From merope@Radix.Net Mon Aug 23 18:04:37 1999
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:04:36 -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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Live, from New York...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 19 August 1999:
Two Board members [Election Committee Chair Jim Powell and Board Secretary
Bill Oliver] post the results of the run-off election.
Friday 20 August 1999:
There is no Board-L material on this date.
Saturday 21 August 1999:
There is no Board-L material on this date. [but this does not mean the
Board members haven't been busy! See below!]
It Ain't Over Til Its Over Corner: Defeated NC candidate Fred Smoot has
forwarded a list of questions regarding the election procedures to
Election Committee Chair Jim Powell, with a CC to the State Coordinators,
the EC, and some individuals involved with the election and Fred's
campaign [the DBS received a courtesy copy]. Most of the questions are
quite simple [what is the software used? Why was the voting procedure
changed for the runoff? Where are the logs of the election kept?] Others
are a little more detailed [How many unconfirmed votes were there? Who
monitored the election other than R$W employees?] Another project member
has been asking the EC for a "certified election", meaning that in
accordance with accepted parliamentary procedure, the EC Chair [or a
designee] would "personally review each ballot and certify that it is
valid, then make a report to the officers of the organization (in our
case, that would be the "advisory" board) to certify the election."
[originally posted to CC-L]. There is no publicly available response to
these concerns by either the EC or the Board at this time.
The Board, at least, is not unaware of these issues. In an
interesting series of exchanges forwarded to me from an anonymous
correspondent, the Board handles the concerns raised by their fellow
project members in their usual fashion: by calling them names. In
response to a fellow Board member's personal observation that "Fred Smoot
is asking the questions openly that I have heard in private since the new
voting systems was announced", Board member-elect Shari Handley describes
Mr. Smoot as a "self-important wind-bag" and a "bully", and characterizes
his post as a "sickening-sweet, oily,
smile-on-the-face-knife-behind-the-back pile of trash." She suggests the
Board consult an attorney before they make any response to Fred's
questions. At-Large Representative-elect Holly Timm, who will be
representing Fred before the board, calls him a "poor loser" and
characterizes his post as "one calculated to smear". Joe Zsedney,
recently re-elected to the Archives representative post, who also
represents Mr. Smoot before the board [Fred coordinates the Map Project
and is thus an Archives Project member] has this to say, "If a board
member or other had doubts about the software or anything else they should
have brought it up BEFORE they got their butt whipped in the election...
Like the census mess it's a matter of ethics, some have it and some
don't."
[Ed. note: this material appears to have come from Board-Exec, but since
the anonymous correspondent stripped the headers, I cannot be sure. If it
is from Board-Exec, its very interesting to see how quickly the
not-yet-seated new board members have been welcomed into the secret club.]
How Now? Corner: While we're on the topic of elections, lets revisit the
last election, the one that started late because Dale "Doc" Schneider
"lost the software in a HD crash." [per Kay Mason, SC-L, Jan 15, 1999.]
You remember; the one that got at least three people banned because they
publicly questioned the cover story? Well, it appears they may have been
right all along. According to information received privately from someone
who knows, there was no "hard drive crash"; rather, "The board was only
told that since Doc had vanished at a rather critical time before the last
election that Tim Pierce had been persuaded to do it."
Breach of Confidence Corner: We hear that anyone can get into and view the
listowners' administration screens for Root$web lists, even without the
proper password, although they are prevented from editing them. Not to
worry though; last we heard, RW employees were working to plug this hole
in the system [which ought to come as a great relief to those who remember
the revelation only a couple of weeks ago that RW apparently keeps
passwords in publicly available directories.]
"The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the
one who lies with sincerity."
Andre Gide, The Counterfeiters
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 24 21:45:13 1999
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:45:12 -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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Roll for initiative...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 22 August 1999:
There is no Board-L traffic on this date.
Election Update: Jim Powell has posted the following regarding certifying
the run-off election for NC: "To the USgenWeb Advisory Board. The
Election Committee has examined the vote. After our examination we have
dropped 2 duplicate votes that somehow slipped through the machine. This
makes the final machine total 332 votes for Tim Stowell and 320 votes
for Fred Smoot. We have also taken a random sampling and found those
votes to be 100% correct. Then there were 4 (1 for Tim and 3 for Fred)
emailed votes, making the totals 333 for Tim Stowell and 323 for Fred
Smoot." The statement is "signed" by the members of the Election
Committee. [The remaining several Board races are not addressed and
apparently remain uncertified.]
Not As Inactive As They Seem Corner: From the "Announcements" page of
the USGenWeb National Pages, updated August 13, 1999, under Recent
Actions of The USGenWeb Advisory Board: "The formation of two committees:
Elections Committee and By-Laws/Website Standards Committee. While
informal discussion of this has been ongoing, these have only just been
formed (the names aren't even official yet), but plans are to include
additional non-board volunteers as members to be involved with the
processes of both."
Notes From the Fringe Corner: A correspondent tells me that when she
visited Root$web recently, the USGenWeb ad banner was prominently
displayed on the very first page! [interestingly enough, she reports, the
commercial ads seems to have disappeared entirely from most pages.]
Today's quote is from a reader. They asked that it be dedicated to "Holly
(poor loser), Joe (its a matter of ethics) and Shari (self-important
wind-bag) in recognition of their respect for their constituents":
"History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark."
- Lord John Whorfin
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.ent
----------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Wed Aug 25 09:32:03 1999
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:32:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope@Radix.Net>
To: usgw_all@listbot.com
Subject: Daily Board Show
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Some pig!...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
[this is a long one. buckle in!]
Monday 23 August 1999:
Jim Powell, Election Committee Chair, posts the statement of the election
committee certifying the outcome of the NC run-off election. Bill Oliver
forwards it back to the Board.
Trey Holt states that he is satisfied that everything in the regular
election was handled properly and the results as presented to the project
are correct. He states "unless there are objections that as one of this
boards last actions we should entertain a motion to thank the committee
and accept the results."
This idea/motion is seconded by Bill Oliver and Joe Zsedney.
A draft response to NC candidate Fred Smoot's questions is posted by Jim
Powell. Answers are, in order:
1) The software has no name or version number. Tim wrote it from scratch
between the first election and the runoff, with three goals in mind:
accuracy, efficiency and easier voting. It is written in Perl and runs on
a Unix server. The Perl scripts are short (they total about 300 lines of
code) and are straightforward for a Perl programmer to understand. Tim
would not have any objection to posting the source code if it would help
allay anyone's concerns about whether it accurately tracks each vote. The
`back-end' database software -- the server software that actually kept
track of each person's e-mail address and how they voted -- is a server
package called MySQL. MySQL is an industry-strength opensource SQL
database package: more details about it are at http://www.mysql.org/."
2) "The reasons were to benefit everyone (not just the committee but also
the candidates and the voters). I didn't like having to make excuses for
not running a single-candidate election, when knew perfectly well that
better software would make such a thing trivial. I also didn't like
running software that was unforgiving about the format of submitted
votes, and simply could not process some of the votes that were sent to
us. These were the most important reasons (in my mind) for revising the
election process." [quote from Tim Pierce] (The Election Committee worked
with Tim to debug the system. We tried hard to break it. When we found
something that we thought could be confusing or that just didn't work,
Tim fixed it. We did this before we announced the new system. We
decided it was the greatest thing going and asked Tim if it would be ready
to use. The rest is history)"
3) There was no `on-scene teller', just a Perl script that confirmed votes
and put them into a database. The only things that Tim monitored along
the way were the Web server's error logs, looking for any sign of
malfunctions in the script. Tim did not monitor the vote submissions
themselves, and only looked at how an individual voted when they asked us
to confirm their vote manually."
4) Quote from Tim "To do these things, I ran this SQL command against
the vote database:
SELECT VOTE, COUNT(*) FROM VOTES ORDER BY VOTE"
5) Tim does. vote.rootsweb.com is an alias for his personal workstation.
The Web server logs that record each vote that was submitted to us are
stored on Tim's machine. Each vote is physically stored on RootsWeb's
database server, which is housed in a network center in Anaheim,
California. The vote database includes this information about the voter:
* their e-mail address
* who they voted for
* the confirmation code they were sent
* the date and time they voted
* the Internet host (i.e. ISP) from which they voted
* the date and time they confirmed their vote
* the Internet host from which they confirmed
(Each of the Election Committee Members now holds a copy of email
address and their respective vote. We could individually count them. I
hope that is not necessary. Which we have now examined and certified to
be correct - Jim)
6) 33 people submitted 39 votes that were never confirmed. There are more
votes than people because a few of them submitted two or three
unconfirmed votes. During the vote, we added e-mail addresses to the
list of eligible voters whenever a SC notified us that someone's address
had changed. So some of these unconfirmed votes may have come from
people who subsequently voted successfully using their new address. In
any event, we have examined the vote counts for these 39 votes and
confirmed that these votes break down roughly the same way as the
confirmed votes. (The committee did check the totals. Even though we
believe they can not be added, because they were not confirmed. We
would like to let you know that the percentages are roughly the same in
the favor of the same candidate. Jim)"
Bill Oliver posts, "In talking with Jim, he assures me that the subject
title was not changed and that this was not a "draft" but rather a final."
He asks if the Board wishes to forward it to the distribution lists.
Tomorrow's news today: Board Secretary Bill posts the url for a county
page in a state where the NC is the State Coordinator. According to Bill,
"It is my impression that I was to notice that the NC will suggest others
resign if they can't administer their states while his home state has some
of the same deficiencies." [deficiences noted by Bill include the absence
of the USGW logo and the GAGenWeb logo. More interestingly, however, the
page in question has not had a query posted since September 1998. ]
Hey Hey My My Corner: I have received independent confirmation that the
charming conduct exhibited by three recently elected [re-elected in Joe's
case] representatives did in fact take place on Board-Exec, the Board's
secretive "executive session". Its good to see they've jumped right in to
the spirit of the Board's way of doing business, but it does pose a
question: what exactly are people who don't take their seats until
September 1 doing participating in the deliberative business of the
executive session of the Advisory Board? Another pertinent question might
be: given these so-called representatives' openly stated opinions, is it
likely that "self-important gas bag" and "bully" Fred Smoot [or any of a
number of people they've recently "discussed"] will ever have impartial
representation before the board? [quotes by Shari Handley]
Incidentally, the discussion of Mr. Smoot's personal qualities is not the
only discussion in which these not-yet-full board members are
participating with gusto. They are also opining freely on the
appropriateness of CCs asking openly for cash donations on their county
homepages. Its apparently hunky-dory with them, although it is in direct
violation of the bylaws [but this is, of course, one of those "the bylaws
don't mean what they say" circumstances]. This pretty much guts the
bylaws section dealing with this, since virtually any money beg that a CC
chooses to put on their pages [including for example, the Ancestry.com
click-throughss] can be chalked up to "for the good of the project".
Clarification Corner: In response to the notice yesterday that the Board
has an announcemence regarding the formation of a Bylaws-Web Standards
Committee in its "Recent Actions" section at
http://www.usgenweb.org/official/announce.html, I have been informed by no
less a personage than the NC that these "recent actions" are actually over
a year old and relate to the formation of the original bylaws committee in
1998. Although this "announcements" page was updated on August 13, 1999,
apparently its text was not substantially changed. [So, we can all
breathe a little easier; the Board is apparently not currently planning to
tinker with the bylaws.] Sorry for any confusion!
"The lesser of two evils is evil."
--- Seymour Leon
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radx.net
------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.
From merope@Radix.Net Thu Aug 26 19:06:08 1999
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 19:06:07 -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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Get a grip...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Tuesday 24 August 1999:
The Board Secretary, Bill Oliver posts a message to "Board Members and
Members-Elect" pertaining to the project-affiliated web site at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~gachatha/. According to Bill, the web site "is
quite attractive, even if it doesn't contain either the USGWP or the
GAGenWeb logos and is copyrighted by Tim Stowell. It is my impression
that I was to notice that the NC will suggest others resign if they can't
administer their states while his home state has some of the same
deficiencies." [As noted yesterday, this site apparently has not had
queries updated for almost a year.]
NC Tim Stowell asks "Is there any discussion on Trey's motion, seconded
by Bill and Joe?" This is the motion to thank the Election Committee and
accept their results; it has not been given a motion number yet.
Here We Go Again Corner: It seems the troubles with GenConnect never
stop, even though its the best thing since sliced bread and all. A little
bird tells us that recently a GenConnect Board "lessee" tried to remove
their OWN POSTS from a GC board they manage, preparatory to posting the
material elsewhere. Since GC squirrels monitor the boards for just this
sort of thing, they caught on pretty quick, and locked the admin out of
the boards. The admin contacted GC and explained they were removing
their own copyrighted posts and no others and they still fully intended
to manage the boards. The admin was told the circumstances would be
investigated and the passwords restored if nothing untoward was found
to have occurred. However, not only were the passwords _not_ restored,
the admin found that they could no longer even _post_ messages to the
board.
Take home lessons from this? Well, 1) people are apparently not allowed
to remove their _own_ posts to GC boards; and 2) contributors that ask to
do so apparently are blocked from posting further helpful information to
the boards.
We hear from Mysterious Sources that this was presented to the Advisory
Board as a formal grievance yesterday. We'll keep you posted with new
information as we receive it.
"We were all guilty in letting the regime function."
---Vaclav Havel
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 27 15:54:10 1999
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:54:09 -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.SV4.3.96.990827063028.17917A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Let 'er rip!...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* Contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Wednesday 25 July 1999:
The three NW/P SC and CC reps submit a grievance to the Board from a SC
and CC in their region who has found herself locked out of her GenConnect
boards for removing HER OWN posts. The substance of the complaint is as
follows:
"Below is a copy of what has transpired in the last few days between the
staff of GenConnect (Pam Durstock) and myself. I need your advice as to
what to do next. Because I deleted some of my own obituaries on the Linn
County, Oregon Obits Board, GenConnect has taken away my board and put it
up for adoption. They did this right after telling me they would return
my password and board as soon as it was determined whether or not the
messages "should" have been deleted.
I have had no response from Pam Carey Durstock since Message #5. I also
wrote Elaine Bukove, at 4:53 p.m. Aug. 18, with no response so far.
These tools were provided for our use, and we innocently accepted them.
They are in wide-spread use throughout the project, and I'm sure the
majority of county coordinators have no idea that by deleting your own
posts, you have put yourself in jeopardy of losing them. Their rules
clearly state any posting belongs to the poster, who is the only person
who may request a message to be removed. In my case, I was the poster, and
I requested to have my messages removed.
I ask you to bring this to the Advisory Board's attention, on behalf of
all the CCs for the USGenWeb Project. Is there anything the Board or the
USGenWeb Project can do to intervene to bring a matter like this to
resolution? I would like to see action taken immediately to resolve this
issue."
[correspondence between the SC/CC and the GenConnect staff is attached and
available publicly on BOARD-L.]
Update on the News Corner: The NC informs us that the GA county page
posted to Board-L yesterday and discussed here is copyrighted by him
because he wrote it for a new CC. He does not maintain the page and
thanks the "page police" for bringing it to his attention. He also states
"I'll not make further excuse for this site as I'm sure there are
countless others in just the same shape or worse." [There you have it;
guess we can all stop updating our queries now.]
Dodge Ball Corner: In an interesting message posted to the CC-L list
yesterday, NC Tim Stowell makes the following statement: "the Board-Exec
list is not an official list of the Project. It is a private mailing list
of the Board, set up as a list where members could be free to express
themselves without fear of being criticized for every thought. It is a
place where Board members can share information, or just sit around and
chat. The Board-L list is where the business of the Project takes place."
This is interesting indeed, since at least one motion was made, discussed,
and voted on entirely on Board-Exec, and another was motioned but failed
to come to a vote [although its provisions were later posted as policy to
the USGW web page anyway]. If Tim's description above is correct, this is
comparable to conducting project business around the office water cooler.
A fair amount of ink has been slung by Board members and non-Board members
supporting the idea of an "executive session" as being fair, legal,
proper, above-board, etc. The welcoming notice used by former NC Bob
Bamford for both Board-Exec and Campaign98 reads in part, "This list
replaces campaign98 as the board's, executive session list." He also
defined the purpose of the list thusly: "This closed list is used for
discussions and information transfer. We discuss an issue and once we
reach a relative consensus, someone proposes a motion to be placed on the
board list. Assuming their [sic] is a second we then call for a vote. If
their [sic] is further disagreement it is discussed HERE." A Board member
who has unsubbed himself from Board-Exec because he is opposed to its
secret nature indicated to his constituents that he may very well not be
able to fully represent them without access to the information on that
list. Yet we are now to believe that Board-Exec is not "official", it is
merely a chit-chat list, and no important project business occurs there?
Yeah, right.
New Sheriff In Town Corner: We hear that the USGENWEB-ALL list has a new
whip-cracker. According to a message posted late last evening, recently
elected almost-Board member Ginger Hayes is the new list owner of the
once-proud CC mailing list. Interestingly enough, she's dropped Linda "The
Hatchet" Lewis' restriction on political discussion. The new list rules
state, "The purpose of this list is for USGenWeb Project volunteers to
discuss matters relevant to the project. There will be no vulgarity or
unnecessary personal attacks on this list. Project members are free to
discuss any issues related to the USGenWeb Project as long as it is
conducted in an atmosphere of decorum and good manners." [Having seen
Ginger's idea of good manners, I'm not optimistic that free discussion
will be allowed on -ALL any more than it was when it was under Linda's
oppression. And doesn't the banning of "unneccesary personal attacks"
kind of imply that some personal attacks are necessary and will be
tolerated?]
BTW, its been pointed out to me privately that the re-opening of the -ALL
list to "decorous" political discussion is an effort to draw subscribers
away from the active CC-L list where, of course, the Board and R$W can
exert no control over content or participants.
"He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating
with it."
---Martin Luther King, Jr.
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 Sun Aug 29 10:19:27 1999
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 10:19:25 -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.SV4.3.96.990828081100.21916A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Naughty but nice...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Thursday 26 August 1999:
Pam Reid notifies the Board that she will be out of town this weekend and
may be unable to chekc mail while she is away.
Megan Zurawicz tells her to "have fun!"
Friday 27 August 1999:
Yvonne James-Henderson responds to a question put to her by a constituent,
"It has been suggested publicly, but neither admitted, nor disclaimed,
that Ms. James Henderson may have some kind of direct financial interest
in Rootsweb.com, Inc., whether as an employee, contractor, shareholder or
holder of stock options. As a result, I am also requesting that Ms. James
Henderson so advise me since her acting as my representative in this
matter would be inappropriate and a possible conflict of interest given
the fact that Ms. Brausch's statements included the subject of Rootsweb
(reference to me as "anti-RW"). The same request applies to any other
representatives of this email." Yvonne's response is that she has "no
direct financial interest in Rootsweb" and has no idea how such a rumor
started. Also, as far as she knows, "there is no position of the Advisory
Board on "anti-RW" or "anti-USGWP"". [As you may recall, the DBS posted a
rumor some few days ago that Yvonne was a R$W employee; we've heard this
rumor numerous times from various sources and do not know its specific
origin.]
David Young notes that he is on vacation this week and is behind on
reading his mail but will do his best "to read all your stands on the
issues. And if there is a vote on the floor will make my vote before my
term ends in a few days."
The NC posts, "Hearing no discussion on the Motion by Trey, now numbered
99-22, please vote on said motion by sending in either an affirmative,
negative or an abstention notice." [this is the motion to accept the
election results without certification.] There is one "aye" vote before
the end of the day.
Tomorrow's news today: The cover-up progresses apace, with four more "aye"
votes on Motion 99-22.
Smoke And Mirrors Corner: Shari Handley has posted a notice to the
State-Coord list and to various other lists in which she says "I regret
that my private words were made public, though my post was forwarded from
the private list without my knowledge or consent, and I regret that I used
such a tone as I did. The ideas I expressed were my opinion only, but
publicly I would have chosen more diplomatic and less inflammatory language than
that which I used privately... I don't customarily use the tone I used in
the post to BOARD-EXEC, and I apologize for having done so." [you will
note that nowhere in this excerpt or in the full post is an apology to Mr.
Smoot or a retraction of her words. Basically, she's sorry she got
caught, and for some reason seems to think that telling us she'd have
called Mr. Smoot more decorous names if she'd known she was being watched
is supposed to make this alright.]
In our experience, Shari has rarely minced her words in public forums, so
its not surprising she behaves the same in "private". Herewith, a small
sampling of "the wit and wisdom of Shari Handley", all the result of 5 to
10 minutes searching on USGENWEB-ALL and submitted by a reader:
"Who is it that has been filling our mailboxes with this endless drivel?
You have become a sad parody of yourself. My God, don't you have anything
else to do? I've deleted, like, 20 message from you, all coming in rapid
succession, all saying. Step away from the computer for 5 minutes or so,
before you end up the Repetitive Stress Injury Poster Girl ." [16 Sept
1998]
"This (non)-issue won't tear the USGenWeb Project, just as all the
previous brouhahas haven't torn it apart. Not that there won't be those
who will continue to try! When this manufactured "problem" is resolved,
or dies mercifully on its own, it'll only be a matter of time before one
of the "malcontents" starts braying about something else ("Hey! So-and-so
did/said/didn't do/didn't say such-and-such! waaah! WAAAH!")" [16 Sept
1998]
"You really seem to have inflated your importance in all of this, as
though you are some Essential Force To Be Reckoned With. What makes you
think that you represent the rest of us and that we need you to "come to
an agreement" for us with Megan or the Board? Let us speak for ourselves
-with our vote. If we don't like the bylaws, we'll vote no. If we do,
we'll vote yes. Megan and the Board, I'm sure, don't have the time or the
inclination to get into endless back-and-forth messaging with every
self-righteous, self-appointed Savior of The Project. All you've been
doing is cluttering up our mailboxes with your pompous, ceaseless puffery.
If you are trying to "win people over" to your point of view, I would
submit that never-ending, petulant whining is not the way to get it done.
" [29 May 1998]
Hoo! Wait a minute - wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes . . .
Sniff! Ok. Apparantly, what is Good For the Goose is *not* Good For the
Gander, then, right? No matter what kind of spin you try to put on it,
there is still "something rotten in the state of Denmark". In the
medical field, we'd say you have a "high serum porcelain" (that's a crock,
in layman's terms)." [1 July 1998]
"This guy sounds like he thinks the world is hanging breathlessly waiting
for his Next Official Utterance!" [31 May 1998]
[Interestingly enough, the records also indicate that as recently as
November 1998, Shari was vocally in favor of the Board conducting all its
business publicly and going into "executive session" only rarely and for
specific purposes. Guess those specific purposes include talking nasty
about fellow volunteers.]
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 Mon Aug 30 21:06:59 1999
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 21:06:57 -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.SV4.3.96.990830063002.11391A-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Seen it all before...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Saturday 28 August 1999:
Six aye votes are cast in favor of Motion 99-22, the motion to accept the
election results without certification.
Tomorrow's news today: Along with 5 new votes in favor of Motion 99-22
[which pretty much passes it], the Election Committee posts a cryptic
message denying a request made of them by Fred Smoot and suggesting he
refer it to the Board [see below].
The Election That Will Not Die Corner: The gist of Fred Smoot's request
to the Election Committee is 1) that he be provided with the votes and
date voted (not names or email addresses); and 2) that he be told the
vote count of the 33/39 unconfirmed voters. Turns out that only 5
miscounted votes would change the election results, so no wonder the Board
is reluctant to comply. In the DBS newsroom pool, the odds favor the
Board thumbing its nose at Mr. Smoot, since they have just completed a
vote to accept the election results. [Anyone ever read Robert Caro's
biography of LBJ? Remember how LBJ won election to the Senate by only 87
votes in one of the most corrupt elections on record in a state that's
known for dubious politics? Remember the ballot box that they refused to
open? If that box was opened, would history have changed? Think about
it...its only 5 votes.]
Update on the News Corner: We hear that the blatant beg for money to
support the CC has been removed from the front page of the Kent county, MI
pages. In its place, the CC has posted a "Funding FAQ" in which full
instructions for sending money are provided.
Pretty Is As Pretty Does Corner: Looks like Shari "Trash Talkin'" Handley
has the full support of former (not)NC Bob "Bitter" Bamford. In an
encouraging message posted to the USGENWEB-ALL list, Bob says, "it is too
bad that board members can't engage in free and open discussion,
expressing their real feelings and opinions (right or wrong). The result
is a board which spends its time being "politically correct" and not
working to resolve problems...never apologize for being honest." [*sigh*
back in the day when "politically correct" just meant being polite and
courteous...]
Who Do You Trust? Corner: We hear that our NC doesn't trust the Board-Exec
list anymore and is now privately emailing a select group of his fellow
board members to discuss his legal exposure in the case of a lawsuit over
the election. Among the "trusted" is about who you'd expect: Barbara
Dore, Shari Handley, Holly Timm, Joe Zsedney, etc. [Waddya know...the
secret list has a secret list!]
Empty Plate Corner: We hear that _all_ the commercial ads have
disappeared from Root$web. Has the gravy train skipped the station, or is
it just the end of the month?
"If we must lose dissenting CC's to maintain continuity, it will be sad,
but necessary for the good of the project. Those who cannot move forward
with us must ultimately be left behind."
---Don Kelly, USGENWEB-ALL, 29 Aug 1999
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 31 19:08:34 1999
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 19:08:32 -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.SV4.3.96.990831183251.1443B-100000@saltmine.radix.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:
Can they do that on TV?...its Your Daily Board Show!
*warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk!
Sunday 29 August 1999:
There are six additional "aye" votes for Motion 99-22.
Jim Powell, Chair of the Election Committee, posts the following, "Mr.
Smoot... Your request has been denied. It is the consensus of the
Committee that we do not have the power to do so. We suggest you make
your request of the Board. Please refer any future requests directly to
the Board. The Election Committee will await further direction from the
Board." It is signed by "The Election Committee". [This is apparently in
response to Fred Smoot's request for information on the unconfirmed votes]
Tomorrow's News Today: The NC declares Motion 99-22 passed.
The Energizer Election: It keeps going and going and going...We hear
through the grapevine that Fred Smoot is formally protesting the election,
citing the following reasons:
"1. No certified lists of eligible voters were ever published.
2. The election was not conducted by a neutral third party, but by an
organization, Rootsweb.com, Inc., which had a vested interest in the
outcome of the election, and was aware of my positions in regard to
their numerous recent actions, including, but not limited to, my having
questioned the role of Rootsweb.com, Inc. in relation to the USGenWeb
Project, claimed ownership of compilation copyrights to List Archives,
GenConnect databases, permanent rights to store Archives, etc. whereas
my opponent had stated publicly that he did not believe there was any
conflict at all between the Project and Rootsweb.
3. The change in software for the run-off election was not approved by
the Advisory Board.
4. The software used in the 2nd election was insecure. Anyone with FTP
access to the software and data could have easily hacked the results.
5. Although voting closed on 8/18/1999, the web page
http://www.usgenweb.org/elections/election-central.html indicated that
the polls would not close until the 23rd.
6. Requests by myself for additional data necessary to attempt to
determine if results were valid based on software used, etc. were
denied."
It will be interesting to see if this formal protest goes anywhere, but
the betting here is that it won't. The Board will just cite Motion 99-22
and shrug.
Well, What Have We Here Corner: This may add some fuel to Fred's fire.
An anonymous and very appalled source tells me that Barbara "Rootslady"
Dore voted twice in the recent runoff election, using two different email
addresses. The Election Committee apparently caught this "anomaly" when
they checked the votes following the request for certification. Now, I
can almost understand how someone, even someone as smart as Rootslady,
could "accidentally" vote twice if they mistakenly receive two ballots in
their inbox. But I'm having a little harder time understanding how
someone could visit the same webpage twice, enter a different email each
time, vote twice, and confirm twice, without realizing they'd already done
this once before. And her state coordinator, also a Board member, must
have approved both of those email addresses for voting. Curious, isn't
it? I wonder if she managed to vote twice in the original election as
well.
"The campaigning I'm seeing for the runoff election scares the bejayzus
out of me in that the folks we're seeing adamantly support Smoot are the
very people who seem to be doing their damnedest to destroy the project."
---Megan "Piglet" Zurawicz, 16 Aug 1999, BOARD-EXEC
This has been your Daily Board Show.
-Teresa Lindquist
merope@radix.net
------------
Daily Board Show, (c) 1999 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.