Mar 20-26 2000

From merope@Radix.Net Mon Mar 20 10:32:51 2000

Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:32:49 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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Any port in a storm...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Monday 20 March 2000:

Tim Stowell opens the floor for discussion on Motion 00-7, the motion to

reconsider the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6. Tim says the

discussion period will start at 8 am this morning [EST] and end 8 am 22

Mar [EST], "unless there is a call to vote before that."

Ginger Hayes asks the Chair to rule on the validity of Motion 00-7, noting

"According to RRoR a motion to reconsider can only be introduced by

someone who voted on the prevailing side." [see below]

===

Can They Do That on TV? Corner: Over on the CC list, CC Roger Swafford

has posted an excerpt from Roberts Rules or Order [Newly Revised 9th

Edition pg. 77]:

"4) If, in the same session that a motion has been voted on but no later

than the same or the next calerdar [sic] day (not counting a legal

holiday, weekend, or other single day on which no business meeting is

held), new information or a changed situation makes it appear that a

different result might reflect the true will of the assembly, a member who

voted with the prevailing side can propose to Reconsider (36) the vote;

that is, he can move that the question shall come before the assembly

again as if it had not previously been considered"

So, let's see. Holly is not "with the prevailing side," as she voted to

abstain. She made her motion four full days after the results of the vote

were obtained. No "new information" was obtained [unless you count the

sudden slavish devotion to the 48 hour voting period and the BS ruling

that subsidiary motions don't require a 2/3 majority]. So, it appears on

first blush, that her motion is out of order. On the other hand, we were

pretty sure that the motion to postpone would fail, and look where that

got us.

Return To Sender Corner: Root$web dunning notices are now being mailed out

reminding people to send their yearly contribution to "RootsWeb.com, Inc."

===

"NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he

says is wrong.

GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will

be right."

---George Bernard Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"

===

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Tue Mar 21 12:08:20 2000

Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 12:08:18 -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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Raking muck...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Monday 20 March 2000:

Pam Reid thinks there were "some special cisrcumstances [sic] surrounding

the motion to postpone 06." She notes, for instance, that Joe's vote was

possibly counted incorrectly as, "it seemed at the time that Joe thought

he was voting for 06 - no [sic] the motion to postpone." She also

believes that Holly changed her vote within the time limit, but she is not

sure she [Pam] did. [Neither changed their vote anywhere near the 48 hour

time limit.] She notes that even without her vote change "the outcome of

the motion to postpone would have been the reverse considering Joe's vote

alone." She says that according to RRoR they could move to "rescind the

motion to reconsider," noting that this is proper when no action has been

taken. [How does one rescind a motion that hasn't yet been voted on?]

Joe Zsedeny clarifies that his vote was to postpone.

Pam then says she is "completely wrong", and chalks it up to a "senior

moment."

Tim Stowell calls Holly's motion out of order based on RRoR, and notes

"Motion 00-7, in it's present form, ceases to exist."

Tim verifies that Joe's vote was counted as a vote for postponement.

Tim says that when voting began on the motion to postpone action on Motion

00-6, "most members thought that the vote would need 2/3 of those

voting in a quorum of 10 or higher to pass." [A quorum is 9. Sheesh.]

However, near the end of voting period a procedural question was asked

about whether subsidiary motions required a 2/3 majority to pass. Board

Secretary Ken Short decided that a simple majority was required and Tim

then made his ruling on the vote count. Tim now says that since this is

the first time this issue has come up and in order to be fair to all Board

members he will "entertain a motion from one of the Board members who

voted in the affirmative to sponsor a motion to rescind the results of

that motion. If that motion passes, then a new motion to postpone can be

sponsored - so that there will be no confusion as to what voting rules we

are operating under."

===

Coming To America Corner: Those of you with ancestors who emigrated

through Hamburg will be happy to know that the Hamburg Home Page is

embarking on an ambitious project to post online _all_ the Hamburg

emigration records by 2003. The first installment is expected to be

online in April 2000 and will cover the years 1890 to 1893. The

English version of the Hamburg home page is at:

http://www.hamburg.de/English/welcome.htm; follow the link "Link to your

roots (ancestry)" to read more about the passenger list project and other

interesting features about the Hamburg emigration port. The German verson

of the page is at: http://www.hamburg.de and there are additional links

to French and Spanish versions.

===

"It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If

he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he

will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the

ground."

---H.L. Mencken

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-----

From merope@Radix.Net Wed Mar 22 12:44:29 2000

Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:44:26 -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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Spring has sprung!...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Tuesday 21 March 2000:

Shari Handly, notes that she voted yes on the motion to postpone action

on Motion 00-6 and "was satisfied with the passing of that postponement

motion." She also notes that the results of that vote did not represent

the wishes of the majority of Board members and the outcome would have

been different "were it not for the confusion over timing and over the

number of votes needed to pass." She says she prefers to win "fair and

square. Thus, although she believes "it is most prudent to wait until a

CP rep has been chosen and seated before dealing with motion 00-6, I think

we need to do that vote over again, with all the rules on timing and

number of votes needed to pass out in the open." So, with "the desire to

fairly determine the will of all of the board members, and in hope that

the results are the same," she moves "that the motion to postpone motion

00-6 be reconsidered."

Pam Reid said she has changed her thinking on postponing Motion 00-6 and

now thinks "It would be better if the Census Project was represented while

we are discussing this motion." She would now vote to postpone action on

Motion 00-6. She says that since she abstained on the motion to postpone

previously, she is not sure that she is eligible to second Shari's motion,

but if she is she does.

Tim opens the floor for discussion on the motion to reconsider the motion

to postpone action on Motion 00-6.

Pam Reid suggests that the Board get through this discussion quickly so

that they can move on. She also asks "are we going with a 2/3s majority

on this motion?"

[So, the $64,000 question is: under what rules will this vote be

conducted? Motions to reconsider are not subsidiary motions. RRoO

specify that motions to reconsider require only a majority, unless the

group requires a 2/3 majority. Some other things about motions to

reconsider:

1) must be made by a member of the prevailing side on the vote that is to

be reconsidered;

2) subject to a time limit: in a meeting of more than a day in length,

reconsideration can only be moved on on the same day or the succeeding day

after the original vote was taken

3) takes precedence over any other motion and yields to nothing, is not

amendable, is debatable, and cannot be reconsidered

4) if it passes the effect is to cancel the original vote on the motion to

be reconsidered and reopen the matter for debate as if the original vote

had never occurred.]

===

The Past Revisited Corner: More than one year after the Board formally

requested that the admin contacts on the usgenweb.org and usgenweb.net

domains be changed to reflect the current NC, Root$web [who owns one

domain] and Megan "The Pagan" Zurawicz [who owns the other] have failed to

carry out the request. The admin contact for both domains remains Root$web

employee Nancy Trice.

===

"But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe it is

better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be

free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than to

be ignorant."

---H.L. Mencken

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

--------

From merope@Radix.Net Thu Mar 23 13:06:22 2000

Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:06:19 -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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Letting the chips fall where they may...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Thursday 23 March 2000:

Tim Stowell responds to Pam Reid's questions by saying the Board can move

on after the floor has been open for discussion for 48 hours. If there is

no discussion, he will call the vote Friday morning. He also notes that

the motion to reconsider requires only a majority vote.

===

New Zoo Review Corner: Not much of interest this week, so if you don't get

it, you aren't missing much. Still no mention of GenSoc.org or its now

two-months-old tax exempt status, although the solicitation of "donations"

for the for-profit RootsWeb.com, Inc. is still prominently featured.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics Corner: A reader sent me this URL, which

contains a lovely graph of WorldConnect's growth since October 15, 1999:

http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/wccounts.html

Is someone out there enough of a statistician to tell me if it matters

that the units along the bottom of the graph are not the same size,

although they are depicted as if they are?

===

"Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He

lives by make-believe."

---W. Somerset Maugham

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Mar 24 11:27:55 2000

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:27:53 -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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Play at maximum volume...its Your Daily Board Show!

*warning* contains editorial content, may scare the horses. Read at your

own risk!

Friday 24 March 2000:

Tim Stowell gives Shari's motion to reconsider the motion to postpone

Motion 00-6 a number: Motion 00-6b. He then opens the floor for a vote

on Motion 00-6b, but says:

"A vote of 'Yes' is in favor of postponing action on Motion 00-6 until a

Census Project Board member is seated.

A vote of 'No' is in favor of acting on Motion 00-6 without first seating

a Census Project Board member."

The voting period runs until 8 am EST Sunday. Thus far, two members have

voted "yes", and one has voted "no."

[Now we have seen everything. The Board have not yet voted on whether to

reconsider the motion to postpone and Tim has asked them to revote on the

motion to postpone. This is ridiculous. First they must vote on Motion

00-6b--the motion to reconsider. If that passes, then they vote again on

the motion to postpone. It is entirely possible that Board members are

_not_ willing to reconsider the motion to postpone, and in that case

revoting on the motion to postpone would not be correct. This is

absolutely embarrassing, but hey, at least I didn't vote for him.]

===

Mum's The Word Corner: We have it on good authority [from a Root$web

employee through an Anonymous Reader] that Root$web employees are on

strict orders from their bosses NOT to discuss GenSoc.org, Inc. on _any_

RW mailing lists. Now why do you suppose they'd want to keep it a secret

from their loyal supporters?

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics Revisited Corner: Our question yesterday

about the WorldConnect graph garnered some interesting comments from

readers:

"From what I can tell they [the units along the horizontal axis] are close

enough to the same size, about 5.5 days for each. In any case, variable

unit size would only affect the appearance of the rate of change (i.e. the

slope of the curve) rather than the actual numbers."

"Actually there is an interconnected bit of interest in the current RWR.

A notation that indicates the WC GEDCOM has 24+ mil. names and is "right

on track to reach 100 million names by year's end.". According to the

data on the aforementioned web page the rate of growth is relatively

constant at about 144,000 per day. Using the Nov 1 at 4 Mil and the Mar

18 at 24 mil, you get 20 mil in 139 days = 143885/day. Multiply that by

the 288 days remaining this year and it = 41.4 mil. Then 41 mil + 24 mil

is only 65 mil, a far cry from 100 mil."

"It alarms me that there appears to be so much interest in gathering as

many names as possible and little, if any, interest in providing accurate

information. Ah well, it's all "free" so maybe it doesn't matter to

RootsWeb that they are actually providing the vehicle for the circulation

of so much erroneous data. As far as I'm concerned, WorldConnect rates

right up there with the Beatrice Bayley books."

In response to a question about the little "icicles" that appear on the

graph between 1/5 and 1/22, a reader told me:

"Judging by the structure of the curve, it looks like the data is recorded

at least as frequent as every 12 hours (though the abscissa is only marked

every 5.5 days). The icicle marks appear to be a large decrease (~ 1/2

million names) followed shortly thereafter by a large increase. Maybe it's

someone with an extremely large database of names who is deleting and then

reuploading them. Or maybe it's a technical glitch at their end, where

they are taking some set(s) of names off-line and putting them back up."

[Thanks, Readers! You guys are the best!]

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun Corner: An alert reader has pointed

out some interesting numbers on the Cyberreps webpages pertaining to

Root$web. On http://www.cybereps.com/rootswebonesheet.html at the bottom

is listed information on ad rates for RW's two newsletters, with

"circulation totaling over 800,000!" At this page:

http://www.cybereps.com/rootswebmedia.html#demographics those two

newsletters are described. They are the RootsWeb Review and Missing

Links, and they are described as having over 400,000 subscribers each.

There is no indication I can find that these are basically the _same_

400,000 people. From what I recall from when I could sub to RW lists,

subbing to _any_ RW list gets you automatically subbed to both the RWR

and Missing Links, so the subscriber lists probably have a huge percentage

overlap. I wonder if the ad purchasers know that? A quick check of the Mar

15 versions of the RWR and Missing Links showed that both carried the

exact same complement of ads [fshstore.com, Heritage books,History

Magazine, Ameritrade]. The March 22 versions of the newsletters also both

contained the same set of ads. Its not clear from the Cyberreps pages

whether the cost is $800 for both newsletters or $800 for each, but if I

were an advertiser and I were paying for what I thought was access to

800,000 readers, I'd be kinda peeved to find out otherwise.

Labors of Hercules Corner: This is actually old news [for which I

apologize], but last week Ancestry announced a major new project: the

"reconstruction" of the 1890 Census. As anyone who has ever had an

ancestor disappear into that 20-year gap and not come out the other side

knows, the 1890 U.S. Federal census was destroyed in a fire in the early

part of this century. Only a very small portion of the records survived.

Ancestry "with the aid of the National Archives and Records Administration

and the Allen County Public Library" has created what it calls a

"substitute 1890 census." It contains more than 20 million records and

includes "fragments of the original 1890 census that survived the fire,

special veterans schedules, several Native American tribe censuses for

years surrounding 1890, state censuses (1885 or 1895), city and county

directories, alumni directories, and voter registration documents." The

url for the 1890 Census substitute is:

http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/census/1890sub/main.htm

===

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of

Congress. But I repeat myself."

---Mark Twain

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Mar 25 08:52:22 2000

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 08:52:21 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

Subject: DBS Special Edition

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[Sorry for the Cliff Notes version of the DBS today...got a lot going on.

<g>]

Neck and Neck Corner: Voting on Motion 00-6b [putatively "to reconsider

the vote on the motion to postpone action on Motion 00-6", but really just

a revote on the motion to postpone] continues, and it looks like we have

ourselves a horse race. As of 8:45 am EST, 6 Board members have voted

"yes" [to postpone] and 5 have voted "no" [to proceed in merging the

Census projects without a Census Project rep on the Board]. There are 4

Board members left to vote. Of these, my guess is that two will vote

"yes" and two will vote "no".

BTW, a reader has pointed out that by deciding that subsidiary and other

types of motions require only a simple majority to pass, our esteemed NC

is effectively granting himself significantly more influence in the

affairs of the project. Should this vote come down to a tie, he will

pretty much decide whether the Census Project has a voice in its own fate

or not.

Y'all have a nice day!

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Mar 26 08:04:18 2000

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 08:04:17 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

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

Subject: DBS Lite

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Down to the Wire Corner: All the Board members have voted on Motion 00-6b

[supposedly to "reconsider the motion to postpone" but actually a revote

on the motion to postpone itself]. The count now stands at 7 "yes" votes

and 7 "no" votes, with one ambiguous vote.

The ambiguous vote is that of Jim Powell who says he's confused by what is

being voted on, noting "Seems to me we are voting on the above motion to

reconsider. What does reconsidering the motion have to do with the

outcome of the motion. You could vote to reconsider the motion and then

vote against the motion, right? My vote on the motion to reconsider would

be to NOT reconsider the motion." Jim is one of only two Board members

who remarked on the irregularity of revoting on the motion to postpone

_before_ determining that the majority of Board members did want to

reconsider the vote on that motion [the other was Ginger Hayes].

Jim's original vote on the moiton to postpone was "yes" and it appears he

does not want Motion 00-6a [to postpone] reconsidered; if his vote is to

be counted, it should probably be counted as a "yes" vote on the

postponement. This would result in a count of 8 "yes" votes and 7 "no"

votes, passing the motion by a simple majority. However, he did not

technically vote on the Motion Tim presented to the members, so it is

possible that his vote will not be counted, resulting in a tie and

allowing our esteemed NC to cast the tie-breaking vote [something he is

itching to do]. How Tim will vote, if he gives himself the chance, is

anybody's guess.

By my clock, the 48 hour voting period closed two minutes ago. Guess we'll

find out soon!

-Teresa

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Mar 26 14:46:24 2000

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 14:46:23 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

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

Subject: DBS Update

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Tim Stowell, who claims he is _not_ itching to vote, has delayed releasing

the final vote count on Motion 00-6b "until a couple of votes are

confirmed."

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net