Jan 24-31 2000

From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jan 24 11:59:43 2000

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 11:59:42 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Vaudeville in a dark house...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Sunday 23 January 2000:

Joe Zsedeny says "When we get a historian in place it will be the

responsibility of all the Board members to ensure the appointed individual

provides an unbiased version of our history." He feels that it is the

Board's important duty to select an unbiased person and that there must be

several individuals in the project with the training and experience to do

the job. He notes "the people in the best position to know that is our

State Coordinators. I am sure that Tim will ask them when the time comes."

Ginger Hayes asks Rich if he has any specific things the Board should

implement and notes that historians' duties commonly consist of recording

events as they occur, but "Since the historian we appoint will also

be charged with going back to the project's inception and bringing the

history up to date some general guidelines would be in order."

Joy Fisher states that since there have been many "flame wars" among

old-timers over their "selective memory" of project history, "the

historian should be someone who can to resolve these varying views and in

a fair and impartial manner."

Jim Powell points out that "History is one of those plastic things that

moves towards the ideas and values of those in power. History is also a

divisive issue." He notes that even those that were there do not view

project history identically, so how can anyone possibly divine the true

version. He also says, "Is this history documented anywhere by anything other

than privately held emails? Is there anything to base this history on

that stands up to your standards on what you would base your genealogy

on?"

Tim Stowell says that he was hoping that in addition to a Historian for

the project at-large the states organizations could be persuaded to send

in their individual histories. He says "this would give credit to the

various folks who have been State Coordinators for each state along with

the approximate times that they headed specific projects. Some of these

folk are no longer with us be it through death or moving on to other

avenues of interest." [Oh good, Tim. You going to tell us how you became

SC of Georgia?]

Tina Vickery reminds the Board that they are all genealogists and to work

backward from the present. She says "It is very important that the

historian present names, dates, places and events with citation of sources

and documentation of any supposition."

Shari Handley says that she sees the need for a history of the project,

but it doesn't need "to include every sordid detail on all the infighting

and on every political battle that has taken place in our stormy past (and

present)". She points out that if the history will be primarily for

visitors to USGW, "we'd want to put our best foot forward, would we

not?...a basic history, touching on the highlights and accomplishments of

the USGW, and the people who have made it great, would be the face we want

to show the world, right?" [Let the whitewash begin.] Shari recommends

that the successful candidate for historian "should be optimally be

someone who has been there from the beginning (or nearly so), and who has

no political axe to grind." While she feels that a truly neutral

historian is probably impossible to expect, "However, tact and the

ability to present an even-handed portrayal of the history of the USGW

would be essential."

Monday 24 January 2000:

Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman says that she once did a timeline with only

facts included. She says it took her hours and it includes a lot of

information but she chose just to do a timeline "as that cannot be

contested. Facts and dates are just that - totally impartial." [Not

true, Maggie May. What facts and dates one chooses to include is often

highly subjective.]

Joe Zsedney says that his only experience with historians is with military

historians and he describes how historians exist at several levels within

the USAF who pass historical information up the chain. He thinks it would

be ideal if someone existed in each state to pass info up to the Board's

historian. He also notes "Who started the Project, when, where, why, Who

comes, who goes, significant events and dates of events are historical.

The internal squabbling is not." [Whitewash.] Joe recommends that if the

motion passes, that the Board search "carefully from among the wealth of

talent in the Project for someone with experience as historian either in

business or government. If we select well the job of the AB in ensuring

unbiased and accurate recording of our history will be minimal." [Yes,

hire someone who agrees with you from the start and the requirement to

censor what they write will indeed be minimal.]

Joy Fisher asks if there is any wording in the motion regarding the term

length of the position and suggests that if not, the motion be amended to

include the provision that appointments be made based on teh election

year, with the first appointee serving until Aug 31 2000. She also

proposes "that an Historian can be removed by a simple majority of the

Board." [thus making the position just one more Board-run popularity

contest. Come on, guys, be brave.]

Your History Is My Fiction Corner: A couple of Board members have

expressed to me privately their concerns over the issue of a Court

Historian. They correctly point out that history is written by the

winners, so to speak, and that it will probably be an exercise in futility

to come up with an "official project history" that not only satisfies a

large number of project members but also adequately covers the rich

history of the project without embarassing it. Facts and dates are not

totally impartial and can be manipulated in such a way as to highlight

some events at the expense of others, or to "disappear" other events

entirely.

For instance, Board members are already discussing the idea that some

business in which the Board has engaged does not constitute "history".

Can anyone guess which of its activities the Board would prefer not to

find in an official history? And although some members of the Board claim

that the Board has no right to tell any project member where they can keep

their stuff; do you suppose any "official history" will contain

information on the time the Board did just that and removed an entire

Special Project because of the server it was on? Do you suppose the

"official history" will give any information on why one Board member a

month resigned during the last term, or why we've had seven NCs in three

years? Or why we don't mention Jeff Murphy on any official webpages [and

don't forget, this discussion started because he requested that oversight

be rectified]? Or what happened to Bill Couch or Jeff Weaver and why we

don't do lookups anymore? Or any insight into "the Project has two Census

Projects" issue? Will it contain stuff from the secret list or the IRC

chats? [History, as someone once said, is made at night.]

The Board members' painfully obvious stressing of finding someone

"unbiased" for the job is just downright hilarious. Anyone who has been

in this project for three years and who has no opinions on the convuluted

machinations of its history probably isn't going to be too interested in

getting involved in such a highly charged topic now. And having been here

since the beginning is no indicator that one knows the history of the

project [witness one longtime project member's ignorance of the Black

Helicopter Society]. All efforts to find someone out there who knows

the history, wants to do the job, and is ideologically pure are

essentially meaningless, since anything he or she writes will have to be

passed through the Board for approval. Frankly, the assertions made by

some Board members that people on this Board could not possibly be

"opinionated" are ludicrous. On their secret list, people that raise

uncomfortable issues with them get called "destroyers", and accused of

spreading "garbage" on mailing lists, and of using the Board to stir up

trouble. That some of them apparently think that this qualifies as

"unbiased" or "unopinionated" does not impart confidence in their ability

to select a truly neutral historian. Even if they do by some miracle find

a neutral, knowledgeable, and capable project member willing to serve as

an historian, how long do you think that person will survive the

popularity contest the Board is apparently going to make of the position?

Any historian this Board picks had damn well better put up the history

this Board wants to see or their tenure will be very short indeed.

Sucker Punch Corner: We hear through the voices in our heads that some

Board members are characterizing the ongoing discussion of the Archives'

"friendly arrangement" with RW as a "flame war". They seem to be under

the impression that some participants in the discussion are trying to lure

the Board into openly supporting Root$web, to fan the flames of the

argument. We hear that Board members are being urged to stop responding

to the discussion and more or less ignore the constituents. [Question for

the Board: What exactly is a "beloneous argument"?]

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the

comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."

---Adolf Hitler

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-----------

From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jan 25 12:14:58 2000

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 12:14:57 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Fooling some of the people ALL of the time...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Tuesday 25 January 2000:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date, thus far.

Rules Are Made To Be Broken Corner: Archives representative Joe

Zsedeny has apparently revised the Archives guidelines. In a message to a

CC, he states "Every file manager in the Archives could, if they wished,

take the files they manage and put them on any server, anywhere,

unilaterally." This may come as a surprise to former KS Archives file

manager Ken Thomas who was fired in August 1998 "because he violated the

Archives guidelines, specifically not uploading files to the Archives, but

receiving them and uploading them elsewhere, in particular, Blue Skyway.

[sic]" [Linda Lewis, 1 Nov 1998]. According to voluminous correspondence

with Linda at the time, files that are not on RW are not in the Archives.

Linda's agreement with Brian precludes any sort of mirror of the Archives

on another server, so Joe's apparent free-form interpretation of the

guidelines could be construed as a violation of that contract. Joe also

seems a little free with contributor's files; since they were presumably

donated to the "USGW Archives Project" and that Project can exist only on

RW "and no other server", taking them and putting them "on any server,

anywhere, unilaterally" could constitute inappropriate taking of those

files.

This, incidentally, is not the first time an Archives member has revised

the guidelines on the fly. Last year, during a discussion of the

difficulty in removing submitted files from the Archives, Joy Fisher [who

is the Asst. Coordinator of the Archives] stated "Aw c'mon now...we have

removed data at the request of submitters. I have removed files, Linda

Lewis has removed files, maybe even you have removed files. I don't know

why we even have it in the guidelines" [30 Sep 1998]. What we are all

curious to know is why, if archivists can apparently remove files from

the archives with ease despite the guidelines that say submission is

forever, they don't just say "OK" when someone asks them to remove a

file? Why make it so difficult and why act like submitters have no right

to request such a thing?

Mirror, Mirror Corner: Ron Eason, Coordinator of Census II, reports on

CC-L today that there is a complete mirror of Census II at this address on

Root$web: <ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/hold/> Census II neither

requested this mirror nor knew of its existence until yesterday. The

directory apparently was created on Dec 27, 1999, which was right around

the time the merger talks between the two census projects were collapsing.

Now why do you suppose RW felt the need to mirror Census II's entire

directory structure [and all the files in it] in some buried directory

called "hold"?

Free Speech Corner: We hear some of the Board members are blowing gaskets

over CCs who accidentally forward messages to BOARD-L. Ye gods, a lowly

CC actually sending a message to BOARD-L! What will they think of next?

"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of

dogs."

---Aldous Huxley

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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

From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 26 18:22:06 2000

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:22:04 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

cc: jzsed@slic.com

Subject: News Flash!

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DBS News Flash:

Jackbooted Thugs Corner: Board member Joe Zsedeny [who represents the

Archives] has recently posted a message to BOARD-L in which he vaguely

threatens civil and criminal action against his fellow project volunteers.

Joe, as we recall, was recently embarrassed by inaccurate comments he made

about Archives policy, and rather than clarify his statements, he instead

posted a message about copyright to Board-L. For your pleasure, a

redacted copy of that message follows:

============

Joe tells us he's been researching copyright law and how it pertains to

email. He's shared his findings with his colleagues on their secret list

[BOARD-EXEC] but will also share with his fellow volunteers "in order

that they not unwittingly violate the copyright laws."

He cites a resource that indicates that email is protected under copyright

law <http://www.benedict.com/basic/basic/scope.htm> [interestingly enough,

this site belongs to someone who does not appear to be a copyright lawyer,

or in fact a lawyer of any type.]

Joe then references a site showing where criminal sanctions were obtained

against a BBS operator who distributed pirated software [what this has to

do with email is not clear; Joe seems to think that since they may be

covered by the same law, they are equivalent.

<http://www.benedict.com/news/headlines/headlines.htm>

Then he cites another url showing civil action against ISPs who fail to

stop software pirates who post warez to their servers [again, why? He

fails to mention that in Nov 1995 a federal judge in CA ruled that Netcom

could not be help responsible for copyright violations made by its users,

unless it knew they where copyright violations and did nothing to stop

them.]

<http://www.benedict.com/news/headlines/headlines.htm>

[This case never actually went to trial, so no legal finding of fact was

made, and it was not in fact determined that ISPs are "publishers"

responsible for the contents of their servers. If they are, RW is in big

trouble.]

Joe sums up thusly: "Those who forward, receive, republish and carry such

on their server are all punishable under the copyright statute, either

criminal or civil...technically every message forwarded requires the

approval of the sender or list owner. Pirated messages from closed lists

or parts thereof, attached and posted elsewhere without permission are

actionable under criminal and/or civil statute."

Joe says that Board cannot be effective if people are constantly

making fun of it and they have taken every opportunity to make their

meetings open to the public. They try to answer every email that has

merit and Joe himself has never failed to answer a message sent in "an

honest attempt to get an answer, whether from a constituent or not." But,

he says, he "will not respond in the future to messages whose only clear

intent is to ridicule and down grade this potentially wonderful Project

for mean and small reasons."

He states that he and his fellow Board members will do all in their power

to "insure that the pirating of email on and from the Board lists stops.

If that means pursuing legal action, so be it."

He suggests that if someone wishes to reprint materials from the Board

list [he does not specify which one], they should ask the National

Coordinator for permission.

==========

There you have it, a Daily Board Show News Flash!

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jan 26 18:43:29 2000

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:43:25 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Double your pleasure, double your fun...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Tuesday 25 January 2000:

Pam Reid says she would be happy to post a history of the USGW Project on

the national page, but she doesn't have a good one. She asks if anyone

has a good history of the Project available.

Pam thinks that writing up a history of the project is a good idea. Such a

history should include a timeline of the beginning of the project,

including organizaers, and it should be job of the historian to keep it up

to date. She says, "There are things that should be omitted. The

infighting, etc. has no place in the history. That is one reason I

removed the page about the Jerry Dill thing from the main pages." [Yet,

strangely enough, its still there:

<http://www.usgenweb.com/official/announce.html>

Ginger Cisewski asks when the Board voted to start several "new" Special

Projects that appear on this page:

<http://www.usgenweb.org/projects/projects.html>; she notes that this page

was updated Jan 12 and now contain listings for a "Digital Map" and a

"Pensions" project. She notes that the procedures for forming new

subprojects in the bylaws were not followed and cites the relevant

section. She "respectfully" requests "the above named "Special Projects"

be removed from that national listing." [These two projects have been

listed on that page for months. Both were formed as subprojects of the

Archives, so the bylaws allegedly do not apply. Technically, of course,

they should be listed as subprojects of the Archives, but they aren't.]

Pam says she made the Special Project page on her own without discussing

it with anyone, and she "just thought it would be nice if researchers had

links to any project that might help them." She "didn't think about rules

or Bylaws or anything else except ease of research." [This page is badly

out of date: it still lists Pam as the coordinator of the Tombstone

Project and Fred Smoot as coordinator of the Map library, and leave out

entirely the "Special Collections Project".]

Ginger Hayes says it was her understanding that those were subprojects of

the Archives.

Joe Zsedeny tells Ginger she is correct in her understanding, and says

that Pam made "an honest error."

Mirror Mirror Corner, part 2: Board member Barbara "Vote Early, Vote

Often" Dore tells Ron Eason that she first noticed the duplicated Census

II directories shortly before the merger talks collapsed. Maggie Stewart

Zimmerman and Linda Lewis both told her that the directories were made to

facilitate the merging of the two projects, and the decision to make the

mirror was theirs and not Root$web's. This is all well and good, but

Babs then redirects the issue away from the clandestine duplication of

Census II to the trumped-up issue of whether or not Census II is being

diligent about forwarding transcriptions to Census I. She cites

absolutely no evidence that they aren't, but goes on about it at some

length. [But it doesn't appear to us in the newscube that Census II would

have to be diligent about forwarding transcriptions to Census I; from

the appearance of that duplicated directory, Census I just takes whatever

it wants.]

New And Improved Corner: Speaking of the Archives, they have a new

subproject, called the "Special Collections Project". It appears to be

run by Linda Lewis, and covers those submissions that span several states

or that consist of books scanned in their entirety. Check it out at:

<http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/special/>.

Corrections Corner: Joy Fisher has contacted me and informed me that Joe

Zsedeny misspoke himself yesterday when he stated that "Every file manager

in the Archives could, if they wished, take the files they manage and put

them on any server, anywhere, unilaterally." What he meant to say,

according to Joy, is that "he could upload copies of HIS files to

another server (which is totally within his rights, since he owns the

copyrights to HIS files)." Joy also notes that the "The Archives will not

authorize mirror sites of selected portions of the Archives." The DBS

apologizes for any confusion caused by the contradictory statements made

by these members of the Archives and which were previously published here.

Who's The Fairest Of Them All Corner: As reported on the CC-L list

yesterday, USGenNet has offered to provide a complete mirror of both the

Archives project and the Census Project [Census II, we presume] for free.

It will be interesting to see how the Board responds to this generous

offer.

"It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell."

---William Storey, [statement of the aims of the Chicago Times, 1861]

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jan 27 13:19:46 2000

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 13:19:44 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

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There is nothing new under the sun...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Wednesday 26 January 2000

Joe Zsedeny posts his message regarding copyright to the Board [this has

already been discussed here.]

Thursday 27 January 2000:

Tim Stowell posts a threat to unsubscribe non-Board members who send mail

to Board-L. He says that members who wish to respond to the Board should

obtain their individual addresses from the web pages and that messages

sent to the list bounce back to him. He then says "If someone who is

unauthorized to post to this list continues to do so, they will be

unsubbed from this list." He notes that this has not been a widespread

problem so far, but "This is a public notice, of consequences for those

who fail to heed this request."

Tim calls for a vote on Motion 00-1, to appoint an historian. Thus far,

five Board members have voted "yes", two have voted "no", and one has

abstained.

You Read It Here First Corner: Last night's New Zoo Review contained the

official announcement of the launch of the new Archives subproject, the

Special Collections Project.

Movin' On Up Corner: Just a couple of weeks after it got a new SC, it

looks like the UTGenWeb is moving to RW:

<http://www.rootsweb.com/~utgenweb/>

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree

upon."

---Napoleon Bonaparte

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

meorpe@radix.net

-----------

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jan 28 08:00:46 2000

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:00:45 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000128062226.22490B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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Hit the road, Jack!...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Thursday 27 January 2000:

Voting on Motion 00-1 proceeds. Currently the count stands at 7 yes

votes, 3 no votes, and 2 abstentions, with 4 Board members yet to vote.

Only one Board member, Ginger Cisewski, has appended any sort of comment

to their vote. She says that she agrees with Jim Powell's earlier comments

that "It's extremely difficult to create a written history without

injecting bias of some sort into the facts....Our time and energy would

be far better spent elsewhere so therefore I vote NO."

Greased Lightening Corner: Last evening, USGenNet president Fred Smoot

sent an announcement out that reads in part:

"The United States Genealogy Network, Inc. (USGenNet), a nonprofit

historical and genealogical web-hosting service, is pleased to announce

that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, in record-breaking time, today

granted final and permanent approval of our December 2, 1999 application

for 501(c)(3) tax-deductible, charitable status."

[Let's see, that's a little over a month and a half for the IRS to approve

tax-deductible, charitable status for USGenNet. Root$Web submitted their

application, when? June? Six months ago? I wonder what the hold up

is.]

USGenNet provides free server space for USGW counties and for the ALHN, as

well as several other online genealogical groups and societies.

"Donations" to them are really and truly "donations", not fees for

services, and are tax deductible. Please visit their home page at:

http://www.usgennet.org/

"It has been my experience that what most viewers and readers are most

unhappy about is not that journalists slant the news, but that we don't

slant it their way."

---Don Hewitt [executive producer of "60 Minutes"]

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-----------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jan 29 10:30:03 2000

Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 10:30:00 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000129084816.4663A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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Who you gonna call?...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

[today is long, but read all the way to the end. The quote today is

_really_ good.]

Friday 28 January 2000:

Voting on Motion 00-1 continues, with one Board member voting yes, and two

voting no.

Regarding her vote, Teri Pettit notes that she sees merit in Maggie's idea

of the historian as a "timeline maintainer". She says "It would be

extremely valuable if there was someone responsible for maintaining a

table of the dates that each state first came online, who held offices

over what periods, etc. The longer we go without recording such info

systematically, the harder it is to recover it." She notes, however, that

"many of the comments made by other board members (the historian should be

tactful, unbiased, etc.) seem to envision a more narrative history, which

I think is a bad idea for the reasons that Virginia expressed." She says

that because "it is unclear which of the two kinds of historian a yes vote

would be voting for", she would vote "no".

Regarding the Special Projects [and in reference to the webpage she

creates that lists them], Pam Reid says "As far as the Bylaws go, only

Tombstones and Census exist as separate special projects." She, however,

felt it would benefit the researcher if all the "special" projects were

listed in one place. She notes that she feels strongly that "ALL records

belong in ONE central repository, that repository being The USGenWeb

Archives." She thinks that is where opinions start to differ.

Saturday 29 January 2000:

Voting on Motion 00-1 is completed and Tim Stowell announces the results:

8 yes votes, 5 no votes, 2 abstentions, 1 member did not vote. The motion

is declared failed because it did not meet the 2/3 rule. Tim also notes

that he received two votes from non-Board members, one of whom voted "yes"

and one of whom abstained.

Ginger Hayes agrees with Pam and sees nothing wrong with listing the

projects on the Special Projects page. She suggests that since some

object to them being shown as separate projects, Pam could put them under

the Archives heading and perhaps use a smaller font size. Ginger thinks

that would be "sufficient to identify them as subprojects of the Archives,

appease those who object and still let the researchers know that they are

there."

Molasses In January Corner: Being curious about this whole 501(c)3

process, I called the IRS yesterday and talked to a very nice and helpful

public servant. She says that the process to receive tax exemption takes

a maximum of 120 days, unless there is something wrong with the

application [which could mean missing documents, improperly completed

forms, etc]. In that case, the length of time the application takes to be

processed depends at least in part on the applicant, since they are

usually required to send more documents, respond to IRS questions, etc. I

asked her if 6 months was a long time for an application and she told me

that generally they don't take that long, but sometimes take much longer

if the application is complicated or documents are not received in a

timely fashion.

She did not find either RootsWeb.com, Inc. or GenSoc.org, Inc. in her

database of approved tax-exempt organizations. All this means is that the

application has not yet been approved. The IRS is not allowed to give out

any information at all on pending or denied applications.

The history of Root$Web/GenSoc's application is lengthy. As we all know

by now, RW was originally registered as a for-profit company so that Brian

Leverich could save a little time and a few bucks. The option of

incorporation as a non-profit without getting the tax-exempt status seems

not to have occurred to him. For a long time, Brian told RW users

and customers why getting the tax-exempt status wasn't necessarily a good

thing. For example, in July 1998 they told their customers this:

"RootsWeb has substantial expenses: our servers and bandwidth cost a fair

amount of money. Incorporating a 501(c)(3) to handle that sort of thing is

fairly expensive, takes about six months to do, and most importantly

requires a substantial amount of paperwork on a continuing basis... " (22

Jul 1998, Brian Leverich, ROOTSWEB REVIEW: Genealogical Data Cooperative

Weekly News, Vol. 1, No. 6)

By December of that year, RW had apparently decided that tax-exempt status

was not a bad thing after all, and Brian posted this:

"RootsWeb has retained Borton, Petrini, and Conron, an old and

distinguished California law firm, to prepare a 501(c)(3) incorporation

for us. The 501(c)(3) filing is actually kinda messy for a number of

reasons, and that's why we're using a firm with strong corporate and tax

law departments to do the filing." (Brian Leverich, Team-Rootsweb List,

19 Dec 1998)

On May 23, 1999, just five days before they incorporated RootsWeb.com,

Inc. as a for-profit corporation in California and Delaware, Brian

answered a question by a member of the Team-Rootsweb list by giving him a

number of reasons why the 501(c)3 application for Rootsweb was taking so

long, noting in particular that "the IRS is currently being a real pill

about Internet-based 501(c)(3)s." He also noted that:

"...we started the 501(c)(3) process some time ago with counsel

in Bakersfield. As we learned more about what was involved, we

transferred the work to a firm in Los Angeles with specialized experience

in 501(c)(3) incorporations. I think we'll have a bullet-proof filing (so

much as any filing is bullet-proof) going to the IRS in the near future."

On May 28, 1999 Rootsweb.com, Inc was incorporated in California as a

for-profit company. Two months later, in the July 21 edition of the

Rootsweb Review, RW CEO Robert Tillman made the following announcement:

"On May 28, 1999, we incorporated RootsWeb as a "C" corporation with the

name of RootsWeb.com, Inc. In mid-June 1999, we incorporated a new

non-profit corporation called GenSoc.org, Inc. We are currently in the

process of finalizing an application to the Internal Revenue Service for

5013 (tax-deductible charity) status for GenSoc.org. This application for

tax-deductible charity status is an entirely separate and far more

difficult process than forming the nonprofit corporation....The Internal

Revenue Service typically requires six months to approve or disapprove

such a filing. (21 Jul 1999, Robert Tillman, ROOTSWEB REVIEW: RootsWeb's

Genealogy News, Vol. 2, No. 29)"

At the time he wrote this, the 501(c)3 application had not been filed, and

Bob noted that the application may take as long as six months and they

could not solicit contributions until it was approved by the IRS. [This

is not technically correct. As a non-profit they can solicit

contributions, but they cannot claim they are tax deductible.] That is

the last time that GenSoc.org has been mentioned in the RWR.

In mid-November 1999, someone on asked Brian how "Rootsweb's" application

with the IRS was coming along, and he replied:

"The application for the nonprofit operations has been with the IRS

now for something like three and a half months. We've had no

communications from the IRS, other than a confirmation that they received

the application." [Brian Leverich, 10 Nov 1999, Rootsweb-Help-L; note

that he does not mention that the application is not for RW]

Based on this, the application was probably submitted at the end of July.

Here we are at the end of January, six months later and no further word

on the application. The IRS may or may not be "a real pill about

Internet-based 501(c)(3)s", but its obvious that at least one

internet-based non-profit managed to get its approval in 49 days

[substantially less than both the 120 days the IRS lady says it takes and

the 6 months RW says it takes]. Perhaps someone out there can prevail on

RW to update us all on the status of the application.

Today's quote is from a reader, and is provocative, to say the least:

"Linda also says that the archives have a contract with RootsWeb, and has

repeatedly given me to understand that in the unlikely event that the

board would direct that the archives be removed from RootsWeb, her

response would be to remove the archives from the Project and keep them at

RW."

---Megan Zurawicz, to the Board, 16 Feb 1999

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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

From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jan 31 20:41:35 2000

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 20:41:33 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: Daily Board Show <usgw_all@listbot.com>

Subject: Daily Board Show

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000131113114.9384D-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Status: RO

X-Status:

Shoveling snow...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Sunday 30 January 2000:

There was no Board-L traffic on this date.

Monday 31 January 2000:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date, thus far.

Behind the Scenes Corner: Although it doesn't look it, the Board has

not been entirely inactive over the last couple of days. We've heard that

the Archives has rejected the offer made by USGenNet to host a free mirror

of the entire Archives. Joy Fisher, second in command over at the

Archives, gave the following reasons for turning down the offer: 1)

perceived instability at "USGenNet/USIGS/ALHN" [although the three are

independent of each other], and 2) the Archives has previously had poor

experience with mirrors. USGenNet has, we are told, explained the

relationship between itself and the other organizations, and also

explained that mirroring can [and should] be automated, so that the

Archives and its mirror are always entirely identical.

A couple of Board members have responded to a CC's request that they

address the issue of servers who claim to be "sponsors" of the USGW

Project. Barbara "non sequiter" Dore's response boils down to "amend the

bylaws if you don't like it". Joy Fisher, on the other hand, helpfully

responded by pointing out that 1) "USGenWeb has NO agreements regarding

sponsorship of the USGenWeb Project", and 2) "Every server that provides

service for USGenWeb has the right to claim sponsorship and I will defend

their right to do so." [Joy also noted that no server may claim ownernship

of the project.]

Fun On a Snow Day Corner: A reader sent me this URL:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/business/corp/corporate.htm

If you go here, click on the "Records Search" link on the left. In the

search box for Corporate Record Search, enter "RootsWeb.com, Inc." [no

quotes" and hit "Submit". See what you get. If interested, you can go

back to the search box, and also input "GenSoc.org, Inc." [no quotes] and

see what you get for that one as well. If anyone's interested you can use

the handy online form to send for the incorporation records for both of

these corporations.

"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit."

---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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