Nov 13-19 2000

From merope@Radix.Net Mon Nov 13 12:49:43 2000

Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 12:49:43 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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For a limited time only...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Sunday 12 November 2000:

Holly Timm enumerates some problems she has with Motion 00-30 [Grievance

committee; yes, they are _still_ voting on this motion]: "1)...the

Representative At Large selects all the committee members from the project

which places too much power and responsibility in one pair of hands. 2)

Naming a specific person as committee chair gives this a limited life

unless this is intended to be Richard Harrison's committee in perpetuity.

It should rather read that one of the regional reps shall be appointed by

the board...3) Why is the NC exempted from being present during a hearing

and voting on a complaint in which he/she is involved? If everyone else

must be so should the NC."

Joe Zsedeny replies that he meant for the representatives of each region

to select Grievance committee members; the At-Large representative only

names one committee member. He notes that he will "accept most reasonable

amendments. We just need to get on with it." He also notes that the NC is

not a voting member and the bylaws require him/her to be present at all

meetings, "thus the wording."

Pam Reid says she'll add the Board Secretary job requirements to the web

page if Tim sends her the particulars.

Voting on the amendment to Motion 00-30 now stands at 7 yes votes and 2 no

votes. [Voting has been open for nearly a week and has finally made a

quorum. As it stands now, it has passed.]

Monday 13 November 2000:

Tim Stowell reposts Motion 00-38 [originally Motion 00-33, then 00-35].

===

The Domain Name Game Corner: The MIGenWeb is the latest USGW state to

have its own domain names. Well, sort of. The newly announced domains,

migenweb.com and migenweb.org, both forward to Root$web and and are both

registered to Jennifer Godwin [most remembered for publicly shaking down

visitors to her project webpages], rather than the MIGW itself.

Popularity Contest Corner: Dick Eastman has announced his fourth annual

"Best Genealogy Site on the Web" contest. Instructions for voting are at:

http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/eastman.asp [or will

be as soon as the Nov 11 edition of his newsletter is posted there.]

===

"In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both

of making and enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or

one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united

together, there can be no public liberty."

---William Blackstone

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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From merope@Radix.Net Thu Nov 16 09:07:42 2000

Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 09:07:41 -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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Thick as thieves...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Thursday 16 November 2000:

[yes, Board-L has been dead for the last couple of days]

Regarding Motion 00-30, Tim Stowell notes that during the standard 48 hour

voting window, not enough votes were received to make a quorum and the

motion failed. However, he also notes that after the 48 hours, enough

votes came in to make a quorum and "since I did not call and end to the

vote nor publish the results before these other votes came in, although

late - we do now have a quorum, and the motion would pass." He notes

"What I'm not sure about is...is the extended vote above the will of the

Board?" and asks the Board members for their opinions on increasing the

vote window in the future. [Teri Pettit has begged for this more than once

and been ignored. Now that there's something Timmy wants passed, he wants

to extend the window. Sheesh.]

Motion 00-36 passes with 9 yes votes and 4 no votes. [This motion accepts

the Election Study Committee.]

Motion 00-37 passes with 12 yes votes. [The motion removes the DEGW SC

and ASC]

Tim calls for a vote on Motion 00-38.

===

Possession is 9/10s of the Law Corner: Slightly less than a month ago the

DBS published an extensive Special Report on a grievance currently before

the Board involving the misappropriation of files transcribed by former

Talbot county GAGenWeb coordinator Carol Johnson. We had not heard

anything further on the issue and had [foolishly] assumed it had been

resolved. As it turns out, very little has changed in the ensuing weeks

and we've recently been updated on the status of the grievance. Despite

the extensive evidence that the files currently online in the Archives

were transcribed by Carol Johnson, the Archives staff is continuing to

claim that the files were transcribed by someone else and that they have

permission to post them. On November 9, new versions of some of the

disputed files were uploaded. Note that these are apparently not new

transcriptions, but corrected versions of the original transcriptions.

The new versions still contain typos that are indentical to ones in

Carol's files and they still contain her notes that do not appear in the

source documents. It does however look like someone corrected the handful

of incriminating typos that were previously highlighted in the

documentation sent to Linda Lewis and the Board. The corrected versions

still show Virginia Crilley as the submitter with submission dates in July

and August 2000 on the Talbot county Archives TOC. Linda Lewis' sole

response to this recent series of events is to reiterate the Archives'

claim to the data and to express concern that Carol intends to put the

files on CDs and sell them [This idea originally came from Virginia

Crilley; both Carol and Lea Dowd have stated that although they briefly

considered it, they have decided against it]. At least that's better than

the Board has done. According to Carol they've heard not a peep on their

grievance against Virginia Crilley that was filed over a month ago.

The Thing That Wouldn't Die Corner: An alert reader has forwarded info to

us that FamilyDiscovery.com is back in business. Interesting thing

though...if you visit www.familydiscovery.com they are advertising a

"special rate" of $59.99. But if you go to a lower level page at

www.familydiscovery.com/ancestors the "special rate" is $69.99". The

latter page is being advertised in a current UCE campaign directed at

online genealogists. There has been quite a bit of speculation as to

where they are getting their email addresses. Some folks claim to be

getting the mail at addresses they use only for Root$web mailing lists,

but others have received it who are not subbed to any RW lists. These

folks speculate they are stripping emails either from webpages or from

Archives files, but its impossible to tell. Incidentally their "what's

new" page has been expanded a bit this month, most notably to include the

Korean and Vietnam casualty lists, which are of course available free at

NARA. As usual, caveat emptor. Their new home appears to be Verio, so

that might be one place to start complaining.

Hard Times Corner: In financial news, venture capital firm CMGI, noted

for its heavy investment in Root$web sugar daddy MyFamily.com, has

indicated it will shut down one of its other properties, iCast.com, in

January 2001, in order to stem the hemorrhaging of valuable cash. They

also plan to shut down its free ISP 1stup and has already laid off

employees at both companies. CMGI, which not all that long ago traded at

the lofty high of $163.50 a share is now down to $13.94. No word at this

time on other plugs that might be pulled, but since they are also laying

off people at AltaVista and have announced plans to restructure the

company, it may not look good for our favorite venture capitalists.

[Source: http://www.siliconalleydaily.com/ 14 Nov 2000 issue]

Bookkeeping Corner: Listbot has informed its listowners that as of Dec

14, 2000 it will be deleting all archived messages that are more than a

year old and will in future be deleting old messages on a monthly basis.

While this doesn't make me real happy, its not a huge problem. All prior

Daily Board Show issues are available at

http://www.radix.net/~merope/dbs.htm, including those that preceded its

move to ListBot.

===

"Away, and mock the time with fairest show; false face must hide what the

false heart doth know."

---William Shakespeare, "Macbeth"

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

------

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Nov 17 09:45:51 2000

Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 09:45:50 -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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Thursday 16 November 2000:

Voting proceeds on Motion 00-38. Thus far four Board members have voted

"yes" and 3 have voted "no".

In casting her vote, Teri Pettit makes the following comments: "The

exclusive term USGenWeb" means the term USGenWeb all by itself, NOT as a

part of a multi-word phrase. While it is fine to protect "the exclusive

term USGenWeb", we also need to protect the term USGenWeb even when it is

part of a longer phrase..The above paragraph [in the motion] does not

really claim that...no individual member has the right to claim ownership

of "USGenWeb", not even WITH the permission of the volunteers of this

Project. I might agree to subprojects being permitted to claim ownership

of the names of their own projects, but it would need clarification on

what "the express permission of the volunteers of this project"

means....writing in a clause requiring "permission of the volunteers"

without saying what that means is asking for trouble...Linda has NOT filed

to acquire a trademark/servicemark to the term "USGenWeb." She has filed

to acquire a trademark to the term "USGenWeb Archives", and has even filed

an amendment to it stating that she does NOT claim "USGenWeb" or other

terms using USGenWeb. So how can we file a letter protesting something she

hasn't done?...Since the motion being voted on resolves that we protest an

act which has not occurred, I must vote no on it. I do think we should

file a letter of protest, though. It just should refer to something Linda

has really done." She suggests an amendment to the motion that she could

support. On the somewhat related issue of subprojects that incorporate

using the USGenWeb name, she notes: "Incorporation is different than

trademarking. Incorporating in itself does NOT imply a claim of ownership

of the name!...In my opinion, a USGenWeb subproject should be allowed to

incorporate as a non-profit organization under the name of that subproject

without requiring the consent of anyone outside that subproject. But it

should require a very broad approval by the members of the subproject,

something like a 2/3 of the voting members of the subproject with at least

60% of the members participating in the vote, and oversight by the

Election Committee to ensure those counts. Also we should require that the

subproject's articles of incorporation include a clause that requires the

corporation to remove the term USGenWeb from its name should it ever

become unaffiliated with the USGenWeb Project."

Ginger Hayes notes that some of Teri's comments would have been useful in

amending the motion, but it "as so shuffled and renumbered that when it

was finally dredged up from the nether regions it had been consigned to it

was just put up for a vote."

Teri responds to Tim Stowell's question regarding extending the voting

period on motions with these comments: "I think we need to be flexible,

taking into account factors such as how much else is going on at the same

time, whether the motion is time-critical,...and how close the vote

is...the 48 hour "tradition" was never voted upon or discussed. Also, it

has never been hard and fast. There have been quite a few other votes that

went on for a week or so before the end of voting was called. 48 hours is

a good goal to aim for, but the clock should start the next weekday at 8

am if the call to vote is announced at night or on a weekend...The 48

hours should be treated as the time when the chair is allowed to declare

the results, but if that doesn't happen for whatever reason, no vote that

comes in before the results are announced should ever be discarded. If

enough votes have come in that no future voting could change the results,

we should be able to declare the results even BEFORE 48 hours. For

non-urgent votes, whether to declare the results early should be up to the

chair. If the motion is urgent and time-critical, then any Board member

should be allowed to announce the results as soon as this vote level is

reached, so that the absence of the chair would not impede the

implementation of the motion...The chair should be allowed to call the

vote if at least two full weekdays have passed AND a quorum has voted,

even if the vote is close enough that further voting might change the

results. If a quorum has not voted by the time 48 hours have passed, then

a reminder message should be sent that the vote is still open, and voting

should be extended until either another 48 hours has passed or a quorum

has voted, whichever comes first." She notes that particularly in the

case of Motion 00-30 there was a lot of other business going on, including

votes on Board-L and discussion of grievances on Board-Exec, that

"probably distracted many Board members and caused them to forget that

Motion 00-30 was still being voted on."

===

Tangled Web Corner: There are some new developments in the latest

Archives escapade. Linda Lewis has informed Lea Dowd and Carol Johnson

that she's been assured that all the files in the Talbot county Archives

were uploaded with the permission of their transcriber[s], but that if any

of their original work remains, she will remove it. She, however, insists

that they provide her with the exact URL and file name before she will do

so. The legal deparment of MyFamily.com has been brought into the

forwarding loop on the emails being exchanged on the topic, and Lea has

informed Linda and the Advisory Board that "Without an immediate removal

of the files and Virginia Crilley AND a Public Apology to the lists for

the slander, I am prepared to proceed will legal action seeking damages on

grounds of copyright infringement, slander, legal fees and any other

charges our lawyer can dream up."

A Board member has weighed in with some comments supportive of Lea and

Carol, noting "I don't believe Lea has claimed that the Archives contains

"files" that she personally transcribed...She has claimed that the

archives contain text files that were GENERATED by running some of her web

pages through a program or set of macros that made systematic replacements

of some character strings for others. Her evidence looked very strong to

me. It is not at all plausible that two independent transcribers would

make the exact same interpretations and notations of all illegible

characters, etc. Anyone who "assures" you that they transcribed those

files themselves is, at best, using a non-standard meaning for the word

"transcribe"...in order to keep the good will of all of our volunteers, we

need to be able to assure them that nobody involved with USGenWeb will use

their transcriptions as the basis for another set of files that are

generated by making minor systematic alterations and submitting them under

another transcriber name. Any files that are labelled as being

"transcribed" by someone should be created by a completely independent

examination of the microfilms or original records...Our transcribers ask

for nothing in return except their names on their work. If they have

reason to fear that their work may show up under another name, they'll

stop trusting us." [Hear, hear]

Linda's sole reply to this was that "the data from those web pages was

submitted by others, who have now given permission to Virginia to store in

the Archives in text format." [She appears to mean that the files were

transcribed by Carol from records donated by others who have given the

Archives permission to post -Carol's- transcriptions; she is also

apparently abandoning the argument that Carol didn't do the transcriptions

in question. This is indeed an interesting straw to grasp at. The files

in question contain extensive notes and cross-references that represent

Carol's original contribution; its unlikely that the "others" who

submitted the originals could give permission to include that work.]

===

"A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five."

---Groucho Marx

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Nov 18 10:39:33 2000

Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 10:39:32 -0500 (EST)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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Just when you thought it couldn't get any better...its Your Daily Board

Show!

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

Friday 17 November 2000:

Voting proceeds on motion 00-38. Thus far, four Board members have voted

yes, eight have voted no, and one has abstained. [This motion has

failed.]

Ken Short, in a message entitled "proposed questions for patent/trademark

attorney" says "go for it." [presumably this is a response to an earlier

message.]

===

Mutually Assured Destruction Corner: Rather than doing what might be

considered the smart thing and laying low until this issue works itself

out, two of the people involved in the mess over the Talbot county GAGW

archives have decided instead to escalate. Virginia Crilley, the regional

and Archives coordinator named in the grievance now before the Board,

began yesterday to post the disputed files to the GATALBOT mailing list.

This is apparently an attempt to 1) make sure the files are posted in

perpetuity in the Root$web archives, and/or 2) to solicit contributions

which can be added to the file in order to dilute Carol's claims to them.

Of course, by involving the mailing lists in the republication of

copyright material, Virginia has effectively thrown the issue into

Root$web's court, since the mailing lists are not a matter internal to

USGW. Meanwhile, Keith Giddeon, new Talbot county CC and the person who

refuses to honor Carol's and Lea's about not linking to their files, has

unsubscribed both of them from the GATALBOT list, apparently without

cause. The only notice both received was the "you have been removed"

notices the RW mailbot sends out. Both have protested their removal,

without any response so far from Keith.

Stuff To Want And Buy Corner: Archives Assistant Coordinator and Board

member Joy Fisher has bought herself another domain name. This time she's

purchased www.usgenwebarchives.com. Its registered to Tucows.com, Inc.,

with Joy and the admin and billing contact. Someone named Doktor Gurson

is the Tech contact; he's not at Root$web, but appears to be at someplace

called inexpensivedomains.com. The domain currently doesn't go anywhere.

[Our thanks to "a DBS fan" who sent this in!]

===

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would

promise them missionaries for dinner."

---H. L. Mencken

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

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