From merope@Radix.Net Mon Aug 16 21:02:30 1999
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:02:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
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To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Ain't nothin' like it...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Lucky Friday 13 August 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Saturday 14 August 1999:
Pam Reid forwards to the Board list a very nice thank you message she
received from a USGW visitor. The message reads, "Thank you for providing
information that puts a smile on my face, gratitude in my heart and an
ancestors name in my records."
Election Update: Election Committee Chair Jim Powell has announced that
the EC will try to have the election results tallied and reported to the
Project by 10pm EDT Thursday night.
It appears that NC Candidate Fred Smoot's Campaign Committee has emailed
CC's in most states asking for support of their candidate. According to a
source who asked to remain anonymous, "We now have over 60 CC's on the
Campaign Committee, and represent over 40 states. Between us all, over
1,900 CC's have been contacted so far " [The message sent out was
essentially the same as was distributed through the DBS last evening.]
Flotsam & Jetsam Corner: We hear through an anonymous source that Board
member Yvonne James Henderson is a Root$web employee. If true, this would
put her in the company of Betsy Mills, Bridgett Smith, and Megan Zurawicz,
who are also currently being paid by the competition and who are on the
board.
Cold Hard Cash Corner: We've heard tell of some interesting financial
"arrangements" out in USGW-land. In one state several CCs have been
asked to remove links to Ancestry.com's "partner" program from their USGW
county pages. In this program, if you provide a link from your site to
Ancestry and a visitor to your site uses that link to sign up for
Ancestry's paid services, the referring webmaster gets a small payment.
[Of course, the offending links might cut into Root$web's revenue stream;
I'm sure its no coincidence that the person who is demanding their removal
is one of RW's most dedicated supporters.]
In other states, blatantly asking visitors for cash is apparently
tolerated. Witness this blurb taken from the very top of the front page
of a USGW county page:
"In addition, paying for copies to distribute for the volunteers is a
significant cost, which [name deleted] and I now bear by ourselves. Your
help would allow us to recruit many more volunteers and put them to
work on the projects that interest you. For information on how to give,
please contact the county coordinator."
From elsewhere on the same page:
"Funding for the XXX Co. GenWeb Project currently comes solely from the
volunteers. This can be a strain on individual resources. We would
appreciate any donations toward the cost of photocopies and mailing
materials to volunteers for transcription... Contributions should be sent
to the County Coordinator for re-distribution to other volunteers."
[*sigh* Guess "volunteering" ain't what it used to be.]
The USGenWeb Project has always had a high level of discomfort regarding
soliciting for funds in any way, and the bylaws do state, "Solicitation of
funds for personal gain is inappropriate. This is defined as the direct
appeal on the home page of any of the websites comprising The USGenWeb
Project for funding to do research, to pay for server space, to do
look-ups, etc."[Article IX, Section 2]. I seem to recall someone being
severely raked over the coals over this very sort of thing a year or so
ago.
"If I had a large amount of money I should found a hospital for those
whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended
by words and phrases yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence
and oppression that howls daily about our ears."
--- Stephen Fry
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Tue Aug 17 18:34:18 1999
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 18:34:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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The fly in the ointment...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content; not nice for children and other
living things. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 15 August 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date. [hey, no news is good news!]
Old News Corner: Linda "Day Late and A Dollar Short" Lewis has belatedly
picked up on a weeks old post by NC candidate Fred Smoot regarding the
possibility of establishing an independent server for the project, and is
using it and her fevered imagination to create creepy-crawlies with
which to alarm the State Coordinators. Although Mr. Smoot never once
mentions the term in his August 4 post, Linda repeatedly asks him about
his group of "silent investors"; who are they, are they going to make
money off their idea, are any of them not in USGW? Smoot's message was
originally posted to CC-L, where it sank with nary a ripple. Although
Linda has apparently revived the post, she failed to post it so the SCs
would know what she is talking about. [In even more interesting news, in
the same post to the SCs, Linda mentions that she's moved back to
Virginia. I _thought_ I felt a disturbance in the Force.]
Now You See It, Now You Don't Corner: In further news concerning our own
favorite Archives coordinator [and aren't you glad she's back?] a
diligent researcher has managed to unearth the OLD version of Linda's
"verbal" agreement with Root$web. This was posted Mar 31 1999 in response
to a request by one of her fellow SCs [its not the oldest one of course;
that one would be dated 1996]. Except for one interesting difference, the
two are quite similar. The difference though is that the older one says
"Neither party will place advertising on the Archives, unless both agree."
This provision is missing entirely from the newer one, published by Linda
"Sleight of Hand" Lewis on June 12 1999. Coincidentally [?], in the
intervening few months, Root$web has slapped cheesy ads all over the
Archives search engine and results pages. [One other difference in the
agreements is that the newer one says the Archives will be hosted by
Root$web "and no other server", effectively giving the Archives to RW.
But this didn't surprise anyone.]
Let's Make a Deal Corner: In response to requests from an SC, Brian "Its
All About Money" Leverich has posted the conditions under which he will
allow the individual XXGenWeb projects to have their pages under their own
domain name (ex: xxgenweb.com) Says Mr. Leverich, "If we simply host a
virtual domain, the fact that we're hosting the domain becomes lost on our
users. In a direct sense, that makes those domains complete money holes
for us; it costs us thousands to host them, but it generates no offsetting
revenue." He also says these arrangements "cheat" Root$web's users. He
says they'll consider an arrangement whereby "The single [XX]GenWeb front
door page resides at www.[xx]genweb.com/net/org; The XXGenWeb front door
page carries a top-of-page "hosted by RootsWeb" banner, and there is no
other cost"; and "All other [XX]GenWeb state pages (and any counties who
want to move) are hosted at:[xx]genweb.rootsweb.com without any form of
banner." [He appears to have given up on his former reason for not
hosting domain names, which was that no one knew to notify RW if there was
a problem. Now, of course, its because it "cheats" RW's users and doesn't
bring in the holy revenue. How many state orgs do you think will go for
this? If I were the gambling sort, I'd put money on IN and TN.]
"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish
thing."
---Anatole France
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
----------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Aug 18 19:08:14 1999
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 19:08:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Like a day without sunshine...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Monday 16 August 1999:
The Election Committee Chair posts the following election reminder: "his
is just to remind everyone that the Run Off Election for USGenWeb National
Coordinator will end Wednesday, August 18th at Midnight Pacific Daylight
Time. If you haven't voted please proceed to
http://vote.rootsweb.com/usgw-nc.html and vote. We will make every effort
to announce the results at 10 PM EDT Thursday, August 19."
[On a wholly unrelated side note, our Election Committee Chair, Jim
Powell, has just become a grandfather. Congrats to the little one, for
ending up with such a fine grandpa!]
Election Update: You heard the man, go vote!
A Concerned Reader writes to say that at least one CC is apparently not
being allowed to vote by his SC. Turns out his SC submitted a two-year
old email address for him and despite numerous email exchanges with his
SC, he cannot get it changed to his new address. He can submit a vote
using his old address, but he cannot confirm it, so the vote is not
registered. The voting booth does not recognize his new address at all.
Coincidentally perhaps, this CC's SC is the current incumbent NC. Even
more coincidentally, the CC intends to vote for the other candidate.
Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair Corner: Another reader tells us
about a program called Webwasher. He says, "What this program does is
remove banners <and popup windows. It doesn't just hide the banner ad, it
strips the html code you are downloading and doesn't bother to dl the ad.
I've only given this program a real quick try on Rootsweb, but so
far, it's wonderful! No more fear of accidently clicking on a banner
and giving Rootsweb some cash!" [Ed. note: since it doesn't pull the ad,
it also doesn't count toward the CPM rate RW gets for the ads.]
The website is: http://www.siemens.de/servers/wwash/ and there are
instructions, etc. on the page. [Standard disclaimer: I haven't used it
myself so I can't personally endorse it. It sounds neat, but as with all
things these days, use it at your own risk.]
"The continued utterance of a lie does not make it true, but it does
convince many that it is, particularly if you can squelch most efforts to
expose the lie."
--- Shapley R. Hunter, 1992
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
-------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999, by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Thu Aug 19 14:22:33 1999
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:22:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990819063525.22764A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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If you think its butter, but its not...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 17 Aug 1999:
Board member Lynn Waterman posts to ask that her old email address be
unsubbed from the list, as it no longer works.
Simple Is As Simple Does Corner: It has now been 5 1/2 months since the
National Coordinator asked Brian "King of The Mountain" Leverich to change
the Administration contacts on the .net and .org usgenweb domains to the
name of the current NC. As of today, this has not yet been accomplished.
As pointed out in by a recent correspondent to the CC-L list, there is
another person who could effect this change: Nancy Trice, former NC,
current RW employee, and admin contact for both domains. According to the
correspondent, "BOTH the Administrative and Billing Contacts can modify
domain registrations, including not only the names of the Administrative,
Billing and Technical Contacts, but also the domain server and also the
NAME of the Registrant. It would take Nancy about 5 minutes to go to
http://www.networksolutions.com/makechanges/ and change BOTH usgenweb.org
and usgenweb.net so that the Administrative Contact is the current NC and
the NAME of the registrant is the USGenWeb Project." [We note that if
it would take Nancy only 5 minutes to effect this change, than it would
similarly take _Brian_ only 5 minutes to make the change. Kinda makes one
wonder why he's holding on so firmly to control of the domain names]
Needless Duplication Corner: As announced in the New Zoo Review
yesteday, Root$web has added the June 1999 version of the Social Security
Death Index to its vast online holdings. While this is all very nice and
good, there are at least three other websites offering the exact same
thing for free and there seems little real point to wasting space and
money posting it yet again. [The newscube staff have a bet going on how
long it will take Root$web to claim compilation copyright on it. <g>]
"The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of
course, the bad people enjoy the waking hours much more."
---Woody Allen
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
--------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Fri Aug 20 10:48:09 1999
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:48:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
Reply-To: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.96.990820073203.26898B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Is it live, or is it Memorex?...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* spleen venting potential ahead; contains editorial content. Read
at your own risk!
Wednesday 18 August 1999
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Election Update: The UsGenWeb Project 1999 Dog and Pony Show is
officially over and it looks like the dog won. With a narrow margin,
incumbent NC Tim Stowell defeated plucky challenger Fred Smoot by only 12
votes. Happily enough, though, 668 people voted in the run-off, and
although still a low percentage of eligible voters, that's 153 more than
voted in the original race. Congrats to Tim! [And congrats also to
Root$web; folks there must have slept a whole lot easier last night.] The
new Board members will be seated Sept 1, and then its business as usual.
Rah Rah Corner: AntiqueWeek has published a very positive article about
the USGenWeb Project in its August 16 edition. "USGenWeb: a great site
for genealogists", by Catherine Carter, describes the Census, Tombstone,
Lineage and Kidz projects in some detail, and gives an overview of how
USGW is organized by county and what sorts of resources might be available
to visitors. Although this article is apparently not available at
AntiqueWeek's web page, Celia Snyder has posted its contents to the CC-L
mailing list.
Flotsam and Jetsam Corner: An interesting quote made its way into my
mailbox this morning. It purports to be from the CC who plans to write
a pro-R$W article for Forbes online magazine: "...for all the concern
about RW, I have to say that there ain't a whole hell of a lot of product
to protect. Some of our pages are freaking dismal. Ugly, disorganized, and
bereft of actual helpful information." [Goodness, with that attitude
about USGW project pages, no wonder she's throwing her support behind the
500 pound gorilla.]
Special Treatment Corner: We hear through the grapevine that Brian
"Send More Money" Leverich has agreed to host the MIGenWeb state page
under its own domain name, migenweb.org. Bravo!
Au Revoir Corner: The DBS will most likely be off this weekend. We'll see
you all on Monday!
"Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out."
---Ernest L. Thayer (Harvard 1886)
This has been Your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Linduist
merope@radix.net
----------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.