Jun 7-13 1999

From merope@Radix.Net Mon Jun 7 06:23:42 1999

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 06:23:41 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show--apology

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As I am reliably informed that Rootsweb's mail archives search engine is

down and was down most of yesterday, there was not a DBS yesterday and

may not be one today.

We'll all be caught up when the archives are available again.

-Teresa

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Tue Jun 8 14:13:48 1999

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 14:13:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Banned in Bostson...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Friday 4 June 1999:

A long cascade of posts concerning the nomination of Tim Stowell for NC is

posted. It appears that a Board member has nominated Tim for NC and

Ginger [Hayes, then Nomination Committee Chair] told him she was waiting

to hear from the Board whether he was eligible or not, as the bylaws say

his term is for one year. [If he is not eligible to run based on this,

then no sitting Board member would be allowed to run for their seat

either once their term is up] The nominator points out in response, "When

I receive messages like this from the then Nominating Committee Chair

while noting no such requests to the Board, I become quite concerned."

The Board Secretary responds that he may be "as concerned as you like",

but he's seen nothing on the Board either about the NC's qualifications,

and "this must have all been done privately." To which the nominator

replies, "I shall remain concerned until I get to the bottom of this and

get some straight answers. Would you not agree that Board business is the

business of all and not for a few to conduct privately...?" To which BS

Bill finally replies that he doesn't know where Joe is going with his

statement, "and it leaves me in confusion".

One further note is posted by the nominator, in which he says the "found

note in Ginger's message" solves the problem and alleviates his concern,

and should resolve the BS's confusion. [I have no idea what he means by

'found note']

[Since this might be confusing, a brief recap: Someone nominated Tim as

NC. The then chair of the Nominations Committee indicated she was waiting

to hear from the Board whether he could run again. But no such request

has come up before the Board for discussion, at least not publicly. And at

least one Board member wants to know why.]

[To confuse you further: BS Bill and Ginger Cisewski, Chair of the

Elections Committee, support Census II. Tim and his erstwhile nominator

most definitely do not. BS Bill is himself running for NC. The bylaws

are silent about term limits. Even though individual term lengths are

stated, there is nothing that says you can't run again.]

Saturday 5 June 1999:

BS Bill forwards a message by Pam Reid concerning the nomination of Teresa

Lindquist for At-Large representative [the message has already made the

rounds, and won't be repeated here]; Bill indicates that it expresses his

sentiments exactly.

A Board member votes "aye" to Motion 99-15E [more about this later].

A Board member notifies the group that Kay Mason, Census rep, will not be

available for the next 10 days or so, due to personal obligations.

Sunday 6 June 1999:

The Nc declares Motion 99-15E passes with 10 ayes and 5 not yet voting.

The full text of the motion has already been forwarded and will not be

repeated here. This is the nomination decreeing that Jim Powell and

Bonnie McVicar-Briggs will be allowed to serve out the rest of the terms

of the people they were elected to replace. [The "E", btw, denotes that

the motion was done in 'executive session.' Guess they didn't want us to

know about it, huh? Especially interesting, since this sets a precedent

and is important enough to warrant a 48 hour comment period by the

membership at large.]

The NC forwards to the list some questions from this [potential] candidate

concerning the ramifications of RW's ban on her ability to campaign

effectively. Summarized, these questions are: 1) Will my candidate web

page be linked to from the Nominations web page?; 2) Will information

regarding my candidacy be allowed onto project lists,if forwarded there

by persons other than myself, without repercussion to those persons?; 3)

what does the Board plan to do? How will they address the possibility

that a duly elected representative of the USGW Project may not be allowed

to fulfill the duties of the office to which she was elected?; 4) Is

Rootsweb going to allow me to vote in this election?

A Board member responds with her opinion on the answers to these

questions, as follows: 1) Yes; 2) "the Board would in no way be party to

attempts to impede or obstruct dissemination of information about any

candidate so long as the messages are neither offensive nor obscene"; 3)

they should wait until after the election to decide what to do if Mr.

Leverich won't allow me to participate; 4) "Something can certainly be

worked out to allow Teresa to vote."

[As an update, I have also asked the Board if my name will appear on the

ballots if RW is once again handling our election; this new question and

the others have been forwarded to Mr. Robert Tillman, new CEO and

President of Rootsweb, who is probably the correct person to give RW's

official response. As of yet, no official response from the Board, RW, or

Mr. Tillman.]

[I would also like to say that I received a very nice personal note from

the same Board member. I'm sure she and the Board will understand that

given the circumstances I will need something more official than their

best assurances. Brian has, after all, threatened me with both civil and

criminal action if I violate his ban, and he has also threatened sanctions

against anyone who helps me use the mail lists.]

BS Bill posts the "final" vote count for Motion 99-15E. At the time he

posted it was 11 "ayes" and 4 not voting.

Two more Board members vote "aye" on Motion 99-15E. One of them

notes that this motions "sets a precedent for the future". [these both

appear to have been posted after the "final" tally mentioned previously,

so the new tally is 13 "ayes".]

Election Update: Someone has put a VERY nicely organized and designed web

page for the Elections. Go visit it at:

http://www.usgenweb.com/elections/election-central.html.

Candidates include:

NC: Fred Smoot, Bill Oliver

At-Large:

Archives: Joe Zsedney

NE/NC SC rep: David Young, Ginger Hayes

NE/NC CC rep: Nate Zipfel, Ron Eason

NW/P SC rep: Lynn Waterman

NW/P CC rep:

SE/MA SC rep: Valerie Crook

SW/SC CC rep (2 open): David Morgan, Gloria Mayfield

Since two Board members managed to win re-election to their seats without

running <g>, those positions (NE/NC CC rep, SE/MA CC rep) have been taken

off the ballot.

Interesting Factoid of the Day: Did you know that if you substitute

"usgenweb" for "rootsweb" in the urls that go to the state and county USGW

pages on Rootsweb, the urls work just as well? Meaning that we can all

now clear up some of the confusion about USGW projects belonging to RW by

using urls that have "usgenweb" in them.

Batten Down the Hatches Corner: The url for signing up for the so-called

Surname Resources has been published. The RW staff welcomes you to "help

them administer" [note, not "own", "manage", "adopt", or any term

that might imply you actually have any control over them] these amazing

new clusters of search engines. Go here if you are interested:

http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/sponsors.html

and be sure and follow the directions!

Blast from the Past Corner: A reader sent this in. Its from a December

1997 list post in which fundraising is discussed extensively. The reader

felt it was appropriate in light of the already announced Surname

Resources [and the possible soon-to-be announced US county equivalents?]

"Genealogists are a remarkably trusting and supportive community, and we

want to be worthy of that trust by being perfectly clear about what we're

doing."

---Brian Leverich, 27 Dec 1997

It has how been 5 days since I requested information on these alleged

county boards seen on GenConnect from the GC/RW staff. No answer yet.

"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."

--Samuel Johnson

This has been your Daily Board Show, all caught up!

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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From merope@Radix.Net Wed Jun 9 06:42:01 1999

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 06:41:59 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Only her hairdresser knows for sure...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Monday 7 June 1999:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date.

Election update: New candidates include Tim Stowell for NC, and Terri

Pettit for SE/MA CC rep.

[I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the new webmaster for adding

clear and easy to find links to the Elections, Nominations, and Bylaws

pages right on the main USGW home page, and for keeping the vote pages up

to date. One small caveat though: the "upcoming votes" page still

indicates that the Board is about to vote on the webmaster position <g>]

Today's quote is from a reader:

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.

They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to

fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you are one of the facts

that needs altering."

---The Doctor, Doctor Who, The Face of Evil

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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

From merope@Radix.Net Thu Jun 10 08:33:27 1999

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 08:33:26 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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I told you so...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Tuesday 8 June 1999:

BS Bill forwards the Nominations Committee's report to the Board list.

[its been circulated to other project lists, and won't be repeated here.]

What Took You So Long Corner: As expected, Rootsweb has announced its

"County Resource" pages, created for every county in the US. These

"clusters" include mailing lists and GenConnect Boards created expressly

for this purpose, as well as links to various search engines for the

different resources housed on RW. If they are true to their policy for

the Surname Resource boards, you WILL NOT be allowed to link directly to

your own USGenWeb county page if if is not on Rootsweb.

You Read It Here First Corner: We knew this was coming. Mr. Leverich

threatened the Project with this months ago, and just recently a project

member got a brief glimpse of these "resources" before they were locked

away from public view. However, I don't believe its so bad. USGW will,

IMO, be less negatively affected by these things than the surname

listowners are by the "Surname Resources". After all, when surname

researchers come to RW they are looking specifically for surnames and will

go right to the "Surname Resource" link and bypass whatever other

resources there are. They may never know that other resources exist, off

of Rootsweb, because RW apparently won't allow them to be mentioned on the

page, EVEN IF those resources are part of a suite of resources managed by

family associations, big RW subscribers,etc. USGW visitors, on the other

hand, mainly get to our pages from the map. The map links to states which

then link to counties, bypassing the clusters. If a visitor goes to RW

first and uses the cluster pages, he or she will either find lots of info

[in those clusters built around existing USGW resources already housed on

RW] or very little, in which case they will most likely go looking for the

USGW page. I'm guessing RW would very much like for these cluster pages

to replace the USGW county pages, but that doesn't have to happen.

Don't forget, this is a business decision for RW. They are positioning

themselves to be a major player, attract the big advertising dollars [see

below], and compete with Ancestry, Broderbund/Learning Company/Mattel, and

FamilySearch [leave aside for a moment how ludicrous competing with those

companies and the LDS Library is]. In their behavior and words since the

Surname Resources were announced, RW has made it abundantly clear that

this decision has been made, and it won't be changed. There is nothing

you can do about it, except ignore them.

Now You See It, Now You Don't Corner: The

http://www.usgenweb.org/~xxgenweb URLs, described here a day or two ago,

no longer work.

Your Information Wanted Corner: Rootsweb is running a survey and

apparently has money to burn to do it:

http://www.audienceprofiler.com/survey/submit.html

A quick trip over to AudienceProfiler reveals that "Audience Profiler can

help your web site sell advertising space by creating accurate demographic

and psychographic profiles of your site visitors." [psychographic?] It

further reveals that Rootsweb probably shelled out out $4000 for this

survey [maybe more]. The survey asks questions concerning internet usage,

whether or not you buy stuff online, information on personal purchases,

time spent on genealogy, employment, age, education, income, and marital

status. Its anonymous, until you get to the bottom, where it asks for

your email address [voluntary]. Yes, RW wants to know all about YOU!

"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.

And the tigers are getting hungry."

---Winston Churchill, While England Slept, 1936

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jun 11 07:30:29 1999

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 07:30:28 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] For Profit Organization (fwd)

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990611072932.6961B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

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Forwarded with Sandy's permission. I know many of you have probably

already seen this, but some of you may not have.

-Teresa

merope@radix.net

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 19:05:43 -0500

From: Sandy <teylu@home.com>

To: USGENWEB-ALL-L@rootsweb.com

Subject: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] For Profit Organization

I am one of many who have been seeking information concerning Brian's

stated intent of organizing RootsWeb as a nonprofit and then seeking

"charitable" (i.e, 501(c)(3) ) tax-exempt status.

I think many people are under the mistaken impression a business is "for

profit" by some sort of "default," ... in this case the impression seems

to be RootsWeb is "for profit" only because it has not yet filed its

application for "charitable" status from the IRS.

That is not the case with any business.

You organize as nonprofit or as for profit.

Specifically, in California you have two choices: for profit or non profit.

To organize the business *as* a nonprofit, you are required to state the

tax exempt status you *intend* to seek.

This is why I find it misleading to respond to "Are you nonprofit?" by

offering details of your preparation of an application for 501(c)(3) tax

exempt status.

The response does not answer the question, and obviously can cause

people to believe the only reason you are not nonprofit is because the

application must be approved.

I believe it is clear many people believe this is the case for RootsWeb.

Brian has stated he plans to form two corporations, one for profit and

the other non profit.

The specific identifying names of those corporations have not been stated.

However, according to the California Secretary of State's Documents

Filing Office, Rootsweb.com, Inc., qualified for incorporation within

the past 10 days (of June 1999) under its earlier Delaware qualifying.

In other words, Rootsweb.com, Inc. originally incorporated in Delaware.

I do not know the date of the Delaware incorporation, the CA Secty of

State doesn't record that information.

The various papers including officers, etc., have not been received by

the CA Secty of State's Document Filing Office because the qualifying is

so recent (within the past 10 days).

However, the agent for RootsWeb.com, Inc. is Robert Tillman.

The type corporation is clear regarding for-profit or nonprofit.

"Rootsweb.com, Inc. is definitely NOT a nonprofit," according to the

Documents Filing Office of the California Secretary of State.

No record was apparent of another corporation by similar name of

Rootsweb/RootsWeb having filed incorporation in California.

If another corporation exists concerning RootsWeb, particularly if it is

organized as a nonprofit, I respectfully request Brian Leverich inform

us of this.

A requirement for obtaining IRS 501(c)(3) tax exempt status *is* being

organized as nonprofit. The structure of Rootsweb.com, Inc., as

currently qualified by the CA Secty of State, would preclude obtaining

this status.

Sandy

==== USGENWEB-ALL Mailing List ====

The USGenWeb Project is not a commercial project.

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Jun 11 11:56:16 1999

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 11:56:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Seen it all...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Wednesday 9 June 1999:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date [although we hear they're

wrangling over the "rules" for the election.]

Election Update: so far, these are the nominees:

NC: Bill Oliver, Fred Smoot, Tim Stowell

At-large:

Archives: Joe Zsedeny

NE/NC SC rep: David young, Ginger Hayes

NE/NC CC rep: Nate Zipfel, Ron Eason

NW/P SC rep: Lynn Waterman

NW/P CC rep:

SE/MA SC rep:

SE/MA CC rep: Terri Pettit

SW/SC CC rep: Larry Flesher, David Morgan, Gloria Mayfield

There's only 5 more days to submit nominations, so please get them in as

soon as possible!

The Big Brass Ring Corner: As reported yesterday on various lists, by an

intrepid newcomer to the -ALL list, Rootsweb has just incorporated as a

FOR-PROFIT corporation in California, under the name "Rootsweb.com, Inc.

Some Rootsweb staff members have indicated that both NON-profit and

PROFIT corporations would be formed. Its interesting that the Rootsweb

name was applied to the for-profit one. As someone noted elsewhere: "

"To the best of my knowledge, "RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative"

remains active, and operates as a for-profit, sole proprietorship, owned

by Brian and Karen. The fictitious business name of RootsWeb Genealogical

Business Cooperative is active and registered with the county clerk of

Kern County, CA...I have been unable to identify any record in California

of "Rootsweb Genealogical Data Cooperative," or any business similarly

named "Rootsweb" as being organized or operating as a NONprofit."

Rootsweb.com, Inc., incidentally was originally registed in Delaware, for

some reason. Maybe its easier to file there, maybe there are tax

purposes, maybe they just didn't think anyone would look there. If there

are any business people out there who can shed light on this, I'm curious.

Show Me The Money Corner: This week's RWR is worth a view for those of

you that aren't among the 300,000 or so people that get it spammed to them

each week. Rootsweb.com, Inc.'s new President and CEO, Robert Tillman,

formally introduces himself and presents a long summary of Rootsweb's

cumulative finances over the last three years. It is of course larded

with numerous references to the many many sacrifices Rootsweb's management

has made over the last few years. It makes no reference at all to the

thousands of list owners, board managers, transcribers, editors, web

designers, sponsors/donors/customers, county and state coordintors,

archives and census file managers, resource-donating companies, and

volunteers, who spend their own money and possibly millions of hours of

their time to make RootsWeb what it is.

[My guess would be that this extensive set of financial information was

compiled as part of their corporate filing. The sob stories were probably

added for our benefit.]

We Will Bury You Corner: Many folks have wondered over the last few

months, why the growing emphasis on competition? Why the many references

to needing to compete with ALHN, Ancestry, or Broderbund, or even

[heavens!] the new FamilySearch website put up by the LDS? It has begun

to appear that our quiet goal of providing a county page for every US

county, simple to find, simple to use, created and maintained by people

who know the county, linked to resources wherever they may be found, is

not good enough anymore. Its not _competitive_ enough. Instead we must

be the "premier geographically-oriented genealogy project" on the web, and

we must "continuously improve the range and quality of services it

provides to the genealogical community." [both quotes from Brian Leverich,

9 Jun 1999]

Why must this be so? Well, apparently it must be so because

Rootsweb.com, Inc. needs to make money. Their generous "offer you can't

refuse" of surname and county "resources" will increase page hits to RW

and siphon off data and subscribers from already establihsed sites and

lists, which will make RW more attractive to advertisers. Banners will

exist on all the new GC/RW pages created for the clusters. The Surname

Resource boards were created, so I have heard, to compete with GenForum [a

division of Borderbund/Learning Company/Mattel, whose ads are currently

prominently featured on RW pages. We can compete with them AND take

their moeny!]. We learn from Brian "Emporer of All Genealogy" Leverich

that they will be looking into an SSDI search facility, when one already

exists for free on Ancestry and elsewhere. They are apparently spending

thousands of dollars on a survey to find out what your hobbies are and how

much money you have to spend on them. How soon before they start setting

cookies before they'll let you use the pages [they already do on the

threaded archives]?

Many many surname list holders and county coordinators are feeling

considerable pressure to "help administer" the new boards and lists,

simply in order to keep them out of the hands of others and to insure that

proper links exist to the original and established resources. RW is

actually encouraging listmanagers and CCs to adopt the extraneous lists

created for the "resources" and use them solely for directing subscribers

to the "real" lists, thus asking them to take on the extra burden created

by RW. No lists or boards created for this exercise will be deleted or

merged with other lists. Large numbers of errors are being reported on

both the Surname and County Resources pages, particularly missing links to

already existing resources, and links that go to the wrong place. The RW

home page has been extensively reworked, so that, on a smallish monitor at

least, the links to the County Resources and Surname Resources are the

only links you see.

And one other thing. Although RW staff keeps saying that CCs will get

first crack at the new lists and boards, they are actually 3rd and 2nd on

the priority lists posted yesterday.

Funny Thing of the Day: did anyone notice that the SysAdmin messags posted

on the new GC/RW board created for the County Resources all bear a date of

June 16, 1999? You don't suppose they rushed these boards to market a

little earlier than they expected, do you?

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

---Ralph Waldo Emerson

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

--------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Jun 12 10:18:07 1999

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 10:18:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

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Bringing out your finer nature...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* contains enough editorial content to stun a moose. Read at your

own risk!

Thursday 10 June 1999:

There is no Board-L traffic on this date. [hmmm...its too quiet...]

The Continuing Crisis Corner: Events of note in the current flap over

"County Resources" and "Surname Resources":

Brian "No One Loves Me Enough" Leverich posts to the USGenWeb-All list his

opinion that "USGW has always treated RootsWeb less well than any other

server." Apparently, his feelings are hurt. Hmm...lets see...I don't see

anybody from Geocities, USIT, Skyways, or wherever sitting on our Advisory

Board. Yet Rootsweb.com, Inc. has two staff members on the Board. I

don't see the representatives of Geocities, USIT, Skyways, or any other

server posting at will to whatever USGW list they choose, yet Brian and

others on his staff routinely post to our lists. I don't see

representatives of other servers using their power [derived from hosting

our main pages and a huge number of state and county pages] to influence

the USGW project through the use of threats and intimidation, yet in just

the last few months RW staff members have made several statements to the

effect of [paraphrased]: "if USGW doesn't control its membership, RW

will", "USGW must be the premier genealogy service online and this is

how you should accomplish that", and "if USGW doesn't use these resources,

we'll give them to competing projects". I haven't seen anyone at any other

server slam a project member for choosing someone else to host their

pages, but its rare that RW misses an opportunity to take a swipe at other

servers, and sometimes at the CCs that use them. RW runs our elections,

counts our votes, decides who CAN vote [ultimately] and attempts to

exercise influence over who can run for Board positions. USGW tolerates

all of this from RW and probably always will, yet we now stand accused of

not being nice enough to RW?

[Apropos of nothing: Someone pointed out to me today that Brian is

a very shrewd man indeed. He has his dependable supporters - and he knows

how to weaken his adversaries: he hires some and bans others.]

In another area entirely, if you visit the RW Help Desk at:

http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help.cgi

you will find that the board has been taken down. Apparently the board

has become a target of abuse by someone pretending to be Mr. Leverich.

They've been responding to the posters with abusive replies [sheesh,

how could they tell? <g>]. Anyways, to get help with Rootsweb

problems, you now need to send private email to one of his staffers.

Here's an interesing conversation that's been taking place on various

lists: How to Beat The Cluster Boards. Suggestions so far include:

1) Sign up for the mailing list, make it announce-only and whenever anyone

subs direct them to your established list elsewhere.

2) Adopt the new GC/RW boards, make them read-only and post a message to

each directing visitors to your county webpage elsewhere.

3) Sign up for a RW county page, and use it to redirect to your real USGW

county page [sorry, folks, this one has been kiboshed by Nancy "Gone Over"

Trice; if you try it, they'll close the account.]

If anyone has any more ideas, send 'em in and we'll print them.

At least one SC is directing her CCs to either adopt the clusters or tell

her they are not, so she can drum up volunteers to take them over, and

thus establish some kind of USGW control over the resources for her state

[amazing, isn't it, how some people play right into it?]

Unquestioned Answers Corner: Some questions have been floating around and

I haven't seen answers for them:

1) Will CCs that adopt the new mailing lists be able to set them to not

archive posts? [archiving in both the standard and threaded archives is

now the default, btw]

2) Will USGW CC's be allowed to prominently place links to their non-RW

county pages on the _front_ page of their Cluster Page? And if not, will

the link that says "get your own RW webpage here" remain if there's a

county page already operating elsewhere? [in regards to the surname

clusters, it appears that you will be able to add your off-RW webpage

using Rootslink, which managed to develop problems right around

the time the clusters were announced and was taken down. However, cluster

reps will not be able to link to their own home pages from the _front_

page of their cluster, but only through RootsLink. We don't know if the

same holds true for county cluster boards. Be happy, though. The

Surname Resource pages say "There currently is no XXXXX Surname Web Page

for RootsWeb Researchers at this time", which manages to imply none at

all anywhere. At least the one for the county pages specifies there is

no page _on_ RW.]

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's

character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

This has been Your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jun 13 12:07:40 1999

Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 12:07:38 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: Daily Board Show

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990613102813.15381D-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: O

X-Status:

Desperately waiting for rain...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Friday 11 June 1999

There is no traffic on Board-L on this date [still, although they've been

very busy.]

Unfinished Business Corner: We note that the Board has not yet taken

action on Trey Holt's resignation.

Election update; Election Committee Chair Ginger Cisewski has resigned

from the committee, stating, "Lack of leadership by this Board has so

crippled the membership's faith in the Board's ability to lead that a call

for election volunteers yielded a mere handful of members willing to help

with elections." She cites numerous difficulties she's had with various

Board members which hamper the effective functioning of the committee and

says "It has become increasingly obvious that while the Board was more

than willing to appoint me to this chairmanship, they are unwilling to

support the Committee and the Chair in a timely enough manner to allow it

to function effectively and properly." Finally, she states, "I refuse to

submit to further verbal attacks and cannot function effectively under

these conditions, therefore I tender my immediate resignation as Chairman

of the Elections Committee. In other words, fellow Board members, you have

created this situation so now you can figure out how to fix it." [the full

test of her message has been forwarded to numerous project lists, so will

not be repeated here]

This is a sad event for the Project. With only two weeks to go until the

start of the election, our election committee is leaderless and apparently

has very few volunteers. There is no information forthcoming on how the

balloting will be accomplished and by whom [RootsWeb handled our elections

previously]. The Advisory Board appears fragmented and ineffective and

incapable of resolving its differences in order to ensure the smooth

functioning of the election. We have so little time before the election;

let us all do whatever we can to help it work [nominate, run for

office, volunteer, at the very least, vote!]

Funny Paradox of the Day: On some USGenWeb Project lists, people have

been asking questions regarding the relationship of the USGW Archives to

Rootsweb. Linda "Doyenne of the Archives" Lewis has posted the agreement

reached between the Archives [meaning her] and Rootsweb in July 1996.

Item #2 of that agreement states:

"2. RootsWeb will promote the USGenWeb Archives via Rootsweb's Web pages,

the RootsWeb Review, and other media as practicable."

The Rootsweb Review began publication June 17 1998, nearly two years after

this agreement was "signed". What a remarkably prescient bunch of folks!

Which leads to another question: Since this agreement was reached with

the for-profit sole propietorship known as RootsWeb Genealogical Data

Cooperative, where does the agreement stand now that the owners of that

company have incorporated as the for-profit Rootsweb.com, Inc.? Will

Rootsweb.com, Inc. be assuming the agreement with the Archives? Will the

Archives need to renegotiate the agreement with this new entity? Or will

nothing change since the for-profit entity Rootsweb Genealogical Data

Cooperative still exists?

Funny Quote O' the Day: sent in by a reader:

"I welcome folks who disagree with me."

---Brian Leverich, 24 June 1998

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

----------

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Jun 13 16:07:18 1999

Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 16:07:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

To: usgw_all@listbot.com

Subject: DBS Election Update

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990613152142.6852A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: RO

X-Status:

This Just In...

Motion 99-16E [the "E" denotes that it is being done in "executive

session" and we'll hear about it after its over] includes the following

rules to be followed for the election. It is claimed that these proposed

rules simply perpetuate the status quo and were followed in previous

elections.

=====

1) the "regions" remain as they are for another year.

2) An eligible voter in good standing is eligible to hold an advisory

board position for the region for which they volunteer.

3) Nominations for regional advisory board seats must come from an

eligible voter FROM THAT REGION.

4) In addition to the positions of National Coordinator and Member at

Large, eligible voters will vote for their choice of nominees for the

vacancies for the region in which they volunteer.

=====

Number 3 in particular is not familiar to me, and is not supportable based

strictly on a reading of the bylaws. However, the bylaws also do not

explicitly say that anyone can nominate anyone else, and this does not

seem a hugely unreasonable rule for the nomination of regional reps. The

only real concern I might have with rule #3 is that if they are going to

have such a rule concerning nominations, it would have been nice to have

told us about it sometime sooner than 2 days before the nominations period

closes. So those of you who've been nominated and really want to run

might want to drop a note to the Nominations Committee nominating

yourself, just to be on the safe side. <g>

In Other News:

I have spoken privately with someone on the Board who has explained in

more detail the reasons behind the abrupt resignation of the Chair of the

Elections Committee, Ginger Cisewski. This person does not wish to be

quoted directly, but has given permission to summarize the reasons Ginger

resigned:

1) She feels the NC has been acting improperly given his status as

a candidate in the upcoming election . He has requested the passwords to

the election lists and has asked to know who has nominated which of the

nominees [traditionally this information is kept strictly confidential],

and generally, she feels he is not conducting himself appropriately for

the duties of his office, specifically by being very oftne unavailable for

Board business. [I invite the NC to address these concerns and will be

happy to publish any statement he might wish to make].

2) A simple ruling was requested on Rule #3 above since several

nominations were received from persons not in the region they were

nominating someone for. Rather than a simple ruling or vote, the Board

was not able to come to consensus on this and at least one Board member

wanted to take it to his constitutents before he concurred. This seemed

excessive to the Elections Committee Chair, as she was merely requesting

to clarify that the rules in force for previous elections were also in

force for the upcoming election.

3) The Election Committee itself has very few volunteers to handle the

enormous amount of work that must be done prior to the election in two

weeks, and is further hindered by some unavoidable absences by volunteers.

Delays by the Board in addressing Committee procedures and rules further

add to the confusion and workload.

As of this writing I am given to understand that the Board has taken no

action with regard to Ginger's resignation or to appointing her successor.

There are two weeks to the election. The clock is ticking, people.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net