some project participants are

not being fully represented. Such a major change in the requirements for

participation in the project should obviously go before the entire project

membership for a vote [mustn't have that, could backfire], but apparently

a small group (n=12) of people will be sitting in judgement of us all.

[One of the first orders of business for the new Standards and Ethics

Committee will be to get rid of those "Free the Rootsweb Four!" buttons

that have been showig up on webpages all over the place. If you want one,

contact me. Get -em while they're still legal!]

In other news...Brian Leverich has been shopping his version of reality

over on other lists. I hear that his story has gone from "an overwhelming

majority of USGW participants" begging for something be done, to "at

least 80% of the _informed_ Project participants" [emphasis added]

participated in his nose count. We've now gone from several thousand

people clamoring for relief, to a handful. And still, I can find no

evidence that anyone affiliated with the USGW Project publically requested

that the sysadmin step in and Deal With It. [Eventually he'll get down to

"I called Linda and Ellen and Barbara and they asked me to."]

Sepia-toned Nostalia Corner: Sometimes, when the going gets rough, you

just have to look back to simpler, happier times. Thus, a new feature of

the DBS, a look back at some of our regular posters in bygone

times...feel free to contribute any of your own special memories!

Our first is dedicated, of course, to our own Dr. Brian Leverich, because

there are just so many _good_ quotes to choose from. Here's some of the

DBS staff's favorites:

Then (24 sept 1998): "RootsWeb hasn't and won't ever unsubscribe someone

from an official list because they misbehaved, unlike some states with

lists hosted elsewhere have done."

Now (19 January 1999): "Consequently, we have temporarily suspended the

privileges of the following four users:

Suzan Cook

Pam Cresswell

Carol Dean

Teresa Lindquist"

Then (11 Oct 1998): "On the other hand, RootsWeb would like to avoid even

the appearance of influencing the internal affairs of USGenWeb, even when

the issue at hand is irresponsible personal behavior rather than USGenWeb

policy. Consequently, after reflection and discussions it appears

that the best policy would be for RootsWeb to tolerate virtually any

behavior on USGenWeb lists..."

Now (20 Jan 1999): "If USGW was capable of better translating its own

members' desires into action, RootsWeb would be extremely pleased to stay

focussed on what we need to be doing..."

[and whadaya know, two days later, the Board proposed its Standards and

Ethics Committee...]

This has been your Daily Board Show. Snausages for everyone!

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jan 23 19:26:25 1999

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 19:26:23 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* explosives in use, contains editorial content. Read at your

own risk!

Thursday 21 January 1999:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date

Tomorrow's news today: The Board comes back into session, proposes its

'Standard and Ethics' Committee, and starts more state list activity than

I've seen in a long time. [They should have stayed with their original

idea of not coming back into session until after the election. Seems they

thought the project was in too fragile a state to risk having a Board

meeting. But ramming through a kangaroo court for 'ethics' is more

important.]

Rats and Sinking Ships Corner: Rumor has it that another state is pulling

its pages and counties off of Rootsweb. It might be one of the more

southerly states <*wink*>.

A Very Liberal 80% Corner: John Schunk and Don Tharp have announced the

results of their very informal poll of the project membership for the

banning of the Rootsweb Four. 21 respondents supported the banning, 18

opposed it, and one had no opinion. So, basically we have 1) only 40

(31%) people out of the 130 or so that belong to the -ALL list even had an

opinion; 2) nowhere near Brian's stated 80% of "informed project

particpants" [and who would be more informed than -ALL readers?] support

the banning.

Incidentally, three of the RW Four didn't vote (I didn't think I could),

so if its not too late, you can add one [and probably three] votes to the

oppose column. Free the Rootsweb Four!

Its Like A Miracle Corner: My vote confirmations came back finally. The

really interesting thing is that the new ballots are space for space

identical to the old ones. So why'd they go through this time and not

before? It must be Magic!

Ethical Is As Ethical Does Corner: So lets discuss ethics. We have a USGW

Board member discussing culling member information from RW mailing lists

(including USGW lists) to lure advertisers to place the banner ads that

Brian "Send Me Money" Leverich says aren't going to be forced on the free

pages, but which are going to go on the top and may be either flashing or

static. We have the USGW Advisory "Kangaroo" Board suddenly coming back

into session one week before elections that may replace one third of them

in order to ram through a 'Standard and Ethics' policy that will

drastically alter the requirements for the CCs [including requiring them

to verify the accuracy of every piece of data submitted to them; wonder if

this requirement will include the Archives?] without putting this to a

vote of the entire project membership. We have Board members piously

voting for open meeting archives and then moving their entire meeting to a

secret unarchived list where among other things they discussed 'divorcing

their constituents', how to kill the CCs' mail list without appearing to

do so, what a horrible person the first elected NC was to work with,

how their 'true intent' was always to close the meetings back up, and

how to appoint a replacement CC of their choosing when the CCs in the

region wanted someone else, among many other things. Yes, these are most

certainly the people I want to decide the ethical standards for several

thousand of their peers.

This author has yet to see one post fully in favor of the "Standards and

Ethics" policy they have proposed. Even if the Board is receiving scads

of private replies and ALL of them postive, there have been enough

concerns raised on -ALL and on the state lists to warrant giving the

entire project a vote on this one. After all, if Brian's 80% are out

there, certainly the proposed policy would win.

Nostalia Corner: Back when Betsy Mills would speak to me, we had some

enjoyable convesations on IRC. In one of them she said this:

28 Nov 1998: <Betsy> WE ARE NOT MEETING IN SECRET~!!!!

[BOARD-EXEC opened for business 28 November 1998. Of course, prior to

that the Board met secretly on Campaign98]

"We do what we're told, told to do."

---Peter Gabriel, "Milgram's 37"

This has been your Daily Board Show. Free the Rootsweb Four!

-Teresa Lindquist

mero@radix.net

--------------------

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jan 24 13:17:58 1999

Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 13:17:57 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Not a moment too soon...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* this is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill. this contains

editorial content. Read at your own risk!

Friday 22 January 1999

The meeting of the Advisory Board is called to order by Current Acting

Interim National Coordinator Beth Wills. [11:38] One member notes she is

present. [19:20]

A member moves that a Standard and Ethics Policy be drafted and put into

the USGW policy [12:21]

The motion is seconded [9:17] [prob PST]

The motion is seconded a second time [12:22]

CAINC Beth Wills post a notice that the motion [which is not yet numbered]

is made and seconded and posts the Standard 'N Ethics statement posted to

-ALL two days ago and posted to the web page to give the required 48 hours

notice to the project. The call for votes will be after 1:30pm EST [13:40]

CAINC Beth Wills also posts another notice indicating that the Board will

receive input from the project membership on the proposed Standards 'N

Ethics policy for 48 hours as per the bylaws and will vote Sunday

afternoon. [14:06]

[Well, THAT was certainly quick! Two whole hours to reconvene, propose a

motion, second twice, WRITE THE POLICY, and open it for discussion. And

all without any discussion. None whatsoever. How very....efficient. But

it would be nice if they'd have taken the time to put some thought into

it.]

[Curiously enough, I'm receiving reports that several states either did

not receive notice of this policy change from their SCs, or that when CCs

forwarded it to the state lists, they were chastised for it by their SCs.

Certainly all SCs would want their CCs to have an opportunity to discuss

this extensive change in the membership requirements? Wouldn't they?]

Which Way is Up Corner? An error in yesterday's DBS indicated that a

"southern state" would be shortly transferring its pages and mail lists

off of Root$web in response to the banning of the Rootsweb Four, and

placing them elsewhere. That state would be Alaska and as we know its

actually one of the more northern states. My map was upside down <g>.

Its new url is www.USGenNet.org/~usgwakus.

Good Old Days Corner: Today's quote comes from our own Barbara Yancey

Dore (aka Rootslady). Man, she is a pistol! Just search the archives...

whew!

29 July 1998: "As long as ALL rules do not apply to EVERYBODY and are not

applied to each and every poster or message, I feel no obligation to

comply either. I'm just stating my opinion!!" [Amen, sister!]

"Cynic (n.) - a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are,

not as they ought to be."

---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merpe@radix.net

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