Sep 1-10 2000

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Sep 1 16:26:47 2000

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 16:26:46 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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Subject: Daily Board Show

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There is no joy in Mudville...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

31 August 2000:

Ginger Cisewski notes that she is one of only three Board members to

complete their full two year term, and says "I can truly say I have seen

the full cycle - the excitement at the birth of a democratic system and

the sadness over the death of that same democratic process as voters were

locked out of the recent elections, changes were made in the ballots

during the course of the voting period, and the security of the system was

breached." She reminds the Board, "There are outstanding grievances from

Debi Kendrick, Debbie Axtman, Bonnie McVicar Briggs, Carole Hammett and

possibly more, all regarding the election. Until such time as the Board

resolves those grievances, the results of the election cannot hope to be

legally certified." She also suggests that new Board members, including

the NC, "cannot legally be seated" and urges the Board to "conduct the

necessary business, carefully following law and the Bylaws in order to

seat the newly elected NC and Board members," or else "any individual

member of The USGenWeb Project will have the right to seek an injunction

against the Board and have the Project placed in Receivership." She urges

the Board to conduct itself ethically and to "always put the greater good

ahead of your personal feelings."

Friday 1 September 2000:

Tim Stowell thanks departing Board members Gloria Mayfield, Jim Powell and

Ginger Cisewski "for their service on the USGenWeb Project Advisory Board

and to the Project as well." He commends each for their service and their

commitment to stick to their ideals.

Pam Reid notes that the Tombstone Project is in the midst of a [rather

late] election for its Board representative. She is the only nominee and

all the votes thus far have been in her favor, so she will likely continue

in the position.

Tim welcomes new members Ken Short, Richard Howland, and Ellen Pack to the

Board and notes that Betsy Mills and Richard Harrison are returning for

another term [the error in switching the Richards is his]. He calls for a

roll call. Thus far Ken, both Richards, Joy, Maggie, Tina, Ellen,

Betsy, Shari, Babs, Joe, Pam, and Holly have responded.

Ginger Hayes reminds Tim that the election has yet to be certified and

there was no call for adjournment.

Pam Reid notifies the Board she is the new Tombstone representative and

says she'll be around for another two years, if she can take it.

===

Unfinished Business Corner: Carole Hammett has filed a protest against

the recently concluded election, citing the following items in support of

invalidating the results and running a new election:

"1. We members have yet to see an election roll and have thus been

disenfranchised insofar as our right to protest those who were permitted

to vote as well as our right to protest those who were not.

2. EC Chair Swafford has also not provided us with the voter IDs and votes

from the elections, which he had stated would be posted by the thirtieth.

3. On the last night of the run-off polls, the email address of one of the

three designated(?) EC members, Carol Montrose, was removed from the cgi

form and replaced with that of another EC member, Vicki Shaffer,

destroying all possible continuity of vote counting.

4. This was also true in the main election, particularly in respect to the

first six days of July when only EC Swarford was privy to the votes for

the NC position and the two amendments.

5. In both the run-off election and the main election, there was no secret

ballot procedure.

6. Combining the amendments with each other and/or the NC ballot, and the

addition of the "required abstain" option was both improper and irregular.

7. EC Swafford falsely stated that the election would take place on a

neutral server, then had the voting take place on an insecure server using

insecure software with faulty cgi forms that was owned by RW Staff member

(volunteer?) and ALGenWeb SC Leigh Compton).

8. EC Swafford refused to permit hundreds(?) of eligible voters to vote,

even after the "vote-packing conspiracy theory" was totally disproved.

9. EC Swafford and the AB failed to abide by the bylaws in re the failure

of the AB to supervise the election.

10. EC Swafford refused to accept direction of the AB and engaged in

numerous improper practices, including both those outlined herein and

others in earlier protests by myself and others.

11. The irregularities in this election were more than sufficient to

affect the out come of both amendments and all board seats.

Carole suggests that "All ballots should be voided, the committee

disbanded and a new fair and impartial, and mutually agreeable by all

parties, committee should be selected as well as proper voting

procedures...A new election must be conducted with all possible fairness

and impartiality by all parties, working together positively and with the

equal goal of providing the thousands of CCs of The USGenWeb Project with

the treatment we all deserve and in accordance with the Bylaws of the

Project as well as Robert's Rules of Order (adapted as needed), and the

Constitution and Bill of Rights of this United States of America."

Update on the News: You may recall a few weeks ago we discussed an

apparent "scam" genealogy websited at http://www.familydiscovery.com.

This site charges a fee to access sites that are available elsewhere and

uses frames to make it appear that they are housed on FamilyDiscovery.com.

Now this website has come to the attention of the State Coordinators. Joy

Fisher paid the fee 10 days ago and still has not received an ID and

password to login. She has found that "The registered owners of the web

site gave bogus telephone numbers in their registration. One number goes

to a recorded message line; the other to a carpet company. Some of the

e-mail addys on their web site bounce." Joy suggests that a small java

applet to break out of frames be added to every page that contains data.

She notes that none of the data that appears on the site appears to be

housed on either Root$web or USGenNet, but that if the company does

start linking to Archives files they will have RW block access from

their domain. Joy is also interested in hearing from anyone whose data

have been "taken" in this fashion by this company; you can contact her

directly [jfisher@ucla.edu]

===

"There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no

time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness

and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one

opens the pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for

the law and the custom that has gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who

is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country,

these things are not yet at an end."

---Alan Paton

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Sep 2 14:00:03 2000

Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 14:00:02 -0400 (EDT)

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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Picking up the pieces...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Friday 1 September 2000:

Tim Stowell publishes preliminary totals from the upcoming election

report [see below].

Tim chastises Ginger Hayes for asking about certifying the election and

adjourning the last session by saying there was no oversight on his part.

He notes "I called for an end and I called for a beginning. There is

really no reason to make this complicated."

===

Election News: These are the preliminary totals from the Election

Committee.

NC Runoff 592 of 842 voted = 70.30%

Stowell = 312

Powell = 280

NC Regular 688 of 842 voted = 81.71%

Powell = 291

Stowell = 230

Zsedeny = 167

Recall Amendment 608 of 842 voted yes/no = 72.20%

Yes = 336 ( 405 required to adopt -- Failed)

No = 272

Archives Amendment 596 of 842 voted yes/no = 70.78%

Yes = 335 ( 397 required to adopt -- Failed )

No = 261

SW/SC

135 of 563 voted 23.97%

Lindquist = 45

Short = 90

NWP

139 of 429 voted 32.40%

Cisewski = 67

Harrison = 72

NE/NC

167 of 596 voted 28.02%

Howland = 86

Oliver = 81

SE/MA

216 of 653 voted 33.07%

Morgan = 96

Pack = 120

If I am understanding the numbers for the national races correctly, only

842 project members were deemed eligible to vote by the EC. This is very

strange. Shortly before the election, the number of CCs alone

[eliminating duplicates] stood at 1935. Does this mean that less than half

the eligible project members were allowed to vote?

Long Arm Of The Law Corner: Joy Fisher has been in touch with the Cedar

Rapids, IA police department regarding the FamilyDiscover.com website,

described here previously. [The registrant of the domain name gave a

Cedar Rapids address]. She is now asking that anyone with experience

with this company contact her. Her address is jfisher@ucla.edu.

Big Brother Is Watching You Corner: Our Man In The Street writes "I have

my machines configured with a firewall and ad-blocking software. When

that's all turned on and being logged and I go to some, but not all

Rootsweb pages, I see repeated attempts to send data to

ad.doubleclick.net. I see it most often waiting for results of

WorldConnect searches; and have NOT seen it on pages called from USGenWeb

links. I'd guess that it's being accessed by the banner.rootsweb.com link

and not the actual page. This seems to have started relatively recently.

When I turn off all the security stuff, there's no obvious evidence of

contact with Doubleclick." Now you don't suppose RW is collecting info

on its visitors' surfing patterns for its ad sponsors, do you?

===

Today's quote was submitted by a reader:

"The way to have a good and safe government is not to trust it all to one

but to divide it among the many."

---Thomas Jefferson

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Sep 3 14:08:17 2000

Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 14:08:16 -0400 (EDT)

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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Swimming upstream...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Richard Howland asks anyone who has an unresolved grievance pending with

the Board to please resend it to the Board "so that we can get it sorted

out and dealt with."

Ellen Pack asks for an itemization of unfinished business before the Board

from the previous term. She also asks " could you please tell us when the

EC will provide the list of voter IDs... he indicated he would try to

have those IDs online by Aug 30, which was four days ago." Ellen also

wants to know when the final election results will be published and notes

"The election has yet to be certified, even though the new Board has been

seated. After all, several of us may be here under false assumptions."

===

Election News: Roger Swafford, Chairman of the Election Committee, posted

the following elaboration on the numbers of CCs who were allowed to vote

in the recent election:

"The compilation of all cc information submitted by all SC's totaled 2427

records. After eliminating duplicates the total number consisted of 2175

records. 842 of 2175 chose to vote one or more ballots = 38.71%"

This changes the percentages he released yesterday considerably. It now

appears that only 31.6% and 27.2% of the eligible voters voted in the

regular NC election and the runoff, respectively [as opposed to 81.7% ad

76.3%].

Speaking of the Election Committee, we hear that their final report to the

Board is nearing completion. We also hear that there will be, in part, two

reports, a "majority opinion" report and a "minority opinion" report. We

are sure both will make excellent reading.

More The Merrier Corner: Dick Eastman reports today on a relatively new

transcription project, called "Newspaper Abstracts", located at

http://www.newspaperabstracts.com. The purpose of this site is to post

abstracted newspaper articles from all U.S. newspapers published prior to

1923 and from non-U.S. papers prior to 1901. All the abstracts are

submitted by volunteers. The site is arranged similarly to USGenWeb, with

state and county coordinators, and transcriptions organized by year within

each county. The project is operated by Barbara Freeman, and a FAQ is

available at: http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/FAQ.html [of interest is

her link to USGenWeb's page on copyright]. There isn't much at this site,

but it appears to be growing fast. Check it out!

===

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. The fear of losing power corrupts

those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who

are subject to it."

---Aung San Suu Kyi

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Tue Sep 5 14:58:58 2000

Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 14:58:57 -0400 (EDT)

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

Monday 4 September 2000:

Tim Stowell asks the former Board Secretary Ken Short if he shows any

unfinished business. In regards to the election, he notes that Roger

Swafford only said he'd _try_ to have the election IDs online by August

30, and that "The election doesn't have to be certified. The results have

been posted." The election IDs are now online at:

http://www.usgenweb.org/elections/e2000.html

Tina Vickery moves that "that the USGenWeb Advisory Board appoint a

special committee, the Election Study Committee, to study and make

recommendations about the election process within the USGenWeb Project."

She suggests that Holly Timm, Betsy Mills, Ellen Pack, Tina Vickery, and

Shari Handley sit on the committee, along with a smattering of other

project members and the NC as an ex-officio member. [The full motion is

below]. Tim asks for a second and Joy Fisher seconds the motion. Tim

gives the motion number 00-28 and opens the floor for discussion.

Joy asks why the SE/MA region has two Board members on the proposed

committee and the NW/P region is unrepresented. She also notes that there

are only four regions.

Joy notes that she has posted the election stats at:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~sdgenweb/test/vote2000.xls

Tim lists the following Board members as having answered the roll call:

"Ken Short, Richard Howland, Joy Fisher, Richard 'Isaiah' Harrison,

Maggie Stewart, Tina Vickery, Holly Timms, Betsy Mills, Ellen Pack,

Shari Handley, Joe Zsedeny, Barbara Dore, Pam Reid," and notes that he got

"no specific answer" from Ginger Hayes and Teri Pettit. He says "Now that

a quorum exists, action can be taken." [Oh boy.]

Tina amends Motion 00-28 to eliminate references to the number of regions

there are in the project.

Tuesday 5 September 2000:

Pam Reid notes that "Tim needs to appoint a new Board secretary now that

Ken is offically a Board Member."

===

Election News: There have already been a smattering of concerns raised

about the validity of the posted election IDs. Some stem from the

difficulty of reading the information in the format in which it is posted,

but at least one person has publicly posted a substantive issue, namely

that the info related to her ID number is incorrect. She states "If I am

reading the results correctly, that number is shown as voting in both the

regular as well as the runoff. I can absolutely guarantee you that I did

not vote in the regular election AND when I voted in the runoff election,

I voted for Jim Powell not Stowell." [And our NC doesn't think the

election needs to be certified.]

Sue Soden, the elected representative of the Census Project, has formally

requested that she be subscribed to the Board mailing lists so that she

may represent the CP as she was elected to do.

Its Good To Be King Corner: Noting that he is taking action "At the

request of several members of this list" Tim Stowell has placed Fred

Smoot, the SC of the TNGenWeb, on read-only status on the

State-Coordinator-L mailing list. Fred has not posted to the list in some

time so it is not clear why this action was taken against him. As you will

recall, Fred has resigned his SC position in TNGW, but is still the active

SC until September 15 or until his successor is elected, whichever comes

latest. Now he is cut off from participating in the SC list, for no

apparent reason. Some fellow SCs have already questioned Tim's action. We

think Timmy is afraid Fred plans to "go out with a bang" and has acted

proactively to prevent that.

Take a Bite Out of Crime Corner: Information about the familydiscovery.com

website has spread fast throughout the online genealogical community.

Larry Stephens, who runs the genealogy lists housed on the Indiana State

University server has posted a general warning about it after posting a

request for comments over his lists. It's shown up on the newsgroups and

we also hear the State Coordinators have suggested taking it to the FBI

Internet Fraud complain site at: https://www.ifccfbi.gov/.

===

"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men

prefer not to hear."

---Herbert Agar

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

===

Full text of Motion 00-28 [the amended version removes reference to "one

from each region" but does not change the number of members]:

"I move that the USGenWeb Advisory Board appoint a special committee, the

Election Study Committee, to study and make recommendations about the

election process within the USGenWeb Project. Said committee will consist

of:

5 Advisory Board members ~ Proposed members of the committee are Holly

Timm - Representative-At-Large (chair); Ellen Pack - Southeast /

Mid-Atlantic CC Rep., Betsy Mills, Southwest / South Central SC Rep.; Tina

Vickery, Northeast / North Central CC Rep., and Shari Handley,

Southeast/Mid-Atlantic SC Rep. 5 State Coordinators (one from each

region); 10 County Coordinators (two from each region); National

Coordinator ~ ex-officio.

The remaining members of the committee, (SC's and CC's), will be chosen by

the Board Representative members of said Election Study Committee from a

broad spectrum of individuals and viewpoints represented within the

project.

Said committee is charged to discuss and make recommendations to the Board

on:

a. Eligibility for voting including, but not limited to, eligible

positions, definition of good standing, cutoff dates; b. Standing Election

Committee; c. Voting mechanism including location and method; d. Any and

all other election issues brought up by the committee members or brought

to their attention by others.

Said Election Study Committee would report to the USGenWeb Advisory Board

and the USGenWeb Project membership no later than 6 weeks from creation.

The recommendation report will be posted to the BOARD-L mailing list, as

well as the STATE-COORD-L mailing list, and to the four regional lists for

dissemination to each state XXGenWeb Project mailing lists."

From merope@Radix.Net Wed Sep 6 11:10:43 2000

Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 11:10:42 -0400 (EDT)

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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Every silver lining has a cloud...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Tuesday 5 September 2000:

Teri Pettit notifies the group that she is present after being away for a

month to move.

===

Election News: An easier to read version of the voter ID information has

been posted here: http://www.usgenweb.org/elections/e2000-2.html

Scattered reports of missing and/or incorrect votes are still coming in.

One person reports that her apparently incorrect vote count was due to the

fact that she was issued the same voter ID as someone else and was later

issued yet another ID. One CC notes that she did not vote in the regular

election, but did vote in the runoff, but her runoff vote does not appear

in the dataset. Another CC notes that his vote for his local CC rep does

not appear in the table, although his vote for NC does. [Remember, Tim

Stowell refuses to certify this election, wonder why?]

Because He Can Corner: Tim Stowell has notified the State Coordinators

that he actually silenced Fred Smoot some time ago at the request of

several SC-L members who "got tired of Fred's off-topic, non-project

messages." New Board member Ellen Pack is now requesting information on

"exactly how long our TN CCs have been without full representation on the

STATE-COORD List, exactly who the members were who made the request

(names), on what basis the request was made (specific notes), and on what

authority [Tim] took this action." She has also requested that until such

time as a vote is taken by the SCs, Fred be returned to full membership

status on the SC list. Several SCs are also asking to know what Fred did

to get muzzled and why a few anonymous SCs apparently have such influence

with the NC. [Tim doesn't need a reason; he's the king!] Most of those

who have responded so far are opposed to Tim's action and are requesting

that Tim both reinstate Fred and that Fred be afforded some kind of

hearing prior to such disciplinary action being taken against him.

Correction Corner: A TN CC has written to correct some details in our

report a few days ago on the resignation of Fred Smoot as TNGW SC. They

inform us that 1) Fred called the election for the replacement Board

member before he left town, and 2) his dismissal of Chip Brown from the

Board was not based on personal animus between the two but was based on

procedural issues and precedent [the TNGenNet bylaws require an election,

but none was held; in previous single candidate elections, a vote was

held]. We hear also that many TNGW CCs are asking Fred to stay on, but he

has thus far steadfastly refused to rescind his resignation.

Crime Busters Corner: Turns out you can get a gander at what

FamilyDiscover.com is linking to without paying their exorbitant fees.

For instance, check this out:

http://www.familydiscovery.com/Records/states/indiana.htm If you replace

"indiana" with the name of any other state, you can see what they have

available for that state. They also have placed a disclaimer on the

bottom of some of the pages that states "This page contains EXTERNAL links

which are not owned or maintained by Family Discovery. This page does not

necessarily contain a COMPLETE list of all counties, but merely counties

for which online records have been located." This may get them off the

legal hook, but it would have been nice to put it someplace where people

can see it _before_ they send their credit card numbers.

Job Opening Corner: Jan Phillips, SC for the ORGenWeb will be resigning

her position and is looking for someone interested in taking on the job.

If interested, you can contact her at: littlerip@proaxis.com

===

"The qualities that get a man into power are not those that lead him, once

established, to use power wisely."

---Lyman Bryson

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Thu Sep 7 14:54:26 2000

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 14:54:25 -0400 (EDT)

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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MIME-Version: 1.0

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One day at a time...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Wednesday 6 September 2000:

Barbara Dore moves to extend the discussion period on Motion 00-28. She

notes that she would very much like to see a "Standing Election Committee"

but the current motion does not establish one, but rather is to form a

committee to study election issues. She says "I sincerely hope that I am

reading the motion correctly because I'm afraid that by adoption of said

motion, to act as a standing committee itself, we would once again be in a

"top heavy" mode because the top membership of the committee is part of

the motion itself and those 5 involved would then decide "who" the rest of

the persons within the committee would consist of." She also reminds the

Board that the Election Committee will shortly be releasing a report

containing both minority and majority perspectives and asks "the board to

allow the Election Committee Report/s to be reviewed first as the report/s

might very well shed some light on what is needed and when." She does not

think waiting a few days would hinder the project in any way.

Thursday 7 September 2000:

Holly Timm replies to Barbara, noting that Motion 00-28 "clearly is for a

study committee and specifically lists standing committee as one of the

subjects that needs study." Holly feels that a report from the Election

Committee would be of interest to the Election Study Committee, but she

does not understand how such a report "could alter or change the need to

study the entire process." She notes "There has been virtually no

discussion of this motion as it is, why stall further, either the Board is

in favor of studying the problems and needs in the election process with

representation and input from across the project or it is not. I can think

of absolutely nothing that could be in the present EC's report that would

alter the NEED for the study committee in any way although the report

itself should be highly desirable input to the study committee...How long

do you want to drag this issue out?"

===

Asking For Trouble Corner: The voices calling for Fred Smoot's

reinstatement on the SC list have increased. Thus far, not a single SC

has spoken in favor of Tim Stowell's action in silencing him, although Tim

continues to claim that several SCs begged him to do it. A number of SCs

are interested in knowing how many listmembers it takes to get someone

secretly booted from the list. Some comments:

"I believe that if this list is for ALL State Coordinators, Fred should

remain on the list unless and until he is no longer a State Coordinator.

One of the problems we have in the USGenWeb project is that decisions are

taken "in confidence" by a few people and the result is almost invariably

some type of "punishment" in public for one or a few. Let's not continue

this one - let Fred post - my computer has a delete key if I don't want to

read 'em."

---Larry Flesher

"As a SC I feel that either 1) a vote should be taken of the SC's before

stripping a SC of the right to post to the SC list or 2) that the AB

should vote to do so. We voted to keep Megan on this list, why are WE not

allowed to vote someone off?? And as for announcing this several "days"

after the fact...WHY announce it at all? If we didn't need to know WHEN

it happened, why should we need to know NOW? Gee, I guess it is ALL

about politics and not about Genealogy with most people. What a shame..."

---Linda Mason

"Although you are within your rights as the titular admin for this list, I

feel the SC list takes some special handling. I agree with some of the

other messages stating that something like this should be taken care of by

all of us, not by one person. If a decision is made to 'mute' someone, it

should only be on a temporary basis, and for not more than a week for a

first offense."

---Connie Snyder

"BTW... Tim.... how many is _several_???? Does it make a difference if XYZ

is in accord with your opinion? or is it the same number regardless of

opinion expressed???"

---Tom & Carolyn Ward

"Tim, Since several folks have complained, openly and privately, "several"

of us have concluded that Fred should be reinstated immediately, and that

since you are bothering us you need to put yourself in "read only mode"

immediately......until further notice."

---Ginger Hayes

"I've never thought a whole lot of folks who feel a need to silence

people. Always makes you wonder why they are so desperate to shut them

up."

Ginger Hayes

Following this onslaught, Tim Stowell has caved into the wishes of the

SCs and reinstated Fred, noting "In a perfect world we make no mistakes -

it was my mistake not to warn before pulling the plug on a listmember."

Domain Name Roulette Corner: A search of domain names containing "genweb"

turns up some interesting things. Focusing only those that are likely to

be USGW URLs we find:

ARGENWEB.COM [owned by someone in Argentina]

CAGENWEB.COM [owned by Compuology]

GENWEBB.COM [owned by NameZero]

INGENWEB.COM [owned by Ingen Web Design]

INGENWEB.NET [owned by Richard Finkbiner]

INGENWEB.ORG [owned by Tom Agan]

MIGENWEB.COM [owned by Register.com, Inc]

MIGENWEB.ORG [owned by Register.com, Inc]

MIKENT-GENWEB.COM [owned by Register.com, Inc]

NCGENWEB.COM [owned by NameZero]

NCGENWEB.ORG [owned by Horace Peele]

NCGENWEB.NET [owned by NameZero]

NYCGENWEB.COM [owned by Porus Online]

NYGENWEB.COM [owned by NYGenWeb]

NYGENWEB.ORG [owned by NYGenWeb]

NYGENWEB.NET [owned by NYGenWeb]

SDGENWEB.COM [owned by James Lewis]

SDGENWEB.NET [owned by Joy Fisher]

SDGENWEB.ORG [owned by Joy Fisher]

TNGENWEB.COM [owned by ContextualSearch.com]

TNGENWEB.ORG [owned by Fred Smoot]

USGENWEB-ARCHIVES.COM [owned by NameZero.com]

USGENWEBPROJECT.COM [owned by ContextualSearch.com]

UTGENWEB.COM [owned by Register.com, Inc.]

UTGENWEB.NET [owned by Register.com, Inc.]

UTGENWEB.ORG [owned by Register.com, Inc.]

VAGENWEB.COM [owned by Core Internet Council Of Registrars]

VAGENWEB.NET [registered by Freedomainreservation.com]

VAGENWEB.ORG [registered by Freedomainreservation.com]

Register.com appears to be a domain name reseller; NameZero is a free

domain hosting company; when you apply to them for a domain name, they

register it in their name, thus providing an effective way to anonymously

register domain names.

New Zoo Review Corner: For those of you keeping track of these things,

Ancestry.com's support URL is now listed at the top of the Root$web Review

as a contact address.

===

"What I would like to see isn't likely to happen with our present

"adminsitration"...It is for all members of this project to be judged by

the same measure and be treated fairly. If we keep practising this "end

justifies the means" to get rid of folks we don't agree with and turn a

blind eye to the misdeeds of those deemed to be on the "right" side then

we might as well all head home....one by one we are losing a lot of fine

members of this project....Shall I pretend that all is well and that all

is sweetness and light? That everything will be ok if I just turn a blind

eye to the injustices that have been committed? I'm 1/2 way through my

term on the board and all I can say is that it's been one heck of an

education."

---Ginger Hayes

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Thu Sep 7 15:14:54 2000

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 15:14:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>

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

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

cc: USGW-CC-L@usgennet.org

Subject: News Flash! ---Election Committee Report

Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.1000907150621.12651A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: O

X-Status:

Hot off the presses! We understand Roger Swafford's personal views are

contained in the "minority recommendations" section of the report.

Enjoy!

**********

This report is not binding upon the AB in any manner. The EC is considered

dissolved upon receipt of this report. The report consists of four

sections. The first two sections were agreed upon by a quorum of six

members. The last two sections are recommendations based upon different

views expressed by a 4-2 consensus with 3 members not participating. Both

a majority and minority recommendation section are included as permitted

by the parliamentary authority.

Election Committee Report FY-2000

##Operations:

The EC was advised on May 27th that RootsWeb would not support the

committee for the conduct of the elections. Discussions then considered

various other means, including but not limited to use of one of the web

based polling/survey sites. The decision was reached to hold the election

by utilizing an online ballot form with voter ID numbers provided by the

EC to facilitate comparison to the e-mail address from which the ballot

came.

Message traffic regarding the possibility of "vote stacking" resulted in

much discussion and the committee approval of an April 1st 2000 cutoff

date.

Actions of the AB prior to the election cycle set precedent for

admissibility for questions related to the "good standing" of members.

The "good standing" of three candidates was discussed but no formal votes

were made.

The cooperativeness of some State Coordinators was less than desirable

regarding the submission of voter lists to the EC. Delays created a very

compressed time frame for creating the master and regional lists. The

regional EC members only had about 48 hours to e-mail Voter ID's to

members then had to resolve an approximate 3% bounce rate.

When voting began, errors and omissions to the online ballot site were

corrected as quickly as possible. The voting site worked flawlessly for

the duration of the election cycle. The volunteer spirit of Ms. Leigh

Compton, SC of ALGenWeb, combined with her "can do" attitude of helping in

any way possible is greatly appreciated by the EC.

##Problems and Lessons Learned:

Numerous votes were received in the regional races from members who didn't

qualify for a vote in that region. Instructions should have been included

on the ballots instructing members without a county in one of the

XXGenWebs in that region not to use that ballot.

Some members voted repeatedly for the same candidate which increased the

workload of the validators. This was probably due to not sending a vote

confirmation message back to the voter.

Getting valid addresses for members whose ID email bounced back was

difficult for the EC members. In some cases visiting the website didn't

help in obtaining a valid email address for the member. In future, EC

members should only be responsible for forwarding bounced mail

notification to the respective SC's.

Feedback from some members asking what the ID was for indicates a lack

of participation on state lists or information isn't getting to the local

coordinators. Some members simply do not desire to participate in the

election process, to respect their wishes, a voter registration period

should be included in the annual election schedule.

The method of validation used proved to be reliable and accurate,

however, the selection of a standard program to facilitate ease of

tabulated comparisons would be faster and easier for the EC members

involved.

Questions concerning the good standing of members or candidates focused

solely upon compliance with the bylaws rather than bylaws "and"

applicable sections of the parliamentary authority.

##Majority Recommendations:

A standing Elections Committee should be appointed annually be each

successive AB. If this is not accomplished, the Election Committee MUST

be appointed earlier than the committee this year and last year. The AB

needs to place any disagreements to the side and appoint an election

committee by the first of April (at the latest) to allow for proper

preparation for the election. To appoint later is unfair to the project

and unfair to the committee.

Standards should be created and given to the EC regarding voting rights

for assistant ccs, co-ccs, special state project coordinators, and other

contributors to the project. Specifically, the board should decide if

the project should have limits on the number of people or positions in

each state. This instruction should be sent well before the election to

prevent any attempt by the AB to control the election.

The AB should sponsor the creation of an automated online voting system

run, operated, and programmed for the project for use in future elections.

An email list should be created for presenting information to all

project members (a read-only list that all CCs are subscribed to).

"Good standing" should not be determined by the elections committee. In

order to maintain a sense of objectivity, independence, and fairness,

the elections committee should manage the election not judge project

members. If the AB wishes to clarify good standing, they should be

responsible for enforcing it, not forcing it onto a committee that must

retain neutrality.

The Election Committee should supervise all project elections, including

special project elections.

##Minority Recommendations:

Establish a standing Elections Committee appointed annually by each

successive AB following procedures contained in the parliamentary

authority.

Review past precedent and adopt standing rules for future elections with

due consideration for local coordinators, state level national special

project coordinators, state level special project coordinators and such

other contributors deemed to provide services useful to researchers.

Particular emphasis should be made regarding the number of cc's, co-cc's

per county or state level special project to be eligible to vote.

Review the practice of members voting in multiple regions, it overly

complicates the process. Votes of members with only one county have less

impact than those with votes in multiple regions. This practice enables

a very small minority to "possibly" impact one or more regional elections

and therefore the makeup of the AB, which is contrary to ensuring the will

of the majority as required by the parliamentary authority. To assure that

all member are treated fairly and equitably by subscribing to the

principal of one person/one vote in "all" regional races is recommended

as the most fair and equitable method to effect a change in this

practice.

Develop and maintain a complete membership roster including transcribers

and look up volunteers utilizing procedures which provide the greatest

possible confidence in the accuracy of the data. Absolute confidentiality

of the roster must be maintained. Such complete rosters would enable a

standing EC to conduct elections for special projects upon request

Create and maintain a member/voter registration website to assist in

preparation and maintaining of a membership roster to provide members

with the means of changing their address and membership data themselves,

in addition to notification of their respective SC's. This provides CC's

with the choice to participate or not in the project electoral process.

Create and maintain an automated online voting system as the primary

means of conducting elections, referenda, polls or other uses germane to

its purpose as authorized by the AB. Utilize an alternate means of

tabulation and validation for comparison.

Utilize a broadcast e-list for dissemination of election information to

"registered voters" who choose to participate in the project electoral

process. It is not desirable to mandate that ALL cc's be subscribed to

any list beyond current requirements.

Adopt a resolution which more clearly defines the "good standing" of

members which includes an appropriate reference from the parliamentary

authority. Such as from page 638, inclusion of the text in [];

"Although ordinary societies seldom have occasion to discipline members,

an organization or assembly has the ultimate right to make and enforce its

own rules, and [to require that its members refrain from conduct injurious

to the organization or its purposes.]"

===

-Teresa

merope@radix.net

From merope@Radix.Net Fri Sep 8 15:37:58 2000

Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 15:37:57 -0400 (EDT)

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.SV4.3.96.1000908061558.2071A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: O

X-Status:

Breaking all the rules...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Thursday 7 September 2000:

Ken Short says he will vote against Motion 00-28 for the following

reasons: "1. It has too many AB members on it. There should only be one

AB member on it, the At-Large Rep. 2. I think the board reps should be

replaced with CC's. 3. The SC members should be picked by the SC rep for

each region from a pool of volunteers. 4. The cc's should be picked by

the CC rep from each region from a pool of volunteers." He notes that

with 5 Board members on the committee it appears that the Board wants to

govern from the top down and that "giving all the seats except one to

either a SC or a CC will give more CC's a chance to participate in the

process."

Richard Harrison says he was originally going to complain that there was

no NW/P rep on the proposed Election Study Committee, but now that he has

seen Ken's post he would rather know why so many Board members are on the

committee. He also notes "while the committee should accept input from

anyone willing to give it, 25 seems like an awfully large number. I think

a smaller committee would be able to function more efficiently."

Friday 8 September 2000:

Holly Timm replies to Ken and Richard. She notes that there are 20

members on the proposed committee, not 25, and that "too few makes it

difficult to include a good representation of the thoughts and opinions

in the project. a consideration that I believe has more importance than

geographic location although that too should be a factor in choosing the

members." She also states that since 5 Board members is a minority on a

committee of 20 members, she does not understand the concern about

"top-down goverment." She notes that the Board members proposed for the

committee, with the exception of herself have served on election

committees in the past. She notes that she doesn't think choosing only

from volunteers is wise, since "then one can select only from those who

step forward and not from those who stay quietly in the background thus

diminishing the inclusion of the broad spectrum of opinion and perspective

in the project." Finally, she notes that since this is a study committee

and will not be making policy, it doesn't represent "government" at all.

She believes that limiting the number of Board members will eliminate "a

great deal of experience with elections and with the project as a whole."

Shari Handley agrees with Holly, noting "it will help to have many

different viewpoints. We're not looking at *creating* an Elections

Committee here with this current motion, just a Study Committee which will

come up with suggestions and recommendations about all aspects of USGW

elections."

Tina Vickery says she's been following the comments with interest and

notes "my intention is to include a broad spectrum of Project volunteers,

and once and for all, deliberating and setting forth to this project, the

sincere wishes of the USGenWeb Project volunteers regarding the Elections

process." She says she kept RRoO in mind when she designed the committee

and quotes the relevant section. She agrees that the Board representation

on the committee "represents experience with the subject of the motion and

representative of viewpoints across the project," and agrees with Holly

that "every effort should be made to solicit participation across not only

a pool of volunteers but also from those who might want to participate,

yet for whatever reason have remained silent."

===

Election News: As reported yesterday, the Election Committee released

its Election Report and promptly disbanded itself, although there are

still pending questions about incorrect votes and the webpage where one

may go to verify one's vote gives us til Sept 11 to question the posted

results. [To check your votes, go to

http://www.usgenweb.com/elections/e2000-2.html]

The Board has not yet, for some reason, bothered to release the Election

Committee's report to the project.

Signs and Portents Corner: Archives employee and former Root$web fanboy

Kevin Fraley is looking for a new server and has solicited his fellow SCs

for suggestions. He gives no indication of why he's decided to leave the

RW family, but we wonder if it has something to do with that little

misappropriation of files he has so staunchly defended. In addition to

this, those of you on the -ALL or SC-L lists will also have noted that Joy

Fisher is now posting the Archives Census Project updates instead of

Maggie or Linda. Could it be possible that heads have rolled?

Update on the News Corner: Turns out that two of those domain names we

posted yesterday [vagenweb.org and vagenweb.net] have been registered by

Linda Lewis.

===

"That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice

of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the

oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real, only proves

their apathy and deeper degradation.

---Elizabeth Cady Stanton

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sat Sep 9 17:25:11 2000

Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2000 17:25:10 -0400 (EDT)

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.SV4.3.96.1000909074225.6750A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: O

X-Status:

Carpe diem...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Friday 8 September 2000:

Teri Pettit agrees with Holy and Shari that "While the committee makeup

might profit from a little tinkering, such as the issue of 2 SE/MA Board

reps and no NW/Pl Board rep, I don't think it is worth delaying the setup

of the committee to fine tune the membership." She also notes that

recommendations by the proposed committee "may need to be brought before

the membership at large in the form of Bylaws amendments, if the

recommendations are in conflict with the current Bylaws."

Holly notes that "It is also quite possible that somethings may be

implemented right away but ought to be incorporated in the ByLaws as

well...in order to ensure continuation, such as a Standing Election

Committee." She sees nothing in the bylaws that prohibits forming a

committee but "it may be important enough to also add it to the Bylaws."

Ken Short asks why service on the Board can be considered to give one

election experience. He points out that "There are tons of other

organizations out there that have elections every year and I would bet

that most of the CC's belong or have belonged to one of them and have been

involved in elections." He reiterates his request "for only one board

member to be on the committee and ALL the rest be either a SC or CC."

Ken forwards the Election Committee report to the Board [and to project

lists as well].

Saturday 9 SEptember 2000:

Ginger Hayes asks why the vote has not yet been called on Motion 00-28,

which was opened for discussion 5 days ago.

Ellen Pack says she would be amenable to reducing the number of Board reps

on the proposed committee by one or two. She does not care which specific

ones are dropped except for Tina, who proposed the motion and Holly, who

has "for a long time, expressed her sincere interest in forming an

election study committee." She could support the motion as is, as well

and notes "we need to get moving on it."

Richard Howland suggests "How about we drop about 20 members. Then get

back trying to save at least a few pieces of this project. Before there is

nothing left to have elections for."

Richard Harrison asks Tina what changes she is willing to make in her

motion.

Richard Howland moves "to Table 00-28 until we decide the future of the

USGenWeb. As it would be silly to setup election standards if we have NO

need for Elections."

Richard Howland posts the following cryptic message: "we have several

options in front of us rather than renaming USGenWeb. PLEASE choose one

and let us get on with both new and old business. If you feel unwilling to

claim and protect the name USGenWeb. Then lets choose a new one that you

will be willing to claim."

Ellen says she is not sure what Richard means by "rather than renaming

USGenWeb", but she suggests going forward with the Election Study

Committee so "It can work in the background while we attend to other

matters." She feels that "Straightening out the election process will go

a long way to stabilizing the project."

Richard Harrison agrees with Ellen and asks Rich to table his motion to

table Motion 00-28. He notes "No matter what else happens we need an

effective and fair election procedure."

===

Rules is Rules Corner: Interest in the proposed Election Study Committee

among the project at large has been mostly nil for the the last couple of

days. However, at least one project member has called for the amendment

or withdrawal of the motion, since it fails to follow the rules for the

formation of committees in RRoO and is in violation of the bylaws.

Domain Name Roulette Redux Corner: We hear that over in the NCGenWeb, the

members have voted to table the motion to accept Horace Peele's offer of

the ncgenweb.org domain name, provisional upon the NCGW adopting bylaws

that would protect the domain and provide for its use. Once the motion

was tabled, the NCGS State Coordinator openly gloated over Horace's defeat

and he promptly withdrew the offer and apparently is condsidering putting

the domain name up for sale. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Asst. SC for

NCGW, Derick Hartshorn has been congratulating himself on writing a

message to NameZero [who owns ncgenweb.com and ncgenweb.net] that put the

dancing cows back in the barn. Looks like he spoke too soon; the cows are

back [http://www.ncgenweb.com].

Humorous as all this is, it is a good illustration of the pitfalls

attendant upon not reserving at least one of the domain names associated

with the state projects. Whoever owns the ncgenweb.com domain through

NameZero is using it to openly mock the state leadership, and while it is

kinda cute [and useful too; you gardeners should check out the "zoodoo"]

it will do little but confuse visitors should they stumble across it.

Business Ethics Corner: NC Tim Stowell has received the following

unsolicited letter from the fine folks at FamilyDiscovery.com. It

purports to explain their business practices, and is more than a little,

shall we say, unprofessional:

"Dear Genealogist:

Thank you for the inquiry we welcome feedback of all type from our

clients.

In response to your recent feedback we would like to explain exactly what

familydiscovery.com is and how it definitely benefits the genealogical

community basically what familydiscovery.com does is provides genealogists

ith a growing search engine of genealogical links that takes you directly

to the type of information the enealogist is looking for within seconds.

If you have ever tried to search for a type of record online through a

search engine for Example: Webcrawler or Yahoo it can take hours and hours

to find the record you're looking for.

FamilyDiscovery.com's main goal is to try to compile every possible

recorded link online into a simple point and click atmosphere for our

genealogists to get research free online hence forth the One Time Access

Fee pays for our genealogists who take the time to setup and find the

records and put them into point and click format. It is not the

information itself that we are charging for as you are right, it is a

service "some of the harder to find information all ready on the web".

What our clients are being charged for is the ease of which the

information is accessible to genealogists maybe not as far advanced as

yourself.

We appreciate the feedback a great deal and will do our best to make it

clearer in our marketing promotions.

Sincerely,

FamilyDiscovery Staff

email@familydiscovery.com

http://www.familydiscovery.com"

Caveat emptor.

===

"Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as

a broken precedent."

---Will Durant

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------

From merope@Radix.Net Sun Sep 10 14:27:23 2000

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 14:27:21 -0400 (EDT)

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.SV4.3.96.1000910100930.21484A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>

MIME-Version: 1.0

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

Status: O

X-Status:

Singing for our supper...its Your Daily Board Show!

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

Saturday 9 September 2000:

In response Ellen Pack's question about his cryptic statements

yesterday, Rich Howland says "if we do not file a letter of protest

against the Trade Marking of the USGenWeb name, or file for the name

ourselves. We will need to find new name. And if we decide to find a new

name we won't need anymore elections, because there won't be a need for

any Advisory Board." [no, I don't follow the logic either.] Regarding

the proposed Election Study Committee, he notes "We haven't decide how

many members the committee needs. or who they are going to be. We haven't

decided what agenda to charge the Committee with. Maybe what we need to do

is pick a Chair and let them fill in what ever members He or She needs to

get the job done?... It is much easier if you have a list of things that

need to be discussed and figured out."

Rich withdraws his motion to table Motion 00-28.

Ginger Hayes urges her colleagues to support Motion 00-28, noting " This

is not a deciding body, merely a committee to study the issue and make

some recommendations that are NOT binding on this body." She does not

understand why anyone would oppose it and asks for the vote to be called.

Joy Fisher says she has no objection to Tina's amendment to Motion 00-28

[the one where Tina removed references to "5 regions"; this was posted in

response to a reminder from Tim Stowell]

Tina Vickery says she wants Motion 00-28 to remain unchanged and

emphasized "that care will be taken in choosing the remaining members of

the committee with a firm commitment to regional distribution, and the

inclusion a broad spectrum of viewpoints across the Project."

Betsy Mills says she is willing to not serve on the committee.

Tim calls the vote on Motion 00-28. Thus far, 9 Board members have voted

yes and two have voted no. The two who voted no provided commentary on

their voted:

"This motion fails to follow the procedures for appointing committees as

all the members are not named." [Maggie Stewart]

"As I pointed out earlier, I cannot vote for this motion as it is

currently written." [Ken Short]

===

"The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes

to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one

who hunches the world along."

--Clarence Darrow

This has been your Daily Board Show.

-Teresa Lindquist

merope@radix.net

-------